Blood Mercy (Blood Grace Book 1)

by Vela Roth

She grew quiet, and he recognized the silence of reverence. It was the mother tongue of his people. She had learned that on this night twice-seven years ago.

  He was so very glad he was here to speak it with her now.

  On the fourth strike, a spark caught her tinder, and she pressed the budding flame quickly to the candle wick. She bent near and breathed, and the candle flared, casting a golden aura on the broken stones. Putting away her flint and steel, she brought out Solia’s pendant, which she laid at the base of the candle on the unbroken tile.

  Cassia sat very still before her small shrine, gazing into the candle flame. At her sister and everyone Lio’s people had lost, brought to life by her own hands and breath. The light filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks in a new flow of tears.

  A strange and wistful thought came to Lio’s mind of a past that had never been. What if the Hesperines who had found Cassia that night had not returned her to her father, but offered her Solace instead? What if they had found Solia alive, and her Mercy had been to receive the Gift?

  Here in their garden, the Blood Union echoed with Cassia’s wishes for a different fate. Lio doubted she shared his imaginings. But this was a night to grieve for lost loved ones and lost futures.

  “My mother’s name was Thalia,” Cassia said. “She was murdered a few hours after I was born.”

  The sudden revelation made Lio start where he sat. “Hespera’s Mercy. I cannot imagine…”

  “The king came to see her after the birth. He was in her room when a mercenary, an apostate war mage, infiltrated the palace to assassinate him. But even mages can die on swords. Lucis managed to slay the intruder and save himself.”

  “But not your mother?”

  “During the struggle, she was caught in one of the assassin’s spells. She really did die from Anthros’s magefire, just as everyone says fallen women deserve.” Cassia’s lip curled. “Lucis laid the blame on one of the lords he wished to be rid of. I don’t know if that’s really who hired the assassin or not…it could have been any of the king’s enemies. It doesn’t matter. It was the king’s fault. He didn’t kill my mother with his own hands, but he might as well have. She died because of him, just like Solia.”

  For a moment Lio was speechless, trying to grasp it. How did Cassia live with the knowledge the king was responsible not only for her beloved sister’s death, but also for the years she had never had with her mother?

  “Solia never allowed anyone to speak ill of my mother around me,” Cassia went on. “She told me I was the best thing that ever happened to Thalia in Tenebra. Can you imagine? My mother actually wanted me. Despite my father. Soli said I was the hope that kept my mother from despair.”

  “I can certainly imagine that.”

  “At least she spent the final months of her life expecting her child. At least she got to have me. Only for one day. But it was the day that mattered.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “After Solia was no longer there to protect me from the gossips, I came to understand my mother’s situation. Lucis found her in a temple in Cordium on his first visit there as king. Everyone says she was fortunate to escape service to Hedon to become a powerful man’s concubine. Just as they say his first wife was fortunate to become queen, and his second to give him a son. Their good fortune was to die for him.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “He would have gotten rid of me, too, if not for Solia. My sister persuaded him not to expose me and to put me in her care instead, although she was still a child herself. I’m alive because of her and you. Hesperines. I am the only woman who has survived him.” Her gaze was still lowered to the candle, but her chin lifted. “I am not nothing.”

  Lio’s throat ached. His whole being ached for the three mothers that man had destroyed, for the loving sister this kingdom had lost, and most of all for the tired, battered, but unbroken woman beside him. Thank the Goddess he could at least do this one thing for Cassia. Sit with her and feel.

  Or perhaps a little more.

  “Cassia,” he said softly. He lifted his arm in invitation.

  She slid nearer.

  He wrapped his arm around her and drew her close to him. She settled against his side, nestling in, holding on. A sense of succor enveloped him. His, hers. Theirs.

  20

  Days Until

  SPRING EQUINOX

  More

  Another embrace to get her through another day.

  If Lio had not kept vigil for Solia with her, Cassia could never have endured preparing to celebrate the monster who had murdered her sister.

  The king had allowed his subjects their night of tears. Now he demanded days of effort to ready a victory festival like no other. All must rejoice over his triumph at the Siege of Sovereigns. None must know they celebrated his defeat of all goodness and reason. He expected Cassia to do her part to raise the banners and bury the truth.

  The king’s feast was important enough to bring the Queen of the Kitchens down off her throne to demand an extra pair of hands. If Cassia had known the cook would choose now to accept her previous offer of help, she would never have set foot in the woman’s domain. That moment of shortsightedness now sentenced Cassia to an afternoon in the din of the sweltering kitchens, where she must weave table decorations that required a gardener’s skill while Knight was subjected to dirty looks. At least they gave him and Cassia as wide a berth as they could manage in the bustle.

  She worked the prickly sunsword and fragile everblossom into centerpieces until her fingers were in shreds. Gloves would make it impossible to achieve the complex ceremonial weavings, and she cursed Tenebran superstition. But spending the day staring at the work in her hands meant her gaze was never far from that smooth patch of skin on her left palm that had last night been torn. She could still see in her mind’s eye Lio’s handkerchief, damp from his mouth and stained with her blood.

  “The other Hesperines will smell my blood on it,” she had fretted before they parted.

  “No they won’t.” Lio gave her a smile that was half mischief, half mystery.

  “Perhaps I should take it with me, just in case.”

  “I can’t risk Amachos sensing Hesperine spittle about your person.” Lio winked. “Besides, I’ll run out of handkerchiefs if I keep giving them to you, and then what will I do next time you need your champion to provide one?”

  Cassia almost laughed, before a new thought struck her. “Lio, will Amachos sense what you did to my hand?”

  “If you touch His Honored Masterfulness with that hand within the next half hour, it might make his senses sneeze. You aren’t planning to play any tricks on the Royal Incompetent in his sleep tonight, are you?”

  In the middle of the godsforsaken kitchens in the godsforsaken palace, Cassia nearly smiled at the memory. She envisioned asking Lio to do something for the welts on her fingers when she saw him tonight.

  For she would see him tonight. The king’s exercise in hubris would not deny her that, no matter what this so-called festival demanded of her.

  She never expected something much more mundane would keep her trapped in the palace.

  When she returned to her rooms with Perita after a hasty dinner in the kitchens, Cassia expected it would be only a matter of time before the handmaiden disappeared to relieve the frustrations of the day with her guard.

  But as soon as they entered, Perita wasted no time busying herself about the chambers. Even after the arduous day, she sought out every possible task that might be necessary and set to it. She worked fast and with utter concentration.

  By the time Cassia retired to her bed, the scent oils sat on the dressing table in perfectly arranged rows, her slippers were clean of a fortnight’s worth of garden stains, and the handmaiden was eying a carpet they hadn’t disturbed since their arrival as if it warranted a beating.

  Cassia lay in her bed, pretending to sleep as usual while Knight slept in truth, and listened to the girl whacking the carpet at the window. Cassia had never seen Perita
in this state.

  It must be a lovers’ quarrel. If Cassia were wont to groan aloud, she would have. Of all nights for Perita to discover her guard had been shining the sun rod on other fields or for him simply to decide he was tired of watering the same plot.

  It should not matter so. Cassia should not, must not learn to rely on these nightly excursions. But it had mattered that sundown would bring more than the end of another day of her father’s reign. Night would bring a conversation with Lio.

  He had found her in Solia’s garden. He had dared to enter the palace walls without permission. Was there a chance he might venture further if he became worried about her?

  No. Of course not. It had been risky enough for him to come to the garden. She should not entertain the thought of welcoming him here in her own rooms. That stretched the bounds of prudence too far, to say nothing of propriety.

  Perita’s activities did not quiet until well after midnight, and even after that, Cassia could hear the rustle of the sewing basket. It sounded as if Perita had settled down to a long session of stabbing frail stockings with needles. Even if there had been silence, Cassia’s own frustration would have kept her awake.

  Now there was nothing ahead of her but another day of centerpieces and sore hands.

  She had nothing to aid her tomorrow except the memory of the cool caress of his magic on her skin. The warm moisture from his mouth. And the handkerchief, where that moisture mingled with her blood.

  She must have more than that to carry with her and to anticipate. After everything she had withstood the past two days and everything she must still endure without losing her composure, she felt she…ought to have more.

  She wanted more.

  19

  Days Until

  SPRING EQUINOX

  Snowfall

  Clouds had rolled in during the second afternoon of festival preparations while Cassia had been trapped in the kitchens yet again. Rain was sure to fall tonight. Cassia listened for the sound from her bedchamber between the splash and drip of her wash water. Leaving her tallow soap to drain on the lip of the basin, she rubbed herself dry with a rag, careful to pat her stinging hands.

  In the quiet, she realized. She could no longer hear Perita.

  Cassia scarcely stopped to wonder at the cause of her luck, whether an attempt by the girl to reconcile with Lord Hadrian’s guard or to court a new lover to spite him. Cassia donned her clothes and paused only for a moment to toss what she would need into her satchel. She did not allow herself to worry whether her keeper would return at the usual hour or not.

  A gamble. She would take it.

  When she arrived at the garden door, she pulled her hood close around her face before heading outdoors. But as she dashed across Solia’s garden, it was not rain that fell upon her.

  Cassia paused in the middle of the garden and lifted her face and hands to the sky. Fluffs of white spun about her and alighted on her brow, her mouth, her fingers. A sudden, late snow.

  By the time she and Knight reached the end of the tunnel under the walls, she could feel a powerful cold creeping in from the grounds. She braced her shoulder against the half-frozen wood and gave it a mighty heave. Winter breathed in through the hatch.

  Knight sat a few paces back in the tunnel, out of the snow’s reach. He looked at her with large eyes.

  “I’m sorry, darling. Dockk.”

  Without a whine, he obeyed her command. She gave him an extra pat before he loped past her to lead the way into the night.

  Perhaps she ought to have been circumspect, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be concerned. She dashed through the woods without thought for being seen or heard. She was soon under the shelter of the thickest and oldest trees. Their expansive canopies welcomed the snow, shivering in the wind and passing the caress of winter down to her. Before long she too was frosted in snow.

  The path turned white before her eyes. She let her hood fall back and her cloak fly open. She grasped her skirts and her satchel close so she could run faster. The dark streak beside her reassured her she and Knight still ran together.

  The flurry became a gale, telling her she was in a clearing. She paused to catch her breath, bracing herself on the Font of the Changing Queen. Snow mantled the stone falcon and drifted down into the basin, filling the Font to overflowing. She left her handprints on the basin’s rim, revealing the carved ivy leaves that twined around it.

  She ran on. Trees were dark pillars that held up the vaulted ceiling of the snowstorm. Cassia wove between them, rushing along the narrow aisle in the underbrush that was the deer trail. She swerved around the frosted rubble in her path just in time.

  She almost didn’t see the shrine when she was right upon it. It emerged out of the night like some conjuring made of living snow and not stone. The doorway was a beckoning darkness that promised shelter. For a moment, Cassia thought she could imagine Orthros.

  She plunged inside. The singing wind eased to a steady embrace of sound. The snow on her clothes began to melt and drip onto the stones at her feet.

  On the other side of the threshold, Knight sat in the snow with his ears plastered against him and stared at her.

  She had seen betrayal in the eyes of liegehounds whose masters did not return their devotion. Cassia now searched her companion’s gaze for a sign she had gone too far.

  She saw a miserable, confused, wet dog. But no hurt.

  “You are such a good dog, my darling. Why don’t you come in out of the cold? It’s nice in here. There’s nothing dangerous, I promise.”

  She showered him with reassurances as she slid her satchel off and opened it. She pulled out the blanket she had brought, Knight’s favorite to lounge on at the end of her bed. She laid it down in a spot that was free of debris, crooning for Knight to join her inside. He eyed the blanket with unmistakable longing.

  Cassia pulled out her most effective means of persuasion. At the sight of his favorite chewing bone, Knight’s ears lifted ever so slightly.

  “That’s right, love. We’re safe here. There’s no need to stand out in the snow. You’re such a good dog. You’ve been so patient all day with the nasty folk in the kitchens. You’ve earned a bone and a warm blanket.”

  Knight took one step forward and gave the threshold a sniff, then a thorough investigation.

  “We’re so alike, aren’t we? We’re both very cautious by nature. Yes, that’s right. Give it a good sniff to make sure it’s safe.”

  Cassia waited and persisted, tempting, luring, praising and commanding. When Knight made up his mind at last and stalked over the threshold, her heart lifted. As he gave himself a ferocious shake, flinging slush all around, she let out a laugh.

  He investigated the entire perimeter of the room, sniffing and occasionally digging amid the rubble. Cassia silently apologized to Hespera and Lio’s people for desecration by muddy paws. At least Knight didn’t take a notion to mark his territory. He concluded his rounds at the door to the inner Sanctuary, where he let out a sneeze, then backed away. As he returned to Cassia’s side, his tail gave a sopping wag.

  She treated him to a thorough rubdown with a large cloth from her pack. When she was done, he laid down to his blanket and his bone without further protest.

  “So easy to please, my dearest. I used to think my wants were simple, too.”

  Cassia moved further into the ruin, and Knight watched her go, content to stay where she had bid him. She ducked and slipped under the half-fallen pillar and through the door to the inner room. The soft darkness and scents of snow and stone closed around her. How strange that she could not see snow blowing in through the skylight. She peered up at the opening. Snow collected there as if on glass.

  Hespera’s magic endured indeed. What mage centuries ago had cast such a powerful spell on this place that it lived on even now? Had he or she imagined that power might, in the distant future, give refuge to someone like Cassia? Now, as then, the magic protected the hopeful who came here to attempt an offering of blood.


  Cassia took a seat on a heap of rubble. Lio would know where to find her. He would sense the change of heart these past three days had wrought in her. And if he didn’t…she would tell him. She would somehow find words for what she had never known and dare to speak them aloud, and he would understand what she was trying to say.

  He would not tell her no a second time.

  Wanting

  For a moment, Lio simply let himself take in the sight of her.

  Cassia sat on a throne of ancient, broken stones, wringing out the long rope of her hair with both hands. Her gown clung to her skin as snow melted upon her body and pooled in the tangled cloak that had fallen at her feet. In the shelter of the shrine and its magic, steam rose from her damp clothes. Her breaths soughed around him, echoing within the stone walls of the Sanctuary.

  Had the shrine and its magic not sheltered her from the elements, Lio would have feared she would catch her death. He worked a spell light from Will alone and started toward her. Before he reached her, she was on her feet. Something in her eyes made him halt and drove everything he had thought to say from his mind.

  She stood, shaking, her shoulders squared and her chin held high. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the night you would not drink from me.”

  Their breaths mingled. Lio inhaled the warmth pouring off of her, out of her, and started to answer.

  She held up a hand. “Please. I must explain.”

  “I shall listen.”

  “I am not eloquent. I do not know how to speak of such things, but by our Oath, I shall find a way.”

  “You have spent your life gathering words. Do not doubt your ability to speak your own.”

  “Thank you.” Cassia swallowed. “Actually thank you is where I must begin. I have not had occasion to say it to anyone in so long that I hardly know how anymore. There have been no gifts in my life for fourteen years. I have lived instead by thefts and bargains and forgotten what a gift really is. It seems fitting the last one I ever received was from three Hesperines, and now one of their own has shown me true generosity again. You reminded me that a gift is something given without thought for your own benefit or any expectation of receiving something in return. To try to pay for such a thing dishonors it. To try to buy more gifts with favors is worse still.”