02 - The Barbed Rose (25 page)

She sagged against Joh and turned her face up into the rain, closing her eyes against the beat of the falling drops. The cool, clean wetness washed away the smoke and dust, and seemed to take the lingering taint of demon with it. Saints and all the sinners, she was tired.

“What—” Viyelle stepped away from Torchay and wiped the streaming water from her face. “What
was
that?”

Kallista opened one eye and looked at her. “What was which? The demon? Or the boat? Or—?”

“All of it.” Viyelle shoved Torchay farther away. She looked as if she’d like to skewer him. “Who do you think you are, hauling me around like I was some—some sack of goods? I’m capable of walking, you know.”

The wicked look in Torchay’s eye did not bode well, but Kallista couldn’t stop him before he made an elegant leg and swept into a deep bow. “Who am I? Only your ilias, dear Prinsipella.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“W
hat?” Viyelle’s shout had heads turning all the way to the towers. “You’re mad!”

“Torchay, stop it. Viyelle—” Kallista got no further before the younger woman turned and ran. “Viyelle, don’t. Stop!”

She didn’t reach the top of the stairs before she staggered and fell in a twitching convulsion. Kallista was already moving, but couldn’t keep up with Viyelle’s mad dash, tired as she was.

As she passed Torchay, she smacked him on the back of the head. “You’re supposed to be the sensible one,” she scolded. “Quit poking her sore spots.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, staying at her side. “Just wondering when the One plans to stop enlarging our ilian.”

Kallista sighed. “When we have enough, I suppose. However many that is.”

Viyelle was groaning to a seated position when they reached her. “What in seven bloody hells did you do to me?” She glared up at Kallista.

“Nothing that hasn’t already been done to the rest of us at one time or another.” Joh reached down to clasp her forearm and pull her to her feet.

Viyelle couldn’t stifle more groans. She ached all over. As if every muscle in her entire body had been wrenched out of shape. Her mind felt worse.

Nothing made sense. The past half-hour—hour?—of memory whirled in a blinding cacophony of terror, flames, pity, smoke, confusion, noise and wild, ecstatic joy. She hurt, and she had never felt better in her life. She felt lost and directionless, and yet she knew exactly where she belonged and what her life’s purpose was.

Viyelle looked at the major naitan waiting patiently for her to find her footing. Except the ground had shifted beneath Viyelle’s feet and she didn’t think it would ever be steady again.

“I have no magic,” she said.

“No,” the major agreed. “You are no naitan. You have no magic to use.” She hunched her shoulders against the downpour. “Do you think we could get in out of the rain to discuss it?”

Viyelle balked. It was instinctive. Any time someone in authority made a suggestion, she automatically did the opposite. She was trying to grow out of it—becoming a courier had helped—but old habits lingered like old fish.

The rain had soaked through to her skin and was starting to get cold. The major’s suggestion made good sense. Viyelle was trying to learn to be sensible as well. She nodded once, all she could manage, and gestured for the major to lead the way. Her red-haired bodyguard did.

At the foot of the stairs, they ducked into a tavern across the way that catered to the military trade. Viyelle didn’t quite feel comfortable in the surroundings, but the others obviously did. She stifled the urge to be contrary and didn’t insist they find somewhere else. Sensible. Mature. The “new” Viyelle.

They settled at a table near the hearth for the fire’s warmth and the two in blacks went for something to help them warm from the inside. Major Varyl let Viyelle have the side nearest the fire, sitting facing her.

Viyelle wasn’t sure she liked that. It felt too much like “discussions” she’d had with her various parents. Especially when the others took their seats. Only Joh—Joh Ailo, she corrected, giving him the polite honorific—sat on her side of the table, and even that felt threatening. Six parents could bring a lot of pressure to bear. Thank the One, only four pairs of eyes stared at her now.

“Do you understand what has happened today?” The major slid the mug of hot spiced rum punch across the battered table to her.

Viyelle wrapped her hands around the mug, savoring its warmth, and shrugged. She took a sip of the punch, then another, impressed. It was as good as any she’d had in the palace.

The major sighed. Viyelle knew sighs. She’d heard a lot of them in her time. She’d sighed not a few of her own.

“Courier,” the major tried again. “Viyelle, you were marked by the One this afternoon. Godmarked, like the rest of us. Like the rest of
them
, at any rate.”

Viyelle laughed, which snorted punch up her nose where it burned, choked her, made her cough. Joh Ailo pounded her back, making her cough more. When she could breathe, she laughed again, but it faded quickly. No one else was laughing.

“You’re joking,” she said, beginning to worry.

The major shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I used magic placed in you by the One to drive off that demon-spawned boat. You’re one of us, marked and bound.”

“I can’t be. I’m not religious. I’m not—I’m—” Viyelle fell silent, cowed by the weight of all the solemn looks focused on her. “Am I?”

She touched the back of her neck, feeling for a mark like the others wore. She’d seen glimpses of the marks beneath queues over the last two weeks she’d been quartered in their suite. Viyelle startled when Joh Ailo touched her hand, moved it higher on her neck, nearer her hairline.

“Here,” he said, voice gentle.

“I heard you,” the dark one said. “In the streets. You called on the God to save them. You offered yourself.”

“And the One took what you offered,” Joh finished. “That’s how it happens.” He patted her shoulder and returned to his drink.

“Oh sweet holy Goddess.” Viyelle could feel it, the raised, round mark. She remembered doing exactly what they said. “But I didn’t think She would take me up on it. I’m no—I’m not—”

Obed Ailo smiled, so gently it made her stomach hurt. “You can be no greater sinner than I, who has committed a thousand thousands of dark deeds with these hands. But even my offer was accepted.”

She slumped against the back of the chair, stunned. One at a time, she looked at them, hunted for truth in their eyes.

The sergeant nodded, his red, red hair loose and curling in Peaceday’s relaxation, blue eyes quiet above his narrow, hooked nose. The Southroner continued to smile, eyes dark as night above the strange blue tattoos on his cheeks. The one-time lieutenant, one-time convict met her gaze a moment before his lips twisted into a crooked smile and he flipped his long braid back over his shoulder. They all believed it. Finally, Viyelle looked at the major’s solemn face.

Ever since last year, Viyelle had wondered. What did this ordinary naitan—relegated to a military career by the violence of her magic—have that made her so special? She was handsome enough with her sable-brown hair, fair skin and lightning blue eyes, but the palace was filled with women far more handsome. She seemed intelligent enough, but Viyelle knew scholars more brilliant, and naitani with greater magic. What made
this
one different?

Now, she knew. Because Viyelle apparently possessed the same quality. It had nothing to do with beauty or talent or intelligence or even knowledge. It was simply that she was
willing
.

At the time Viyelle had made her outrageous offer however, she hadn’t considered any of the consequences. She had been too focused on stopping the attacks.

She cleared her throat. “So. Does this mean we’re getting married?”

The major looked stunned for a moment, then laughter transformed her face. They all smiled, and Viyelle’s heart pounded faster.
These
would be her mates? And the Tibrans. She hadn’t considered those benefits either, and it made her just a tiny bit dizzy.

“We already are married, in every sense but one,” Major Varyl said. “But that one…could get complicated.”

“Which sense is tha—? Oh.” Viyelle took a big sip of her punch. It needed more rum in it. Lots more rum. “The technical, legal, documented sense.”

“Exactly.” The major leaned back in her chair, obviously thinking hard. “You are after all a prinsipella, whether or not you’re in line to be prinsep, and we’re…not. Obed’s trading business is doing quite well, but that belongs to him, so—”

“No.”
Obed interrupted through clenched teeth. “I have told you. Everything that was mine is now yours. It is
ours
. Belonging to all of us. Why do you never listen to me?”

“Why do you never talk sense?” Kallista retorted.

It sounded to Viyelle like an old argument. One she’d never heard because she’d been an outsider. It made her change in status sink in deeper, and she didn’t know if she liked the feeling.

“Maybe if you made sense, I’d listen,” Kallista went on. “I don’t know how things are done where you come from, but in Adara, a person doesn’t disappear when they marry. You are still yourself and whatever you owned before you joined an ilian is still yours afterward.”

Obed’s face showed no expression, but his mysterious dark eyes glittered with some suppressed emotion. Silence stretched.

Kallista ended it. “It belongs to Obed.” She turned back to Viyelle. “Still, maybe the wealth will influence your parents. We can—”

The boom of Obed’s fist hitting the table stopped conversation and sent punch sloshing over the rims of those cups that held more than Viyelle’s. “You do not understand.”

The intensity of his voice could have sustained a shout loud enough to be heard halfway down the valley, but he spoke only for the five of them.

“
I do not want it.
All of those
things
, all of that wealth—it is…tainted. Stained with my sins. If I give it to you, to all those Chosen by the One, then perhaps that will begin to atone for…” He trailed off, eyes lowering to the table as if he could not meet any gaze. “For the things I have done.”

Kallista slid her hand over Obed’s still-clenched fist as she exchanged quick glances with the other two men. “You’re right,” she said. “We didn’t understand how you felt about it. I’m still not sure I do. You said—Does this have to do with—You were one of the holy sinners?”

“Yes.” Obed turned his hand and closed it around Kallista’s. “Forgive me. This is not my time.” He looked up at Viyelle, the black heat of his eyes arrowing through her. “If the wealth I have accumulated will smooth your parents’ way to accepting this union, it is yours to use.”

Viyelle cleared her throat, feeling extremely uncomfortable. As if she’d just been given a glimpse of someone’s unprotected soul—a glimpse she didn’t particularly want. Intensity of emotion was something she craved. She felt things deeply. It made her feel more alive, more truly herself. But when other people seemed to feel emotions just as intensely as she did, it made her feel strange. As if she wasn’t so unique after all.

“
Will
it help?” Kallista’s question called Viyelle back from this discomfort and into another variety of it.

“Possibly. Probably. Maybe?” Viyelle rubbed her forehead, frowning at her mug. She looked at the bottom for a leak. She didn’t remember emptying it. She stole Joh’s mug and swallowed down a good bit.

“Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve spent the last several years avoiding any and all discussion of marriage. Without my own magic, I won’t inherit and no one’s come nosing about with any dynastic offers. I’m not about to set up housekeeping with any of my sedili, no matter what our parents seem to think. All my mothers are sedili—my birth mother and the prinsep are blood sisters. And they fight constantly with each other when they’re not scolding me. I won’t live that way.”

She took another deep draft of Joh’s punch. “And now, I won’t have to.”

Viyelle toasted the others with Joh’s ex-mug only to have it stolen at the height of her toast by Torchay who winkled it magically out of her grip. He set it too far away for her to retrieve, unless she crawled over the table.

“What have you eaten today, prinsipella?” He reached across the table and lifted her eyelids to peer at her eyes. “You’re well on your way to flying without wings.”

“Nope. Not me. The boat flew. It had
things
in it. But I don’t have things.” She leaned an elbow on the table to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. “I have
magic
in me.”

Kallista chuckled. “So you do, ilias. And it’s good for keeping out demons.”

“Is that what those things were?” Viyelle shuddered in a sudden chill. Her clothes were too damp, that was all.

“Yes. Unfortunately.” Kallista stood. “Come. Let’s take our new ilias home and get some warm food inside her and dry clothes outside her. Then we can send word to the Reinine. I have a feeling we will need her on our side when it comes time to explain certain things to certain people.”

Viyelle was shivering, steady and uncontrollable. Joh put an arm around her, making her colder at first with the press of wet clothes against her skin, then warming her with the heat of his body. “We should hurry. She’s too cold.”

They were almost to the tavern door when it opened and Gweric put his head in. “Here you are. The guards want to know what the Reinine wants to do with the rebel prisoner.”

“Saints, I forgot.” Kallista looked guilt-stricken for a moment before she summoned her military face. “Tell them to deliver the prisoner to General Uskenda. The Reinine will instruct the general as to her wishes.”

“Yes, Major.” Gweric nodded.

“We’ll wait for you. I don’t want you running around this city alone either.”

The boy grinned. “No, Major.” Then his face turned to Viyelle and his grin faded. Whatever he saw made him unhappy. He slammed out the door, nearly slamming Torchay’s nose in it.

Oh, damn. Damn, damn, bloody damn. Now that Viyelle was ilias, her liaison with Gweric was over. Iliasti did not look for sex outside the ilian. Viyelle must have repeated some of her swearing out loud, because Kallista turned and raised a questioning eyebrow.