LIO WISHED MOONLIGHT AND sated thirst offered him some peace. But the generosity of the king’s deer and a
walk in the night were no antidote for the tragedy the embassy’s arrival had caused.
Father had warned him he would function at less than his peak with only the contributions of
animals to sustain him. Perhaps Lio could attribute some of his distress to that. But he doubted even a
draught of a human’s lifeblood would give him any respite tonight.
He could not banish the smell and sensation of the man’s death from his mind. There was nowhere
to hide from it, not even within himself. The voices clamored inside him. The wound reopened.
He leaned his forehead against the trunk of a tree and let the moonlight bathe his back. He could
feel the Goddess’s Eyes looking down. Both watched over him, wide open. He sensed the clear,
white beacon of the Light Moon beginning to wane for the month, while the liquid pulse of the Blood
Moon waxed toward its annual fullness.
But the light of her gaze felt far away, almost like a dream. The torchlight felt close. Real. The
crimson stain on the sword blade. The sound of the man’s blood slowing in his veins. Lio tried to
push it away, but it pushed at him, struck him, and he relived it again.
His own blood ground to a halt. He shed his own body and stepped out of it. His soul made to
follow the man’s. But the human departed and left Lio standing on the hillside in his own Hesperine
skin again.
Now Lio looked down at his trembling hands, turning them over under his scrutiny. He had never
once in his existence regretted the Blood Union. Tonight he wondered if these feelings would stay
with him forever, tainting the delight and pleasure the Goddess’s Gift had always brought him. How
fortunate the Tenebrans had been, not to feel their fellow mortal’s death the way Lio had.
Fortunate? What was he thinking? They had been ready to slaughter an animal and rejoice. Many
had watched the man die with unconcern.
Was that why they were able to live like this? Were their deadened senses what made it possible
for them to endure such squalor and suffering? It was the Blood Union that taught Hesperines the
Goddess’s Will. It must be the lack thereof that made Tenebrans unthinking of her mercy.
But Lio had thought somehow that all living creatures sensed what the Union made clear to him.
Did they not all have the Goddess’s voice within them in some form? Did not humans live with a soft
whisper of what Hesperines heard loud and beautiful?
A tendril of sensation teased Lio’s nose, a tinge of flavor behind his tongue. There was a scent to
be smelled if he were to breathe. He drew in a lungful of air and straightened in surprise.
It was her. The fragrance in the crowd, the reminder of beauty. She was somewhere on the grounds
tonight.
Lio breathed more in the next moment than he had in the entire time since he’d crossed the border
into this land of foul smells. There was another new scent among the forest beasts, too, musky animal
flesh and contentment, but he hardly gave it thought. He shut his eyes, tuned out sound, and parted his
mouth, scenting her.
Hespera’s Mercy, what was she doing here? A woman wouldn’t risk exposing herself to one of his
kind for a shortcut home after a day of hard work or a secret tryst with a lover.
Lio was confident none of the Tenebrans would take exception to him availing himself of the royal
game. That was the agreement King Lucis had established. As much as his subjects hated it, their fear
of Hesperines and the king’s displeasure was sure to outweigh their outrage. Yet Lio would have been
less surprised to meet a hoard of angry farmers wielding pitchforks and sickles, bent on subjecting
him to the same fate they had planned for the bull, than to encounter a woman out alone after dark.
Here in Tenebra, that was unthinkably dangerous. What would cause her to take such a risk? What
had made her so desperate?