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Before she could stop herself, she shrank back. “No.”
“I can understand your attachment to it. But a quiet life in the temple is a small dream. Give your magic to me, and I will give you other magics. So much power that you can accomplish any dream.”
“Will I become like Miranda?”
The Collector smoothed Miranda’s hands down her robe. “She is a magnificent piece, isn’t she? Just think what you and your dearest friend could achieve together. She will forgive you if you join our cause. I can make you sisters for eternity.”
“What would we be expected to do for you?” Cassia asked.
“What you excel at already. Subtlety. Manipulation. You can be my voice, wielding influence with carefully chosen words. My hand, adjusting outcomes. Of course, there may be times when I call upon you to act more directly. I will let you kill the king once we are done with him.”
“You want me to assassinate my father?”
“Eventually. But your destiny will not end there. You can have any life you wish after he is gone.”
Even as Cassia’s present mind shied away from the memory, repulsed, the lure she had felt in her past pulled her back.
Not garden magic and a peaceful escape into the temple. Powerful, deadly magic. Revenge.
She could make her father pay for what he had done to Solia.
The Collector’s smile spread across Miranda’s face. “I knew we would understand one another.”
Cassia had thought betraying Miranda would be her Reckoning, when Hespera would deem her worthy of immortality—or unworthy to survive her Gifting. How wrong she had been.
This was her most unforgivable act. She looked into the Collector’s eyes and imagined the future he could give her. And she was tempted.
“I’m so ashamed,” she whispered.
Lio kept holding her hand. “I’m here.”
He neither excused nor condemned her. Just as he had promised, he saw her as she was, and he remained. And she realized that this was the real reason why the Gifting was an act of love.
She turned her face away from the Collector and looked into Lio’s eyes. “Surely I refused him! It can’t be…I have not been his Overseer all this time. Have I?”
Cassia waited for her Gifting to reveal what her answer had been and issue its verdict on her heart.
THE END
“Take some time to consider,” the Collector said, “while Miranda and I prepare. But don’t keep us waiting too long.”
Miranda opened the wardrobe and donned leather armor over her necromancer robes. She strapped on an array of mundane blades and tools turned into arcane weapons. Cassia recognized that attire. She had seen it on the Order of Hypnos’s assassins who sometimes paid visits to her father.
Cassia was no longer holding Lio’s hand. She reached for her own makeshift weapon, pulling her spade out of her gardening satchel and under the bedclothes.
“Miranda has become a Gift Collector?” Cassia asked.
Miranda turned and gestured to her blank leather breastplate, speaking in the Collector’s voice again. “Tonight is her initiation. You get to be a part of it.”
“You want us to kill Hesperines for you?”
“That will be one of your most important duties. You and Miranda can train together. I know how the thought of killing the king excites you. Imagine how powerful you will feel once you can slay immortals.”
“You’re right,” Cassia said. “I understand you so well.”
The Collector sat down beside her on the bed and caressed her hair with Miranda’s hand. Lio bared his fangs.
“I understand you have Hesperine blood on your hands.” Cassia yanked her spade from under the bedclothes and took a desperate swing at the necromancer’s face. “I’ll never help you!”
