Blood Mercy (Blood Grace Book 1) Read online

  BLOOD MERCY

  Blood Grace Book I

  VELA ROTH

  CONTENTS

  Blood Mercy

  Content Note

  Winter Solstice

  The Cloak

  42 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Anthros’s Fire and Sunsword

  Dusk Rites

  Blood in the Night

  Trespassing

  Blood Union

  Apparition

  Opening Remarks

  The End of an Era

  Test of Will

  41 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Lady Cassia’s Garden

  Diplomat Errant

  Negotiations

  40 Days Until Spring Equinox

  War Games

  The King’s Feast

  Wallflower

  Invitation

  New Terms

  Proof of Honor

  36 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Change of Plans

  Risks Reckoned

  Peace Offering

  28 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Threads

  Hespera’s Rose

  Affinity

  Free with Words

  Forbidden

  Frost Fever

  A Place at the Table

  27 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Summons

  Cassia’s Seat

  Anger

  26 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Dirty Hands

  Cassia Speaks

  Victory

  25 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Intermediary

  24 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Sacred Ruins

  A Heretic in the Temple

  23 Days Until Spring Equinox

  The Drink

  Trust

  Anointing

  Silence

  Catapults

  Mercy

  Light

  22 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Day Terrors

  Offering of Blood

  21 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Day of Mourning

  Flint and Steel

  Vigil

  20 Days Until Spring Equinox

  More

  19 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Snowfall

  Wanting

  Pleasure

  Cassia’s Blood

  18 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Touch

  17 Days Until Spring Equinox

  Lio’s Mission

  Cassia’s Choice

  Falling

  First Tryst

  The Feast

  Natural Union

  Hours Before Dawn

  16 Days Until Spring Equinox

  A Stranger to Trust

  Across the Pavilion

  Nothing to Do with Wisdom

  A Necessary Monster

  Happiness

  15 Days Until Spring Equinox

  The Laws of Men

  The Way of Things

  The Western Wing

  Kindness

  Life Price

  Beauty

  One Fortnight

  14 Days Until Spring Equinox

  What Dead Men See

  Solia’s Secret

  Cassia’s Treason

  Saplings

  Siege

  Through the Veil

  An Impossible Dream

  Deukalion’s Address

  To the Gallows

  Fire and Light

  The Heretic and the Bastard

  For All of Time

  The Truth

  Lio’s Solace

  The King’s Noose

  Spring Equinox

  Last Call

  Equinox Oath

  Thank You

  Blood Solace

  Free Book

  More Books by Vela Roth

  Dedication

  Copyright

  CONTENT NOTE

  Blood Mercy portrays occasional medieval fantasy violence, an emotionally abusive parent, and conversations about attempted sexual assault.

  In particular, “The Way of Things” (15 days until Spring Equinox) is an emotional, but not graphic scene in which one woman confides in another that a man tried to assault her.

  The novel confronts these topics to show women supporting each other, overcoming fear and seeking justice.

  WINTER SOLSTICE

  The Cloak

  Cassia never knew what might prove to be her most effective means of defense. Sometimes it was a stray word uttered out of earshot that she read on the speaker’s lips. Other times it was her handmaiden’s lips, which were useful for spreading rumors, for the girl said too much to a particular guard in exchange for his kisses. Today it was a cloak.

  Cassia sat in her chair with perfect posture and rearranged the mantle across her knees, the better to display the hole that gaped in the otherwise flawless lambskin. In the stifling air of the hearth room, her legs sweated beneath the fleece.

  The seamstress stood over her. A band of late afternoon light slanted in from the high slit of one window and gleamed in her narrowed eyes. With a single glower, she judged the plain brown gown Cassia wore.

  The wizened craftswoman had taken her time getting here. Her message was clear: she had more important tasks than mending for the king’s bastard daughter. But she had come to this back corner of the palace, though it was Winter Solstice, and she could by rights be spending the holiday off her feet. Cassia had been right. The woman could not resist finding out what was to be gained by granting the favor.

  No one would question why Cassia called upon the most skilled seamstress in the King of Tenebra’s household rather than attempt to mend such damage herself. No one would doubt she mourned the loss of the finest cloak she might ever have, which had cost her suitor Lord Adrogan a number of prize shearlings.

  She ran a hand over the smooth hide, knitting her brows. “Please tell me you can save it, Mistress.”

  The seamstress eyed the hole as if assessing its size and jagged edges. Then she peered at Knight. Cassia’s hound lifted his head from his favorite resting place, his lady’s feet, and sniffed. Whatever he scented, and whatever his instincts beyond his nose told him, he parted his jaws in a dog smile, showing the old woman a lolling tongue and a mouthful of teeth.

  The seamstress’s mouth puckered as if she wished to spit upon the beast for ruining such a fine garment. Or perhaps the reason for her disgust was not Knight’s lack of respect for her craft, but the odor of his feet, which he had given a thorough licking just before she entered. As unique as the scent of horse, the musk of a liegehound inspired either love or hatred.

  When the seamstress turned her gaze on Cassia again, the old woman’s lips creased into what passed for a smile. She patted the pincushion she wore upon her sleeve, which sported an arsenal of long bone needles. “I can repair anything, Lady. It will require materials as fine as the cloak itself and, of course, it will take time. I trust the wait will be no inconvenience, for a lady has no need of the warmest lambskin in the kingdom so far south here at Namenti, even this late in the year. Least of all in these chambers.” She wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand.

  Cassia took her lower lip between her teeth, then waited for an instant to convey a hint of hesitation. She allowed a suggestion of apology to enter her tone. “I shall need it quickly. Naturally your compensation shall match the speed with which you return the cloak to me.”

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed, but her smile remained. “I’ve repaired everything from a knight’s leathers between one battle and the next to a lady’s underlinens the very morning of her wedding. Name the day you need the cloak, and I shall deliver.”

  �
��I must have it in three days’ time.”

  The lines around the seamstress’s smile deepened. “And so you shall.”

  “Such service shall not go unnoticed by the king.” Cassia handed over the cloak, and what air reached her legs, however tepid, was a relief.

  The seamstress gathered the garment to her with the tenderness of a mother, but as soon as she had it in her arms, she hesitated. The flare of her nostrils was so slight it might go unnoticed, but Cassia was watching for it.

  The smell of the herbal treatment Cassia had worked into the hide didn’t carry far, but right under one’s nose, the odor was unmistakable. She had made sure of that. Her stock of dried flora had supplied her with half a dozen of the most potent plants well known to ward off rogue magic.

  No one took such precautions under the king’s roof, where the royal mage saw to it all magic was practiced with the favor of the gods and the approval of the Orders. However, no one would set foot in the kingdom’s untamed eastern reaches without wearing the proper herbs to protect against the malign spells of fugitive apostates.

  The seamstress’s eyes watered, but she bowed over the redolent cloak as if Cassia had done her a great favor. The old woman took her leave with a self-satisfied smile.

  Cassia let a hand fall to rest on Knight’s head and scratched behind his ears. “Good dog,” she murmured. “You never liked Lord Adrogan, did you, even before he tried to buy my hand with that cloak. It’s a good thing he had to leave court in a hurry, after we made sure someone told him about what his concubine and his brother have been up to back home.”

  The door to the adjoining chamber swung open, and Perita appeared, one hand on the latch, toes firmly on the other side of the threshold. Behind the handmaiden, the dressing room was in chaos, strewn with all that must be readied in secret for the long journey east.

  “Shall I pack your scent oils next, Lady?” The girl sounded breathless, either because she dreaded asking a question Cassia hated, or because she was trying not to breathe so close to Knight.

  “If you must.” Cassia studied Perita’s face.

  It didn’t take odorous herbs to reduce Perita to tears, only the traces of dog fur that clung to everything Cassia wore. The girl’s eyes were already swollen and red from sorting through Cassia’s things.

  “For now, take some air,” Cassia instructed. “It’s cooler outside.”

  “Thank you, Lady.” Perita peeled a tendril of her hair away from her face, as if to disguise how she swiped at the moisture oozing from her eyes. She tucked the escaping hair back under her kerchief and darted out the door of the hearth room, leaving behind a whiff of air from the corridor that was slightly less warm.

  Cassia let out a sigh. “Mark my words, dearest. Perita will be unpacking those oils again by sundown. That cloak will see to it we don’t get sent off to the east.”

  Knight rested his head on her feet again.

  “That’s right,” she said. “The seamstress left here with something valuable. Something she can use. You know what that means.”

  He gazed up at her from under his shaggy brows.

  “Just so,” Cassia agreed. “The king isn’t the only one with a bastard. I happen to know that the boy the seamstress had to give up is now a man trying to distinguish himself in service to Free Lord Ferus. She’ll tell her son what she learned from my cloak, so he can trade the news to his lord to win favor.”

  A growl rumbled in Knight’s chest.

  “I know, love. Lord Ferus is all too interested in news of me. He’s even more persistent a suitor than Lord Adrogan. No telling what rewards he’ll give the seamstress’s son for informing him that Lady Cassia expects to spend the winter somewhere under constant threat by apostate mages. He will know that all the king’s holdings that far east are only home to soldiers, except one, which might be made fit for a lady.”

  Knight huffed a deep dog sigh.

  “True, whether it is ‘fit’ for anyone is arguable, but we’ve done all right with much worse, haven’t we? No matter in any case, for we shall not be there.”

  The afternoon waned, and there came the moan of the door, followed by Perita’s footsteps. Then her voice, “I’ll return to the packing now, Lady.”

  “Very well.” Cassia spared a glance for her handmaiden.

  The girl’s eyes were dry, her nose less red, but now the rest of her had gone pale. No rendezvous with her guard, then. An audience with the king. The only information her report to him would yield today was that Cassia had called upon the seamstress to rescue a suitor’s expensive gift.

  If Cassia was fortunate.

  After the sun had set, she still sweated and listened for any sound of a messenger’s approach. Winter had descended upon the entire kingdom of Tenebra, it seemed, except the afterthoughts that were her rooms. Namenti’s coastal clime eased the punishment of Tenebra’s infamous frosts. But only these chambers, where the king kept Cassia whenever he sent her here, ever achieved the great feat of being sweltering on Winter Solstice. The smithy a floor below labored on and on, its only celebration to outfit the king’s warriors, casting heat ever upward that would not fade till long after the forges slept.

  Cassia paced at the end of her bed, east then west, east then west. Knight padded faithfully beside her, although he barely had space to turn around in her bedchamber. She buried a hand in his ruff, and the familiar feeling of his shaggy fur under her fingers kept her tension from vanquishing her. If Perita suggested again that Cassia undress for bed, again Cassia would refuse. Her skin felt hot, except for the coolness where the back of her gown was damp between her shoulders. Her heart pounded.

  Then at last a pounding came from without. A fist on the door of the hearth room. Cassia drew breath. She walked to the door of her bedchamber and opened it. She moved in studied paces to her chair by the empty fire pit. She was sitting with her back straight, her feet tucked under Knight by the time her handmaiden admitted the messenger.

  The young man bowed, and sweat splashed from his forehead onto the threadbare hearth rug. “Your father the king commands your presence in his hall.”

  Cassia nodded, and the man fled. He had not expected a longer response. There was only one response to the king, and the messenger would deliver it regardless of any words Cassia did or did not say.

  “Shall I accompany you, Lady?” Perita clutched her hands in front of her, her knuckles white.

  “No. Knight and I shall go.”

  “As you wish, Lady.”

  Cassia stepped out into the corridor, and the coolness between her shoulders became a chill. Somewhere in the shadow and light ahead of her, the messenger’s footfalls echoed. It was not long before she could no longer hear them. As she made her own way toward the royal hall, she listened for any sign she was not the only one abroad at this hour. One never knew which members of the court were in their beds and which were not. But she encountered nothing of interest or concern, beyond the odor of drying piss one of the lords had left in a corner. She traded places with Knight so she could smell his paws instead.

  When Cassia approached the door of the royal hall, the two statues that flanked it moved and reminded her they were human. One pulled open the door and spilled golden candlelight into the corridor, reminding her they were humans with glinting swords at their belts. The guards’ bulk made the doorway narrow. Knight pressed closer to her, his body taut as they walked between the men. Hound and guards eyed one another.

  Cassia blinked in the bright hall. The low ceiling made the iron chandeliers seem too close. The guards at their posts along the walls appeared too tall, and the room felt crowded, although they few were the only ones who attended the royal presence tonight.

  At the head of the hall, the king sat alone in a haze of candlelight.

  Cassia fixed her gaze on the polished floor tiles and put one foot in front of the other. When the king’s fine leather shoes came into view, she halted and knelt. With Knight’s toes no longer clicking on the stone, the room
seemed very quiet. She broke out in another sweat from her scalp to the bottom of her feet.

  She held her body very still. When the king’s voice echoed through the hall, not so much as her finger flinched.

  “You will not go east three days from now.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  “It seems nowhere is distant and forgotten enough to keep you out of Lord Ferus’s reach. He departed this afternoon to inspect one of his frontier outposts that happens to lie within a day’s ride of my easternmost household.”

  Cassia gave the king the response he now desired, her silent attention. The floor ground into her knees.

  The king’s tone did not change. He was not a man who need speak with any great emotion. The king’s will or displeasure was always self-evident. “This is the third time I have attempted to relocate you discreetly. This is the third time Ferus has suddenly learned his presence is necessary at one of his holdings in the vicinity. Until I silence the tongue informing him of your movements, it appears I must keep you within my sight. You will remain with the court until I say otherwise. It is time I kept a closer eye on you. Any man with ambitions would find my blood in your veins useful, regardless of what your mother was. Occasionally it is necessary to remind all concerned your blood is mine to use as I see fit, and mine alone.”

  Cassia tensed her entire body to keep from shaking. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Contrary to my plans, you will remain here at Namenti with the court, then accompany us when we depart for Solorum later in the winter.”

  A chill of relief eased the heat under her skin. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “It is a very unfortunate inconvenience that I must take you to the capital. This means you will be at Solorum when the Hesperine embassy arrives from Orthros for the Equinox Summit.”

  Yes. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Too much is at stake in these negotiations for me to suffer distractions such as you. You will remain at court on my sufferance and at all times conduct yourself as befits a bastard I have been generous enough to acknowledge. You will keep out of sight, except when I require your presence.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  His weathered hand lifted in an abrupt gesture of dismissal. His rings caught the candlelight and scattered it in Cassia’s eyes. Blinking to clear her vision, she rose to her feet and backed away.