Page 111 of Blood Feast

“How many soldiers?” Lyros asked. “Are they likely to have mages with them?”

Cassia considered this. “It’s a remote fort for guarding against wild animals and brigands coming out of the east. It was one of Lucis’s favorite places to stash me when he wanted me out of the way. I doubt he’ll bother with it at a time like this. He may even have recalled the garrison to the warfront.”

Lio drew Moonflower closer, looking at the map. “Stepping there could give us a real advantage.”

“Yes, the Lustra will be stronger in the eastern wilds, won’t it?” she speculated. “We’ll have a higher chance of finding a Lustra portal there.”

“Only one way to find out.” Lio held out his hand to her.

He could step her without touching her. But she gave into his game, letting them both have this excuse to touch each other. She allowed herself the brush of his palm against hers, the grip of his fingers.

“Focus on another memory for me,” he invited.

Cassia reached into her mind for a clear image of their destination. Her memories from before her Gifting were amorphous things, she’d found. Some were crystal clear treasures she had brought with her into eternity. Others were phantom pains, left behind on the other side of a veil of stars.

This one felt distant, but she dug deep and brought the bare tower to her mind’s eye. The emptiness. The feeling of being forgotten on the edge of the world. Lio’s magic pulled at her, and they stepped into her past.

Lio didn’t let goof Cassia’s hand, even after they arrived outside the keep. Snow topped the walls, bright in the moons’ light. The four of them held their horses back in the darkness under the dense trees that surrounded the outpost.

Do you sense anything?Lio asked her.

I’m not sure yet.

Of course she was unsure. She wasn’t even stretching her senses, he could tell. He tried to keep his frustration in check.

“A dozen auras,” Mak commented. “No mages.”

“Can you sense any hidden minds?” Lyros asked Lio.

He kept his veils about them and let his thelemancy slip uninvited through the gates. The fort consisted of a small bailey and keep built around a derelict tower that appeared much older. The twelve mortal minds in the garrison were preoccupied with their dice game and how long it had been since they’d touched any women. At his glimpses of their fantasies, Lio hoped they got frostbite on the relevant appendages.

His lip curled. “No one but Tenebran boors who deserve to be banished out here for the winter. These soldiers won’t pose much of a threat. They don’t even have liegehounds.”

They all paused. Mak was the first to ask, “Is anyone else having a moral dilemma?”

“Yes.” Lio hesitated. But someone had to say it. “It would be very easy for us to make sure these soldiers never fight against Solia’s forces.”

Mak’s breath clouded in the cold. “If we leave them be, who’s to say they won’t drive a sword through one of our friends?”

The snow crunched softly as Freckles pawed the ground. Cassia stroked her neck. “What if they don’t want to serve Lucis? What if they come from a village that welcomed Hesperines and killing them will only hurt people who were kind to us?”

“Spoken like a true Hesperine,” Lio said.

Her aura softened a little at those words.

“Twelve mortal warriors are no match for us,” Lyros said. “There’s little risk in confronting them and giving them the opportunity to choose their side.”

Mak cocked his head. “Is it really a choice, when confronted by fanged heretics likely to make them piss themselves in terror?”

Cassia smiled, her fangs pale in the darkness. “I have no objection to encouraging them to make only good choices.”

“They need some encouragement in that area,” Lio said darkly. “I’d like to scrub out their brains. But I’ll settle for humbling them.”

Leaving the horses in the woods, they stepped through the closed gate of the fort and trod lightly across the bailey under veils. Entering the garrison, they found the men gathered around a trestle table. A roaring fire drove back the winter cold and cast their unshaven faces in brash light. The place stank of stale beer and staler sweat.

Lio, Cassia, and their Trial brothers fanned out to surround the mortals, careful to keep their distance from the fire pit. Knight stalked at Cassia’s side.

One soldier rolled a high score to the guffaws and curses of his comrades. Lio bared his fangs and dropped his veils in unison with Mak and Lyros. The men’s outbursts turned to shouts of terror.

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