Blood Solace (Blood Grace Book 2)

by Vela Roth

  “I took him aside, and I did so to tell him he did not belong with me tonight, but with the woman he truly wanted for his Kyria. I made it clear to him our promise is to our duties, not each other. There will be no intimacy between us. You and he can continue as you always have, and I will be happy for you.”

  Sabina wiped her tears away with a vengeance. “I don’t understand. Why is my happiness more important to you than your own? Why would you try to win my friendship rather than the favor of your future husband?”

  “I have learned through hard experience the true value of a woman I can call a friend. I am not demanding anything, Sabina, and I understand if you can never extend your friendship to me. In your position, I am not sure I would find myself generous and kind enough to do so. But I want you to know you can rely on me. My friendship is always available to you.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Sabina’s hands fidgeted at her side, as if she longed to reach for some weapon that was not there. “Will you come back tomorrow for a weaving party?”

  “Certainly,” Cassia blurted.

  “You and I shall sit together at my loom. I shall invite every harpy in the court to attend us. I will see to it they spew compliments to you until they learn to mean them. I want all of Tenebra to know who Lady Cassia’s true allies are.”

  The Hawk and the Owl

  As soon as Cassia neared the kennels, she could hear the din. She could tell Knight’s voice apart from that of any other dog in the world. His bays filled the night as those she held within her could not.

  The kennel master was not eager to leave his cups or the company of the comrades commiserating with him about how marriage was the bane of man’s existence. By the time Cassia was done persuading the drunken pig she required his assistance, she had joined his wife among the ranks of women he never wanted to see again. He dared not accompany her to retrieve her hound. He gave her the key.

  When Knight caught scent of her, his howls turned into frantic barks, and he pressed himself against the gate of the run. Cassia dropped to her knees, crooning reassurances to him. She unlocked the door and threw the key aside just in time for him to leap into her arms.

  She sat on the ground in the kennels in her sister’s fine gown and held Knight while he shed on her and wagged his tail so hard his whole body swayed. She buried her face in his fur.

  She had made it through one more day. Chrysanthos had not immolated her for heresy in front of the entire gathering. She had survived the Autumn Greeting.

  It wasn’t long before familiar voices reached her ears. “Oh, if she isn’t in the kennels, right where we thought we’d find her.”

  “You’d best stay here, even if you have taken your medicine. I’ll bring her out.”

  Cassia lifted her head to see Callen coming toward her and Perita wringing her hands just on the other side of the fence that bordered the kennels. Callen helped her up and took her to Perita, who put an arm around Cassia for support.

  “Are you all right, my lady?”

  “Yes. Worn out, but all right.”

  “When Lord Flavian didn’t escort you back to the palace as he ought…”

  “I excused him from his responsibilities to me. Let us retire for the evening, shall we?”

  Callen made sure Cassia got back to her rooms without further battles, then left her with her handmaiden. Perita ushered her to the warmth of her own hearth fire and rid her of the trappings of her sister’s doomed Greeting.

  While Perita brewed an herbal infusion, Cassia retreated to her bedchamber for a bath. Her handmaiden had already set a pitcher of warm water beside her washstand. She shut the door. She had seldom been so grateful for the simple respite of solitude in her own room with only Knight’s comforting presence.

  The weather mages’ handiwork that had let the sun beat down earlier that day now made way for the moons. The Blood Moon, nearly veiled, was a circle of black-red in the black sky, one edge traced in a fine line of bright crimson that one could only see if one didn’t look right at it. The Light Moon was its opposite, bright and white and just past full, with only a hint of shadow along one side.

  By its light alone, Cassia retrieved the ivy pendant from her satchel. She ducked behind the tapestry and into the darkness of the secret passageway. She felt for a familiar niche in the stone wall and retrieved the priceless treasure she kept hidden there.

  When she went back out into her moonlit bedchamber, she just looked at Lio’s handkerchief for a moment. Then she lifted his gift to her nose. The handkerchief still smelled like him, and the cassia soap she kept wrapped in it was as spicy and fragrant as the day he had given it to her. If there was ever a time to use a little of it, it was now, to wash away all traces of this wretched day.

  She undressed completely and treated herself to her first bath with cassia soap in months. She took her time, luxuriating in the scent and the feel of it on her skin. She let herself remember.

  Her nightly appointment with her tears arrived. The uncontrollable weeping had astonished her on the first night she had spent without Lio. Cassia did not cry. Not since she was seven, when she had learned not to make such noise. She had allowed herself tears of mourning for her sister only once, last year during the fourteenth anniversary of Solia’s murder, when she had told Lio the truth and he had kept vigil with her. So, she had reasoned, she was entitled to one such outburst for his sake.

  The second night, the keening sobs she had stifled under her blankets had thoroughly humiliated her. By the end of the first week, she had been forced to realize she would not stop crying, no matter how she tried.

  There must never come a night when resignation finally drained the last of her tears out of her. She must not let that happen. She was no longer numb, and she was not yet resigned. Her love for all she had given up burned inside her, and she would keep weeping for that beacon so the light did not go out.

  After she dried herself and her tears and returned Lio’s gifts to their hiding place, she put on a clean woolen tunica and went back out to sit by the hearth with Knight on her feet. Perita pressed a hot cup into her hands, and Cassia breathed strength from the steam of the herbs she had grown. Perita began to untangle Cassia’s wet hair, and the soft, rhythmic tugs of the wooden comb lulled her.

  “Do you want to talk about it, my lady?”

  “About what, Perita?”

  “Why you aren’t happy tonight.”

  Once again Perita reminded Cassia how fortunate she was in her insightful handmaiden. In her thoughtful friend. If only Cassia could tell her how right she was.

  The realization that she wanted to took her aback. It had always been easy for her to keep her own counsel and difficult for her to confide in others. This was the first time she had ever had to resist a temptation to tell someone else a secret.

  “I am exhausted from dancing and being a spectacle, that’s all.” Cassia drank her infusion diligently so as not to give her wagging tongue a chance.

  Silence fell, except for the sound of the comb. Until Perita said, “He must be something else, to make you think twice about Lord Flavian.”

  Cassia froze. “Whatever do you mean, Perita?”

  “You used your fine foreign soap tonight. You still haven’t forgotten the one who gave it to you.”

  It was a good thing Cassia had just drained her cup, for otherwise she would have spilled it all over herself.

  “No, don’t worry, my lady. I’ve no idea who he is, and I won’t press you for a name if you think it best to keep it to yourself.” Perita leaned around and had a look at Cassia. “Oh, you’re blushing. You’ve a pretty blush. I daresay Lord Fancy Soap appreciated it before Lord Flavian ever did.”

  “Perita, it’s just a bar of soap. I like the scent. That’s all.”

  “Is that so? Because I remember when everyone was trying to get one of those soaps, the gifts from the embassy, hmm? He must have been a very fine lord indeed to get his hands on one of those. But I thought to myself, she’ll
use that on her hound’s feet, like the beauty salve Lord Adrogan gave her. But you didn’t.” Perita gave Cassia a knowing smile. “He must have been very good to you, my lady, to pass muster with you at all.”

  Cassia let her gaze fall, trying to make sense of the scramble of words inside her. What she wanted to say. Everything she had always assumed she shouldn’t say. Perita simply waited, giving her time to answer, and the comb kept swishing through her hair.

  Cassia could trust Perita with bleeding hands. As long as she never told her friend she had injured them in defense of a shrine of Hespera, of course.

  Cassia could trust her friend about Lio, too, as long as she never let on he was a Hesperine.

  “He was my Callen,” Cassia said.

  The comb stilled. “Then what is he doing, letting Lord Flavian gad about with you like this? When the owl sleeps, he loses his mouse to the hawk.”

  “Well,” said Cassia. “The hawk has not gotten any of the mouse yet.”

  Perita leaned closer over Cassia’s shoulder. “Did the owl get any?”

  “Actually, my owl didn’t sleep at all.”

  They both burst out laughing.

  “Is he handsome?” Perita asked.

  “I could scarcely take my eyes off of him.”

  “And good in the saddle?”

  Cassia put her hands to her flaming cheeks.

  Perita laughed again. “That’s my answer. Is he kind?”

  “Kinder than anyone I have ever known.”

  Perita nodded in approval. She gestured at Cassia with the comb. “You’re using his soap. Please tell me that means your promise to Lord Flavian isn’t set in stone. Tell me you’ll see the one you want again.”

  “I will. But not for some time.”

  “Isn’t that just like a man.”

  “No, he didn’t do wrong by me. It wasn’t his fault he had to leave. He…” Cassia’s heart beat faster. She couldn’t believe she was saying this aloud. It was strange how much more it alarmed her than committing treason. “He asked me to go with him.”

  Perita gasped.

  “I wanted to say yes.” Cassia swallowed. “But it was too dangerous.”

  Perita set aside the comb and sat down across from Cassia.

  And Cassia let herself keep talking. “We exchanged no promises when we parted. There wasn’t time to ask each other when, or if, we might see one another again. We were too occupied trying to…do our duty. But in those few, rash moments we had, he did ask me to go with him. And I told him no. I don’t know if that means I missed my chance.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “He wasn’t even angry with me, not for one moment. He was in so much pain, I could tell, Perita—I’m not flattering myself when I say he felt the loss of me. But he said I should decide what was best for me, and no matter what it was, he would do it. And he did.”

  Perita’s lips parted, and her voice hushed. “My lady, I would have gone with that one.”

  Cassia’s anger stirred. But what use was it to be angry at the results of her own decision? “People would have gotten hurt.”

  “Seems to me then, you didn’t do what was best for you. You did what was best for other people. That’s very like you, my lady.”

  All this time, Cassia had been trying to become someone who did not think only of herself. This was the first time anyone other than Lio had told her she was succeeding. “Thank you, Perita.”

  “What for, my lady?”

  “I’d never be able to list all the reasons, even though I can write better these days.”

  Now it was Perita who was blushing.

  A knock at the hearth room door interrupted their conversation.

  Perita went to answer with her hands on her hips. “If that’s Lord Flavian, I’ll tell him Anthros has seen quite enough of Kyria for one day. The lads may be wooing their ladies all over Solorum at this hour on Greeting night, but not that lad, and not my lady.”

  Cassia smiled and refrained from giving away that she was still expecting a servant of Lady Valentia’s before the night was through.

  A moment later, Perita returned to the fireside carrying a small, plain chest. She set the discreet delivery in Cassia’s lap, then took her chair again. “That was a courier in Lady Valentia’s colors. I suppose she just couldn’t wait until the betrothal is official to send you her gift. Let’s see what it is.”

  “This is not mine.” Cassia opened the chest and lifted out the heavy purse. “This is yours. Lady Valentia doesn’t know who you are, and you needn’t reveal yourself to her. I thanked her on your behalf.”

  Perita stared at the coin pouch. “I don’t understand.”

  “This is the money that, by law, Verruc should have paid for his crimes against you. Since he is dead, his lord should have settled it. Tyran’s betrothed took it upon herself to right that wrong.” Cassia dropped the purse into Perita’s hold.

  As her jaw dropped, her hands fell to her lap under the weight of the purse. “I know my price. This can’t be for me. It’s too much.”

  “Lady Valentia disavows all knowledge of your name or rank, so your secret is safe with her, and she has given you the price for a lady.”

  “But—the price goes to the lady’s father or husband—and I’m not a lady.”

  “Do not say you are only a householder. Give no regard to the law that calls only for your master to be compensated. We owe the king nothing. And I owe you everything.”

  Perita’s lip trembled, and then tears were pouring down her face. “I didn’t think anyone else cared.”

  “I know. That’s worth more than money.” Cassia pulled her chair closer to her friend, grinning down at the purse. “But it’s a lot of money.”

  With tentative fingers, Perita opened the purse and peered inside. Golden likenesses of the king gazed out at them, too flattering to really look like him.

  Giddy laughter bubbled out of Perita. “By Anthros, Kyria, and all seven scions. I can’t wait to show Callen! And his mother and sisters… We’re…”

  “Set for life,” Cassia said.

  Perita met her gaze with wide eyes. “I think it will take some time before it seems real.”

  “When it does, you may want to make some new plans. If that means you decide on something different for your future than what we spoke of earlier, I want you to know I understand. You must do what’s best for you and Callen, and I will be so happy for you.”

  Perita shook her head. “Nonsense, my lady. At your back is right where we’ll always be. I know a good situation when I’m lucky enough to find it.”

  “The near future may hold challenges…even dangers…we have never faced before.”

  “Well, that’s nothing new really, is it, my lady?”

  Cassia smiled. “I too know a good situation when I’m lucky enough to find it. I am grateful indeed for the two of you.”

  “But see here, mightn’t an even better situation await than Segetia? Have you heard anything from Lord Fancy Soap? Anything at all?”

  “Yes. He managed to send me one message.”

  Perita’s eyes lit. “What did he say?”

  Cassia could never explain how Lio had appeared to her in one of his illusions, insubstantial as moonlight and impossible to hold. His apparition had nonetheless given her a glimpse of him, the sound of his voice, and his words to hold on to. Cassia had recited those words to herself over and over since that night to be sure she would never forget.

  She repeated as much of his message as she dared reveal to her friend. “I should never have left you…I swear I will come back for you. Trust me. I will find a way…I need you. Wait for me.”

  Cassia had just admitted aloud that she was no longer a maiden and that she’d been in secret contact with her forbidden lover. She found it did not matter that she could not say he wasn’t human and had sent his message with heretical magic.

  It was so good to speak of him aloud. It made him feel real again.

  “Well,” Perita
said, “you might not have exchanged any promises when he left, but he certainly made his intentions clear after the fact. How did you reply?”

  Cassia knotted her hands in her lap. She had promised him then and there she would hold him again, but he had not heard her. The illusory Lio before her had not responded to her words. “I couldn’t reply. There was no way to get my message through. I did try.”

  “I’m sure you did your best, my lady. I dare say that’s not the reason he hasn’t returned. What you’ve said about him makes it clear he’s a man of honor. Even though he hasn’t heard from you, he’ll come back for you, because he gave you his word.”

  Cassia nodded. “If it were in his power to return, I have no doubt he would have fulfilled his promise already.”

  But his power, as great as it was, would never be a match for the Queens’ magic. His apparition had explained they prevented him from leaving Orthros in this time of danger. He would never be able to return to Tenebra.

  Unless Cassia brought him to her.

  Then he would come for her, as any Hesperine errant would strive to deliver a mortal to safety.

  “But would honor be all that motivated him?” Now she was confessing fears aloud. Fears, desires, tears. Once they started, they never stopped. “His message came only a fortnight after we parted, when his feelings must still have been fresh. But after all this time…” A fortnight must seem like nothing to someone who would live for eternity. And if a fortnight was nothing…what did a few nights mean? “I have no doubt he was sincere then. But I don’t know if his regard for me has changed in the months since.”

  “It’s only natural to worry about that. A man’s always a risk, and it’s always hard to decide if he’s worth it.”

  “He is worth any risk.”

  “You’re sure? Because for you, my lady, the risk is different.”