Page 247 of Blood Feast

Relief crossed Kalos’s face. “Hold on.”

He stepped away. Mak and Lyros waited with her through the longest minutes of her eternal life.

At last, royal Hesperine power rolled through Hagia Boreia, a cleansing storm. Despair lifted from the Blood Union, and Cassia couldn’t help but feel that deliverance was nigh.

The First Prince appeared before his mother Alea’s Sanctuary with Thorn on his back and a red healer’s satchel in hand. Cassia could read nothing on his pale, grim face, nor through his veil spells. But his magic wrapped around the Ritual circle and held all of them.

Before she could speak, Rudhira knelt beside Lio and tore open his satchel. “All of you are alive. Nothing else matters, do you understand me?”

She couldn’t afford to feel weak with relief yet, but she did. She nodded.

Rudhira pressed his fingers to Lio’s temples. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Mak and Lyros repeated what she had described to them, and she sent them her gratitude through their Union. She feared if she had to relive the duel again, she would lose what grasp on herself she had left.

She held onto Lio’s hand in both of hers. Blood soaked into Rudhira’s scarlet battle robe as he poured more theramancy into Lio’s mind. The prince’s magic washed over her Grace’s wounds and filled his diminished aura. But their Union remained silent.

“Can you heal him?” Cassia finally asked, although she feared the answer.

JUSTICE

Rudhira moved his handto Lio’s throat, and Cassia shuddered. The prince’s eyes slid shut, and his fangs lengthened.

His magic blasted out from the center of the rose, and the blood in the thorns and petals overflowed the Ritual circle to spread across the ground. The prince’s power rocked Hagia Boreia to its foundations, as cleansing as the enemy’s attacks had been destructive.

Lio jerked awake and rose up, his mouth open in a soundless scream. He reached toward his throat, but Rudhira caught his hand and held on tight. “I’ve got you. It’s over. Drink from your Grace.”

Lio’s lips moved. No words came. But he cried out for her in their Union, a wordless plea.

She wrapped him in her presence.You’re here with me. Everything will be all right now.

His arm closed around her. She pulled his face to her throat. When he sank his fangs in and swallowed hard, everyone around them let out the breaths they’d been holding.

Cassia stroked his hair as he pulled desperately on her vein. The sweet ache of his bite made her feel the truth.You’re back with me.

She looked at Rudhira over Lio’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

He touched her head, his eyes overbright. “I am so sorry I wasn’t here.”

“None of this is your fault,” Mak burst out.

Rudhira put an arm around him and Lyros, pulling them to him. “I never meant for you to fight our battles for us. Alone. Not in Nike’s forge and not in this war.”

“They were our battles,” said Lyros, “and we weren’t alone.”

Rudhira looked around them at the temple, then ran his hand through a cluster of Hespera’s Roses. “I can see that. You’ll have to forgive me if it takes me some time to accept it.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Cassia said.

Rudhira sat back and ran a hand down his face. “Kalos told you about Paradum.”

“Yes.” Mak hesitated. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing what you actually said.”

“I wasn’t searching for you,” Rudhira said. “I was hunting Miranda.”

“Yourself?” Lyros sounded as astonished as Cassia felt. “When there’s a war and the Charge needs you in command? You could have sent someone…”

“I do not send my dependents to correct royal errors. The first time Lio and Cassia captured Miranda at Paradum, she escaped on my watch. If I hadn’t allowed that to happen, the four of you wouldn’t have needed to go on this suicidal quest at all. I was trying to apprehend her so you could interrogate her somewhere safe. That was all I wanted. To keep you safe.”

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