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“I’ve been so afraid. I have never been so frightened as I was at the prospect of losing you again…losing everything.”
“Let go of your fears.” She looped her braid around his neck, bringing his face closer to hers. “Our Oath is even more than words now, my love.”
She had made her decision and her promise. At last, she had chosen him for all the reasons he had hoped. Nothing more stood in their way.
It was time.
Although he was in the Craving’s grip, although it lay ahead of them to rescue the Summit, although their Hesperines errant lay suffering in the Order’s custody, he was going to tell her the truth tonight. Now.
Lio lifted Cassia’s hand to his own braid. “It is true that far more binds us together. There is something I still need to tell you.”
She fingered his braid, bringing it to her lips. “I wondered what words could possibly remain unspoken between us now. Am I to finally discover what promise you meant by this?”
Lio seated her on their blanket and knelt before her, keeping hold of her hands. “There are some truths about Grace that Hesperines cannot reveal, except to the right person at the right time.”
Her aura gleamed with anticipation. “Just when I think I have beheld all of Orthros’s beautiful secrets, you show me more.”
Goddess, let him not shatter Cassia’s joy with a word. He must choose just the right way to explain.
But how could he gentle the truth that his life depended on her, and hers would soon hang upon him? How could he tell her that after a lifetime of having no choices, she had no choice in this?
He kissed her hands. “Grace is a powerful bond. Any power so great can sometimes be frightening. I don’t want you to feel differently about us once you have learned exactly what it means to be Graced.”
“Lio.” She shook her head. “My love for you only becomes stronger with each new truth, no matter how difficult.”
“I hope that will be the case now. I promise you, I will see to it our life together brings you only pleasure and joy.”
“I look forward to everything our future holds.”
“By now you have some idea what it is like for two Hesperines who spend eternity together. They do not drink from anyone but each other, and they need no other to sate them. They acknowledge this bond before our people at an avowal ceremony.”
“I have often wondered what power makes them able to sustain each other without mortal blood.”
“It is Hespera’s greatest gift to our people, and all of us long to experience it. But two Graces’ need for each other is so powerful that they are wholly reliant on one another. You are surely familiar with plants that, after only one taste, induce an insatiable need to consume them again and again.”
Her heart beat faster. “I see. I have never tried such things myself, of course, but it’s said that the concoctions smoked in sacred horns in the Temples of Hedon cause fits of ecstasy. Men go mad until they have another draught.”
“I have told you Hedon has nothing on Hespera.”
She gave him her secret smile. “So Graces are addicted to each other’s blood.”
“We call it the Craving. Satisfying this need is the most euphoric pleasure of Hesperine existence. But the consequences of going without each other are very dangerous.”
Her face fell. “Oh, Lio. That’s why Hylonome refused the Drink from others, isn’t it?”
Lio wished that tale would cease to haunt them, but he must not shy away from the realities Cassia needed to understand. “She did not wish to prolong her life without her Grace. There is no way to cure the Craving. Other blood could have kept her alive for a time, but the withdrawal only becomes more and more difficult to endure.”
“That’s what’s wrong with Alkaios. He isn’t just starving.”
“But think of all the Graces who need never be apart. Think how long the Queens or Uncle Argyros and Aunt Lyta have been together. Can you imagine over a millennium and a half of finding all you need in the one you love?”
“I am eager for eternity,” she said, as if testing new words, “although it is hard for me to fathom so much time. What is this blood magic that can bind two people together forever? Will you explain the spell to me?”
He looked into her eyes. So much trust there. The most hard-won of all her gifts to him. “No spell is necessary. Grace is not something that must be made, nor can it ever be broken. Grace is as a force of nature or a law of magic that matches two people to one another in defiance of time.”
Her face went blank. Fear gathered in her aura, threatening an oncoming storm. Her mental defenses came up with the swiftness and force of survival instinct.
All Lio’s fears about her response had been justified.
