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“This is your opportunity to tell him what he needs to hear. This is Lio’s and my gift to both of you. Hespera’s darkness will safeguard this secret from the Empress. For a good cause.”
Solia swallowed.
Cassia rubbed Solia’s sun-tanned arms. “Would you like to rehearse what you’ll say to him with me? Would that help?”
“That persuasive tactic is unfair. You’re reminding me I have a sister to talk to after all these years of keeping my own counsel.”
“That is no tactic, Soli. It’s the truth, and it won’t change, no matter what the future holds for either of us.”
Solia cupped Cassia’s head and planted a kiss on her hair, then had to rub her blond brow to douse an orange spark of flame. “I’ll do it. I owe it to him.”
Cassia slowly let out the breath she’d been holding. That was all it had taken to convince her dutiful sister to agree to thwart the Empress.
Lio had been right. Solia felt a deeper sense of duty to Tendo.
“May I stay with you for a moment?” Cassia asked. “I promise we’ll leave you two to talk in privacy afterward.”
“In fact…I would appreciate having you at my side very much.”
That admission filled Cassia with warmth. Solia had been her whole world for the first seven years of her life. Now she had a chance to support her sister in return, and Solia was willing to let her.
Solia sighed. “Am I the only one who finds a conversation like this more terrifying than a battlefield?”
“Imagine how he’ll feel when he walks in.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
Cassia shook her head. “Everything is yours to explain to him, as you see fit.”
Lio appeared through the closed door. “He’s waiting outside.”
Cassia held her breath, hoping the appearance of her own love would not prod Solia’s wounds. But apparently Solia decided now was not the time to voice her disapproval of Cassia’s bond with Lio.
Solia gave Lio the least hostile look she had yet bestowed on him. “I know you are his friend. Thank you for trying to make this easier for him.”
Lio inclined his head, and Cassia could tell how much her sister’s words meant to him.
“Why don’t we wait behind the dressing screen so no one sees you from the corridor?” Cassia suggested.
Solia nodded and hooked her arm in Cassia’s. She was rigid with tension as they concealed themselves.
Cassia heard the door open, then Tendo’s voice. “All right, Silkfoot. What do you and Freckles need me for so urgently that you staged that dramatic rescue from a small army of Queen Mothers? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. If one more person tries to arrange a marriage for me today, I swear I will fly up to the highest tower and not come down.”
Solia pressed a hand to her mouth, and a quiet sound escaped her, halfway between laughter and tears.
Cassia gave her a questioning look. Ready?
Solia straightened and, head held high, strode out from behind the screen with Cassia at her side.
And then Solia halted in her tracks, as if she’d stumbled into a dream. Tendo was the dream of many women in the Empire. His deep brown skin was adored with scars from his victorious battles as the mercenary Monsoon. Now he wore the royal finery of Prince Tendeso of the Sandira Kingdom, his sash adorned with ceremonial feathers and bones.
But only Solia was his dream. His black-and-tawny wings unfurled from his back, and he ran both hands down his face to cover his mouth. He held out his arms and whispered something, an endearment Cassia did not understand.
Solia crossed the distance, a whorl of flame eddying around her. And then she was in his arms. His wings wrapped around them both, soothing her fire, cocooning them in a world all their own.
Cassia blinked hard to clear the tears blurring her vision. Lio’s arms and magic wrapped around her, her own dream, her own world. With a magical Hesperine step, he transported them away.
Diplomacy was not the art of bringing warring factions to the negotiation table, as Lio had once imagined. Kingdoms were simply collections of people, who were much more likely to be broken than alliances. To be an ambassador was to practice the delicate craft of piecing hearts together.
