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“Why did they target this family?” Cassia asked.
“What reason does the king require?” Miranda broke in with a panicked look at Perita. “He’s vile. That’s all anyone here needs to know.”
Perita rested a hand on Miranda’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Our secrets are safe with Her Majesty and those loyal to her.”
Miranda trembled, whether with the effort of maintaining her spell, or fear, Cassia couldn’t guess. But then the healer bowed her head. “If you’re sure, Perita.”
“I’m sure. Will you let me tell them what you told us?”
Miranda hesitated once more, but finally nodded.
Perita turned to Cassia and her companions. “Years ago, the king ordered this family to spy for him. He knew Mederi Village was loyal to Queen Solia’s memory, and he chose this couple to rat on their neighbors in case of any unrest. He put their only son to work in the royal stables in an attempt to bribe them.”
The farmwife lifted her chin. “We never told him anything, My Queen. We fed him lies and hid our neighbors’ treason against him.”
“But he grew suspicious.” Callen’s expression hardened. “To keep them in line, he had their son arrested on false charges and threw him in the Western Wing of the royal prison in the capital.”
Cassia’s belly dropped. No one made it out of the Western Wing alive, except Callen, and only because Cassia, Perita, and the mages of Kyria had fought for his life. “I saw to it that Callen was freed. I will do the same for your son.”
The farmwife shut her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. “Kyria bless you, Your Highness, but our boy has already gone to the gods. He didn’t survive to his execution. They brought his body back to us on the twenty-second of Kyria’s Loom last year. I’ll never forget the day.”
That date struck Cassia as important. She realized why. She had been in Orthros then. It was the night the Solstice Summit negotiations had finally begun.
She pressed a hand to her belly. She knew why their son had died. Weeks before that day, she had been hiding in the king’s solar when the guards had dragged a stable hand out of prison and handed him over to the Skleros to exploit in a necromantic ritual. She had watched the young man suffer as the Dexion’s magic was shoved into his body. And on the twenty-second of Kyria’s Loom, she and Lio had watched the Dexion reclaim that magic, leaving this couple’s son dead.
“They kept feeding the king new and more believable lies,” Perita said, “but he’s run out of patience.”
Callen leaned against the mantle and rubbed his face. “Today, the king’s guard smashed his knee so he won’t be able to work their fields anymore.”
“Yes, he will.” Tears escaped Miranda’s eyes. “I won’t let this happen. I swear to you, he will walk again.”
Why did she care so deeply about this family? Enough to risk arrest for using her magic, enough to enlist Perita and Callen’s aid, as she had aided them during Perita’s difficult birth?
“You were helping Pakhne heal Perita, weren’t you?” Cassia asked suddenly.
“Of course I was,” Miranda bit back. “I wasn’t about to lose another friend.”
Her words cut through the haze in Cassia’s mind. All the disjointed slivers of memory fit together. Miranda fighting for someone’s life. Her familiar face. The garden at Paradum.
“Oh, Goddess.” The words slipped out of Cassia’s mouth.
Miranda met her gaze. She must have seen the recognition there, for new fear entered her eyes.
“Please,” she begged, “don’t turn me in. Not this time.”
MEMORIES
Cassia fled from the cottage just in time to vomit. Lio was at her side in an instant. He kept a reassuring arm lightly around her while she knelt and emptied her stomach at the base of the farmwife’s pretty hedges. Yet another way she was making a mess of these people’s lives. But there was no way to purge the guilt from inside her.
When nothing came but dry heaves, Lio worked a cleaning spell. He pulled her shaking body into his arms.
Hesperines, always trying to cleanse her and pull her closer to her better self. Always seeing her ugly past.
Tears coursed down her cheeks. She had never felt farther from her Hesperine self than in this moment. She didn’t want Lio to see her like this, but she couldn’t bring herself to push him away.
He ran his hand over her head. “Your mind is all chaos, my Grace. Please tell me what’s tearing you apart inside.”
“I was a monster, Lio. Before I met you… Never doubt I was the king’s daughter.”
