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Solia hurled a ball of fire at the crow. Lio shivered, as if he felt her spell pass through the ward. But before the fire hit the bird, it sprang up from the ground and flew off. Solia’s fire spell landed on the ground and turned a patch of grass to ash.
“A bloodless crow?” Mak made a face. “Almost as classic as a bloodless vulture.”
“We must check on the cottage,” Solia urged.
They all dismounted, their intelligent horses waiting obediently while they approached the small house. Knight’s hackles were up, and Cassia felt Mak and Lyros’s wards at the ready. Amid the rising heat of Solia’s magic, Lio’s power waxed stronger in Cassia’s mind.
“What do you feel in the Blood Union?” Cassia asked.
“Pain,” Lio answered. “Someone inside is wounded.”
“Lio, your concealing magic is strongest,” Lyros said. “You and I will step in first, then bring the others in, depending on what we find.”
Solia nodded her approval of this plan. She and Mak flanked Cassia, Knight standing in front of her, and once again she cursed being the weakest mortal in their party.
Lio and Lyros stepped through the wall of the cottage. When they reemerged a moment later, Lio wore an expression of surprise. “Perita and Callen are inside, assisting the healer with an injured villager.”
Cassia started toward the door of the cottage. “We have to offer assistance. What are Perita and Callen doing here with an apostate?”
Lio joined her at the door. “The apostate healer is Miranda.”
Cassia knocked on the door of the cottage, her palms sweating. If she were engaged in clandestine magic, an interruption was the last thing she would want. “Perita, it’s Cassia. We’re here to help.”
The door popped open, and Perita’s pale face appeared in the crack. “My lady? What are you doing here? Oh, I see.” Her gaze went to the Hesperines and Solia, and she dropped a quick curtsy. “Your Majesty.”
“If we can sense the magic,” Solia said, “so might others. Let us help you complete your task here and hide the evidence.”
Perita let out a sigh of relief and hurried them all inside, where a gray-haired farmwife hovered beside her husband’s bed. The farmer’s weathered face was crumpled with pain. Callen held a flask of spirits ready, while Miranda knelt with her hands on the farmer’s knee, her eyes shut in concentration.
The image struck Cassia, so familiar, yet just out of reach. She gritted her teeth. The memory wouldn’t come to her.
But a realization did. Could Cassia have lost more than time to that fever? Could she have lost her memories of a person?
Miranda opened her eyes and saw Cassia. The healer went pale.
“You have nothing to fear,” Solia said.
The farmwife looked up and gasped. She stared at Solia as if she had seen a goddess. Perita took her arm and guided her forward, murmuring an explanation.
The older woman’s eyes overflowed with tears, and she sank stiffly to her knees before Solia, clutching the hem of her long Imperial tunic. “My Queen, My Queen,” the woman sobbed, murmured prayers to Kyria.
Solia’s clear blue eyes misted with emotion. She touched the woman’s gray curls. “Someone fetch a chair for her.”
Lio set one by the fire. Solia helped the woman up off her creaking knees and guided her to sit near the warmth.
“You are too good, My Queen,” the woman sobbed. “We knew. We always knew you would save us.”
“I am here,” Solia promised, “and I will not leave you again.”
A vice seemed to close over Cassia’s heart. Could Solia keep that promise to Cassia and her people at the same time? Could Cassia keep her promises to her sister, when her own heart was also torn in two?
“What has befallen your husband?” Solia asked.
“His knee, Your Majesty. Oh—what are we to do?” The woman drew deep, shuddering breaths, so overwhelmed at the sight of her martyr in the flesh that she could scarcely speak.
“The king’s guard did this,” Callen said with bitterness.
Cassia shuddered. The king’s personal guard, the only soldiers he allowed in his solar, often committed his crimes for him. They were the most brutal men in his service. He chose them for their lack of scruples and kept them loyal by any means necessary.
