Page 251 of Blood Feast

54

Nights After

WINTER SOLSTICE

THE MOST POWERFUL MAGE OF THIS EPOCH

He had never knownsuch silence. But she broke it, calling. Or was she a dream?

He drifted. She kept trying to show him the way back. At last, his mind followed her.

He opened his eyes, and they came gradually into focus. There were flowers everywhere. What were they called? He only knew they meant he was somewhere safe. The furred beast beside him meant protection, too.

Familiar faces surrounded him. Their auras inundated him, but he couldn’t put a name to the shades of power flowing across his senses.

They were everything to him. Where were their names?

He dug into the depths of his memory. Pain shocked through his throat, and his mind went numb.

She brought him back again. She stroked his face with a freckled hand. She was real. His other heart.

His life depended on her name. He dug deeper, gritting his teeth.

There was nothing but the pain.

He had once known words. He knew they should come easily to him. Why couldn’t he find them?

She flowed into his mind. The emptiness filled with her voice.Lio.

That was his name?

He groped desperately for her thoughts. Her lips parted, and she rested her forehead against his.

Words rushed into his mind. All his words were still inside her, safe, true. She had guarded them for him.

Cassia,he cried in relief.My Grace.

She heaved a sigh.You know me.

I always knew you. But I…Shame halted his confession.

No, Lio. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Someone did this terrible thing to you, and it isn’t your fault.

She had kept this memory for him too, protecting him from it. The Collector’s shrouded face, his clawed hand. The inevitable blade. Pain so unimaginable, no words for it had ever existed in his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut.I lost your name. Until you gave it back to me.

I will give everything back to you.

The words in her thoughts took shape in the air, and he relearned the sound of speech. “He knows me. He was so confused at first, but he’s speaking in our Grace Union now.”

Lio looked around him again, letting their names run through his mind. Mak and Lyros, his Trial brothers. The great, drooling lump on the bed was Dame, watching over Lio in his sleep as surely as he had done for her. Knight sat just as faithfully beside Cassia.

A strong hand squeezed his shoulder. “Son?”

There were many names for the blond lion sitting beside his bed, but the one he cherished most wasFather.

The Blood Errant were here. Nike stood sentinel by the window, and in another chair next to Lio’s bed sat Rudhira.

---