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Within moments, Lyros returned with the others. Kella, Hoyefe, and Solia gathered around Tuura and Karege.
Cassia slipped under Lio’s arm. “Did the Collector do this?”
“I think the Silence is to blame.” The feeling of her petite form, physical and vivid, underlay his amorphous awareness of Patria’s minds. “I don’t sense him anywhere. Yet. But without Tuura…”
“We are much more vulnerable to him,” Cassia finished for him.
Kella stretched Tilili out beside Tuura and pressed a hand to her friend’s chest. “The Silence did this. Even Hoyefe and I can feel it.”
Solia was pale. “Is this to be the fate of every ancestral practitioner who comes to Tenebra?”
Cassia’s arm tightened around Lio. Would a Sandira whose shifter magic came from his ancestors meet the same fate?
“Tuura is a diviner,” Kella said firmly. “It’s different for her. She needs Imperial healing.”
Solia looked from Lio to his Trial brothers. “I want you to bring the First Prince here. I don’t care about the political consequences.”
Lyros hesitated, then, “I understand. I’ll go.”
“Thank you,” Solia said sincerely.
He stepped away again, Mak and his latent wards remaining. Lio kept his senses open, holding all of Patria in his mind’s eye. Amid the fleeting mortal auras, he caught a whiff of death.
“Lio?” Cassia asked. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure, but I need to follow it.”
“I’m coming with you,” Mak said.
“Cassia will be safe with me,” Solia promised. “Focus on the Collector.”
Lio stepped, sensing Mak follow him. Together they slipped through the mundane world, chasing that hint of decay. They halted in darkness.
Lio’s eyes adjusted quickly, soaking up the meager light that existed here. It appeared to be the remains of a stone cellar, now half collapsed.
“Are we under Castra Patria?” Mak crouched and picked his way through the rubble toward an opening. “There’s a tunnel here. Perhaps an old escape route used during sieges?”
Lio crawled forward to join him, the mortar crumbly under his hands. “Can you sense if a human came this way?”
“Whoever they were, they know how to hide their trail. But they left us this.”
Mak pointed to a bright, fresh red apple resting in the ruined passageway. An eye of Hypnos was painted on it. The blood was still damp.
Lio’s nostrils flared. “A woman’s blood.”
“I don’t recognize her. Do you?”
Lio shook his head. “But we know what he means by it. Another threat to Cassia.”
Mak fished a warded bag out of his robe. “We’ll take this to the Charge later. I’d wager my horse that it’s laden with Gift Collector poison.”
Lio swore. “Did he manage to sneak in during the moments after Tuura collapsed?”
“Or did he make it through our defenses earlier, and he chose now to sneak out?”
“We have to finish the wards tonight.”
Mak nodded grimly. “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s get back to Tuura.”
