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In that instant, the years of strain came to a head. The dam broke. The words rushed out of her.
“My father murdered my sister.”
A fatal hush fell over the room.
Cassia slammed her hand onto the table. “He didn’t meet her captors’ ransom demands. Without even a moment’s hesitation, he refused their terms. They told him he sentenced his own heir to death. And do you know what he said?”
They waited, watching her. Solia’s people, strong and weak, honorable and selfish. Each one listened.
“He said he would get him another.” Cassia didn’t weep. The truth made her strong, and she kept speaking. “As if there could ever be another Solia. This was how he threw away our princess, who can never be replaced.”
Lord Gaius was the first to break the silence. “I do not doubt your words. One of my sons died at Castra Roborra in the name of avenging our princess. But I have never understood why the king wasted his best men, reducing them to bodies to be thrown against the walls of that fortress.”
“I am so sorry for your loss,” Cassia answered. “The king sent those men, your son among them, to their graves in order to bury the truth.”
For an instant, the old warrior’s face showed all his wounds. Then his armor was in place again. “I have always wondered if there was more to the grief my lord harbored since that night.”
“He carries the truth in silence, for he knows he must, for the good of us all. But that time is over. The truth must free all good men from their service to the tyrant king.”
“We’re to take your word for this?” Master Gorgos demanded. “Women can’t even testify in court.”
The Semna struck the floor with her walking stick. “Every mortal can swear oaths before the gods. That predates the king’s magistrates.”
“I can tell you where to find all the proof you need,” said Cassia. “When you return to Tenebra, all you need do is open her crypt. You will find it empty, for my father did not even bother to recover her body.”
Lord Gaius’s face paled.
Cassia nodded. “There is one more truth your son took to his grave. Like him, I listened to the catapults that fired the bodies of my sister, her servants, and her guards over the walls of Castra Roborra. As they lay without dignity on the field below, Lord Hadrian’s men begged the king to let them retrieve her and those who had served her faithfully. Again, he refused.”
Lord Severin signed a glyph of Hypnos. “That is ungodly.”
Eudias stared at her with a startled gaze. “Basilis, I’m so sorry.”
“Kyria have mercy,” said the Semna. “Shame upon any man for denying the godly a mage of Hypnos’s prayers.”
“Only one deity did not forget her,” said Cassia. “One goddess’s servants gave her the honor Anthros’s champion denied her.”
“Who?” Lord Gaius asked.
“What mages were there who defied the king?” Lord Severin wanted to know.
Now at last Cassia could fully honor the one who lay in agony in the healers’ hall, the one who languished in the Order’s custody, the one whose likeness stood guard at Victory Point while she and her comrades faced defeat at the war mages’ hands. Now at last Cassia could tell other Tenebrans the truth that had changed her life. Would that moment mean anything to them? Would it prove to them the true nature of Hesperines, as it had to her?
Cassia looked at Lio, who held her with his magic, Lyros, from whose gaze she drew strength, and finally Nike’s brother. Mak gave a nod.
“You have but to look around you,” she said, “and you will see them. You have come to know them these many nights that we have dwelt in their goddess’s temple. The Hesperines gave Solia her sacred rites. Hespera escorted our princess to Anthros’s Hall.”
“Impossible!” Master Gorgos pointed a finger at the three Hesperines. “Lies. Poison they have dripped in your ear. They have taken advantage of your grief and told you this tale to seduce you into their treaties.”
“No one told me, for I was there. I went to find my sister’s body when no one else would. I, a defenseless girl of seven, frightened, grief-stricken. I would have died, if the Hesperines had not saved me from the archers on the walls of the fortress. They asked my permission to give Solia her rites. Then they took me back to my father.”
“No Hesperines would ever do such a thing!” Master Gorgos protested. “Surrender a child?”
Cassia looked at him calmly. “On the evidence of my own experience, I was forced to conclude Hesperines errant do indeed adhere to the Oath. When I explained I was not an orphan, they returned me to camp. And here I am.”
Cassia could scarcely believe it. She had just laid all her dearest secrets on the table.
All except one. Cassia parceled out secrets as necessary, and no one yet needed to know she had been spying on the king or by what means. Was that why she was not ready to reveal the dagger up her sleeve? Or was it because she couldn’t quite make herself believe she didn’t need it anymore?
