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The Collector stood watching, a hand on his chin. “I wonder how Callen will enjoy the inquisitors’ prison after he assassinates a high-ranking member of the Aithourian Circle? I don’t think you can afford the Dexion’s life price, Cassia.”
No time to try reaching Callen through the Collector’s control. Her ward was her only hope. Cassia held out her hands, digging the glyph shard into her palm harder. The light in her veins spread to her elbows.
Callen raised his scythe over Chrysanthos.
Cassia felt for the ward with that strange new sense she had never believed she had. The dome around them all brightened, blocking the necromancers from view. No use.
Callen brought the scythe down.
“What a shame,” the Collector said. “There’s the hostages’ death sentence.”
Cassia focused all her Will on that blade, on the trusted arm that held it, on what the mage in the chair represented. Light flashed on steel. The front of the Dexion’s robes parted, sliced in two. Cassia’s blood dripped onto the floor as Chrysanthos’s colored Callen’s blade.
Light flashed over the Dexion’s heart and bloomed on the air. Too late. Her ward threw Callen back, and his scythe fell to the ground and slid out of his reach. Chrysanthos slumped in his seat, covered in his own blood.
“No, no, no!” Cassia raced to the mage’s side.
She half-caught him as he slid from his chair. She did her best to lay his heavy, muscular body gently on the floor. The blood was everywhere. Would he live?
She pressed her hands to the open wound, gathering his robes to staunch the bleeding. “Don’t you dare die! Not until the hostages are safe!”
He did not even flinch, and he uttered not a single sound of pain.
Cassia leaned her weight on her arms. “Dexion Chrysanthos! Listen to me! Don’t give in!”
He lay limply, staring at her with blank eyes. The gaze of the Collector, or of death? Was there a difference?
A Sanctuary ward could stop spells and magic. Could it stop bleeding?
She focused her Will again, this time upon the mess that covered the mage’s chest. Light glimmered over his blood. The blood disappeared into the light, and there was only the glow of Sanctuary magic upon his wound. Cassia heaved a sigh and dared lift her hands. No blood rushed out.
She felt of the mage’s body, trying to assess the damage. “Do you hear me, Florian? There’s a little boy who can’t lose his uncle. There’s a grieving mother who needs your next letter.”
His eyes unglazed and focused on her. He started, then let out a cry of pain.
Carefully, she held him down. “Easy. I don’t know how bad the wound is. The ward will stop the bleeding, but I’m not a healer.”
He lifted his head, his gaze roaming over her, then over himself. He matched one of his hands to her bloody hand print over his heart. “It’s you. You—at the shrine. You all along. Helping the treaty, the Hesperines.”
“Yes. I am a traitor and a heretic, and I’ll risk my life for everything Hespera stands for. Are you going to lie there and think about burning me at the stake, or are you going to give all your strength to staying alive for your nephew and his mother?”
“You only want the hostages.”
The chairs scraped over the floor. Footsteps sounded. The hairs on Cassia’s arms stood on end.
“I want everyone to be treated with dignity. I want children to be safe. I want peace. Keep your eyes open till this is over, and you might learn what heresy really means.”
She jumped to her feet and turned around. Every member of the embassy stood glaring at one another.
Benedict reached for Lord Gaius’s collar, while Lord Gaius raised his fist. Every Segetian ally stood poised to charge across the circle at the Hadrian supporters. The stone under Master Gorgos’s feet shuddered and broke out of the floor, levitating to meet the shards of ice shooting from the Semna’s hands.
“Peace!” Cassia screamed.
The Sanctuary ward around them bucked, twisted, and then shot down in vines of light to wrap each and every member of the embassy. Master Gorgos’s rocks turned to dust against the light around the Semna, and her ice shattered. Benedict and Lord Gaius’s fists bumped harmlessly against warding magic. The other men struggled to move toward each other as if wading through a swamp.
Cassia fell to her knees, veins of light glowing through her clothes up to her shoulders. “No one will die tonight!”
The storm crashed against her ward again. She flexed her hands, feeding more blood to her spell.
