Blood Mercy (Blood Grace Book 1)

by Vela Roth

  I tasted the truth in her blood. We can rely on her plan.

  That, Lio’s most powerful proof, was the one his people would not accept. Cassia was his revelation. They would dismiss her as his youthful folly.

  What an irony. The Hesperines would see a human as a deceiver who had seduced one of their innocents for her own ends. Mortals were not the only ones blinded by their mistrust.

  “We have a quarter of an hour before the Summit.” Uncle Argyros exchanged another long look with his Grace.

  Aunt Lyta nodded once.

  He took her hand. “We have reached our decision. Lyta and I will not return to Orthros with the weight of even one child’s uncertain fate upon our hearts.”

  Aunt Lyta’s posture had shifted, perhaps instinctively. She stood poised in a battle stance. “We have faced far greater dangers than a Kyrian mage. Argyros and I shall retrieve the children, whether the Prisma has laid a trap or not.”

  “The children are orphans and fugitives.” Basir sighed. “We are doubly within our rights to take them.”

  “A point to bear in mind, my friend,” Uncle Argyros answered. “Though the Oath still lies broken, our tenets endure.”

  Kadi stepped forward. “What is your plan of action, Mother?”

  “The embassy will take shelter at Rota Overlook, the Sanctuary I showed everyone on our way here. I had hoped we would not need to resort to one of our safe havens, but Rota is among the oldest, and its Sanctuary ward has never failed us. This will not be the first time it has harbored Hesperines on the run from an Aithourian. There we’ll divide into two parties. I will lead one to the Grove, while the other waits hidden at Rota.”

  “What of Dalos’s assassination plot?” Lio asked. “How will we respond?”

  “We will weave a veil to hide our departure,” Uncle Argyros said. “Even if Dalos searches for us when we fail to appear at the Summit, we can trust the Sanctuary to conceal us until midnight, when we meet with the Prisma.”

  Lio had achieved one victory of persuasion. Now he must win one more. “What if we leave, and Dalos assassinates the Summit anyway?”

  Again he found himself the object of all their gazes. The force of their Union, concentrated on him, made the hair at his nape stand on end.

  “If we are not there,” Kumeta said, “Dalos will have no one to blame for his crime and thus be unable to go through with it. Removing ourselves from the situation is the solution.”

  It was a shame Lio could not tell Kumeta about Cassia. The two of them might actually see eye-to-eye. “What if he claims we appeared and murdered everyone? No one will survive to bear witness that we never arrived. He can say anything he wishes about what transpired under the cover of his mage ward. We will not be here to gainsay him, and a great many will be dead.”

  And one of the mage’s victims—Goddess, please no—might be Cassia.

  Lio prayed the others would agree with him. The truth was, when he went to the Summit, he did not want to go alone.

  “Only our power can shield everyone from Dalos’s assault,” Lio said. “A single Aithourian is no match for one of us, much less the entire embassy.”

  “Temper your overconfidence, youngblood,” Kumeta told him.

  “Dalos underestimates us,” Lio replied. “He dismisses you and Basir as messengers! A testament that you will always have the better of the Aithourian Circle. Seven hundred years and counting, and your identities remain a mystery to the war mages. They still have no idea the envoy service is our people’s web of observers and saboteurs. He is not prepared to face the Queens’ Master Envoys, the spymasters of Orthros.”

  “We do not have an accurate assessment of his power,” Basir argued, “and he has spent the entire Summit preparing his spell. His working may well have become something greater than himself.”

  “Something greater than the Guardian of Orthros?” Lio asked. “Greater than Elder Firstblood Argyros? Greater than Master Steward Arkadia and her Grace? I think not.”

  “I would send Dalos the way of Aithouros,” said Aunt Lyta, “if our Hesperines errant would not pay the cost when his circle comes for revenge. There is a time to stand and a time to stand down.”

  “What of the cost the Tenebrans will pay within the hour?” Lio asked. “Their king and their temples have betrayed them. Their heretics are their only protectors tonight. When Dalos releases his spell, we must be there to counter his attack.”

  Lio’s elders did not answer. They were listening.

  “Regardless of how it affects our relationship with Tenebra,” Lio declared, “we must do everything we can to protect the people at the Summit, because it is the right thing to do.” He should stop now, but he didn’t. “And because Kadi has suffered in silence long enough, waiting to act on her sister’s behalf. Javed knows making wounds, rather than mending them, is sometimes what saves lives. Basir and Kumeta have fought on with their thirst for justice unquenched for too long. You, Uncle, and you, Aunt Lyta, know that if Methu had lived, Nike would never have left us, and you still wonder if an Aithourian mage is the reason she has never come home. And as for myself…I want my chance at that war mage, and I want to see the king’s plan crumble underneath him.”

  Lio wanted to behold Cassia in that moment of triumph.

  The light in Uncle Argyros’s eyes had become something Lio recognized. That was…yes, it was. Pride. “If your father were here, that’s exactly what he would say to me.”

  For the first time that wretched night, Lio felt he had more than just his own strength of Will to carry him through. He felt hope. He began to feel he was not alone. “Uncle, I know you and Father are not always of one mind. But there was a time when you were. If the two of you had not stood together against the Orders during the Last War, none of us would be standing here tonight. It was you and Father who kept Hespera’s surviving worshipers alive long enough for the Queens to gather the scattered flock and shepherd them to safety in Orthros.”

  “We did that so our children could live in an age when Hesperines do not make war. I taught you to be what our people need in this time—a diplomat.”

  “Do not imagine for a moment I love your teachings any less tonight than I ever have. Do not doubt my commitment to words over war. But think what else I have learned as your initiate. There is a time when we do everything right, and words still aren’t enough.”

  Uncle Argyros went still, his face and aura at their most stoic. “I have considered it my responsibility as your mentor to confront you with challenging truths. Tonight you have subjected me to the same discomfort.”

  “Uncle,” Lio began. But he had promised himself he would not back down, and he would not apologize, no matter what the cost. “If the Queens could be here tonight, how would they respond, if Apollon proposed he and his brother stay and fight an Aithourian war mage?”

  “They would tell him he must not consider such a thing under any circumstances. Then they would send Apollon and me home to guard the children, and they would attend the Summit and see to the matter themselves.”

  Despite everything, Lio could not suppress a grin.

  “We are charged with acting in their stead,” Aunt Lyta declared.

  Kadi faced her mother. “I want this chance to defend our people alongside you. I need this chance to act. Nike would want us to. For Methu.”

  Javed stood close at her side. “I would not stand by while Dalos brings suffering upon so many.”

  Uncle Argyros looked to the Master Envoys.

  “We have worked from the shadows long enough.” Kumeta held out her hand to Basir, her gaze daring him.

  Slowly, Basir placed his hand upon hers. “Some risks are worth taking.”

  Aunt Lyta entwined her fingers with Uncle Argyros’s. Whatever discussion ensued, whatever past battles they recalled to each other, it occurred only in the private Union they shared. There was so much of their history younger souls would never know.

  At last Aunt Lyta spoke to Uncle Argyros aloud. “My
heart would have died long ago, if you did not strive to calm the war to which it calls me.”

  “You know I love you, not in spite of your warrior’s heart, but because of it.” Uncle Argyros smiled.

  Lio had never seen such an expression on his uncle’s face. That smile was as fierce as a predator’s.

  “Do not look so eager, my Grace,” Aunt Lyta said, but the same light blazed in her eyes. “We must set a good example for the young ones.”

  Uncle Argyros’s smile broadened. “And so we shall. It has been too long since one of the Aithourian Circle accounted for his crimes.”

  To the Gallows

  Cassia could not have let Lio touch her one more time. If she had, she would not have said no. She would be with him right now, instead of racing back across the grounds. Toward the Summit.

  She could, at this very moment, be leaving for Orthros with Lio. She could be free.

  She must get to the Summit on time. That was what mattered now. She had retrieved her blue-gray gown from its hiding place by the Changing Queen’s fountain and now looked as she always did, as if nothing were amiss. She smelled not of flametongue or scent oils, but of Lio’s cleaning spell.

  Lio.

  Everything was going according to plan. So far. Everything was going to proceed just as she had imagined.

  Nothing would stop what was about to happen.

  She focused on the logic she had laid out before Lio. She must give the king no opportunity to accuse the Hesperines of suborning his daughter. She must stay here, so she did not become the next justification for war. The best way to prove she had not been the one to forewarn the embassy of danger was to walk headfirst into that danger as if she had no idea what Dalos was about to do.

  She must walk headfirst into whatever fate the king had chosen for her when she had not answered his summons. Her failure to appear had surely been the only sign he needed to be sure of his decision.

  Cassia tried to comprehend the knowledge. She was going to die.

  Knight wove back and forth beside her, almost tangling with her legs. He whined with the agitation that overtook him when something was wrong that he didn’t understand. She buried one hand in his ruff to steady them both. To keep herself on her feet and moving toward the Summit.

  She didn’t want to die.

  Be safe in Orthros, while I stay here and fight.

  She couldn’t die now. Not when she’d just discovered the words she’d said to Lio were true.

  She didn’t want to die for anyone. She wanted to live. To her very roots, she wanted to live so she could fight.

  Cassia kept walking out of the trees, onto the greensward. She fell into step with the crowd of people bound for the pavilion.

  The Mage King’s broken throne towered ahead of them.

  She didn’t want to survive to avoid the grave she feared, which had swallowed two queens, her mother and Solia. Nor to keep breathing within the walls of her silent rooms for one more day, nor to rattle about the halls of another deserted royal keep, nor to weave one more tapestry so she was unobjectionable.

  She wanted to fight. For them. For herself. For the day when she would look her father in the eye and she would not be afraid, because she knew she had won. She would see the fear in his eyes, because he knew he had lost.

  Knight balked in Cassia’s path, his hackles rising, and forced her to come to a stop. The lords walking in front of them turned wary eyes on him. Their gazes lingered on Cassia’s tousled hair and wrinkled gown and became derisive.

  Cassia resettled her grip on her hound’s ruff. “Dockk, Knight.”

  He spun around and faced her, baring his teeth. Giving her warning. He would not let her walk into certain danger.

  Watchful lords passed by all around them. She could not cry, not here and now.

  She would not weep, whatever happened today. She only wept with Lio.

  She buried her other hand in Knight’s fur as well and knelt down to speak for him alone. “I know.”

  He let out a fierce growl.

  “You deserve a better fate. I do not want to ask this of you. But…I need you with me. We have to go forward.”

  Cassia willed him to understand and obey, for this was in his nature. To lay down one’s own life for those one loved.

  She got to her feet and looked him in the eye and put all her Will into the command. “Dockk, Knight.”

  Knight marched to the pavilion at her side, his tail out behind him like a banner of triumph.

  There was no chance to save herself. No cloak to bargain to Hypnos, no purse of baubles that would turn his gaze, no words of persuasion that would move him. The bargaining power was her life, and she had put it on the table.

  She had done the right thing.

  But she wished she could have done more.

  If so much as a slip of rope would swing her way, she would grab onto it to keep herself from hanging and claw her way out of the king’s noose. If there were any way she could live through this, she would realize the vision she had spoken of to Lio. She would fight, beginning now.

  Cassia took one last look at the moons in the night sky before she stepped under the pavilion. Torches and bright martial banners swallowed her. As she took her seat, the king’s gaze came to rest on her.

  She did not turn away. She looked into his eyes. She didn’t sweat, and her heart didn’t pound.

  Until seven graceful figures approached from the fortress, their robes gleaming in moonlight that outshone the torches.

  Fire and Light

  The moonlight Lio gathered under the pavilion cast Dalos’s face in sharp relief. Even now there was nothing out of the ordinary in the mage’s demeanor or magical aura. There was no sign at all the mage was preparing what would most likely be the greatest spell he ever cast.

  The man was truly skilled. Frighteningly skilled, if Lio was honest with himself. He had confronted the Aithourian mage alone one night, not knowing what a threat stood before him, and he had lived. He knew he might not be so fortunate tonight.

  Although he dared not look at her, Lio inhaled and picked out Cassia’s scent among the odors of the free lords to remind himself why he had made this decision. Why he was willing to risk never making it home to Orthros.

  In time, perhaps, his parents would come to understand.

  “You know what I’m going to say,” Uncle Argyros had told Lio just before they left the fortress.

  “Of course,” Lio answered. “And I know you’ll also say it’s no reflection on my abilities.”

  Uncle Argyros gripped Lio’s shoulder. “I will rot in Cordium before I place one of our youngest on the front lines. I will never allow my failure of diplomacy to cost my initiate his life, nor will I return to Orthros to give my brother and Grace-sister the news I failed to protect my nephew. I insist you go to the Sanctuary immediately while the rest of us attend the Summit. When we, Goddess willing, rejoin you, you will remain there with those who are not going to meet the Prisma. Do this, if not for your own sake, then for your parents’.”

  “I understand, Uncle. When we all make it back to Orthros together, I’ll make sure Father and Mother know you tried to keep me out of danger. But you would have to rob me of my Will and have Aunt Lyta and Kadi chain me at the Sanctuary with one of their wards to keep me from your side.”

  “In that case, you are to remain within arm’s reach of me at all times, and I relieve you from speaking before the Summit. I will stand in your stead.”

  “We mustn’t change the program at this hour. Dalos might suspect we know something about what is to come.”

  Uncle Argyros’s emotions silenced behind an impenetrable veil. He gave Lio’s shoulder a squeeze, then let him go.

  Aunt Lyta took both of Lio’s hands in hers. “You must do exactly as we have agreed, nothing less, nothing more.”

  “I have not come this far to make a misstep now.” Lio would not fail his people, nor the humans whose lives depended on them.

  He would
never fail Cassia.

  To Lio it seemed her anger filled the pavilion along with the attendees now taking their seats. No one sensed that fury but him, just as no one noticed the slow buildup of light under the canopy. But Lio let her anger at him sink into his veins. If he could have spared even a trace of his magic from his working, he would have found some way to communicate with her that he had not just destroyed everything she was trying to achieve. That she need not doubt him.

  He didn’t have to tell her, did he? By now, she knew.

  He breathed their Union in, letting her fill him, brace him. His Gift welled within him, potent and ready, thanks to her blood and her fury. Amid all Cassia’s anger and fear—for him, for herself—the one thing he did not sense was doubt. He felt what he had seen in her eyes the first night they’d made love.

  Cassia, who trusted no one, trusted him.

  He knew in that moment, whatever was about to happen, he would never regret it.

  Lio was careful to keep the growth of the light subtle and steady. While the moons’ power came to him, the Tenebrans saw what they expected to see. The moons were bright tonight, but their torches brighter, of course. The waxing Blood Moon tinged the Light Moon’s silver with copper, and the mortals paid little mind to the celestial glow that was now stronger than their fires. Dalos appeared to pay the youngest Hesperine no mind at all.

  The last free lord settled in his chair, and the Hesperines took their seats as if this were not the night the Summit would come to an abrupt and violent end. Lord Titus began his opening remarks without an inkling the mage on the dais behind him intended to silence him forever.

  Lucis watched the proceedings like the spider he was, squatting on the throne at the center of his web, waiting for his prey to be delivered.

  Dalos subjected them all to his bland smile.

  Lio’s mouth was dry. Running through him with his fear, there was also a new and strange exhilaration. Any moment now, he would face death. But he had the Gift to save him, and he would tap the Goddess’s blood within him as he never had before. He would truly wield his own power.