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The woman in Kyrian robes writhed on the cot, clawing at her chest. Lio could feel the hollowness inside her. Anguished cries came from within her hood.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears streamed down his face as he reached out to her. “I’ll do everything I can to save you, Pakhne.”
Her hood fell back. It wasn’t the mage who stared at him with judgment.
It was Cassia.
He fell to his knees beside his Grace, his head in his hands.
“Lio,” she called.
But her voice wasn’t coming from the tortured figure on the cot. She spoke from somewhere behind him.
“Lio!” she called again from far away, and yet so near.
He turned from her weeping form on the bed, toward the hope of her strong voice.
Moonflowers had sprung up on the floor of the tent, lining a pathway. He longed to follow it away.
But he looked back over his shoulder into Cassia’s empty eyes.
“Lio,” she called for the third time. “Trust yourself.”
He turned away from the cot and took the moonflower path.
The tent disappeared, and he stepped into a bower of ivy and blooms.
Lio’s first breath of the night filled him with the scent of moonflowers. For an instant, he thought he was home. His heavy eyelids rose.
Cassia looked down at him with a smile. He lay with his head on her lap.
With a gasp, he reached up to press his hand to her chest. Her heartbeat was strong, her aura shining with power. Her magic was still there, nascent, but stronger than ever.
“Goddess, am I dreaming?” Lio asked.
She ran her fingers through his hair. “No, my love. I’m all right. We’re both safe.”
The sickening truth hit him. Pakhne’s suffering was no dream. There was no escape for her.
But he still had a chance to save Cassia, to help her find her magic.
The very magic that was at work here, it seemed. He looked around them. The moonflowers were real. “Where are we?”
She explained how she had found this hidden chamber and transformed the flowers. “So I sat here and focused on you, hoping my Union would influence your dreams.”
“It did. You led me here. Did I…Slumber-step? Through walls locked by Lustra magic?”
“That’s certainly what it looked like to me.”
“How is that even possible?”
She leaned down over him. “No theorizing right now, Sir Scholar. Let me comfort you.”
She pressed her lips to his. Pure Sanctuary. He reached up to feel the pulse of life in her neck. She deepened their kiss, parting his lips soft and slow, meeting his tongue with hers in luxurious strokes. Her hand closed around the front of his robes, and his own magic rose to her touch. His power blended with her aura, and her presence blurred around him, until he couldn’t feel or taste or smell anything but her.
“What do you need?” she murmured against his mouth. “Tell me how I can ease your grief.”
He wanted her to straddle him, ride him, remind him how powerful she was. He wanted to pour his magic into her until she came apart. But he couldn’t bring himself to give in to pleasure, not yet. Pakhne’s suffering was still too vivid in his mind.
