Page 213 of Blood Feast

With honesty and without judgment, she re-examined every moment of the battle in her mind. She turned her thoughts over and sifted through every emotion she had felt as she had reached for more and more power.

She hadn’t wanted Miranda to die, humiliated and afraid, at Skleros’s hand. She couldn’t let Kallikrates destroy one more woman who had been forged by fear and weakness and love.

All those years ago, when Miranda had cried out for help, only Kallikrates had answered. There had been no Hesperines to save her. Until now.

Cassia had broken the temple trying to protect the people she loved. And even the person she hated.

Cassia was Miranda’s Hesperine.

“Lio was right,” Cassia said to the moons. She pressed her dirty hand to her chest. “I do have a Hesperine heart.”

She faced the room where she had made her choice, first before the Collector and again before Hespera.

“I will never be like Kallikrates.” Her declaration filled the silence of Paradum. “I will never become a New Master in this game. Hespera, you already made me into the playing piece I will be through every round. A Hesperine errant.”

A Hesperine errant didn’t belong in a cell. She belonged in the field, fighting for lost causes until they weren’t lost anymore. That’s what the Black Roses did.

It might already be too late to stop Mak, but Cassia had to try.

Lio hovered over thecircle of mages. Prostrate at his feet, they begged for Mercy.

“Where was your Mercy for the families of Tenebra?” he demanded.

He poured another wave of the villagers’ suffering into their murderers. The Aithourians’ screams echoed through the ruins of the temple. Finally, there was no more silence in Lio’s head.

The two mages nearest him lifted their faces toward him.

Chrysanthos reached out a hand to Lio. “I don’t care what you do to me. Just send me home alive to my nephew.”

“Please,” Eudias begged. “I never chose this. They made me an Aithourian.”

Lio recoiled, but it was too late. Their hearts stopped beating, and the silence returned.

There was no soundin the circle but the distant crackle of the unnatural fires. No screams. No heartbeats except his own.

Lio fought his way out of Slumber, knowing, fearing what he would find. When he could finally move, he reached for Dame’s lifeless body.

His hand met grass. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t here at all.

Pulling himself out of their shelter, he looked around the circle and across the bizarre plain. He couldn’t see her anywhere. “Dame?Dockk!”

He kept calling her, but she didn’t reappear. Was she lost in this otherworld somewhere? Had she somehow slipped back into the natural world? Was she strong enough to find food? Would she get picked off by an enemy?

Slumping to the ground, he shoved his hands into his hair. He couldn’t even keep a dog safe.

He was alone in this place the Lustra had brought him. Except for Cassia’s worry, hovering at the edges of his awareness. He tightened his veils around his mind. His thoughts were not fit for her right now.

He shut his eyes. A mistake. He saw the victims at Castra Augusta again. Then the mages’ bodies in the temple.

Lio had tortured seven human beings.

Finally, the reality of what he had done sank in. He had desecrated the sanctity of their minds. He had made them suffer and taken satisfaction in it. He, a Hesperine, a diplomat, had violated everything he believed in.

And what had that accomplished? It hadn’t given their victims or him peace. It had only added more suffering to the world.

He would have killed the mages if his Grace hadn’t stopped him. Cassia, who thought she could not be trusted with power.

Lio looked down at his hands. He hadn’t even needed a weapon to break Hespera’s tenets. Just the mind magic inside him.

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