Page 7 of Blood Sanctuary, Part One

Perhaps he was just living up to his colleague Skleros’s accusations of being a spoiled aristocrat. Or perhaps Chrysanthos was living up to his reputation as a formidable Cordian courtier, and he had a more premeditated reason for providing Cassia with a beverage of his choosing. Cassia had no intention of drinking or eating anything he set before her.

She reached down and rubbed Knight’s ears. Her taster gazed up at her with begging eyes, but she would have to disappoint him. No tidbits from the table today. Knight was more than equal to mundane poisons, but what if a mage’s brew could overcome even a liegehound’s natural resistance to toxins?

“How generous you are, Honored Master,” Cassia said. “I feel it is a crime to refuse such a luxury as a wine ofyourchoice, for I am sure I have seldom tasted anything so fine. But I fear I am too recently recovered from a terrible bout of seasickness I suffered during the crossing.” She put a hand to her hollow belly. It was all the mage’s fault she had missed her breakfast and worse still, Lio’s.

Chrysanthos offered a slight bow from his seat. “Of course you must consider your health. Perhaps the stew the men have prepared from the dry provisions will be less challenging to your constitution.”

That stew contained the meat that had died in Tenebra at least a month ago and was probably poisonous on its own. “Thank you for your concern. However, I am committing myself to a fast tonight.”

“There is nothing better for your health,” said the Semna. “It will cleanse your body and clear your mind.”

“I must strive to be at my best,” Cassia enthused. “I feel called upon to eschew any worldly distraction from my cause. No one should feel obligated to join me in my commitment, of course.”

“I am inspired to follow your example, Your Ladyship.” Benedict gave his bowl to Perita. “What better way to prepare our spirits for the test of Orthros and to preserve our rations for those who are in greater need?”

Cassia smiled at everyone. “I hope all of you will enjoy the Honored Master’s generosity on our behalf.”

The scent of belladonna filled Cassia’s nose suddenly, and she stiffened in her chair. A muscular, black-robed arm entered her vision, and a black leather gauntlet scooped her wine goblet off the table.

Cassia looked up and met the poison-green gaze of Master Skleros. He smiled, which made the scars on his face look even more horrific. She could smell his leather breastplate and the emblem painted on it in blood. The Glyph of Hypnos, an eye closed forever. The Gift Collectors’ rendition always reminded Cassia of a bloodthirsty mouth. The Order of Hypnos’s bounty hunters took all too much pleasure in sending Hesperines to the god of death and dreams. No doubt Skleros would love to pack one of their mortal accomplices off to his god, too.

She reminded herself that the Hesperine healers had locked away his potions, except for a few harmless tonics, while the Stand had confiscated his blades. But Gift Collectors like him were deadly alchemists. Could he have concocted a poison from ingredients at hand?

Cassia’s Sanctuary ward could stop an Aithourian’s unveiling spell, but she didn’t know if it would halt poison in her veins. She didn’t want to put it to the test.

Skleros’s voice emerged, hoarse as if he had undergone torture the night long. “I won’t let it go to waste.”

Chrysanthos lifted his glass to Cassia, or perhaps to his partner in crime.

Skleros strode across the room, his leather armor creaking and his short mage robes swinging about his knees. Cassia’s anxious sweat gave way to a chill. The Gift Collector took a seat behind the Dexion, away from the table, as Hypnos always lurked behind his brother Anthros.

Leaning back in his chair, Skleros savored a sip of wine, then set the goblet on the floor between his heavy, spurred boots. From a pouch in his robes, he drew a wrapper leaf, which he packed with some manner of plant shavings and rolled into a smoke. He held the tip to the fire charm Chrysanthos had given him, a sunstone infused with the Dexion’s war magic.

Nothing happened. Skleros scowled and tapped his smoke against the sunstone. A tiny cinder flared to life there, only to wink out.

Eudias sank into his chair with a shudder. Even Tychon, Chrysanthos’s strapping apprentice, swayed in his seat. The Dexion set down his wine goblet.

“You could cut the Hesperine magic in this room with a knife,” Skleros snarled.

Suddenly Cassia noticed a shadow behind the Gift Collector. Strange. The spell light in the room was casting shadows the other way. The darkness that loomed over the necromancer was slender and broad-shouldered and as tall as a bloodborn Hesperine.

Cassia coughed into her hand to hide a smile and looked around. No one else seemed to notice. But each time she glanced at Skleros, then away, she glimpsed Lio standing cloaked in illusion behind the necromancer.

Skleros tried once more to light his smoke, which gave off a puff of herbal fog, then hissed out. The Gift Collector growled something in Divine. Whatever insult or obscenity he had uttered, Cassia caught sight of Lio’s fangs.

The necromancer put his fire charm away with an expression of disgust. “The blood magic in this place overpowers every other spell. I’d put a stop to that, if our hands weren’t tied by godsforsaken diplomacy.”

Chrysanthos took a swig of wine, his knuckles white around his goblet. Although Skleros had stored most of Chrysanthos’s magic in a human vessel back in Tenebra to help the Dexion hide his identity, it seemed Chrysanthos’s senses were not so dulled that he was immune to Lio’s tide of power.

The Dexion shifted in his seat, and the spurs on the boots Skleros had given him clinked. “The mage who made that fire charm for you owes you an apology.”

“I’ll extract the apology from a Hesperine,” the Gift Collector promised.

Lio crossed his arms, his blue eyes gleaming with the magic that had halted hundreds of heart hunters in their tracks.

Master Gorgos, who really was a Tenebran mage of Anthros from Solorum, fanned himself, his face ruddy. “Allow me to invoke Anthros’s protection upon us all.”

He commenced a lengthy prayer, then launched into cautionary teachings about resisting the temptations of wicked beauty. He put the fear into his audience with drama worthy of his master, the royal mage. His mentor had promised that the first from their temple to volunteer for the embassy would be appointed his future successor, pending the king’s approval, and Master Gorgos was the only one who had taken the bait. But Cassia could hear the man giving voice to his own fears with his words.

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