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Eudias cleared his throat. Then he stood up straight once more. “I can no longer in good conscience support the intentions of my circle. I pray you will not take me for a traitor to my masters, but a devoted servant of my god.” He paused to take a breath. His throat worked as he swallowed. “As Honored Master Dalos’s apprentice, then as the Aithourian Circle’s only emissary at Solorum, and finally while serving under Dexion Chrysanthos, I have heard with my own ears how the highest officials within the Order of Anthros conspire with your king. This treachery is driven by the Synthikos of the Aithourian Circle, but with the full knowledge and support of the Akron. Master Dalos was sent to Tenebra not to protect you from the Hesperine embassy, but to assassinate you along with them. He fully intended to catch the entire Council of Free Lords in his fire spell.”
Gasps and outcries went up throughout the room.
“You see?” Benedict challenged the lords. “Everything Her Ladyship has told you is true. Eudias has verified Callen’s story.”
Lord Severin shook his head. “I can scarcely believe it. The king is forsworn.”
“Thank you, Eudias,” said Cassia.
He looked at her, his eyes wide. “You knew, Basilis?”
She nodded, gesturing to Callen. “When my bodyguard was falsely imprisoned, he saw and heard everything Dalos did in the king’s dungeon. Dalos did not hide his true purposes, for he believed Callen to be dying.”
Callen gave Eudias a nod that bespoke respect. “I thank you for standing witness with me.”
Eudias hung his head. “I knew before Dalos unleashed his spell, and yet I said nothing. If he had succeeded, all of you… I…I can only pray what I have said tonight will make me worthy of your forgiveness.”
“You have risked your life to tell us the truth,” Cassia replied. “For that, you have my admiration.”
Eudias met her gaze. “Thank you.”
“Dalos did not succeed,” Benedict reminded them all. His gaze rested on Lio, Mak, and Lyros.
“Of course not,” Mak replied. “The Guardian of Orthros fought Aithouros himself.”
“It was my privilege to stand against Dalos at her side,” Lio said. “Thankfully, given our long experience dealing with war mages, we were well prepared for the assault and ready to counter his spell when he unleashed it.”
Suddenly Eudias was no longer the subject of the shocked discussion around the table, and Lio heard his and the embassy’s names on all the lips in the room.
“You stayed,” Perita declared. “To protectus.If you’d wanted to protect yourselves, well, you would have just left us, now, wouldn’t you?”
“Aye,” said Callen, “we owe the Hesperines our thanks for protecting us from our own king.”
BEARERS OF TRUTH
Lord Gaius called forsilence, and the noise died down a measure. “It is a great deal to ask that we believe such a thing of our king.”
Cassia searched his gaze. Did any of Lord Hadrian’s close comrades know the whole truth? “It would be easy for you to believe it of the king if you had been at your lord’s side at the Siege of Sovereigns. Lord Hadrian was there. He can speak to what the king is capable of. So can I. I know better than anyone.”
Questions about the siege joined the volley the lords hurled by turns at Cassia’s and Lio’s sides of the table. Lio’s presence reached easily across that insignificant divide, filling the room with his light and shadow so that Cassia felt surrounded not by opposition, but her dearest ally. How right that he should get to be here with her, as he had been the first night she had found words to describe what had happened the night she had lost her sister.
Benedict stood close to her and spoke low. “Are you sure you wish to do this?”
“Yes. The time has finally come.”
“Then know that I stand beside you and bear the truth with you.”
“Thank you, Ben.”
A chill went down Cassia’s spine, even as she felt a great weight trembling upon her chest, ready to lift. She had waited so long. She had never imagined speaking these words publicly.
Cassia looked to the Semna. “Will our Mother of the Harvest hear my vow?”
The mage replied with the ritual words. “Kyria listens. Do not injure your mother’s ears with lies. Speak only truth before your goddess.”
“With Kyria as my witness, I shall speak only truth,” Cassia promised.
She looked from one person to the next, willing them to see the truth in her eyes. The pain. The horror. “It is so wrong, I could not invent such a tale.”
