by Vela Roth
He could count them, but they were not a number. They were men, each and every one different to his senses, hundreds of windows through which he peered out upon a world he had thought he had known. Their memories were horrifying, their concerns sickeningly familiar. Hunger. Pleasure. Approval.
Lio was everywhere, from one end of Martyrs’ Pass to another. His warband’s legends had taught him the meaning of Stand regalia. He spat crossbow fire at a young male Hesperine as the Steward freed a pale-haired warrior from the clutches of the avalanche. The bolts never ruffled Lyros’s robe. They hit a blood ward and rebounded back on Lio. Countless pains pierced his body.
Lio brandished torches at the defensive line of the Prince’s Charge. They drove him back from their fellow Hesperines errant who were coming to the snowbound mortals’ rescue. He rode a wave of reinforcements down from the ridge above on skis, guiding his progress with spears he would soon aim at Hesperine hearts.
With both forces, he broke upon a shield of light, at whose heart stood a small, powerful warrior with auburn hair. The Guardian of Orthros herself.
He commanded his liegehounds to charge the Guardian’s daughter. The dogs snapped and snarled and hurled themselves at the witch warrior’s magic, and their jaws rent tiny tears in her shield. But the shield blazed bright, sealing the wounds. The shadow sorceress drew upon the light of the Queens’ ward to bolster her power.
Her fangs flashed, her hand flew, and she scattered her own blood across the snow. The dogs went mad, following Lio’s cousin as she sought to draw them off. With hundreds of voices, he egged them to bring her down.
“Ckabaar!”
The dogs bruised their bodies against Kadi’s ward, a living battering ram.
Lio plundered the words in the heart hunters’ minds for a different command. He found it shut away behind a heavy lock of shame. He made each master say it to his beast. Retreat.
“Loma hoor!”
As one pack, the hounds turned from Lio’s cousin and fled for the hills, leaving only the human predators on the attack.
With one man, Lio swung a club at his attacker, hefting the weight of the weapon, his arm still sore from a skirmish with another warband. The enemy was all around him, unseen, merely a disturbance in the air.
Then for an instant, a pair of brown eyes flashed at him. They looked too human to belong to a Hesperine, the man thought. But Lio knew those eyes. He put the club down, and the man’s body obeyed. When Mak’s hand descended for a killing blow, the heart hunter already lay still at his feet. Lio’s Trial brother froze, his familiar gaze now confused, and shook his head over his paralyzed enemy.
Lio looked through another man’s eyes at the oncoming pommel of a sword. That too halted midair. A red-haired barbarian stood over him with furious gray eyes and a splash of blood on his cheek, his two-hander at the ready. Lio made the man kneel before his prince.
Before the border of his Queens’ domain, Lio made every heart hunter lay down his weapons and lower himself to the ground.
His only awareness of his own body was the sensation of Cassia in his arms and the lingering smell of her fear. His magic swelled, but did not overflow his banks. He channeled his power, driving deeper into the minds of the twelve men who had terrorized his Grace. Their fear of blizzard wraiths was still rampant in their unguarded minds. Conjured from the men’s personal terrors and crafted with shadows, Lio’s illusions had taught the hunters what their own tactics felt like.
Now he delved in their minds for the real enemy. He would find their “boss.” The man would rue all the perversities that had ever entered his thoughts and every time he had acted upon them.
Faces. Voices. Mothers, brothers, victims, lovers. Lio sifted through the men’s lives and crimes for their hornbearer, the leader of their warband.
The boss was everywhere. And nowhere. He was part of their every thought. Yet no one thought his name. No one envisioned his face. He was an iron rule and a whisper on the edge of their senses. Lio could almost hear him in the thoughts of the lead crossbowman.
Lio held the concert of hundreds of minds and honed the brunt of his power on one.
He heard every one of their hearts stop.
Hundreds of times over, Lio cleaved in two, and the greater part of him slipped from the grasp of his body. Their minds escaped his hold and fled beyond his reach.
His Gift surged back into him and slammed his soul back into his body.
Lio fell to his knees in the snow. Cassia was still in his arms. His heart still beat in his chest. Everyone in the pass was safe.
But what had he done?
Trial of Discipline
The last few moments refracted over and over in Lio’s mind. The world was silent. He was deaf to the Union, his senses deadened by the rebound of his own magic.
A small, gentle hand in a frosty mitten touched Lio’s cheek and brought him back to reality.
Speechless and shaking, he opened his eyes. And he saw his Grace.
Cassia had tucked her wool-bundled body as close to him as she could. Her face was ashen, her hair a damp and tangled mess. She was so beautiful he did not feel he deserved to look upon her. But there was no judgment in her hazel eyes. Only…gratitude.
She caressed his mouth. “Everything is going to be all right.”
The intimacy of her touch made his fangs unsheathe. His tongue went dry. His senses jolted back into awareness. He heard her heart thudding in her chest, and the current of her veins twined around him.
His magic was thirsty enough to suck her dry, and his Craving was ravenous enough to lay waste to her.
Lio stumbled to his feet. He had to get Cassia to safety. He had to step with her, no room for error. Now.
“Lio?” Her voice, querulous, was seduction to his hunger.
He had to take Cassia home.
Her needs drove him forward, and the ward oriented him. He focused on the spell laid down in the Queens’ blood, the blood of all his people, and prepared to step.
Waystar
Cassia could not tell if the heart hunters were dead or unconscious. She only knew that the fallen men at Lio’s feet were proof she was safe now, and he would keep her so.
She was with Lio again. It was really happening. She had made it, and he would see her safely through the pass into Orthros.
So why was he silent? Why, when she caressed his face, did he look away as if he were in pain?
The sensation of a Hesperine step made Cassia’s senses skip a beat. She drew comfort from the tight embrace of Lio’s power. If he risked stepping with her now, it meant she was still acclimated to his magic. Their time apart had not undone that connection.
Lio carried her out of the storm and up a flight of steps. The walls of a castle loomed above, a delicate fortress of dove gray stone. Light poured from its glass windows, and its peaked arches reached up into the night. Cassia looked to the clear sky and gasped.
The beacon looked like all of Lio’s spell lights put together. The grand orb hovered above the castle’s highest spire and pulsed, a gleaming heartbeat.
Iron doors burst open ahead of them, and in the light that streamed out, two silhouettes appeared and swept toward them. A female voice spoke in Divine, and Cassia recognized the tone of a prayer of thanks. The speaker’s hand brushed her matted hair back from her face.
Then Lio was handing Cassia into another’s arms. She recognized the kind face above her. Master Healer Javed, Lio’s Grace-cousin.
Lio spoke at last, but his voice was ragged. “Make sure there’s not a scratch on her.”
The power he had spent to save her must have cost him. This night had cost both of them so much. But not each other.
Cassia reached out to him, but her hand met empty air. He was already too far away. He floated down the steps like one of his illusions and disappeared.
Cassia swallowed half a year of unsaid words. The urgency of survival gave way, and a wave of pain and exhaustion hit her. She let Javed carry her inside.<
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She squeezed her eyes shut against sudden brightness. She was aware of a large room and relieved voices surrounding her. Then Javed carried her into soft light and warmth and quiet. When her watery vision cleared, she was sitting on a padded couch.
“Are we in Orthros?” Cassia asked.
The female Hesperine knelt near her and spoke in Vulgus. “We are well behind the ward and into the circle of polar night. You are safe here at the Sanctuary of Waystar, where we can protect you every hour of the night. We are going to take some time to make sure you are all right, but rest assured the Tenebran embassy will never notice your absence.”
She knew exactly what to say to banish Cassia’s most immediate fears with just a few words. If this lady was not a diplomat, she ought to be, with a voice like that. Such velvet tones might lure Lord Hadrian himself to put away his sword and sleep with his head in her lap.
She peeled off Cassia’s layers of cold weather gear down to her dry gown. Quickly she wrapped Cassia in a blanket, slid soft stockings onto her feet, and handed her a pillow to hug against her chest. The warm woolens felt as if they had been heated by a fire, but there was no hearth in the beautifully appointed sitting room where the Hesperines had brought her.
Cassia’s surroundings, her first look into Orthros, hardly seemed real after the pass. She could only think how familiar the lady Hesperine’s features were, even if her eyes were brown, not blue. The high cheekbones, the long, straight nose, the elegant mouth. Especially her jet black hair, a striking contrast to her fair complexion. Cassia’s amorphous thoughts settled on the one person in Lio’s bloodline with whom he would share a family resemblance, the only one to whom he was related by birth.
The calm kindness in the lady Hesperine’s voice eroded Cassia’s worries about making a good impression. “I am Komnena, Lio’s mother, and you already know Javed. We are healers, I of the mind, he of the body. We are going to ask you a few questions about what happened while we tend any injuries you have, within and without.”
Cassia felt wrapped in endless patience and reassurance. She nodded.
“I know this could be a difficult question,” Komnena continued, “but we need to make sure we understand your injuries so we can give you the best care. Did the heart hunters harm you in any way?”
The heart hunters’ threats assailed Cassia’s thoughts, and her mind shied away from that moment in the pass. She shook her head. “Lio protected me.”
Komnena sighed. “Thank the Goddess.”
“Do you hurt anywhere?” Javed asked.
“Everywhere,” Cassia admitted.
She felt the touch of Hesperine magic. Javed had yet to reach into the red cloth satchel at his side, but every pain in her disappeared. Her whole body relaxed, and all she felt was a deep sense of well-being. She blinked sleepily at the kind-eyed physician, and he smiled. She had last seen him in formal attire at the Summit table, but now he wore practical crimson robes.
“Thank you for your help, Master Javed,” Cassia said. “You tried so hard to convince the Council of Free Lords to accept a gift of medicine from the Hesperine embassy.”
The healer peered into her eyes, lifting each of her eyelids in turn. “Your deeds on that occasion were memorable as well. What else do you remember?”
“You are from the Empire and Graced to Master Steward Arkadia, Lio’s cousin.” She studied Javed’s warm brown complexion, then tried to focus her vision on Arkadia’s blond braid, which he wore in his dark curls.
He smiled again and proceeded to examine her ankles. She watched his gentle hands work, and it did not even occur to her to feel strange about the way he touched her, anymore than to fret that her hair was uncovered in front of him.
“What about tonight?” Lio’s mother asked. “How many of you were trapped in the avalanche?”
Memory sharpened Cassia’s thoughts once more. “Fifty-six minus the half dozen the king actually wanted to survive.”
Javed exchanged a glance with Komnena, but he said nothing. Another wave of Hesperine magic calmed Cassia’s pulse.
Komnena continued her questions in her kind, matter-of-fact tone. “Who was next to you when the avalanche began?”
Cassia’s throat tightened. “Perita and Callen were closest. Benedict was safe next to the mages, but Lord Severin had already rejoined us.” She took a deep breath. “How many made it out?”
Komnena rubbed Cassia’s arms. “The Stand is presently bringing in fifty-six minus the one the Hesperines wished to give special attention. Healers and cots are waiting in the great hall below.”
“Everyone?” The breath rushed out of Cassia. “I knew you would come. Please tell me every Hesperine has returned safely, too. I feared—”
Komnena shook her head. “We lost none of ours. Although some of our Hesperines errant were gravely wounded, everyone will survive. We should even be able to send your mounts safely back into Tenebra with Lord Severin’s retainers.”
Cassia did not ask about Knight. She already knew the answer. A liegehound would not tolerate any Hesperine’s attempt at rescue. Her friend’s only hope was his own strength.
She pushed away the vision of him waking up trapped in a heart hunter camp. She would keep hoping he could fight his way back to her. She could not bear to do anything else.
If only she had managed to keep the glyph stone with her, she could have protected herself and Knight from the heart hunters. What would she do without her satchel of relics, her few real weapons?
Komnena frowned in concern at Cassia’s hands. “These wounds are not new, but they look sore.”
Javed examined Cassia’s palms, but did not ask her what had cost her so much of her skin. “You will feel better within the hour and much restored after a good night’s sleep.”
She could sleep when she was dead. She wasn’t dead tonight. She had made it.
Words were not coming to Cassia, but she must find some. “The others will not say it properly, but you have our gratitude. Yet again Hesperines bear the brunt of violence to spare mortal kind. Thank you.”
Komnena wrapped a warm towel around Cassia’s damp hair. “Lio owes you his life. I am happy I can honor the bond of gratitude we had long before tonight.”
This lady had borne and raised the kindest, most trustworthy person Cassia knew. Saying the right words to her made strategic conversations to sway stubborn free lords seem like reciting children’s rhymes in comparison. “Master Komnena, your son is…” Cassia trailed off.
“Yes, he is.” Lio’s mother beamed. “Call me Komnena.”
“Yes,” Javed agreed, “let us dispense with ‘Master.’ My Grace and I have you to thank not only for our lives, but our beautiful children. We Solaced two of the Eriphites you and Lio rescued from Tenebra, a brother and sister. They are safe at home with their new grandfather right now.” Javed traced a finger over her cheek. “The scar Boskos arrived with has healed, and Athena grows in strength daily, despite the frost fever that endangered their lives.”
Cassia saw again Lio standing in the Temple of Kyria, tracing a finger over his cheek as he told the Prisma that the little boy with the scar on his face must receive the medicine first, lest he die. “I am so happy to hear that children who suffered so much are now safe and well, and that they get to remain together as a family. How fortunate they are to have you and Arkadia as parents.”
“And to have had such rescuers as you and Lio. I cannot express our gratitude to you for Bosko and Thenie.”
Then they knew a great deal indeed of what she and Lio had done together during the Equinox Summit. “It seems you know already where my loyalties lie.”
“That was never in doubt,” Komnena replied.
“Then I must give the Stand the information I have right away,” Cassia said. “There is no time to lose.”
Komnena slid another warm pillow under Cassia’s dangling feet. “Two Stewards are outside your door right now, eager to check on you as soon as you are ready to see them.”
Javed’s mouth twitched. “I will tell them they can come in before they break down the door. Now I must rejoin my Grace below and lend my aid to those she is bringing in. When you are ready, the Stand can escort you into the hall through the front doors, and the embassy will never know you had a private encounter with Hesperines.”
“That’s wise. I cannot have them thinking you magicked me.”
“I regret many of them are refusing to accept our healing magic.”
“Stubborn fools,” Cassia muttered. “Perhaps the Semna can help.”
“She is asleep after traversing herself and the six people nearest her safely out of the avalanche. But her attendants are busy setting bones.” An expression crossed Javed’s face that would remind anyone he was a warrior’s Grace. “We will strive to respect our guests’ Wills, but if any of them face grave risk to life or health, they will get Hesperine healing anyway, whether they know it or not.”
He strode out the door. An instant later, two young, muscular Hesperines marched into the sitting room. Their short black robes were damp with melted snow, but Cassia could not see a bit of blood or grime on them. Only Hesperine warriors could fight in sandals in a blizzard and return from the battlefield unstained. They wore each other's braids at their temples and cloth ties that bound their hair at the napes of their necks.
The taller of the two posted himself in front of her as if another wave of enemies might come through her door, and he planned to lay waste to them, too. Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he looked like he could break Chrysanthos’s neck with his little finger. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, thanks to all of you.”
His companion crouched by Cassia on her eye level. “We’re so glad you made it safely to Waystar.”
“You must be Mak and Lyros.” In spite of everything, Cassia was able to smile. She had no doubt they were the formidable warriors Lio had described to her and also his dearest friends.
“Our reputation precedes us, eh? Yes, I’m Lio’s cousin.” Mak grinned down at Cassia.
