02 - The Barbed Rose (26 page)

“Gweric knows what happened.” Viyelle had known before she did it that seducing him could be complicated, not just because of his hidden scars that ran so deep.

He wasn’t Adaran. Who knew what his expectations might be? Tibrans didn’t join together into families. Or they hadn’t, before the war. A Tibran male could demand sex from any woman he encountered and any child that resulted belonged to the caste she served.

That may have changed. Viyelle had heard rumors that the caste system in Tibre had collapsed with the death of all the Rulers. But Gweric had left Tibre before that happened. So why was he slamming doors?

Outside, the rain had slowed to a heavy drizzle. Viyelle hoped it meant the fires started by that rebel naitan had all gone out. If not, at least the rain would keep them from spreading.

“What, exactly, was your involvement with Gweric?” Kallista was asking.

Viyelle sighed. She had to pay attention, even if she didn’t want to. “Sex, mostly. He’s seventeen, he thinks. He might be sixteen, but probably not eighteen. You know what they’re like at that age. Sex mad.”

“Is that all?”

“I took him to the scent gardens in the perfumer’s quarter, and to a few concerts—things I thought he could enjoy without sight. Did you know Munday Kayiss is magically talented? That’s why he makes people weep with the sound of his viol. He plays with bow and with magic. Gweric said it was like watching light dance.”

Kallista cast her a sharp look. “Should I ask if
your
heart is involved?”

“Of course not.” Was it? Viyelle probed that tender organ. “He’s a sweet boy. Very…enthusiastic. But he’s seventeen. An easily distracted age.”

“And you’re what—twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Old enough to know better. Did it occur to you that he might find ‘distractions’ difficult to come by? Besides his scars, he’s a naitan. A
West
naitan. That tends to…disturb people.”

“I—no.” Guilt washed over Viyelle, an unfamiliar and decidedly unwelcome feeling. She didn’t like it at all, but these people—her new ilian—seemed to think her comfort was immaterial. She wanted more rum punch. “He’ll be fine. He’s a handsome boy. He’ll fall in love with someone else next week.”

Kallista gave her a disgusted look and walked on, collecting Gweric as they passed the guard patrol. Viyelle tried to approach him as they walked back to the palace, but he always saw her coming, always sidled away.

If he wouldn’t even talk to her, how would she ever get rid of the nasty uncomfortable feeling?
Was
she in love with him? Was that why she felt so bad?

And they hadn’t even broken the news to her parents yet. Viyelle dragged her feet. Things would only get worse.

The travois where Fox lay jarred into and out of yet another hole on the endless Adaran plain. He let his head wobble from side to side, pretending sleep. He was healed enough that he could ride a horse and riding would doubtless be a dozen times more comfortable than being jolted across the countryside like this. But Fox thought it better that these outlaws rebelling against Kallista’s queen believed him more injured than he was.

If Kallista had not been sending magic to heal him, he
would
be more injured than he was. Or he would be dead.

That had not happened and would not, now. So until he knew more, knew where the rebels were taking him and what their purpose was, he would play invalid.

Pretending unconsciousness most of the day left Fox with time on his hands, more time than he needed or wanted. Some of it he spent testing his
knowing
sense, counting the rebels in the band, learning to identify them, keeping track of their shifting places in the group. Some of it he spent actually unconscious, dozing on his pallet-on-poles until it dropped him into another hole and jerked him awake again.

Most of the time, however, was spent remembering things. Like the sight of Kallista’s face in his dream. Of the certain sense that yesterday afternoon their ilian had magically joined into a whole again.

It was faint, nothing like that powerful blast of magic that had dumped him on his backside in the snow weeks ago. But he had no doubt it had happened again. Despite the distance, Kallista had somehow called magic from him and bound it with the others to do…what?

What need could have been so urgent that she was driven to call magic over such a distance? She had warned him in her dream that her magic was needed in Arikon, but for what? Had he been able to give her what she needed? Had she done what she needed to do? Were they still safe and well in Arikon, or had the thing that drove her to such desperate measures won out?

Fox wished he knew.

He had to find out. Had to get free, which meant he had to regain his strength. He had rested enough. He needed to work his injuries, rebuild fading muscles. If the rebels did not reach their destination soon and clap him in a cell where he could exercise in secret, he would have to give up his pretending and begin his recovery under their eyes. He would give them another few days.

I’m coming
. He gathered the thought up and threw it toward Kallista, at that shimmer inside where she touched him.
Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I am coming home
.

Kallista managed to put off the appointment with Sanda Torvyll, prinsipas of Shaluine, until Secondday, much to her relief.

She freely admitted her cowardice, to herself if to no one else. If the woman’s own daughter was wary, who was Kallista to ignore the warning? The extra time was granted primarily because of endless meetings all Firstday with the Reinine’s advisors and generals about the terrifying attack. Meetings which Kallista, and perforce her ilian, were required to attend though not welcomed to speak, once she told what she knew.

The traitors who had set the gunpowder bombs in the palace and the city had not been identified, much less caught, nor was it known how the gunpowder had made its way into rebel hands. The yellow-clad fireball-throwing naitan had survived his fall with no more than broken limbs—both legs and an arm—but they had learned little from him that made sense.

The man told garbled tales of recently awakening magic, though he was approaching middle age. He talked of power surges and flame outs, magic that came and went without warning. He raved about slaying death. His interrogators more than half believed the man was mad, without discernment between reality and myth. Except he had never set foot past the gates of the South Academy. No magic had awakened in him before his military service, as almost always happened. And he seemed to have none now, no matter how hard he tried to summon fire or how loudly he screamed.

The North Academy instructors had recognized the body of the windcaller who had been directing the boat. The woman had had a very minor talent for stirring the air, no more than a cooling breeze. Certainly nowhere near the magic required to fly a boat.

Kallista passed a note to the Reinine, bodyguard to bodyguard for privacy, suggesting that the power might have come from the demons she’d seen in the boat. But Serysta Reinine did no more than read it, nod and tuck it away. What else could she do? Kallista was the only one equipped to deal with demons, and without her other iliasti, she was hobbled.

Kallista did take a moment when the last meeting ended to obtain a letter from the Reinine to the prinsep of Shaluine. What little was left of Firstday she had to use in an attempt to sort out the tangle her ilian had snarled itself in.

Viyelle had plunged right into her new life, all her qualms and reservations over her marking apparently wiped away by the notion of being ilias to their ilian. She snuggled into the big bed along with the rest of them on the first night, making a place for herself between Obed and Joh. When Obed got Torchay to trade places, moving to Kallista’s far side from her, Viyelle didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps she simply didn’t care which two men she slept between.

She did attempt to talk with Gweric, which made Kallista happy, though Gweric refused to talk to Viyelle, which didn’t. Kallista finally had to corner him in the big parlor after his ghost-tutor’s departure.

“Sit.” She pointed him back into the chair he’d just vacated in an escape attempt.

He sat. If he’d had eyes, Kallista was certain they’d be glaring daggers at her. She could feel them as it was. “What’s going on with you and Viyelle?”

“Nothing. Obviously. Can I go?”

“No.” Kallista sat in the chair beside him rather than the one across the table. How did she come to be playing the part of Second Mother to a seventeen-year-old? “Something’s bothering you. It’s best to spit it out. The doors won’t take much more abuse.”

Gweric slumped lower in his chair, kicking the table leg. He turned sulking into a work of art.

Kallista swallowed her sigh. Guesswork was not her best skill, but his refusal to speak left her few options. “Look, I know it probably feels like you’ll never have sex again, now Viyelle’s become ilias, but—”

“You think
that’s
what I care about?” He started to burst from his chair like the words bursting from his mouth, then wrestled control from his impulses. His passion carried in his voice, quieter than before. Not much quieter, but some.

“The sex was great. Fantastic. But I’ve done without before. It’s not important. But why
her?
” Gweric reached out to touch some unseen thing in midair. “Why her and not
me?
The way the magic dances between all of you—it’s so beautiful. It’s so—”

He drew his hand back and fisted it in his lap with his other. If he could have, Kallista thought he would have wept with unhappiness. “Why can’t I be part of it?” he whispered.

She took a deep breath and let it carefully out. This would be tougher to resolve than a mere lost lover. “It’s not that simple, Gweric. The One doesn’t mark us because we wish it. It’s not a thing of pride, but surrender. Viyelle—and all of us—”

How to word this so it came out right? So it wouldn’t condemn or make him feel as if he’d failed some test? “We offered ourselves to the One, to be used as She saw fit. And this was how She chose to use us.”

“I did that. I swear I did. Just like Viyelle. Why didn’t the One choose me?”

“Oh, Gweric, I don’t know.” Kallista reached across the gap between them and pulled him into a clumsy hug. “Who knows the mind of God? I certainly don’t. Maybe it’s because you’re a naitan yourself. Or maybe it’s because you’re so young. It could be that it’s just not your time yet.”

She released him with a kiss to his forehead. “Obed told me that he dedicated himself to the One years and years ago, but he wasn’t marked until last year. At the same time Fox and Stone and I were, we think, though he was hundreds of leagues away. Maybe there’s something similar in your future.

“Though honestly—” She shook him gently by the shoulder. “I don’t know why you would want such a thing. The One’s demands of Her godmarked are…terrifying. And I think it might be rather nice to choose one’s iliasti for oneself, rather than have them pop up from nowhere.”

She probably shouldn’t have said that. It made it sound as if she didn’t want her mates, which wasn’t true. She valued each one of them, loved most of them and probably would come to love the rest once she knew them better. Still, acquiring iliasti in such a
surprising
manner did tend to be a trifle…awkward. It was awkward trying to explain it to herself.

“Are you sorry?” Gweric seemed to have finished his sulking, for now at least.

“No.” It was true, Kallista realized. She wouldn’t wish any of it away. “I honestly don’t think I’ve been happier—well, except for those moments of stark terror fighting demons, and except for not having my babies and our Tibrans with us now. If everyone was here—and the demons weren’t—everything would be…well, not perfect. You don’t get perfection this side of heaven. But as good as it gets. Better than I ever dreamed was possible. More than I ever thought I would have.”

She clapped him on the shoulder and stood. “And I didn’t get any of it until I was thirty-four. Be patient. You have lots of time.” She started to depart, then turned back, just to be sure. “Make your peace with Viyelle, will you? And ease up on the doors and furniture. It doesn’t belong to me.”

Gweric blushed, grinned and bolted for the far end of the parlor where he grabbed the staff for the exercises Obed had set him. One problem solved.

“Stop it.”
Across the parlor, near the sitting area, Obed threw Viyelle’s hand from him and stalked away, into the big bedroom, leaving her staring gape-mouthed after him.

Kallista sighed. One problem solved, a thousand yet to go.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

N
ot sure how or where she needed to begin, Kallista headed for the sofas where the ilian had been gathered before her chat with Gweric, where Torchay, Joh and Viyelle lingered. Torchay caught her eye and waved her after Obed, indicating silently that he would handle this end of things. Thank the One.

Joh got Viyelle up to move them closer to the side room, within their magical boundary. Kallista didn’t see where they landed. She was already in the room with Obed.

He stood in the center of the small open area with his back to the door, naked from the waist up, his tunic wadded in his hands. “I have failed you and forsworn my vows,” he said in a voice choked with emotion.

Kallista’s heart sank. Were they back to this again?

But he stopped there. His hands tightened on the tunic they held and his head fell back, eyes squeezed shut. With a half-stifled cry, he threw the tunic across the room. “Why does it have to be so hard?”

Her heart started beating again. She moved behind him and slid her arms around his waist, laying her cheek on the flat plane of his shoulder blade. He hadn’t shut himself off from her.

Obed pulled her arms closer around himself, held them in place. “I have tried,” he said. “You know how hard I have tried, and I have been getting better. Haven’t I? It is easier, now I know I have my own place in your heart.”