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He must be having day terrors about Pakhne. But he had often told Cassia that feeling her presence in his Slumber influenced his dreams. She closed her eyes and reached for their Grace Union.
It was so easy to connect with him this time. The deep Union they had shared during their spell casting had left the arcane pathways between them more open. She could smell his magic, and the tease of moonflower, ink, and blood made her mouth go drier.
She tried to push her hunger away and focus. His magic was roiling, a sure sign he suffered from his dreams. He needed her.
If she entered the chamber where the Hesperines slept, she didn’t think Karege, Mak, and Lyros would see it as crossing the veil. But the wagging tongues of Patria would never forgive her if they caught her sneaking into a room full of male immortals alone.
Cassia’s eyes sprang open. If there was ever a time when she needed one of the Changing Queen’s secret passageways, it was now.
She pulled the Changing Queen’s pendant out of her robes as she and Knight returned to the weaving room. Wrapping her hand around the artifact, she stood before the hearth. This fireplace wasn’t nearly as large as the one in the royal chambers at Solorum, but ducking, she managed to stand inside it and put her free hand on the sooty stone at its back.
Saying Ebah had failed to reveal any entrances in the solar. If that was not the key, could there be another? Perhaps a different name for a different fortress?
Cassia tried the Changing Queen’s name in Vulgus. “Hedera.”
Nothing. Perhaps the Mage King’s name?
“Lucian,” she said.
Still nothing. Of course. It would have to be a word in Ebah’s mother tongue. What would her people have called Lucian? That meant light in Vulgus…
Cassia wracked her limited knowledge of the old garden tongue. All she knew were flower names. But Anthros’s fire was called light flower in the old tongue.
“Liohtkar,” Cassia said, and her hand passed through the wall.
She cast a glance over her shoulder at Knight. “I’m afraid we’re doing this again, darling. Stand guard for me.”
He posted himself in front of the hearth as if resigned.
Cassia darted into the passageway. Shadows and dust engulfed her. But she could see. In surprise, she looked down to find her ambassador’s medallion glowing, as if with moonlight.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” she murmured, if only to lift the eerie silence. How many centuries had it been since anyone had set foot here?
Awareness came over her of the powerful advantage she now held over every soul at Patria. But politics quickly fled from her mind. All she could think about was having Lio in her arms again, his magic inside her.
She started forward, trusting the glow of her medallion and the pull of Lio’s magic to prevent her from losing her way. She walked with certainty through the twists and turns, her Grace’s presence growing stronger.
To her surprise, these halls were not bare like those inside Solorum palace. Ivy vines clung to the walls. How did they grow without light? Could the Changing Queen’s power be stronger here…because of the nearness of the letting site?
The ivy grew thicker the deeper Cassia went. Eventually she came to a fork in the corridor that presented her with a decision. Lio’s presence was stronger to the left, but the vines led to the right.
Her pulse pounded, demanding she find her Grace. She tried to think. When she had left the great hall, she’d had more than an hour before twilight. She had time to investigate this mystery before Lio woke. And anything that got them closer to her magic got them closer to her Gifting.
She set off down the corridor lined with vines. Their leaves rustled under her feet. Something inside her stirred, a breathless excitement, a fullness within her. Her magic?
When she came out into an open chamber, her breath caught. Ivy covered the walls and ceiling of the round room. But the floor was carpeted in golden flowers that let off a gentle glow. Anthros’s fire.
Cassia’s jaw hung open. Bits of history wove together in her mind, hinting at the personal tale behind kingdom-changing events. When Lucian had been courting his witch of the wilds, perhaps they had hidden their love from his disapproving lords until he secured their approval. Had Ebah’s magic created this haven for them? Cassia’s face heated. Had they also done forbidden things on the aspiring king’s secret parapet?
“Well, I walk in the footsteps of my rebellious matriarch, but what is my Hesperine to do about Anthros’s fire?”
The sun god’s flowers were poisonous to Hesperines. It was a shame something so beautiful was anathema to her Grace. Just like her own magic. Frustration rose in her, and that wakeful thing inside her burst out. She lost her balance, falling headfirst into the flowers.
Soft petals cushioned her face. But it wasn’t the sharp scent of Anthros’s fire that filled her nose. She pushed up on her hands and knees and stared at what her magic had done.
She laughed in wonder. “Not so anti-haimatic now, are you?”
The golden blooms were gone, the room now blanketed in moonflowers.
