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“She doesn’t need healers. She needs me.” Lio let his roiling magic out and pumped it into her chest, even as he sent a summons deep into the mind ward.
With a gasp, she roused, opening her eyes. “Lio?”
“I’m here,” he said with relief.
Her eyes were glazed with delirium. She wrapped her weak arms around his neck and burrowed closer in his arms.
Benedict stared at her as if his world had suddenly transformed into a place he no longer recognized. “What spell have you put on her?”
“There is no magic at work on her.” Eudias’s voice carried across the great hall, calm and clear. “I’ll cast an Aithourian revelatory spell if you require proof.”
Lio shot Eudias a grateful look, then looked Flavian in the eye. “When she is well, I will meet on the tournament field.”
With the Full Council of Free Lords looking on, Lio stepped out of the great hall with Cassia in his arms.
THE LUSTRA'S GRACE
Lio stepped to her bedchamber and tore the tapestry aside with a spell. Knight scratched at the stone.
“Please,” Lio said to the portal, “for her sake, let me in.”
He braced himself and took a step forward. The toe of his silk shoe passed through the wall.
He didn’t know if the spells of her matriarchs had granted him a dispensation, or if holding her was enough to gain him entry, but he silently gave his gratitude to the Lustra. He carried her through the wall, while Knight stayed behind, on guard.
Cassia slipped in and out of consciousness as Lio raced through the passageways, following the tangle of ivy deeper into the Lustra magic. He hoped he wouldn’t lose his way, but all he truly cared about was getting her to wherever the magic was strongest. He sensed a faint response in her aura and kept going.
When he arrived at the room full of red ivy that was a dead end, he swore. Where was the moonflower chamber?
He was about to turn around and go back the way he had come when the ivy shivered. Directly in front of him, the red vines parted to reveal an open doorway.
He and Cassia had been here countless times, inspecting every inch of the wall. Why had it opened now? Was it responding to her need?
He sent a spell light into the darkness and beheld a still more wondrous impossibility. A circle of ashes and yews thrived in this netherworld that was so fertile with Lustra magic.
But more Anthros’s fire grew at their roots. Lio set his jaw. He could tolerate the poisonous flowers for Cassia’s sake. He levitated forward.
The golden glow of Anthros’s fire faded. More white moonflowers unfurled where Lio passed, filling the grotto with a gleam as pale as the Goddess’s white eye. He sent up a prayer of thanks to Hespera and kissed his Grace’s clammy brow.
He lay her down inside the circle of trees on the bed of her magic’s making. The blooms around her closed, their petals winding tightly together and pressing against her, as if seeking to give her their strength.
Even as Lio poured his magic into her, he felt the Lustra rising up in answer. He had never encountered magic like this. It was no raw force. It felt alive. Almost…sentient.
The power of creation itself.
For a moment, he and that vast, timeless power met within Cassia’s small frame.
Her eyes opened again, and this time, her vision was clearer.
“Cassia, stay with me,” he said. “I need you to focus. Can you open your aura for me?”
She groaned, and her aura stretched weakly. “What’s happening? Why am I not channeling?”
“It’s all right,” he said, although he didn’t know if it was all right at all.
Had she had such a close call…was she so far gone…that she was too weak to channel him? Was her magic giving up?
Oh Goddess, had he done the right thing to bring her here? Should he have taken her to Rudhira? If she slipped away now, when they were alone…
