Page 21 of Blood Feast

“Diplomats can’t always avoid violence, especially when we’re trying to stop it.”

“I don’t disagree, for neither can healers.”

Quiet weeping drew them to the next lane. A girl of about fourteen struggled to help up an older woman who had fallen. The grandmother grimaced in pain, even as she fought to regain her footing. The lightest touch of Rudhira’s healing magic swept over the elder.

The girl’s breath came in shallow pants. Her panicked mind fought to focus on the woman in her care. Lio shot Rudhira a beseeching glance, and his Ritual father gave a slight nod.

Lio infused his voice with thelemancy. “Everything will be all right.”

As his subtle spell dampened her mind’s fear response, her pulse calmed, and she regained her breath.

Rudhira eased the grandmother to her feet with strength and levitation. “Nothing is broken.”

She didn’t even limp as the girl led her onward toward the village square. The younger woman gave them a hesitant, but grateful smile over her shoulder.

Lio hurried onward after Rudhira to clear the next row of cottages. “I am the last to judge you if you destroyed every Gift Collector at Paradum that night. But I do need to know what befell the one we left for you. She was bound to a wall by Cassia’s vines in one of the inner rooms of the castle.”

“She?” Rudhira repeated. “You encountered a Gift Collector who’s a woman?”

At his consternation, Lio’s hopes sank. “Then you didn’t find her.”

“We searched every nook and cranny of the place and saw no sign of a woman necromancer. Who is she?”

“Miranda,” Lio said. “The Collector’s favorite. Paradum was her keep.”

Rudhira shook his head. “Forgive me, Lio. It appears one Gift Collector escaped on my watch.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lio’s mind reeled. Hespera’s Mercy, he had been such a fool not to tell Rudhira more that night.

Their most personal enemy was in the wind.

“How could she have escaped? I…I broke her mind,” Lio confessed.

Rudhira looked at him sharply. “You destroyed a Gift Collector’s dream wards?”

“I witnessed the Collector’s plan in her thoughts. His endgame.”

Rudhira hastened another group of villagers past, but his gaze searched Lio’s. “What did you see?”

“He has been twisting minds, warping lives, setting off conflicts—all of this, for one reason. A sealed door beneath Solorum Palace. It’s hidden deep within the Changing Queen’s secret passageways.”

“What’s behind it?” Rudhira asked.

“We don’t know. But whatever it is, he needs two things to gain access. One is a Silvicultrix of the royal line.”

“Cassia,” Rudhira said in realization. “That’s why he targeted her.”

The fury Lio still harbored made his magic rise, and he contained it with an effort. “Lucis used Thalia like an animal andbredCassia so she would have his royal blood and her mother’s magic. All so the Collector could steal Cassia’s power.”

“What does Lucis have to gain by aiding the Collector in his conspiracy?”

“I don’t know. But he will regret it now that Cassia has taken control of her own destiny.”

Rudhira gripped Lio’s shoulders. “As a Hesperine, immune to displacement, she’s of no further use to them. They will not want to take her alive. And they will not forgive you for freeing her from them. The Collector will be out for your blood.”

Fear was Cassia’s oldestenemy. She had battled it her entire mortal existence, each time she had faced Lucis. She’d thought she knew all its tactics and its every guise.

Until now, the first time in her Hesperine life when she must be apart from her Grace.

---