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“Most importantly, it will allow you to draw power from the wilds. Right here in our Sanctuary, while you draw blood from me.” A satisfied smile curved his lips. “As we have already tested rather extensively.”
She savored the arcane flavor that lingered in her mouth. “I can taste you in my wilds. My magic knew what to do. It infused my letting site with your power, just like my Gifting infused me with you.”
“I feel my bond with your Lustra. Your transformation changed me, too.”
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. He caught one on his finger and lifted it to his lips. With a sigh, he closed his eyes. “Your first Hesperine tears. I was so afraid you would be disappointed. But I can taste your joy.”
“Disappointed? How could you imagine I would feel disappointed after everything we just did together?”
His quiet pain filled their refuge, and she could scarcely bear it. “Not even your letting site has given you your beast magic and soothsaying. I will understand if you mourn the loss of your other affinities.”
She turned herself upright and took hold of his shoulders. “Look at me, Lio.”
He met her gaze as she asked, holding her close in their Union.
At last, she could hold him back. “I don’t need more and more affinities in order to be happy. Garden magic is what I yearned for my whole life. I realize now, I was missing what I didn’t know I had lost.”
Her past felt distant, a burden she had left behind in the ruins of the sickroom. Hespera had carved all of that away, letting the real Cassia emerge. She had been shaped by it, yes. But now she was free.
“My Gifting healed me,” she said. “Do you still carry wounds from it, my Grace?”
He shook his head. “I feel the same. As if your Divining cleansed us of what Kallikrates has done to us.”
The name had no power here.
“But there is one wrong that must still be righted,” Lio said. “I want you to have all of your magic.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her face on his heart. “My list of wants has grown so long, my Grace. But my needs are still simple. My garden magic, my Gift, and you. I have all of that in my arms right now.”
“I can sense that you are truly satisfied. But I am not.”
He held her against him, and she met a new layer of him in their Grace Union. She had always known it was there, under his placid surface.
When he made up his mind, he was unbreakable.
“If it takes me a thousand years,” he swore, “I will find a way for you to complete your magic. We’ll study your letting site. We’ll scour Tenebra for another one. We’ll learn how a Hesperine Silvicultrix can acquire the rest of her power.”
“I don’t want to scour anywhere. I want to stay right here. Who knows? Perhaps in another hundred years, my immortal life will meet the conditions, and my other magics will rise up out of my letting site without strife.”
“I make no promises to be so patient. But do not misunderstand me, my rose—you are perfect as you are.”
“Thank you, my love. I think my mother would be proud of who I’ve become. But even if she weren’t, I would be. We are heretics. We make our own path. This is mine.”
“Then you have no regrets.”
“None. Do you?”
“You don’t need me to answer,” he said. “You can sense it. Reach into our Union and tell me what I feel.”
She let go of all her inner defenses and opened herself to her Grace, letting his emotions become her own.
Grief. Gratitude. Anger. Relief. Pain. Joy.
At last she realized they were all different flavors of one emotion, which imbued his every thought of her.
Love.
His love for her would survive every epoch, and now she could love him in return until the end of time.
