Page 179 of Blood Feast

Cassia blinked hard, as if she could clear that flash of light from her sight and her soul. On her hands and knees, she began to search the ground around her.

A few pebbles broke free and skittered down over her head.

She slowed down and searched more carefully, relying on all her Hesperine ability to move lightly through the space.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. She lifted her precious find with reverent hands.

She shook with the effort to hold in her angry sobs. She tried to brush the dirt off the thin golden braid she held. All that remained of the fallen Hesperine errant was his beloved’s hair.

THE LAW OF LOYALTY

Loss saturated Lio’s bloodand paralyzed his limbs. He stood there grasping his Grace braid, holding on to Cassia in their Union.

He looked around at the bodies of everyone Azad had tried to save.

He had to find survivors. Even one person who was still alive. Azad and Neana’s sacrifice could not be in vain.

Lio stumbled forward. More timbers crashed into embers around him. A murder of crows flapped overhead, cawing. In the hush between every sound, he heard the silence in the minds and bodies that surrounded him.

Until a vibration broke the quiet, the faintest touch on his hearing.

One heartbeat.

He held his breath, straining toward the sound. Slow and faint. But still beating.

He lifted off the ground again and levitated toward that hint of life. Even the air soughing against his ears made him curse.

“Lio!” Mak called. “You need to see this.”

Lio gritted his teeth. “I can’t. I think I hear a heartbeat.”

“They’re here,” Mak said.

Lio held on to that flicker of hope and stepped to his Trial brothers.

When he saw whom they’d found, his prayer of gratitude died on his lips and turned into a snarl of fury. There were five survivors, all wearing the flame-red robes of the Aithourian Circle.

Lio whipped Final Word into his hand before he realized their was no need. The mages were on their knees, bound to a ring of stakes. Mak and Lyros stood on opposite sides of them, maintaining a ward around the war mages.

Lio’s magic boiled. All the suffering that had bled into this ground gathered inside him. With a thought, he could flood the war mages’ minds with the pain they had caused. He could make these men live out the deaths of their victims until they wished they had never survived.

Are you all right?Cassia voice slipped into his heart. So close. Too close to all the ugly things there.

He veiled his thoughts.No. Are any of us?

No,she agreed.

Lio felt a hand on his shoulder, then. Mak’s voice pulled him back from the brink. “We need your opinion. We found them like this, as if someone staked them out to make an example of them. Their auras feel wrong. Can you tell if the Collector stole their magic?”

It took a moment for Mak’s words to reach Lio’s rational mind. “You think someone performed essential displacement on them?”

Mak nodded. “They remind us of Pakhne after Kallikrates displaced her healing magic.”

Lio took a step toward the nearest mage. The Aithourian whimpered. Tears streaked through the blood and ash on his contorted face. He lifted his haunted gaze to Lio in a wordless plea. The mortal’s aura was hollow.

“I think you’re right,” Lio said.

“Can you confirm it with your thelemancy?” Lyros asked.

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