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“Tenebra is out of the question.” Lio turned to Kalos again. “Have you ever scouted Orthros for a letting site?”
Kalos was now standing at the edge of their small gathering, as if ready to bolt when anyone lost their temper. He shook his head.
“How can we be certain they don’t exist anywhere inside the ward if we haven’t searched?” Lio’s question was more like a plea.
Cassia wanted to cling to denial, too. But her past in Tenebra had taught her how fruitless that was. Better to face horrifying truths before they could ambush you. “They aren’t natural occurrences, are they, Kalos? They’re something the Silvicultrixes must create.”
Now he nodded. “They’re like the First Ritual that gave the original Hesperines immortality. A magical feat. A lost art. You can’t make new ones. That’s why the sites that remain are jealously guarded.”
“By whom?” Cassia asked.
“Surviving Lustra practitioners.” Kalos grimaced. “All the sites I know of are deep in heart hunter territory, fought over by the warbands. It would take an expedition with the Charge to get you there, and it wouldn’t be easy.”
“There must be another way.” Lio sounded ready to tear apart every library and interrogate every expert until they found it.
“There is a letting site that’s relatively easy to reach,” Solia said quietly.
Cassia stared at her sister. “Where?”
Solia leaned against an iron column, her arms crossed, wearing her hard warrior face. “You won’t like the answer, but here it is: Patria.”
“Goddess,” was all Lio said.
Kalos took a step nearer. “The place where the free lords are meeting to choose a king to replace Lucis?”
“Yes,” Solia answered. “The Mage King established it as the traditional location for the Full Council to gather each time they must grant their mandate to a new king. I’m sure he and the Changing Queen had their reasons for convening near a letting site.”
“You knew about this?” Lio demanded.
“Thalia told me which letting site I should take Cassia to. She knew we couldn’t reach the one at her temple in Cordium. She felt the one in the vicinity of Patria would be most strategic.”
Cassia shook her head. “Soli, why didn’t you say anything?”
Her gaze dropped. “I almost did. In the grove when Zoe found us…again in my room on our first night here. But you were so happy to be back in Orthros, with me. I wanted to let you enjoy it a bit longer without this hanging over your head.”
A lump formed in Cassia’s throat. With the days until the Full Council slipping through their fingers, her sister had been giving her time.
Solia pushed away from the column and crossed to Kalos’s side. “If you’ll kindly step me to House Argyros? Cassia and Lio can join us there when they’re ready.”
As soon as Kalos and Solia were gone, Lio pulled Cassia into his arms. His aura seemed to swallow her, an unseen roil of shadows enveloping them both. She realized they weren’t in the greenhouse anymore, but standing before their bed. Their surroundings plunged into inky darkness, as if his anguish had sucked the light from the room. As if all his power was concentrated on tucking her away in the safest place he could find.
“This isn’t happening,” he said into her hair.
“We shouldn’t panic yet. We have options.” Such a meaningless attempt to comfort him.
They both knew the Old Master wanted to add her to his collection, another tool to be used in his plots. And once he considered someone his, he never let them go.
Cassia pulled back to look into Lio’s eyes. She forgot her next words of reassurance at the sight of his bared canines. And she knew he was on the verge of sinking his fangs into her right then and there, just to remind them both that no one had taken her from him yet.
His magic pounded through her with her pulse. “The moment you leave the safety of the Queens’ ward over Orthros, the Collector will come for you. I will not allow that to happen.”
She kissed him, not caring that his unsheathed fangs sliced her tongue. No, needing to give him that sharp reminder that the present moment was real, and they were here in Orthros together. The ground disappeared from under her feet; he had swept her into his arms. She felt cool air on her mouth, saw the flash of his fangs above her.
Goddess, yes, was all she could think. He needed this connection with her, now. Needed his bite to bind him to her.
He struck her throat, and she cried out, locking her arms around his neck to hold him to her vein. He cradled her in his arms while his fangs speared her. Long, hot surges of her blood flowed out of her, leaving an ache of unfulfilled pleasure in their wake.
Even as his magic rose to feed her hunger for him, she felt it. The deep emptiness inside her where her own magic had been for that brief, miraculous time in Btana Ayal.
