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Cassia took a deep breath. “We can do this.”
Solia hung the map on the board and turned to Rudhira. “How soon can we speak with Flavian’s intermediaries?”
Rudhira gestured to the long table piled high with threats and unsolved problems. “Their next visit is tomorrow night. You have until then to prepare.”
Lio shook his head, staring once more at the map. “We’re not ready.”
Solia frowned at the map pins. “We’ve accounted for everyone.”
Cassia offered the pins to Lio. “What are we missing?”
“The one enemy we can never pin down.” Lio swept a hand across the map. “The Collector could be anywhere. He already is everywhere. He could speak to us through anyone, at any time.”
Solia’s tone was calm. “We spent our last week in Orthros planning how we will keep Cassia safe. She will never be without our protection.”
Rudhira offered a slight blow in Tuura’s direction. “You could ask for no better expert on necromancy than an Imperial mind healer. Combined with your knowledge from battling him, Lio, you and Tuura have the magic you need to detect possessions. And I am only a step away.”
“And the Stand is right here.” Mak crossed his arms. “If that leech tries to pull something dramatic at the Council the way he did at the Solstice Summit, this time Lyros’s and my wards will shield everyone from his tantrums.”
Perhaps they were right. Was Lio simply giving into his fears for his Grace? Or was this sneaking dread a reliable intuition, born of his experience with his enemy?
The Collector was the opposite of Lucis. He would not choose the most practical or efficient route to victory. He enjoyed toying with his prey. He lived for complicated games of deception. He’d had epochs to perfect the plots he spun in his intelligent, corrupt mind.
Whatever he had in store, Lio feared it would take them completely by surprise.
Perhaps they could not plan for it at all. They could only do their best to react when the blow came.
2
Days Until
SUMMER SOLSTICE
32 Chera’s Coin, 1597 OT
SCION ANGARA
Cassia woke long before she was rested, the pit of her stomach burning. Her pulse pounded, a frenzied contrast to Lio’s Slumbering heart. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, as if his unbreathing body could somehow still her own gasping.
Eventually she remembered to breathe as the mind healers had taught her. She recited their kind advice in her mind like prayers. At last, her body calmed, and her thoughts were once again her own.
She clung to him a moment longer in the bespelled darkness, hiding from the day beyond their tent. She was glad he was oblivious to her battle with her fears.
At last she dragged herself from their cot, exhausted. Knight leapt up from the floor and wallowed into the space she had vacated. The cot shook, hardly intended for a Hesperine of bloodborn height and a liegehound. He whined, resting his head on his paws, his tail draping over Lio’s sleeping face.
Wearily, she laughed. “How I would like to stay in bed, too, dearest. I know we don’t want to leave Lio. But I’m afraid Flavian’s emissaries are coming in a few hours. We must be ready. I need my Knight with me today.”
She didn’t even have to give him a command. He abandoned the cot and stayed with her as she dressed and gathered the pack of what she would need to help Solia prepare.
At the door of the tent, the familiar tether pulled at her heart. A fear far more instinctual than any induced by the king. Her blood was telling her not to leave her Grace, that the Craving was waiting for her when she let him out of her sight.
She practiced her breathing again, giving herself that time. They needn’t do this gracefully, as Lio had said. She was here, and she was trying, wasn’t she?
She managed to leave the tent. Evening light shone in her eyes, and she squinted in disgust. She enjoyed the luxurious sun of the Empire. Orthros’s rare sunlight glittering on fresh snow was beautiful. But this was Tenebran sun, the chariot of Anthros, supreme god of war and order. Cassia cursed him and made a rude gesture at the sky.
There were no Hesperines awake to mock the god of war with her. A shiver of loneliness skittered down her spine. She walked past Mak and Lyros’s silent tent, toward the only sound in the Sanctuary. Human voices. Light and a curl of fragrant smoke spilled out of the open flap of Solia’s tent.
Her voice sounded different when she spoke Tradewinds. Freer, richer somehow. Then there came a peal of her laughter. “I’ve never seen a man throw down his spear so fast.”
