Page 146 of Blood Feast

He nodded. “Where blood soaks the soil, so do emotions. The residual energy of so many lives ending can be overwhelming to our senses, even years after the fact.”

“I wasn’t prepared for that.” She took another deep breath. “I should have been.”

“You’ll get stronger,” Mak reassured her. “I won’t say it ever gets easier, but you develop the ability to cope with it.”

She shook her head. “What if we’d been ambushed while I was losing my grip?”

“We weren’t,” said Lio, “and I’m better able to shield you from remnants of the past than from your own living experiences in battle.”

“Thank you,” she told him.

Lyros’s aura hummed with tension that brought to mind his spear when he was just about to strike. “I’m not sure the ambush we expected is going to happen. We may be able to ambush her. Let’s stay veiled and search the ruins.”

They picked their way through the maze of rubble. There wasn’t a wall or roof still standing, but the way the chunks of the fortress had landed, they had created plenty of hiding places where Miranda might lurk. Watching every twitch of Knight’s tail for signs of danger, Cassia began to jump at shadows.

Piles of stone, shattered by the mages’ enchanted siege weapons, now formed cairns for those who had died trapped under them. From between two stones, a hollow-eyed skull met Cassia’s gaze, and she recoiled. Lio reached over to touch Freckles’ neck, guiding them away from the sight.

These soldiers had betrayed Solia, murdered the few men loyal to her, and mutilated Iris. In Cassia’s human life, she would have spat on that skull. She didn’t want to feel compassion now. But she did, and she clung to that feeling nonetheless. Her path to Hespera had begun in this place, and she had not turned from the Goddess yet.

The bones of dogs, horses, and page boys left icy tears on her cheeks. She pushed herself onward with Lio and their Trial brothers until they reached the center of the ruins, where the keep had stood.

Lucis had not left this grave to chance. The body he’d put on display here had long since wasted away, but the skeleton remained impaled on a banner pole. The wind tugged at the moldering flag bearing King Lucis’s emblem. The broken shield strapped to the dead man’s chest left no doubt as to who he had been. That black horn on a field of gold was the emblem of the former Free Lord Bellator.

Cassia sucked a breath into her lungs. “Perhaps I was wrong about salt and bones. There’s no sign of Miranda here. I’m sorry if I’ve brought us through this for nothing.”

“There’s one thing we haven’t checked for,” Lio said. “Do you feel able to search for Lustra portals?”

She nodded, rubbing her eyes. “Yes. We’ve made it this far.”

“Are you sure?” Mak asked.

“We can step away to the trees if you need a moment,” Lyros offered.

“No, I can cast,” Cassia said. “We should be certain we didn’t overlook anything. Then we can leave this place behind with no unanswered questions.”

Lio dismounted swiftly and helped her down from her horse. This time, she didn’t protest. All the death had left her weak in the knees. He turned them away from Bellator and kept a steadying arm around her as she raised her dagger to her hand.

Her blood slid along the blade. She let one drop stain the snow at their feet.

Her first warning was the sickening sound of bones shattering. Then Mak and Lyros’s shouts. She and Lio spun to face Bellator’s corpse.

It wasn’t there. The skeleton had exploded, leaving a fissure in the snow and the air, a maw opening in the world. Wind blew from inside it and tore at their clothes, bathing them in the scent of belladonna.

She had seen such a thing only once before: in Orthros, when the Collector and his Overseer had opened a displacement gate.

She had an instant for the moves to make sense in her mind. A spell hidden in the bones. A trap waiting to be awakened with the one thing Hesperines would surely shed—blood.

Then a figure stepped through the portal, his spurred boots clanking in the snow. A blond man, tall and muscular, without a scar on his handsome face. She had never seen him before. But there was something familiar about his cruel smile.

When he spoke, there was no mistaking his voice. He sounded like he had spent centuries breathing down magic until it left him raw.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you escape,” Skleros said.

THE BARGAIN

Lio had last seenthat smile on Skleros’s severed head. How had Kallikrates shoved the Gift Collector’s detached spirit into this new body?

“Were you expecting Miranda?” Skleros rasped. “She’s out of favor after her last failure. That little bitch should have known she’ll never take my place as the Master’s champion.”

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