Blood Mercy (Blood Grace Book 1)

by Vela Roth

  By the time she slipped back into her own rooms, the flashes of heat and chill had left her damp with sweat and blessedly cool, and the sickening tension in her belly had eased. There was no sign of Perita. The girl would surely be spending the longest night of the year with her guardsman who, Cassia gathered, served none other than Free Lord Hadrian and was quickly rising in the ranks.

  Perita’s indiscretions were truly fortunate for Cassia. She sank down in her chair to savor a rare moment with Knight as her only companion.

  Cassia considered what she had just accomplished.

  She would not be swallowed by the eastern forests, while in the northern mountains, two lights faced each other on either side of the border between Tenebra and Orthros.

  Tenebra’s Summit Beacon burned at the fortress on Mount Frigora. A fire atop a pile of old stones. The Hesperines had sent their beacon into the sky in reply. Cassia had never seen it, but everyone said it was a spell light as large and bright as a star.

  She would not await the Spring Equinox in a distant tower, while the Hesperines were at Solorum for their first official visit to Tenebra in centuries. It might be the king who had invited them, but she would be there to greet them when they arrived.

  Indeed, there was no predicting from one day to the next what she might use to protect herself. Today it was a cloak and Lord Ferus’s ambition, which carried him far away to the east and her to the Summit. To the Hesperines.

  42

  Days Until

  SPRING EQUINOX

  Anthros’s Fire and Sunsword

  Sometime in the night, someone had decked the entrance to the royal crypt with flowers and boughs. The sacred plants’ pungent smell filled the entire Temple of Anthros, and Cassia knew word of the display would soon spread throughout Solorum.

  Blossoms of Anthros’s fire in every shade from orange to gold, tongues of flame to halt the unholy, lay scattered on the threshold of the crypt. Branches of sunsword, bound into rod-shaped bundles and woven into flat circles, flanked the steps and stood sentinel over the door. Their scent burned as sharply as sun in the eyes to drive away the defilers, the blood drinkers, those who defied death. The Hesperines were coming.

  Like all who were gathering in the temple for dawn rites, Cassia could not avoid walking past the crypt on her way to her place. As she neared the steps that led down to the tombs under the temple, she did not slow her pace. Knight sniffed and let out a whine. Without breathing, she walked past the deep stone archway and the age-darkened wooden door.

  She mounted the stairs to the temple gallery and pushed her aching legs upward. The fortnights of winter travel from Namenti had, admittedly, been grueling. But her limbs ought to be satisfied with the decent sleep her room had afforded after the court’s arrival here at Solorum last night. She ought to be able to control such foolish things as her legs, her lungs and her watery eyes. The whispers and the sting of sunsword followed her and Knight upward.

  “She does not pay her respects.”

  “Does not even pause to remember her sister.”

  “Half sister. Tainted blood can bring no honor to blessed bones.”

  Cassia attained the temple’s gallery, and the words faded into the general murmurs of the lords and their ladies assembled below. The crypt slipped out of sight, although she knew its black door waited beneath her.

  No one bore any love for the bones of the past kings and their kin who now ruled only the silent realm under the temple. The flowers were for her sister. Cassia could have told them it was much too late for that. She could have told them why she had never set foot in the crypt where the king had buried the princess. How many, many things she could have told them. But Lady Cassia told no one anything; Lady Cassia did not speak.

  She took her place at the gallery railing with other women who were not to be seen except when they did their duty and appeared in temple. Today Cassia found herself beside Free Lord Titus’s concubine of twenty years. Some of the woman’s golden curls were fading to silver, and her famous figure was becoming stout, but her mouth remained a subject of great renown. Her lips had a natural upturn at the corners, as if she were always on the verge of a smile or mockery. On Cassia’s other side was a girl about Perita’s age. Cassia didn’t recognize her face, only the gown and jewels the newcomer wore. The girl must be Free Lord Tyran’s latest doll. A couple of fortnights from now, a different body would be wearing the same finery, and a different pair of eyes would briefly meet Cassia’s before the two of them turned their gazes ahead in obedient silence.

  Cassia counted herself fortunate to be relegated to the gallery. She could see everything clearly from here. She had not set foot in Solorum Temple in years, but the king and his court presented a sight she understood well.

  At the head of the temple loomed the sun disk, half embedded in the eastern horizon of the stone floor. The vast bronze circle captured what little light crept in through the temple’s small windows. The free lords stood assembled before the disk, their swords also waiting to catch the gleam of dawn.

  Their lips moved in discussion of every matter but the stinking display at the crypt. The ladies in the women’s court behind them never so much as glanced at the door of the tomb that loomed at their backs. None wished for the king’s perceptive gaze to fall upon them. But he would know by day’s end who was responsible for the silent outcry against his decision to treat with the Hesperines.

  King Lucis of Tenebra sat in state at the head of the gathering with his sword, his liegehounds and his heir close at hand. Had twelve-year-old Prince Caelum paused to honor his fallen sister, who had been the heir before she died and he was born? Cassia saw that the royal chairs were positioned as she remembered, against the wall and facing inward, that His Majesty might observe the crowd and the disk at the same time. The king never turned his back to his subjects or the gods.

  At the foot of the sun disk stood the king’s new royal mage. Only he presented an unusual sight, an unfamiliar figure in the position his predecessor had occupied for decades. The late royal mage had been fond of marching out to greet the crowd with a flash of light and a clap of noise that made the sun disk reverberate. His bald pate sweating, he had brandished his power to lift the screeching, groaning disk. But his successor was already here, waiting quietly.

  The sun’s rays now penetrated the windows and advanced under the temple’s rounded arches. As light expanded within the old hulk of stone, Cassia peered at the new mage. A man of medium height and build and moderate demeanor. This was the best glimpse she’d had of him since he had joined the court upon their departure from Namenti. The king’s bastard was expected to stay out of the way of such exalted men during the court’s progress from the winter palace to the capital, just as she was expected to make a show of piety by attending temple once they arrived.

  Dawn’s light struck the surface of the sun disk fully, and Cassia squinted. Now the mage smoothly raised his hands. In complete silence, the disk lifted from its trench in the floor and began its ascent. It reflected light upon the pillars of the temple, turning the pale, time-worn sandstone the color of sunlight.

  The columns had once been the temple, twice-seven stone sun rods meant to welcome Anthros’s power down from the sky, before grandiose kings had added walls and a roof over the course of centuries. Now only peasants observed dawn rites outside. Lucis himself had ordered the last of the royal temples in the kingdom roofed, as his engineers and architects were all too fond of reminding his subjects. Just in case they forgot that their king demanded the same fear and trembling as his god.

  Now the mage dropped his hands, and the disk continued moving, set on its westward path. It would reach its zenith in the rafters at noon and then set over the crypt at sundown, as it did all three hundred and ninety-two days of the year. The mage began to recite the same old invocations of Anthros in the Divine Tongue, which none but those trained in the Mage Orders could understand.

  Cassia, however, found any speech quite reveali
ng about the orator who delivered it. The late mage’s bombastic recitations had demonstrated that he possessed considerable lung capacity and little else. The new mage, on the other hand, spoke at no great volume, but his clear diction and the steady timbre of his voice carried to her ears in the gallery. His tone rose and fell as if he held a conversation with his god. Only the slightly nasal quality of his voice detracted from the effect.

  Cassia recognized the sound of the words that were the closing supplication to Anthros. The new mage fell silent and folded his hands. Along with the crowd, Cassia recited the worshipers’ response they all learned as soon as they could speak. She still wondered what it meant.

  The hall was full of sun now. The mage’s distant gaze focused again on the mortals before him, and he smiled. In that same pleasantly nasal, calmly expressive voice he began to speak in the vulgar tongue.

  “Obedient sons and daughters of Anthros,” he greeted them, opening his hands, “blessed and fearful subjects of Tenebra, I am honored to be welcomed among you by your king, whose victories by the sword have long-since pleased the god of war. I am Amachos, Honored Master in the Order of Anthros, recently of the Temple of Anthros at Namenti.”

  He performed dawn rites without dramatic displays of power designed to mystify, and now he gave a speech in Vulgus, which everyone in Tenebra and Cordium could understand. Amachos was indeed a departure from the sort of mages who usually presided over the king’s temples. Cassia listened now to what the mage’s voice and his words told her.

  She deemed him a very safe choice. The Temple of Anthros at Namenti had always stood watch on Tenebra’s southern border, where Cordium waited to stretch its influence farther north. Of all the temples of the Tenebran mages of Anthros, Namenti was the one powerful and prestigious enough to rebuff the Cordian Orders’ ambitions.

  Everyone knew the Mage Orders in Cordium were the supreme divine authority in the world and the true mouthpiece of the gods. That didn’t mean Tenebrans wanted their interference. Tenebran mages had worked spells their own way since before there were Orders, and neither king nor free lord wished to meet the fate of the Cordian princes, who had become nothing more than dogs on leashes to the Orders. There was a reason everyone called Cordium the Magelands, and no one spoke of the Principalities or the City-States anymore.

  Amachos was sure to please everyone, for they would see him as a defender of the one principle the king, the free lords, and even the peasants agreed on: Tenebrans should be their own masters.

  The mage smiled again. “It is with great delight that I take up the sacred duty to which the god has called me, to serve as your master in all matters sacred, and devote my gods-given power to the good of King Lucis’s people. Together, let us put the plow to the soil of Tenebra and do fruitful work.

  “The first work we must do together is of utmost importance to the safety of the kingdom and the honor of the gods. This very night, Hesperine diplomats from Orthros arrive among us for the Equinox Summit, and I rejoice that I am here to act as your guide at this crucial time.

  “The god of war has bestowed upon this kingdom a great honor: to stand as the world’s shield against Orthros. Tenebra is Anthros’s aegis, the bulwark of man, safeguarding all that is holy from the Hesperines.

  “The weak kings of the past failed in this duty, for they neglected to convene the Summit and thus allowed the Equinox Oath to lapse for hundreds of years. But Anthros has now delivered Tenebra into the hands of a mighty ruler who will once more face the Hesperines and hold them to the age-old truce. Lucis Basileus has been bold enough to order the Summit Beacon lit.

  “Rejoice, Tenebrans, for you are fortunate in your king! The Hesperines have seen the fire on the mountain! Thanks to your courageous monarch, they have lit their beacon in answer. They shall come forth and treat with your king.

  “All know that great Anthros hates the disobedient and rejoices at their defeat. Let us not forget, however, the god also loves order. A king may lead his people to victory at the negotiation table as surely as on the field of battle. Let us dwell on this as we welcome your king’s guests and invoke the god’s blessings upon his endeavor.”

  Now the mage folded his hands in the belled sleeves of his red-gold robe. He did not even move as the sun god’s glyph flared to life above the crowd. A disk was carved on the air in golden light, throwing one magical sun rod upward. The sign hung in the air a moment, then disappeared without Amachos making any grand gestures.

  A slight ripple of movement passed through the crowd. They seemed to realize belatedly that the dawn invocation was at an end, and the mage intended to say no more. The glyph was graven, the blessing cast. The king’s subjects had received the spell of Anthros they had come for, the protection they sought from the immortals who would arrive when the sun fell.

  Diplomats from Orthros, Amachos had called the Hesperines, to be welcomed as the king’s guests. Where was his condemnation of the heretics? His diatribe against the fallen goddess Hespera and her perverse followers? If he was going to speak in a tongue comprehensible to everyone, why not issue a warning about Hespera’s vile spawn and their alluring powers or a call to prepare for the presence of the godsforsaken among the blessed?

  His speech had been a call to the talks, not a call to arms. The mage and the king both appeared committed to pursuing a truce with Tenebra’s feared nocturnal neighbors.

  The mage’s presence displeased Cassia. It would be so until she knew what he wanted.

  Perhaps his aim was nothing more than power. His position as the royal mage afforded him plenty, and his influence would only increase the more he displayed public support for the king’s politics. But Cassia could not say for certain. She had evidence neither for nor against.

  There was little drama about his person. There was no passion in his speech. Amachos was dangerous.

  Those who wanted too much were dangerous. Those who appeared not to want anything were much more so.

  The crowd below filed out of the temple through the western doors. Cassia and the others waited above for the powerful and respected to leave. Eventually the women around her descended in the wake of their benefactors. Lord Titus’s concubine departed with an amused smile. Lord Tyran’s picked her way down the steps, holding her expensive skirts as if they might break. At last Cassia and Knight trailed down the stairs.

  As she neared the door to the crypt again, her steps dragged. Everyone’s backs were turned to her. But she never knew from what direction a watchful gaze might observe her. She refrained from looking at the flowers and passed them by again. Her eyes began to water. When she stepped outside, the bright morning only worsened her blindness.

  She blinked until she could see again, then tried to get her bearings. She would have expected the ancient capital to look smaller in reality than the massive specter it remained in her memories. But she felt as if she had stepped right back into the Solorum of her childhood.

  The Temple of Anthros towered at her back on the eastern hill, casting a long shadow as the sun climbed behind it. On the southern slope loomed Solorum proper, the oldest palace in Tenebra, once home to the Mage King himself‌‌—if he had really existed. Across from it on the northern hill stood Solorum Fortress, which seven much later kings had built over the course of two centuries. There the Hesperines would stay.

  The greensward cupped between the three hills had been newly cleared, but the groundskeepers had lost their battle with the ivy that clung to the Mage King’s throne. The stone chair in the middle of the green had stood since long before living memory and even before the memory of minstrels, its four-sided seat ready to receive sunlight from all directions. Songs said its back had once thrust high into the air in the shape of the sun rod, but now its jagged, broken top stood only a little taller than a man. Just visible beneath the carpet of ivy at its foot was the circular dais, a stone sun on the ground.

  Leaves and tendrils of ivy cradled the throne, as if they alone held it up, even as they split tiny
fractures in its surface. The woods still clung close to the edges of the greensward and blanketed the slopes surrounding the complex of structures. The grounds beyond looked damp and dark, and the scent of last night’s rain still wafted from the forest’s green depths. Somewhere within the trees, a bird unleashed a wild cry.

  Cassia felt a sense of pressure in her neck, a tension in her limbs. She swept her gaze all about her again, taking in the buildings, but also the warriors who stood on either side of the temple door. The king’s men. They watched her.

  She rested a hand on Knight and walked on.

  Dusk Rites

  When Cassia trod back into the temple for dusk rites, she saw that the sunsword and Anthros’s fire were gone from the doorway to the crypt. She suspected those who had placed the herbs and flowers were gone from court as well, one knew not where. The king often made public examples of those who committed private misdeeds, while a public act of defiance, such as trying to drive away His Majesty’s guests, would surely cause someone to simply disappear and no more to be said of it.

  As the sun disk shuddered down over the crypt, Knight flattened his ears against his head, but Cassia could not hear the noise that disturbed him. The bronze sun came to rest at the western end of the temple. Amachos drew out the dusk invocation. At last his words faded, and the crowd responded. The day was over. The night had begun.

  As Cassia followed the court back out to the greensward, her heart pattered faster. Not a trace of dusk light lingered on the open side of the valley, where the sun had sunk beneath the western horizon. The moons had yet to rise, but it wouldn’t be long now. The unease that had kept her on edge all afternoon now made her stomach knot painfully. She welcomed the tension nonetheless, for it kept her alert and sharpened her senses. She smelled the wild hawthorn, juniper and spruce that grew beyond the green. She heard the birds deep in the woods calling back and forth. Their voices grew a little louder every moment.