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“It’s the least I can do,” Cassia began, “for you and your family. There is something I came here to tell you tonight. I know how it feels to face painful memories. I do not wish to disrupt your peace and call to mind what you would rather not remember on this night…but it is only right that I tell you this upon the Vigil of Mercy.”
“They won’t want you to wait,” Lio said gently. “We have all waited far too long for this already.”
Lyta did not hesitate. “What is it you need to tell us, Cassia?”
Cassia took a deep breath. “We all went with Mak to the beautiful statue Lio’s father made of Nike.”
Argyros’s face became still and obscure once again. Lyta just nodded.
“I’m glad,” Kadi said, her voice thick.
Cassia knotted her hands. But Hesperines had taught her much better work for her hands than that.
Cassia reached out. She took one of Aunt Lyta’s hands in her own, and one of Uncle Argyros’s in her other.
“I recognized her,” Cassia said.
Uncle Argyros’s hand tightened on hers.
Aunt Lyta’s breath caught. “You’ve seen our daughter?”
“She is the Hesperine errant who saved me fourteen and a half years ago. She’s the reason I’m standing here right now. Everything I have done in my life, she made possible. I am so sorry you’ve had to do without her all these years, but I hope I can be of some comfort to you.”
The air around Cassia swelled with power. The deep, safe darkness of warding magic she had first felt in Nike’s arms. The brilliant tide of mind magery Lio had taught her to trust. She found herself enfolded in an embrace between Aunt Lyta and Uncle Argyros, and she realized where Mak had learned to embrace others. She heard someone crying; Kadi was too strong to hide her tears.
Orthros was full of people who would feel Cassia’s absence. It was full of love she must give up.
She would give Nike’s family as much comfort as one small person could, before she must cause them the same pain Nike had and leave the Sanctuary.
VIGILOF
SOLACE
4 Nights Until Winter Solstice
DECLARATION
Uncle Argyros sat insilence by Alkaios’s bedside, and Lio wished he could find the right words to say to his uncle. When Cassia had broken the news about Nike, none of what Lio had added to the conversation had felt sufficient. At the moment, his uncle seemed to find the greatest comfort in devoting himself to Nike’s ailing comrade.
Alkaios’s room was full of family. Lio had managed to squeeze himself into a corner to sit cross-legged on the floor with Zoe on his lap. She and Thenie were engrossed in a make-believe with the animal figurines Father had carved for them from colorful stone. Bosko was feeling very impressive wearing his new speires and holding up the back wall with Mak and Lyros.
Lio was glad the children’s Vigil of Solace gifts kept them distracted from their troubled elders. The visit to the Healing Sanctuary was not dampening the sucklings’ spirits, not after all of tonight’s gifts and games dedicated to celebrating Orthros’s children. Lio wasn’t sure how the rest of them would have gotten through the night, if they hadn’t had the sucklings to focus on.
Cassia felt too far away. It had been so hard to return her to Rose House without breaking his Vigil of Mercy fast. But now that veil hours had once more released her from the embassy, he could not begrudge his relatives a chance to spend real time with her, despite the raw edge of his hunger.
He just hoped she did not feel too overwhelmed by demonstrative family members. Aunt Lyta did not look likely to let Cassia out of her arms any time soon.
“Thank you for indulging me,” Aunt Lyta said to her. “I have not felt this close to my daughter in ninety years.”
Cassia made no move to escape the embrace. “It’s the least I can do.”
Lio sensed she was holding up, despite confronting the night of her sister’s death yet again. In fact, not all the fraught emotions in her aura were difficult ones. She was not without solace in this, either. Given time, she would take comfort in the family, as they did in her, he was certain. The love everyone felt for her would smooth the painful edges Tenebra had sharpened inside her.
“Alkaios definitely understands what we’re saying to him,” Javed was telling Uncle Argyros. “Make no mistake, he will have memories of this time, despite his condition.”
“Good. I want him to remember he was not alone.” Uncle Argyros slid a hand under the nape of Alkaios’s neck, and Lio could feel his uncle’s thelemancy at work, easing the starving Hesperine’s pain.
“I think it only right that he be our Ritual son,” Aunt Lyta said again. “He was Nike’s comrade in the field. She may well be his Gifter. He is one of Blood Argyros’s own, just as Cassia is through her bond of gratitude with our daughter.”
