Page 49 of Blood Sanctuary, Part Two

Never mind tradition and asking her at Grace Dance. She needed assurances now. Had he really failed to make his intentions clear? If his actions had not convinced her, it was high time he spoke. It would not take long to banish her tears.

From the other side of the glass, he Willed her curtain to open slowly, letting her see he waited for her. He held up the perfect white rosebud he had selected from the bushes in the courtyard. She met his gaze. Tears streaked her face.

He didn’t bother opening the door, only stepped to her side and knelt before her. He took her stricken face in his hand. “Cassia. Do not cry, my rose. All is well.”

“My betrothal to Flavian is final as of today.”

“His father’s bargain with the king is a puff of air. Flavian’s pretensions toward you have no validity here. Tenebran marriage vows, much less betrothal promises, don’t even carry legal weight in Orthros.”

“I hoped it would not matter.”

His Grace thought a handshake in Tenebra mattered between them! “Of course it doesn’t. Our Oath came first, and it shall outlast everything.”

“I—I can’t bear for this to change everything.”

“This night is no cause for weeping.” Lio pulled her to her feet. Kissing her tears, he summoned her cloak from nearby and bundled her up. “Come with me. Just the two of us. There’s something I’ve been waiting to show you.”

“Baat, Knight.”Bidding her hound to stay, she wrapped her arms around Lio.

He held her close, letting their feet leave the floor. With a thought, he opened the glass door ahead of them and levitated them out into the courtyard. He spun her around. They need not wait until the festival to dance. He swept them up toward the glass, where the sky seemed to surround them, and the ground was far below.

“Hold on tight,” he said.

He stepped them to their destination, setting them gently down on the observation deck. Cassia clung to him as if to steady herself, or perhaps only because of the cold.

She looked all around them at the expanse of white stone and the vast, dark reaches of the sky. “Where are we?”

“The top of Hypatia’s Observatory, the tallest structure in all of Orthros Boreou. You can see everything clearly from here.” He turned her toward the south. The city’s glow slept, and stars no one could see during moon hours gleamed at them, rising over the Umbral Mountains and a veil of aurorae. “On the eve of the Autumn Equinox, I stood here alone for hours, watching for the Summit Beacon. I feared I would never see you again. Now here you are in my arms, safe with me in Orthros. Look how far we’ve come.”

She was silent a moment, as if staring the mountains down.

“Now look at all that lies ahead.” He kept his arm around her and led her to the edge.

He heard her suck in a breath. Then she looked down.

She let out a soft exclamation, almost like when he loved her. He stood behind her and wrapped both his arms around her, holding the white rosebud close against them. Together they gazed down upon Selas and into the deep darkness of veil hours. Scattered secret lights shone at them like jewels from windows here and there. Snowy roofs and marble works of art gleamed white and red and black, reflecting or drinking the moons’ light.

Lio spoke to Cassia the way it pleased her in their private hours, touching her mind and deepening his words with magic. “Behold Orthros, my love. It is yours, and it always has been, and it always will be.”

The wind swept over them, and her scent, salty with tears, sweet with wonder, wrapped around him. She tightened her arms over his.

“No one can take Orthros from you, Cassia. Nothing in Tenebra has power over you anymore. Leave all of it on the other side of those mountains.”

She took a breath that was almost a sob. “I wish veil hours would never end.”

He kissed her neck. “Tell me you want the night to last forever, and I will make it so. I have that power.”

“I want you so much.”

“I will take you from your father’s house and give you House Komnena,” he promised. “I will not merely see to it you have enough to eat. I will give you a feast, night after night. Our happiness and love and passion will be so great that mere years will not be enough to hold it all. We will fill eternity with it…and with our family. We can have happy, safe, beloved children of your blood and mine. You will never grow old. Only more powerful, happier, and more loved.”

“I don’t want to go back,” she cried. “I want to stay in Orthros.”

He rested his cheek against hers. “Stay with me. Stayforme. Stay foryou.”

Her chest shook. “I can’t. No matter how much I want to. I cannot.”

“You can. You need no longer hold yourself to your promise to fight. That time is past. We fight together now.”

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