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Lio threw himself against his shackles, trying to break free and reach her, but pain pierced him under his manacles. He went still, drawing deep breaths in a fight to stay conscious. He twisted his head to look at one of his wrists. Blood seeped from under the shackle and ran down his arm in trails.
He found himself in one of the tales Hesperines errant told of their scrapes with death. He had heard of these shackles imbued with necromancy and forged with spikes on the inside. Gift Collectors tipped them with poison that could leave a Hesperine too weak to escape.
Lio bared his fangs. He was Apollon’s son, trained by Argyros. He walked in Rudhira’s footsteps and carried Methu’s bloodborn legacy.
He was Cassia’s Grace, the immortal the Goddess of Night had paired to the last Silvicultrix in an arcane union with the Lustra. And the magic here knew it.
If this Gift Collector thought he had bagged a soft, helpless young Hesperine, he was in for a deadly surprise. Lio was ready to teach the Old Master’s Overseers to fear the name Glasstongue.
We will save her, he promised the Lustra.
The door creaked open. Boots trod in, their spurs jingling. A figure in a hooded black cloak entered Lio’s vision and came to stand at the foot of the table.
The necromancer’s aura was difficult to read in the chaos of magic, but he wasn’t Skleros. This Gift Collector was too short to be the one who had sabotaged the Summit. Lio and Cassia were about to face a new enemy.
Small hands, one in a gauntlet, put back the black hood. Miranda smiled at Lio’s reaction. She shook out her cropped hair, not covered by a demure kerchief now, and gave a delighted laugh. “Oh, the look on your face.”
Goddess help him. How could he have been such a fool? He had held Cassia’s hand and ushered her right into this trap.
Miranda pulled off her cloak, revealing a perfectly fitting set of leather armor over short necromancer robes. The Eye of Hypnos painted on her breastplate struck Lio with a familiar scent. Though dry and stale from a long-ago hurt, it was unmistakably his Grace’s lifeblood. He nearly gagged.
“Did you think only men can be Gift Collectors?” Miranda approached a worktable in the corner and draped her cloak over a chair. “You come from Orthros, where women can be warriors and queens. And yet you failed to imagine that we can be assassins of Hesperines as well.”
The worktable was covered with neatly organized tools of her trade. Mortars, pestles, and beakers for her poisonous alchemy; seamstress’s needles and embalmers’ scalpels appropriated for whatever torture she intended tonight. She picked up a kitchen knife and a shiny apple.
There came a tapping sound at one of the windows. Miranda waved her gloved hand, and the shutters swung open. A crow flew in to perch on her shoulder, the window slamming behind it. She cut off a bit of apple and fed it to the bird, stroking its breast where there was no heartbeat. It was a necromancer’s bloodless familiar.
“We’re just back from a patrol of my defenses,” Miranda explained. “Your Hesperine friend lurking in the area will never be able to find us. And if he is unlucky enough to have the skill to get past my concealments, my traps will make short work of his immortality. No one is coming to rescue you.”
Lio prayed she was underestimating Kalos’s capabilities. But Lio should not depend on Kalos calling in the cavalry—or them arriving in time. It was up to him to save himself and Cassia.
Miranda popped a piece of apple in her mouth and strolled to stand over Cassia. Her savage enjoyment came through the powerful dream wards that guarded her thoughts and emotions.
Lio had no hope of bargaining with this enemy. It was clear all she wanted was revenge.
There was only one way to survive this. He would have to defeat her. But his magic was weakened by the poison, and a Gift Collector’s dream wards were a challenge for a Hesperine thelemancer even at full strength. It would take time to break down Miranda’s mental defenses—time in which she could hurt Cassia.
“What do you plan to do to her?” he demanded.
“Ah, Lio the scrollworm. I hoped you would be the type to stay curious as you die.” Miranda left the sliced apple next to Cassia’s gardening satchel on the bedside table, and the crow hopped down to nibble at the fruit.
She walked over to stand in front of Lio and gently lifted his chin. He tried not to flinch at her touch. “This is my favorite part of the tales, when the villain explains his wicked plan to the hero. Then the hero escapes with all his secrets. Do you know why I like it so much?”
Could he catch her off guard if he bit her bare hand? No, her blood was probably poisoned, too. A common defense tactic among Gift Collectors.
Her grip tightened, bruising. “Are you curious or not, Lio?”
The longer he played along with her sick game, the more time he had to find a way out of this. “Why do you like that part of the tales?”
She leaned closer. “Because I love to mock the men in the stories. They’re all fools. In my tale, the villain is a ‘she,’ and the heroes never escape her.”
She let him go so abruptly that his head banged against the wall behind him. He felt pain and moisture where his skull had hit the ground in the courtyard. The poison was slowing down his healing.
“I am the best at what I do,” she told him. “In only eight years, although I am the Master’s youngest and newest Gift Collector, I have become his favorite. I’ve slain every colleague of mine who underestimated me. Don’t make their mistake, hm?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Never again.
A Gift Collector had been under his nose this entire time, and he had not known. All the power he possessed, all the knowledge he had gained when dueling the Old Master…none of it had been enough.
