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Lord Hadrian rode through at a gallop leading another band of his men. Every surrounding soldier’s eye was on their lord. Cassia and Solia wasted precious instants waiting for them to pass, and for the rest of the army to turn their attention back to preparing for the king’s arrival.
“How close is he?” Cassia whispered.
“Almost at the perimeter,” Solia warned.
At last Cassia and Solia dared hurry out onto the road in a low crouch. Cassia held her breath. So many eyes. All it took was one pair to see them and tell the approaching king.
The shadows on the other side of the road engulfed them, and she heaved a sigh. Just a few more tents. A few more paces. Almost there.
They burst out of the camp and into the reach of Lio’s veil spells. Mak and Lyros stood with blood dripping from their joined hands. Across from them, Lio held his hands outstretched over their line of blood, his casting a silent act of Will. Cassia could not see his magic with her eyes, but it filled her arcane senses. She felt it as heated threads of light and shadow, heard it whirling around him as crystalline echoes. It spun into the ward that was taking shape between him and their Trial brothers.
The resting current throbbed with demand, but Cassia wrestled it back. She careened to a halt before Lio.
He met her gaze, his eyes solid blue and shining with light magic. “The Charge is reinforcing my veils, but if the king knows Aithourian spells…”
“This much magic will be too hard to hide,” Cassia finished. “I have an idea. Take a risk with me?”
“Always,” he promised.
She spun to face her sister. “Solia, is there a way to get your scarf around you, Mak, and Lyros at the same time?”
“This might actually work.” Solia slipped her scarf down from her shoulders to wind it around her wrist.
She closed her fist around Mak and Lyros’s joined hands and bound the three of them together, their bright red blood soaking into the golden scarf.
The sense of magic in the air became less overpowering, and Cassia felt hope.
“You’re dampening the magic,” Lio said in understanding, “trying to reduce it so the veils will be enough to hide it.”
She thought he guessed what came next, but she warned him to be sure. “I’m going to try channeling the magic that’s coming off your spell. Brace yourself.”
When he, Mak and Lyros nodded, Cassia drew a deep breath and took Lio’s hand.
A jolt of power shot through their joined hands and rocked her entire body. She felt Mak and Lyros and her sister. Rudhira and his Chargers hidden nearby. Most of all, Lio, her link to them all. She braced her feet, gripping his hand hard, and let herself flow into the current.
The spell was more than the line of shadows and thelemancy Lio and their Trial brothers were building. That was merely the center of the star, which shone far into the night. Cassia must dim that glow without disrupting the spell itself. If she channeled too much, surely she would collapse the ward.
Lord Hadrian and his men rode out of the camp. On the hill above, horses appeared and began to descend. The rider in the lead was a white-haired figure in a cloak of sky blue and gold.
With all the focus she had honed in Lio’s arms, Cassia gathered the spell’s glow to her and pulled.
Starfire shrank in on her and burst through her veins. She bit her tongue to hold in an exhilarated cry at the power shining through her. The night went dark, the air quiet and calm.
“Yes,” came Lio’s voice in her ears and her mind, “it’s working, Cassia!”
He and their Trial brothers poured more magic into their spell, and it overflowed into her.
Through the glare of magic consuming her senses, she watched Lord Hadrian draw rein before the king and give his respectful greetings to the tyrant they all hated.
Her mother’s murderer was mere paces away from her and the people she loved.
The king no longer sat in his solar issuing threats. He was astride his warhorse, his armor gleaming in the light of his soldier’s torches. His sword was not hanging on the wall, but strapped at his side, his gnarled hand resting on the hilt.
Cassia’s gaze landed on the old burn scar on his jaw that marred his white beard. For the first time, she wondered if he had wounded himself on his own uncontrolled magic.
The magic thundering through her felt like a battle cry challenging him, but he didn’t look her way.
The voice that had haunted her nightmares now reached her ears for the first time in months. “Imagine my surprise when I was expecting a report that all is well in your camp, and instead I received seven angered Aithourians.”
