AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The woman stood her ground, favoring her left leg. A fresh bruise disfigured her pale cheek. Her gaze darted to Mak.
He ignored her and began to drip a line of his blood onto the floor between them and the battle. Knight took up guard beside him.
“We’re here to help,” Cassia said. “These are the Hesperines Perita and Callen met in Orthros. Our allies.”
Despite the bruise, the woman’s heart-shaped face seemed familiar. Dark brown hair. A respectable, but plain gown. Perhaps the handmaiden of a lady Cassia knew? She wracked her mind for information she could use to reassure the young woman, but to no avail.
“I’m Cassia. Did Perita tell you who I am? She is”—her throat tightened—“so dear to me.”
The woman’s knuckles went white on her makeshift weapon.
“Please,” Cassia pleaded. “Let me help. I would never harm her or her child. I cannot lose her.”
The woman’s lips pressed into a tight line. “She said you’re loyal to her.”
“Always.”
The fight seemed to drain out of her. “I believe you.”
Cassia eased the cot leg out of her grip and kept her tone steady, soothing. “What’s your name?”
“Miranda.”
“Well met, Miranda. You don’t have to protect them alone now.”
Miranda sank to the ground again and cradled the distraught child in both arms, murmuring soothing nonsense. Mak circled the cot, drawing his line of blood further around Perita, Miranda, and the child. He murmured under his breath, words in Divine that seemed to hang heavy in the air.
Cassia fell to her knees at Perita’s side. Her friend was a wan specter under a pile of blankets. Fear left Cassia frozen for an instant, and in that breath, she felt Lio sharing her anguish.
There were more and more friends Cassia feared losing. But Perita had been the first.
Cassia put her hand to Perita’s throat. Her pulse was the barest flutter under Cassia’s fingers, her blue eyes hazed and distant. Her breath came in fast and shallow.
“What happened?” Cassia asked Miranda.
“The birth was hard. Pakhne has been trying to stop the bleeding since yesterday, but then…I don’t understand! She changed. She brought the soldiers in here—they attacked—if Callen hadn’t been here…”
“How long has Pakhne been like this?”
“It happened just before you came.”
Just before you came. Perita could have birthed her child in peace. Pakhne would have had time to heal her. If the Collector had not used them to lay a trap for Cassia.
Miranda let out a scream, and the child began to cry again. Cassia looked up to see that a bloodless had slipped past Solia’s guard. The burly soldier leapt for the gap in Mak’s ring of blood, sword outstretched. Cassia’s hand tightened on the handle of her spade.
But Mak caught the creature’s wrist and twisted. Cassia heard the crunch of fine bones. His other hand closed around its throat, and he hurled it out into Tilili’s waiting claws. Kella’s mount pinned the bloodless to the ground. As Kella’s long dagger slashed down toward its neck, Cassia looked away.
Mak flung droplets of blood onto the ground. The circle was complete. Hesperine magic eddied through the ground under Cassia’s knees. But that would not keep Perita’s life from slipping through their fingers.
His Grace was just a few paces away from the Old Master.
Lio could not allow himself to watch Cassia’s progress through the tent. He focused on their enemy.
Lio looked into Pakhne’s once-serene blue eyes and saw the cunning Collector gazing back. The Old Master observed the battle as if he were sitting down to a match of Kings and Mages.
This was all a game to him. One that could destroy any life inside this tent, if Lio made the wrong move.
But the Collector was watching Solia and Kella carve their way through the undead. His gaze was not tracking Cassia and Mak. He gave no sign he knew Lio and Lyros were stalking toward him. Hespera’s veils were holding against Hypnos.
