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“No one is better prepared to protect her from the Collector than I am,” Lio said.
It was true. And yet, this would twist the knife in Lio’s weaknesses. His fear for Cassia. His nightmares from their last duel with the Old Master. He had never entirely healed from that battle.
“All I ask is that you don’t hesitate to accept help,” Solia said. “We are all prepared to rally around Cassia to keep her safe.”
“Will you take on this labor?” Kassandra asked.
Lio leaned his fists on the table. “Of course.”
“I bear witness,” said the Oracle.
Rudhira appeared not to have touched the coffee in front of him. “This means that some of our youngest Hesperines and a newgift are to go errant into a tense mortal political situation—while our people are far away in the southern hemisphere.”
“That’s right, Rudhira,” Lyros said. “Hesperines, plural. Lio, Cassia, and Solia are not setting foot in Tenebra without Mak and me.”
Rudhira did not smile. “With everyone in residence here in Orthros Notou, the only other Hesperines anywhere near Tenebra are the Charge. I want you to wait until after Migration, when everyone returns to the north. You will be safer with your families just over the border in Orthros Boreou. Is it possible to delay?”
Lio bowed his head over the map. “I wish it were, but waiting could be dangerous for Cassia. Her magic is trying to awaken, but needs a letting site to fully manifest. We don’t know what risks she might face if we stall the process.”
“Yes, we do,” said Cassia. “We should explain the specific dangers to everyone.”
His jaw clenched. “I know what happens to humans who are deprived of their magic. It’s the fate of the Collector’s victims when he ends his possession of them and leaves—taking their magic with him. They die.”
“That isn’t going to happen to me,” Cassia soothed him.
“Never,” he vowed.
“I wish I were surprised,” Rudhira said, “but this is consistent with Imperial magical theories about necromancy and life force, according to my knowledge as both a theramancer and a healer. Do not fear, Cassia. We will see you through this. But such an endeavor will require my permission as Prince Regent of Orthros Abroad. Present the specifics of your plan to me before the Queens tomorrow night.”
Solia would finally get her audience with the Queens. But all she said was, “I’m sorry, Cassia.”
Cassia gripped her hand.
Uncle Argyros beckoned to Cassia. “Come. There is something I wish to show you.”
She glanced at Lio, but he nodded for her to go ahead. It seemed their mentor wanted a moment with her alone.
She accompanied Uncle Argyros up the curving staircase hewn into the gray stone walls of the library. They walked along the gallery under the dome. He must have veil spells here, for the voices from below faded away, and all she could hear were their silk shoes on the carpets.
“I know how you and Lio must be feeling at present,” said Uncle Argyros. “I feel the same way myself, every time I have to return to Tenebra to renew our Equinox Oath with another mortal king.”
Cassia glanced at him in surprise. “It never occurred to me that you would dread your journeys to Tenebra. You’re the diplomat who assisted the Queens at the first Equinox Summit…who negotiated the original Equinox Oath.”
“It is true that I embrace my calling as the defender of Orthros’s original treaty with the kings of Tenebra. But that doesn’t mean I look forward to going back each time. Leaving our loved ones here at home…worrying about the safety of those who accompany me…facing my own memories.”
“Of course you understand,” Cassia realized.
During his mortal life in Tenebra, he had lived through the horrors of the Last War, when Hespera’s Great Temples had been razed, and the Mage Orders had hunted down so many people he loved.
“Do the memories get easier after sixteen hundred years?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” he said. “The memories get easier after many hours with the mind healers. The journeys to Tenebra get easier with good company.” He smiled. “Despite the hazards of the last Equinox Summit, I will always remember it as Lio’s first with me—and the one where we met you.”
“I cannot imagine my life if you had not made that journey.”
“Then there was the Equinox Summit when Lyta and I Solaced Kadi. And many more besides that, which gave us great gifts in spite of great danger.”
He halted in front of a spell-lit display, which was flanked by half-moon stained glass windows and inlaid with a pattern of the moonflowers that represented the diplomatic service. At the sight of the scrolls levitating there, Cassia’s lips parted.
