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Queen Soteira looked from one human to another, taking in each and every man and woman. A quiver went through their auras and reverberated in the Union, and Lio shivered.
Lord Adrogan met the Queen’s eyes for but an instant before his own widened, and he turned his face away. Lord Gaius dared her gaze with chin high and feet braced while sweat broke out upon his brow. But Lio saw Cassia look into Annassa Soteira’s eyes the way he so often did, as if searching for something she could almost grasp. She was not the only one. The Semna neither flinched nor looked away.
“The beds in this empty wing are for you,” Queen Soteira told them. “Know they will always be here for you, should you ever have need.”
Chrysanthos’s eyes flashed with the same fury Lio had sensed in the mage after his first conversation with Queen Alea. “Rest assured, we are not so desperate for aid as Imperials. Our Orders of Kyria and Akesios will continue to see to our needs.”
Queen Soteira gave him no reprieve from her full attention. “I marvel that there is such a surplus of healers in your lands. Do you mean to say that not a single mother forfeits her life to bring a child into the world? That not a single child dies in infancy? That not a single man survives battle, only to perish from his wounds while a healer works on him? That no warrior struggles on with a missing eye or finger or leg?”
Lio flinched with Callen. Perita tucked her arm tighter in her husband’s.
“I seem to recall,” said Queen Soteira, “there was recently great fear over an outbreak of Frost Fever in Tenebra. What wonderful tidings, that the Kyrians and Akesians were so completely prepared for this disaster that all people could rest assured their needs would be met.”
The Semna let out ahmphin the Dexion’s direction.
Chrysanthos’s aura was hot with the anger he so carefully controlled in his voice and on his bruise-mottled face. “Hesperines are not the only ones keeping tally of how many mortal lives you add to your numbers. Do you keep records on the mages whose lives are forfeit when they try to prevent you from bringing so-called Sanctuary seekers over the border? Do you take a census of the mortal casualties of the so-called rescue efforts by your Hesperines errant?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a wail split the air. The Blood Union screamed with a fellow Hesperine’s suffering. Queen Soteira shut her eyes and grimaced. Lio shuddered with her.
Panic consumed him. He searched the suffering aura for the presence of someone he knew. But he had never met this Hesperine. Not until this moment, when he would do anything in his power to help his brother in the blood.
Javed sounded out of breath. “They have brought him to the West Oktagonon. Shall I go on your behalf, Annassa?”
Lio unclenched his teeth. “We will leave you to your work. I will escort the embassy out.”
Queen Soteira shook her head, already striding to the end of the wing. The double doors there flew open before her. “Come. They may observe.”
As they followed, Javed explained, “The West Oktagonon is the receiving chamber for those whose lives are in immediate danger.”
“We must remain quiet and orderly,” Lio urged the mortals, “and do nothing to impede the healers.”
Cassia answered for the embassy. “You have our word.”
If the Dexion was angry at her for so binding him, he said nothing. Lio would have locked Cordium’s filthy spy here in the empty wing, but Annassa Soteira had summoned them all. Lio and Javed guided the embassy after her, through the double doors and into the spacious, eight-sided chamber where the western wings converged.
The air smelled of seared flesh. The afterburn of war magic made Lio’s stomach turn. Another cry echoed up to the high ceiling and through the Union, the howl of a fully grown male enduring unimaginable agony. It took Lio a moment to surface from the Union and remember Hypnos’s fingers were not clawing through his own veins.
Lio ushered the embassy to stand along the perimeter of the chamber, while Queen Soteira and Javed joined the Sanctuary initiates and Chargers who hovered in the center of the room, whence the currents of suffering emanated. The group parted for Annassa Soteira.
The wounded Hesperine lay atop Rudhira’s gray wool cloak on one of the Sanctuary’s levitating litters. Annassa Soteira leaned near over him. His cries quieted.
What Lio was seeing sank in. The charred figure was a Hesperine, a person.
A patch of his hair had survived. The soot-stained lock was tangled with a Grace braid. Only that and his canines were still recognizable.
He bared his fangs, and his silent plea keened through the Union. As if to caress him, Annassa Soteira ran her hand over the air a hair’s breadth from the blistered, oozing visage that had been his face. The vast depths of her magic enfolded the one person before her. He reached a blackened hand up toward her. His finger brushed her cheek, then fell away into ashes.
A tear slid down Annassa Soteira’s face. “And I am so happy to meet you, dear one. Welcome home.”
Grief welled out of Cassia and filled Lio. Her sympathy shone through the Union, focused and deliberate, a silent act of support for all the Hesperines there. Lio touched her mind, taking solace in her.
Emotion rippled through the Tenebrans around her. So they were not unmoved. Whatever they assumed, whatever they believed, they did feel what they saw before them.
“Who is he?” Cassia’s voice quavered.
The Queen gazed into his eyes. “He says his name is Alkaios.”
Lio watched Cassia turn to stone beside him and could not reach for her. He felt all the turmoil inside her that she hid with an iron will.
