Page 182 of Blood Feast

Thorns. He could stand to lose an appendage if she got rough with him, but he couldn’t afford for her to rip out his throat. Clearly her wounds were the only reason she hadn’t tried. It would take more than a calm voice and liegehound commands to prove to her he wasn’t the enemy.

All her breeding and training hinged on magic, didn’t it? The arts of hedge warlocks, the crueler descendants of Lustra mages.

Lio braced himself and opened his arcane senses to the hound. The battlefield’s tragic emotions shuddered through him. He pushed through them to focus on the grieving creature in front of him.

She was opaque to him, as he had expected. Liegehounds had as much resistance to mind magic as they did to poisons and frost. But had one of the three most powerful mind mages in Hesperine history ever tested their full power against that of the ancient liegehound breeders?

Lio’s stomach turned at the prospect of what he was about to do. It went against everything in him to subject the innocent animal to any more fear and suffering.

But the alternative was to leave her here to die in pain. It was clear to him which was the cruel choice and which the kindness.

“You will be all right,” he promised her. As gently as he could, he let his full power wash over her mind.

He was prepared for her to snap at his neck or torture him with yelps of pain. But all he heard was her sigh. As her exhausted mind opened to him, he felt an answering sigh from deep in the ground. Was the Lustra helping him?

The hound eased to sleep under his spell. Lio, too, let out a breath of relief, knowing he had given her an escape from her pain.

He knelt beside her and carefully examined her wounds. Curse the mortals who had brought her into this fight to get battered by blades.

Working as quickly as he could, he scavenged among the bodies to make bandages. Once he had bound the dog’s bleeding back, he kept applying pressure to her wound while he studied the magic inside her. There was a distinct cord twining from within her chest toward her master. It reminded Lio of the patterns of Lustra magic he and Cassia had encountered on their quest.

The end of the spell-cord was frayed, broken. And yet it still bound the dog to the dead man. What an injustice that her life was fated to end with his. As long as she was tied like this, there was no hope for her.

Lio took hold of the magical bond with all his Will.Goddess, please, let this free her and not doom her to die even faster.

With the gentlest thelemancy, he unraveled the cord bit by bit. Fast asleep, she knew no discomfort while he worked. But with each filament of the bond that he snapped, a lifetime of pain wore at Lio.

He bore it. Welcomed it.Goddess, let me take someone’s pain tonight.

He unwove every harsh word and brutal training exercise that had defined the dog’s existence. As her cage of discipline crumbled, the fog over her mind began to clear. He caught sensory impressions, familiar and foreign. Warm fire. Satisfying bone. Open grass, running, joy.

He stroked her head as he worked. Her ears were so soft. “You’ll be all right,” he said again, praying it was the truth.

At last the bond that had defined her life and death frayed to nothing under his power. She drew a deep breath in her sleep.

“I think it worked,” he said to her.

But her blood had already soaked the bandage and pooled between his fingers. Goddess, if only they had a healer with them. After giving her hope to outlive her master, he couldn’t let her die of her wounds.

In that moment, he came to a decision. He would fight for her life with everything he could offer her.

He ran his hand along her cheek. “I don’t know if this will help you, but it’s our only chance. And if it does work…I promise being bound to me will be a much kinder fate.”

Lio bit his hand and lowered it to her muzzle. He opened her dangerous jaws and pressed his bleeding cut to her tongue. With his thelemancy, he touched the part of her mind that controlled her swallow reflex.

The Lustra had helped him into her mind, and he had given her the healing power of Hespera in his blood. Now all he could do was wait.

He didn’t move until he realized the blood under his hand was drying. Her wound had stopped bleeding.

He sat there and listened to his familiar’s heart beat stronger.

Cassia tucked Azad’s Gracebraid close to her heart. She wondered where Neana was and shuddered. If she survived, she had no future now, only the Craving that would slowly end her life.

It wasn’t right. Azad had died here in this dirty hole without his Grace at his side. The knights hadn’t even fought with him as he had tried to save Castra Augusta.

None of this made sense. What had Azad been doing in here while the slaughter went on outside? Why had he made his last stand alone?

Cassia could think of only one explanation. While the knights had tried to hold off the attackers, Azad must have been protecting someone inside the keep.

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