Page 94 of Blood Feast

He sighed. “I will not let my protectiveness interfere with your honor.”

She made it to her feet, but she couldn’t help leaning on Lio and Knight until her dizziness faded. They joined Mak and Lyros by the nearest Gift Collector’s body. The roses had disappeared, leaving behind black petals scattered across the corpse. The stone dagger lay in fragments at his side. Had his death shattered it?

Cassia looked away from the thorn punctures on the Gift Collector’s face. Her gaze fell on a barrel of unlit torches beside the brazier.

From her ancestors’ fire, she lit four brands and placed them in Hesperine hands.

The magefire atop thelighthouse now burned Hadrian blue. In the shadows cast by the enchanted signal fire, it was easy for Lio to make four Hesperines and a hound disappear into the shadows. But not completely. Their plan to draw the threat away from mortal bystanders would only work if the enemy could detect them.

Their Warmbloods carried them fast and far away from the sea, out onto the moors. Knight wove among them, on guard. Lio prayed any Gift Collectors lingering in the area would follow, as much as he dreaded another confrontation.

Even the Warmbloods’ smooth gait prodded the dull ache in his side. With every mile, pain shot deeper into his shoulder. Then his chest. Flashes of the battle kept playing on his mind, amplified by Cassia’s response to the conflict.

Eventually Cassia pulled close alongside him on Freckles, reaching out to take hold of Moonflower’s mane and slow Lio down. They all drew to a halt around her. Suddenly still, he realized how much effort it was taking to stay in the saddle.

“We’re stopping here,” Cassia announced. “Your wounds need tending.”

“I agree,” Mak said. “The weapons must have been poisoned. If we leave our wounds too long, they’ll fester.”

“This isn’t a defensible location,” Lyros protested.

Lio scanned the lonely landscape. There was no shelter, only a field of grass and thistle broken by jagged boulders and cleaved by a narrow stream. Knight sniffed the wind, his body tense and ears perked.

“If Gift Collectors were following us, they would have attacked by now,” Cassia reasoned.

Lyros’s tan complexion looked sallow in the moonlight. “They might be waiting for our condition to worsen so they can take us by surprise closer to dawn.”

“That’s why we need to treat your wounds,” said Cassia. “We’ll find somewhere safer before daybreak.”

“But if they ambush us here—” Lyros began.

Mak dismounted and reached up to his Grace. “You’re overthinking everything because you’re in pain. Stop being General Lysandros for a minute and let me take care of you.”

Lyros pressed his lips together, but let Mak half-lift, half-levitate him out of the saddle. Mak eased him down onto the grass against one of the boulders and untied Lyros’s bloodstained sash. Lyros let his forehead fall to rest on Mak’s shoulder.

“I wish I could levitate you,” Cassia said to Lio, along with a few of the Ashes’ favorite Imperial curses.

He suppressed a laugh, knowing it would hurt. “Levitation isn’t the sort of help I’d most enjoy from you at the moment.”

She shook her head at him. “How are you the only person who becomes sweeter and more flirtatious when you’re in terrible pain?”

“I drink the sweetest blood every night.”

“You’re incorrigible, Glasstongue.”

She guided him to sit near the stream and set out some of Tuura’s supplies from their pack. While the horses took a drink, Knight patrolled around their party incessantly. His hackles were up. With an effort, Lio focused on strengthening their veil spells.

“Stop that,” Cassia scolded. “Your wound bleeds more every time you use blood magic.”

“Oh.” He looked down at her short, freckled fingers peeling the soaked fabric away from his shoulder. “So it does. This mess is resisting my cleaning spells, too.”

She swore again. He could feel her mustering all her anger as a defense against her fear for him.

“I’m all right,” he said.

“You’re not all right. Lyros isn’t this ill. That relic dagger must have put some kind of malign enchantment into your bloodstream, and this wound is too close to your heart. I need to cleanse it before I give you blood to speed your healing.”

She tore what was left of his robe, the new strength in her hands quickly opening a gap between his shoulder and abdomen. She eased his sleeves down his arms, fast and careful. Her Hesperine hands were so agile, he barely felt the movement. She made a quick examination of the shallow cut on his side before focusing on his shoulder.

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