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“Why does this make you uncomfortable?” Lio asked. “It helps your cause that they remember you with such love.”
“All I’ve done for them for fifteen years is be a statue. How many of them have suffered at the king’s hands while I wasn’t here to protect them?”
“Soli,” Cassia protested, “you know you did the right thing to escape—and return with the strength Tenebra needs.”
“That didn’t help you when you lay on the brink of death.”
Cassia reached for her sister’s hand. “But I knew you loved me.”
Solia squeezed her hand hard. “That wouldn’t have saved you.”
“I understand,” Lio said. “Every time Cassia faced danger without me…those moments haunt my dreams, and they always will. But in the words of a wise warrior, we shouldn’t waste our energy on things we cannot change. We have work to do now that demands everything we have.”
One side of Solia’s mouth tilted in a smile. “You did learn something from me, scrollworm.”
He gave her a mock-bow from the saddle. “And now I endeavor to be useful as your adviser, Matriarch.”
“Stop being philosophical and come look at this,” Mak said from the other side of the statue.
They rode around Solia’s likeness to join Mak and Lyros. Another statue stood back-to-back with Solia’s. This one had an aura engraved with a glyph of Kyria. Knight sniffed the stone liegehound that lay at her feet.
“Oh dear,” Cassia said.
Lio looked at her with amusement. “It’s not a bad likeness, my Kyrian maiden.”
“It’s missing one red eye.” Mak snickered. “And fangs.”
Lyros wrinkled his nose. “The anatomy and perspective are inaccurate. Tenebran sculptors need to take a lesson from the Hesperine masters.”
Mak laughed harder. “For someone who insists he can’t draw to save his life, you have very specific opinions on art.”
“I can’t help it,” Lyros said mournfully. “My family ruined me. I’m unable to ignore a poorly painted fingernail.”
“You won’t hear me complain about your appreciation for good anatomy.”
That made Lyros grin, one of his fangs showing.
“Well,” Solia said, “remind me to commission some statues from Apollon for my new palace, preferably of Cassia with a rose in hand and me with a sword.”
Lio smiled at her, as if surprised. “That’s a fine image.”
Cassia had to agree. Solia might not have endorsed Cassia with fangs, but hearing her sister talk about her with a rose in hand was encouraging.
Lyros looked around. “There’s not much else here. Unless you sense anything, Cassia, we can head back to the keep.”
Cassia closed her eyes and focused on her resting current. Now practiced at reaching beyond her companions’ auras and casting her senses over the land, she expanded her awareness easily. But her magic felt stretched, tired. She tried to ignore the anxiety that gripped her.
The fields beyond the village felt warm and full, ready for the coming harvest. She was beginning to understand that the fertility of the land in this region was no coincidence.
“It feels like most of the eastern villages,” she said. “I can definitely tell the Lustra magic is stronger in this direction, just like in the tunnels. But I cannot seem to fix on precisely where it’s coming from.” Her eyes flew open. “My pea plants.”
Lio’s eyes widened.
“It was astonishing, how well my garden grew at Paradum.” Cassia’s skin broke out in gooseflesh at the thought that she might have been so close and never known it. “It must have been because the letting site was near.”
“Perhaps that’s where Thalia intended to take you.” Solia leaned forward in her saddle. “But you arrived too early, when your magic wasn’t ready yet.”
“Or perhaps when I caught that fever, it delayed me from meeting the conditions for my magic to arrive.” Cassia shook her head, tamping down her hopes. “Or perhaps the letting site isn’t at Paradum at all, but somewhere farther away. Even so, the magic could be stronger there, pointing us in the right direction.”
