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If his busted face could have smiled, he would have. He had proved his point. Solia didn’t hate him at all.
Then biting frost charged through his senses. He shuddered, first with pain, then relief. The fire fled, banished by magic. Healing. Rudhira. His aura was everywhere, it seemed, as big as the Sanctuary. No, as vast as Orthros.
“What happened?” he asked, deadly calm.
“He evaded that move twice already in this fight.” Solia stroked Lio’s hair back from his face.
Rudhira sighed. “We all saw it.”
“Why in your Goddess’s name would he let me do this to him?”
That was the last thing Lio heard before Rudhira’s magic swept through him again, banishing him into unconsciousness.
MAGEFIRE WOUNDS
When Apollon arrived in the greenhouse, Cassia could feel his magic rumbling out of him like a protective growl.
Komnena leapt to her feet and went into his arms. “What has happened to Lio?”
“He’ll be all right. Ioustin is working on him. We’ve brought him to your residence, Cassia.” Apollon knelt beside her. “But what has happened to you?”
“Take me to him.” Cassia tried to sit up, her head spinning. “He must need my blood.”
Queen Soteira answered Apollon’s question. “And Cassia is in need of his magic, it seems.”
“Please, help me up.” Cassia hated asking for help. She hated being ill. She hated being weak. But all that mattered right now was getting to Lio’s side.
Apollon helped her to her feet, and with his strength supporting her, there was no danger of her tumbling over again. Then came the gentlest step Cassia had ever felt, with three powerful Hesperine elders concentrating their power on moving her without discomfort.
But she was not prepared for the sight that awaited her in the coffee room.
Lio lay unconscious on their sofa, surrounded by Rudhira, Mak, and Lyros. A bandage obscured the better part of her Grace’s face and head. Where they had cut his robe away from his shoulder and chest, blistering burns covered his skin.
Cassia felt cut to the bone by a sense of betrayal unlike any she’d imagined.
Solia had done this.
The sister she cherished and trusted. The sister she had crossed the world to find.
Her sister had done this to her Grace.
Cassia tore her gaze away from Lio to find Solia standing out of the way with Nike and the Ashes. The look of devastation on Solia’s face didn’t matter. She should be devastated. She should be ashamed.
“How could you do this to him?” Cassia asked.
Nike took a step forward and opened her mouth to speak. But Solia held up a hand.
“Allow her this anger,” Solia said, then strode out of the room.
Cassia wanted to run to Lio, but through her horror and nausea, she felt their magical link warming. She tried to control the current, but it only grew stronger. Why was it so hard to let it go when she wanted to, but hold it back when she needed to?
Queen Soteira looked from Cassia to Lio. “I sense the current you described. How remarkable.”
“Am I hurting him?” Cassia asked.
Rudhira’s brows rose. “No, but I do need an explanation of what’s happening—and quickly, if it’s anything that will affect my healing spells.”
“Cassia has suffered from her lack of magic for some time,” his mother answered, “while she and Lio believed it to be Craving. The only reason she is not deathly ill is because her aura is channeling his magic as a surrogate for her own.”
