Page 110 of Blood Feast

“Your magic answered to your protective instincts again.”

“I can’t let my instincts take control of me in every battle. It worked in our favor—this time. What about the next time my magic betrays us?”

Their own people had betrayed her, and now she felt like her power was a traitor, too. Goddess help him, this anger in him was enough to fill centuries.

She turned her face away. “It’s not fair of you to debate this with me right now. Dawn is so near, I can hardly put two words together.”

Lio wanted to break something. But he couldn’t break down the wall she had built inside her. He would have to coax her to let it down for him.

“No more negotiations tonight,” he agreed.

She was a knot of tension against him until she slipped into the Dawn Slumber in his arms.

WINTER SOLSTICE

SALT AND BONES

Cassia began her firstWinter Solstice as a Hesperine by saddling her warhorse. She should have been home, celebrating Lio’s Gift Night and going to House Annassa for Ritual with the Queens. She had only herself to blame for the Black Roses being on the run in wartorn Tenebra instead.

She and Mak rode out of the circle to meet Lio and Lyros where they waited. She couldn’t bring herself to wish her Grace a happy Gift Night when there was nothing happy about it, and all thanks to her magic.

Lio sat astride Moonflower in his midnight-blue battle robe and Imperial trousers, his hair windblown. He looked unfairly handsome and infuriatingly unrepentant about having his way the night before. But she was more grateful than she would ever admit for that drink from him. She didn’t know how she would have made it through the day otherwise. The circle’s magic had plagued her Slumber with dreams of dragging Lio into the ring of stones for a more intimate sort of ride.

The smile he gave her suggested that if she never confessed any of this in a hundred years, he still knew.

Mak cleared his throat. “So, where’s our next stop? Anyone know what Miranda could have meant by ‘salt and bones?’”

“I might,” Cassia said. She’d had a lonely time in the tent to mull it over. “I think I know where to find Miranda and probably another Lustra portal. There is a forsaken place where the fields are sown with salt and the bones of the defeated were left where they fell.”

Lio’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“Traitors’ Grave,” she told them. “That’s what they call it sometimes. The site where Castra Roborra once stood.”

She hadn’t wanted to discuss her theory last night with Ben nearby. His father had died there. Bellator’s remains still lay among the rubble with those of the other lords who had kidnapped Solia and revolted against Lucis.

“Thorns,” Mak said, “I wouldn’t have expected that. But it makes a twisted kind of sense.”

Cassia nodded. “Given Miranda’s personal vendetta against me, she might be drawn to such an important place from my past. She knows it’s where Hesperines saved my life—the reason I refused to join her in service to Kallikrates.”

“She’s devious,” Lyros said. “That would make a good hiding place for any renegade. I doubt anyone goes there, not after the king leveled it and left it as a warning to would-be rebels.”

“It’s still under royal control, though, isn’t it?” Lio asked.

Cassia nodded. “All of Roborra, Lord Bellator’s domain, reverted to the crown upon his defeat. We’ll need to watch out for royal forces and Gift Collectors.”

“So we might be stepping into another battle,” Lio said.

“I hope to avoid that. Lyros, let me check something on the map.”

He handed it to her. “Is there somewhere you’ve been in that region that would be a safer arrival point?”

She ran her finger along the eastern edge of the kingdom, where the settled areas gave way to the wilds of the eastern Tenebrae. “Stepping blindly to Castra Roborra and possibly into Miranda’s traps would be the most dangerous thing we could do, yes?”

“Like Paradum all over again, I fear,” Lio said.

She tapped a point northeast of Castra Roborra. “The lesser evil would be to step to a small keep guarded by a few of Lucis’s soldiers.”

Mak nodded. “Good idea. Only thick mortal heads to knock together.”

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