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“No, but history speaks for itself. My Grace died before we met. Yet somehow, I survived over a year of perilous mortal existence for the Queens to pull me, a helpless, dying child, from the ruins of a Hesperite village. Somehow they brought me to safety here and made me the most powerful and fortunate of their people. I have been so blessed. But I think sixteen hundred years is long enough.”
“The prophecy doesn’t have to refer to the past. A Sanctuary mage must be in your future.”
“It would be a delusion to believe there will ever be another one among us after all this time.”
“I can well understand why you’re struggling with what Kassandra has revealed to you. We’ve all been troubled by her prophecies at times. But she loves you. She knows you. She would never tell you this to cause you despair. There must be a reason she prophesied about your Grace tonight. She must have known you needed cause for hope.”
“I cannot find it in myself to take heart in her words.”
“Then take heart in my father’s experience. I believe with all my heart you will have happiness as he has found. What if he had given up even one hundred years ago? What would have become of my mother and me? Your Grace awaits you, and she will need you as much as you need her.”
“Your father’s hope has been well rewarded with the finest son he could ask for. Have I told you I too am proud of you? Not often enough, I think. I’m sorry we never got to ride together in the Charge. But I think you will not wish to go back to Tenebra for a long time to come. Ask Konstantina and Adwene to be Cassia’s Ritual parents. It will mean a great deal to my sister.”
Lio was losing him.
“Your Queens have already invoked their veto,” Lio said. “Their Will is that not a single Hesperine be sacrificed in exchange for the hostages. As their only spokesperson here at this moment, I will not stand aside. I will spend all the words I have reminding you what your life means to us. YourlifeRudhira, not your death. Do you know how much it matters that one of our heroes is not a constellation or a statue? That we can reach for his flesh-and-blood hand when we need his help?”
Rudhira’s brow furrowed, and he looked down at his hands.
“How many lives have those hands snatched from death?” Lio asked.
“Enough. I am satisfied with my life’s work.”
If that was the case, then what could Lio offer to hold Rudhira to this life?
What could he learn from Konstantina’s example?
“Then come home,” Lio said.
Rudhira raised his head.
“Come home and celebrate with us,” Lio pleaded. “Have coffee around the Ritual circle at House Komnena and watch Zoe grow. Warm yourself by the fire Xandra keeps burning in the hearth in your residence. Vote in the Firstblood Circle and ruffle everyone’s feathers. Play with Konstantina’s descendants, so they can love you as she does. Let us stop missing you.”
Rudhira swallowed. “I can’t stay here.”
“An abundant life awaits you here, with or without your Grace. We will help you. Your years can be full of purpose and happiness. You have so much to look forward to.”
Again, Rudhira shook his head. “I had all of that.”
“You haven’t lost it,” Lio said as gently as he could, “even though you lost your Trial brother.”
“When I am in Orthros, Methu’s memory is all I see. There is no comfort in the familiar for me anymore.”
“Far be it from a mind mage to make prescriptions to a mind healer, but I can pass on some advice from one of the greatest theramancers in Orthros. Talk to a mind healer if you need to. My mother can refer you to one of her colleagues, if you need to speak with someone who has some distance from the event.”
Upon hearing his own words quoted to him, Rudhira did not answer, and Lio did not know if his plea had fallen on deaf ears.
Lio tried again. “Know this. In those moments we’ve spoken of, when we Hesperines relive each turning point in our long years and wonder what we could have done differently…never wonder if you could have changed what Methu did that night.”
Rudhira flinched.
“Where he dared to tread,” Lio said, “you could not follow.”
“He had just as much to stay for as I did.”
“Ioustin,” Lio said for the first time, “this is not that night. These hostages are not those prisoners. Trying to imitate Methu’s sacrifice in this situation will not save any lives. What happened to him was not your fault, and throwing away your life now will not make anything right.”
Ioustin stared at the mage’s door as if it were the portal to Anthros’s own Hall, and he might charge through it to throw all of his power against the god of war himself. “Now my Trial sister might be one of their prisoners. I will not let this happen again.”
