Page 10 of Blood Feast

Tendo pulled Lio in to clap him on the back. “I might have to promote your nickname, too. I hear you fought your way out of a castle full of necromancers to carry her to safety. Not garden variety death mages, either—those Gift Collectors who assassinate Hesperines for a living. Well done.”

“High praise from you, Monsoon.”

Tendo shook his head at the mention of his fortune name, the epithet he had earned in his past as a mercenary. It must be a painful reminder of the happy years he and Solia had spent fighting with their mercenary band, the Ashes. He hadn’t forgiven her for choosing her duties as a royal over their lives together.

“I’m nothing but the Ashes’ messenger bird these days,” Tendo said. “Karege, Tuura, and everyone in Ukocha’s village said to tell you congratulations.”

Solia put in, “Kella and Hoyefe send their love, as well. They’re holding down the fort in Tenebra.”

Solia and Tendo stood on opposite sides of the gathering, but they were in the same room for Cassia’s sake. She didn’t dare ask what truce the former lovers had agreed upon.

Her sister had now wrapped her bespelled golden scarf around her shoulders, concealing her aura from the Blood Union. Tendo must have similar magic at hand, for Cassia couldn’t sense his emotions toward her sister, either.

But Cassia hadn’t lost her touch for reading body language and expressions. The pair betrayed awareness of each other’s every twitch and glare.

Lio sighed.They’re acting like two predators ready to fight.

Or to mate.Cassia could feel the most natural form of magic sparking between the two simply because they breathed the same air.

With them, there isn’t usually a difference,Lio pointed out.

Perhaps we can get them to do more than stare daggers at each other from across the room.

Time for one of our diplomatic schemes,he agreed,of the matchmaking variety.

But right now, the elders were beckoning Cassia toward the Ritual circle. Komnena opened her arms, her eyes shining with tears, and Cassia went into her Grace-mother’s embrace. She would never be motherless again.

For a vivid instant, she recalled the spectral hold of her mortal mother’s spirit. Now Thalia had a kind of immortality too—through Cassia.

“How do you feel?” Komnena asked in her bespelling, soothing voice. “If tonight becomes too overwhelming, tell me.”

How like the mind healer to welcome Cassia into eternity with such a considerate question. “I will, but right now, I’m so happy to be with everyone.”

Cassia turned to Apollon, surprised how quietly his presence had been dwelling at the heart of this gathering. “Papa, are you…veiling yourself?”

A chuckle rumbled out of Apollon’s chest. “Yes. A room full of ancients can get a bit stuffy otherwise.”

A kind jest at his own expense. He had always been so patient with her, even when she had cast her fears of her human father on him.

“You are one of the least stuffy elders in all of Orthros,” Cassia protested. “Please don’t feel the need for veils.”

His dark blue eyes, so like Lio’s, crinkled at the corners with amusement, and then his presence dawned on the room. She would never again understand why humans worshiped the solar god Anthros when the Goddess of Night’s most ancient Hesperine was far more radiant.

Apollon’s power was in the bedrock beneath their feet, In Komnena, Lio, and Zoe’s heartbeats. In Cassia. His magic carried the current that flowed among their bloodline.

He searched her gaze, a silent question in his eyes. Could she accept this?

She couldn’t find the words to explain how he eclipsed what fatherhood had once meant to her. So she simply hugged him, as Zoe would. The smile she sensed in his aura seemed to warm every hall and chamber of the house he had built.

By the time Uncle Argyros and Aunt Lyta finished handing her back and forth to congratulate her and reassure themselves, her new senses were dazed with their might and their love. Bosko peppered her with questions about her Gifting, for which she had no suckling-appropriate answers, until Javed stuck Thenie in the boy’s arms and Kadi persuaded him to stand withthem outside the Ritual circle. It took Cassia several attempts to convince Knight to stay there with Kadi and Solia.

Lio offered Cassia his hand. “Ready?”

“Yes, she is.” Kassandra urged Cassia forward.

At this vote of confidence from Orthros’s oracle, Cassia shot her a grateful look. Meeting Kassandra’s gaze, Cassia bit back a gasp at the seer’s fathomless aura. She was past and present, pain and joy existing in the same body and the same moment. How hard it must be to be her.

But Kassandra smiled. “All is well with me on nights such as these.”

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