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She let out a sigh, and relief and wonder breathed through her aura.
“Will you come to bed?” he whispered. “It is my turn to say it to you, and it will take me the rest of the night.”
VIGILOF
WILL
3 Nights Until Winter Solstice
OUT OF SCHEMES
Cassia was accustomed todreading dawn. But when she awoke to the bells of moon hours, the realization that she dreaded them made her feel she had lost a piece of Orthros already.
“I know.” Lio kissed her neck. “I don’t want you to go back to Rose House either.” He mouthed his way across her shoulder. “But it’s only for a little while.” His hand drifted down her belly as if he had ambitions of venturing further.
As she had hoped, he was still caught up in the afterglow of last night. Like a more powerful spell covering a more subtle one, her declaration of love had blinded Lio’s senses to her pain. At least for now.
“I love you,” she whispered, weaving the spell tighter. Reveling in the words. Just a little while longer.
He lifted his head, meeting her gaze. “I love you, my rose.”
She looked into his eyes, memorizing the expression there. This was how Lio looked at the one he loved. This was boundless affection. Friendship unconditional. Passion without inhibition. Devotion for the ages. “The minstrels didn’t invent love, as I once scoffed. But it deserves much more heroic songs than the foolish ballads they sing.”
He smiled slowly, and his voice wrapped around her, deep and low, weaving his own spell. “You’ve never heard a Hesperine love ballad.”
“Alas, we have only ever danced to Tenebran songs.”
“It is high time we remedied that.” He sat up beside her and nudged Knight with his foot. “Do make room for me, if you will, Sir Knight. I have something very important to ask your lady.”
With his head on his paws, Knight looked up at them, unmoving. Cassia swung her legs over the side of the window seat and sat up next to Lio, patting the bed on her other side. Her hound wallowed into a sitting position and rested his head beside her. Lio only chuckled.
Then he slid out of bed and went down on one knee in front of Cassia. His humor faded, and on his face she saw the earnestness she so loved in him. Was she about to witness another important Hesperine tradition? Did one’s lover always perform it wearing not a stitch, or was that just a happy circumstance in their case?
Lio took her hand. “A week from tonight, Orthros will hold the Festival of Grace, a whole long night of music and dancing. It is a celebration of all lovers. A time for making promises…and keeping them. Will you do me the honor of attending Grace Dance with me?”
Yes, oh yes. It was selfish of her to accept his invitation, when she knew how much pain she would soon cause him. But she wanted to undo the Autumn Greeting she had danced with Flavian, one step with Lio at a time, to remind herself she was his. To show him that she left her heart here with him.
She gave Lio the true smile she saved for him alone. “It is my joy to accept.”
He smiled back, the smile of someone who has won the prize at life’s carnival, and his kiss was so full of promise she could scarcely bear it. “Cassia. I love you.”
“I love you so much,” she answered.
Now that the words were out, they came so easily between them. They kept saying them, just because they could. She kept saying them over and over, as if that could make up for all the years in which she could not say them.
Lio stood, pulling Cassia to her feet with a touch of levitation. “I might be able to bring myself to take you back to Perita, knowing I shall have your hand in mine all night at the festival.”
She kept up the spell of their love as they dressed each other, as they stepped back to the guest house, right until the moment he left her at the door of her room and disappeared amid the roses.
Then it came over her. She went inside and sank down onto the edge of the bed. She had no idea how she would ever get to her feet again.
The pain was too great for tears. She sat and stared out at the courtyard until she could not bear to see the roses anymore, and she had to go and close the curtains. The paralysis came over her again there. Knight whined, twining around her skirts. Her hand slid to rest on his ruff, but she found no words of reassurance for him. She stood at the covered door, leaning her forehead against the drape.
“Oh, my lady, you’re still in your clothes?”
At the sound of Perita’s voice, Cassia jumped. She must rally her frozen mind to her defense, and quickly. But the apathy had set in as she had never felt it before, and she found she did not care what Perita thought.
Cassia had to find a way to care. She would have many cares in the years to come, and they would demand all her capabilities.
