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“Fine,” Lio answered.
He did not admit it was he who had underestimated the effect of the poison. The lethargy dragging down his limbs reminded him all too much of the Craving.
In his half year apart from Cassia, agony had been his perverse comfort. Pain meant he was still alive. He had constantly dreaded that moment when listlessness and apathy would arrive and with them, the dreadful certainty that it was too late for him.
“Did you give Lio the same dose?” Mak asked Javed.
“Every dose is tailored to the individual’s affinity, age, fitness, and state of health,” Javed answered. “Despite the magnitude of Lio’s magic, I had to take into consideration his youth, his status as a trainee, and the fact that he is still in recovery from half a year of illness.”
“I am quite recovered, I assure you,” Lio insisted. The wait from breakfast to veil hours was much easier than before. As long as he didn’t skip breakfast.
“Lio required the mildest dose,” Javed concluded.
“See there?” Lio waved a hand. “I’ll be fine, except for the blow to my pride.”
How could those months without Cassia still affect him now?
Meaning, not just tactics.Lyros’s words struck Lio anew.
Perhaps the pall creeping over Lio had nothing to do with the physical. Sunfire was just a potion. It would wear off within hours. But it showed him what it felt like to be mortal. What it felt like to face mortality.
Lio had experienced the very real threat of mortality far too recently.
He folded his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking. He could not let every little thing remind him of his close call and bring his fears back to life.
Fear was just as dangerous in the ring as anger, and one fed the other. He must, above all, keep a cool head when he faced Chrysanthos.
No monster-slaying necessary. Cassia trusted him.
“I am ready,” said Lio.
“Very well.” For the first time, Javed sounded reluctant. “Be careful, everyone.”
When they exited the headquarters, Lio thought they had taken some of the wards with them, the crowd sounded so quiet. The step up onto the dais felt like a mountain. He lined up with Kadi, Mak, and Lyros on one side of Aunt Lyta, facing the mortal opponents who waited opposite, but Lio could not properly smell the humans to assess their state of anxiety. He tested the currents of the Blood Union.
He felt he put a goblet to his lips and swallowed, only to find the cup dry. His senses filled with nothing but his own alarm. Disoriented, he looked around him at the people whose auras he could not feel.
On instinct, he reached for Cassia in the Blood Union. Her presence filled him up and overflowed. He tasted her fear, her determination, and her confidence in him.
The vice around Lio’s heart eased, and a familiar strength suffused him from within. Nothing could sever Grace Union.
He managed, barely, to resist the urge to look at Cassia. Instead, he kept his attention on the mortal challengers. Lord Severin and Benedict had unburdened themselves of their chain mail and other heavy gear and now stood ready to fight in only tunics and braccae. The mages had tucked their robes into belts.
Well, well. Chrysanthos was willing to take off his velvet shoes now and then. He was sun bronzed and muscular down to his toes. Lio had to admit the mage must have had some real training to achieve a physique like that. The man also probably sunbathed nude on the rooftops of Corona with willing maidens to mop his brow and feed him grapes.
I am expected to be a maiden, and willing.
Lio heard Cassia’s war cries in his memories.
My father’s god has no use for a whore’s daughter.
How many concubines and their daughters had a man of the Dexion’s privilege used?
You have not felt the weight of the gods,the mage had threatened.
The mage had threatened Cassia.
I would not step outside the veil over the Font.
