02 - The Barbed Rose (28 page)

Time passed before Kallista could hear again. She still couldn’t see, but she was fairly sure that was because her eyes were closed. Though she wasn’t absolutely certain. Torchay had slid partially off her, as if he didn’t want to weigh her down but could move no farther. One heavy leg still draped across both of hers and an arm sprawled across her stomach. He was swearing, quietly, creatively, incessantly. Obed wasn’t moving at all.

She could feel him along her other side, his hair brushing against the side of her breast, his shoulder pressed into her waist, faceup, she thought. He was warm, which was a hopeful sign. Kallista reached to touch him, make sure he still lived, but her arm wouldn’t work right.

It didn’t want to move at all, and when she forced it, it jerked up and flopped onto Obed’s shoulder. He didn’t stir. Kallista worked her hand up over his face, covered his mouth and felt his breath slide out from his nose over her skin.

“Oh good,” she mumbled. “You’re both alive.”

“Are you certain?” Obed’s lips moved against her palm.

“Reasonably so, yes.” She considered rolling over, considered moving her hand off Obed’s mouth. Either seemed more work than she could manage, so she stayed where she was.

“Next time.” Torchay seemed to speak with some effort. “Next time I ask you to call magic and you think it’s a bad idea, don’t pay me any mind, will you?”

“I didn’t think it was a
bad
idea.”

“But you didn’t truly want to, did you?”

“No, not really.”

“So next time, don’t.” His thumb drew circles on her stomach, the only motion—besides talking—he seemed able to accomplish.

“I didn’t do it to punish you for asking.” Kallista’s alarm was vague and far away and too much effort would have been required to bring it closer.

“No, of course you didn’t. I just didn’t realize what I was asking.” He took a deep breath, making his arm rise and fall across her middle.

“Perhaps it was the sharing.” Obed turned his head, let it roll toward her so that now his lips brushed her side as he spoke. “Because there were three of us, the magic was stronger.”

“Perhaps.” Torchay paused. Kallista could almost hear him thinking and she checked the link for remaining driblets of magic, shooing them back where they belonged. Torchay shivered, brushed his lips over her temple. “Goddess, you were coming and coming and coming, and I was there, right on the edge, but I couldn’t go over. I wanted to,
needed
to, but couldn’t. Not till…I don’t know…”

Kallista grimaced. She patted his arm. “That was my fault. Obed asked me to help him wait for me, and I didn’t realize I had hold of your magic, too. Sorry.”

“Actually…” Torchay was thinking again. She didn’t need magic to know that much. “Actually, I think I rather liked it. I just—I didn’t expect it, so I didn’t know what was happening or why and—well, it is a bit alarming when your bits don’t work the way you expect them to. The way they did before.”

He snuggled in, using his leg over hers to pull her closer. “Maybe we should experiment. See what else the magic can do.”

“I thought you said not to. That I should ignore you when you ask me to call magic.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” He sighed.

Obed rolled his body into hers, his arm going across her hips just above Torchay’s leg, his forehead resting against her side, almost cradled under her arm. “I think we should try it. I think we should know what the magic can do in every area.”

Torchay sighed again, deeper. “You’re probably right. If we live.”

“Excuse me.” Kallista poked a finger into Torchay’s side, Obed’s shoulder. “Don’t I get a say in this decision?”

“Of course you do.” Torchay poked her back. Not with a finger. “You’re the only one who can actually call magic, if you’ll remember. But I think Obed’s right. We should know what the magic can do. What we do together as ilian could have more of an effect elsewhere besides just preventing backlash.”

She gusted out a heavy sigh and stroked a hand down Obed’s black waves. The other hand slid round Torchay’s lean, muscled arm. “You’re right, both of you.”

“But.” Torchay kissed her forehead and shoved himself up to sit. “I think perhaps we ought to hold off on any more ‘sharing’ for a while. Till we know how the magic behaves with just one of us at a time.”

“Agreed.” Obed sat up on her other side, his face as solemn as Torchay’s.

Kallista looked from one to the other, dark head to bright, pale skin to brown, and couldn’t keep from saying what she thought. “We’ll have to study hard and learn quickly.”

The men exchanged glances and broke out in simultaneous laughter, so male it made Kallista blush and gave her the energy to squirm out from between them.

Joh and Viyelle apparently got the rest of the tangle sorted, at least temporarily, for no more uncomfortable incidents unfolded the rest of that day or the next. It gave Kallista a sense of confidence as she strode through the palace corridors at Viyelle’s side, the men ranged before and behind in bodyguard position on their way to meet their new ilias’s parents.

Sanda Torvyll was still quartered in Winterhold. She’d been at court through the winter, and with all the citizenry pouring into Arikon and the Reinine’s court, there hadn’t been room for her to make the shift to Summerglen when the Reinine did. It made for a very long walk through the two enormous palaces.

The walk nibbled at Kallista’s confidence. After all, this was a prinsipas they were off to visit. A prinsipas whose daughter they intended to marry. Had already married in every way but one. It wasn’t as if she could prevent them taking Viyelle into their ilian. But family could make things very uncomfortable. Kallista had personal experience of that.

At least they looked good. She had allowed Obed to indulge his generous nature and gift them with clothing more fine than what many courtiers wore. She and Torchay were in dress uniform of course, but uniforms made of thick, nubbly raw silk, embroidered in lustrous silk thread with touches of gold. Her rank insignia were clipped on with gold pins shaped like lightning bolts and their queues were tied off with gold hair clips.

Joh’s tunic was a shade brighter than Kallista’s uniform, bringing out the intense blue of his eyes. The short sleeves and lower edge of the tunic were slashed in the current fashion, the slashes bound and ornamented with heavy silver embroidery, but the lining that showed through was black rather than some other fashionably bright color. He wore black trousers, so that he seemed almost uniformed as well, though the clip that fastened his long queue was silver.

Obed wore his hair loose over his silver-embroidered black Southron robe. Beneath it, he wore a plain blue tunic the same color as Joh’s and black trousers. A tiny silver loop winked from his right earlobe. Kallista hadn’t thought he would actually pierce his ear, but he had. She liked the way it looked.

Only Viyelle had no new finery to wear. She had clothing almost as fine but had elected not to wear it, explaining that she hoped the contrast would help reinforce the fact that the ilian had no need for money. Kallista hoped it would work.

They reached the corridor that passed the Shaluine suite and Kallista drew to a halt. “Are we ready?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
orchay adjusted the shoulders of Kallista’s tunic so it sat more squarely. Joh flicked an invisible bit of lint from his slashing.

Viyelle fussed with the cords that held her half cape tied over one shoulder. “Are you sure we wouldn’t rather just write a letter?” She tugged at the cords, feeling as if she was about to choke.

“Relax. It will be fine.” Kallista smiled as Joh moved Viyelle’s hands away from her cape ties.

“If you leave it alone, it won’t choke you.” He retied the cape, using her weapons harness to hold the cords in place, away from her neck.

“Let me do the talking, if you’re too nervous,” Kallista said.

“It’s not that I’m nervous, exactly.” Viyelle’s hand drifted toward the cords and stopped when Joh cleared his throat. “I’m just afraid—no, I’m
certain
that it won’t be very pleasant.”

“We can handle unpleasantness.” Kallista winked, a sly smile creeping out. “We’ve fought demons together, remember? What’s a parent or two?”

When she put it that way…Viyelle considered, then turned to leave. “Let’s go find another demon.”

Kallista laughed and clapped Viyelle on the shoulder, turning her to face the other way. “Courage, ilias.” She propelled her forward, walking with an arm draped over her shoulder. “I do understand. I think I’d rather fight demons than deal with my own birth parents. But between all of us, we ought to manage.”

Viyelle wasn’t so sure, but she let herself be maneuvered down the hallway in the midst of her new family. Obed knocked on the door. It opened, and a young woman in court clothes looked curiously out at them.

Viyelle’s heart froze for a moment, then started beating at a rate that threatened to shake it loose from its moorings. “Oh, hell,” she muttered.

Joh cleared his throat. He must have heard Viyelle’s quiet curse. Torchay as well, for he stroked his hand down the back of her arm that was free of the cape. It did calm her, a bit.

Kallista made a leg and bowed, not too low. “Major Naitan Kallista Varyl to see Sanda Torvyll, Prinsipas of Shaluine. She is expecting us.”

“Yes, of course.”

The door opened wider and Kallista strode in. Viyelle tried to hang back, but Torchay’s hand on her arm “encouraged” her through the door as he followed.

“Kendra.” Viyelle was sure her smile looked as false as it felt when she turned to her sedil and embraced her. Or rather the air around her, as Kendra held herself that much apart. “I’m surprised to see you here. Did—”

“Really?” Kendra spoke in the cool, superior tone she’d adopted since her magic had risen when she’d been fifteen and Viyelle almost seventeen. It had risen late, and it wasn’t powerful magic—she had a minor East talent for encouraging crops to maturity. But it was magic. Kendra had it. Viyelle had none at all. And Kendra never let her older sedil forget it.

“I was surprised
not
to see you when we arrived yesterday,” Kendra said. “I was given to understand by Second Mother that you were quartered here, despite your…” Her eyes flicked contemptuously over Viyelle’s courier’s grays. “Duties.”

She made it sound as if whatever duties Viyelle might have, they were unimportant, possibly immoral, and Viyelle wasn’t carrying them out anyway. Kendra had always been able to do that, and it had always infuriated Viyelle. She managed to hold her temper this time.

“I’ve been quartered elsewhere the last two weeks, with my new assignment.” Viyelle edged away from Kendra, nearer Kallista. She couldn’t resist adding, “Orders of the Reinine, direct from her hand.”

Mother came in then and Viyelle escaped her sister. From one torment to another, but she had her iliasti around her. She wasn’t alone.

A knot in her gut loosened, one Viyelle hadn’t realized had been tied until this moment. She didn’t know yet just how awful this meeting would be—worse, with Kendra here. But also better, simply because she was not alone.

Then another side door opened and her insides tied themselves into six, a dozen new knots. Her second mother, Saminda Prinsep of Shaluine, and her father, Vanis Kevyr, Prinsipas, entered the cozy, overwarm sitting room.

“Oh bloody, bloody hells,” Viyelle muttered.

“Courage, ilias.” Torchay spoke even more quietly, but it did give her courage, as did Joh’s slight nod. Obed’s touch on her hand helped more. If the dark silent man could bring himself to touch her, maybe she really was one of them.

Kallista was already going into her court bow. With the entrance of the prinsep herself, she swept lower, the rest of the ilian following a moment behind. Viyelle bowed, too. She was ilias now, as well as daughter.

“Viyelle.” Saminda held her arms out for an embrace. “We had hoped your duties would not keep you from us. It is good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Mother Saminda.” Viyelle hugged her tight. She did love her parents, even if they were too…parental. “Are things so bad in Shaluine that you had to leave?” She hugged her father, kissing his gray bearded cheek.

“No, no. But you know how your fathers worry. Your other three parents stayed behind to look after things, but they insisted we come here and bring the children.”

Viyelle looked around, half-expecting to see her youngest sedili pop up from behind the furniture. But they were half-grown now, the youngest of them thirteen. Too “mature” for such childish antics.

Saminda laughed. “They’re off to the temple for their schooling. Do you think we would keep them underfoot if we had somewhere to send them?”

Viyelle’s birth mother broke into the family chitchat. “Major Varyl,” Sanda said. “Your note requesting this meeting said that it involved a personal matter. I am not sure what matters of a personal nature
you
would have with
me
…”

Viyelle hid her wince at the not-so-subtle insult. She knew Kallista caught it—she was the straightforward sort herself, but she understood subtlety. Viyelle just hoped this was as bad as it would get. She stepped forward and introduced her parents to her iliasti.

Kallista inclined her head in a polite bow of acknowledgement, no more. “Prinsipas, Prinsep. Our ilian has come—” she seemed to sort through a large selection of phrasing, speaking slowly “—along with your daughter to inform you that she has agreed to join us as ilias.”

“Impossible. Your request is denied.” Sanda flicked her wrist, dismissing them, and turned as if to walk away.

“Prinsipas.”
Kallista’s voice rang with authority and Viyelle’s mother stopped, looked back. Impressive, but then Viyelle had always been impressed by the major, even when she hadn’t wanted to be.

“Prinsipas,” Kallista said again. “You misunderstand. We are not requesting permission. We are informing you of what is already agreed. Of what
will
be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Viyelle is a prinsipella of Shaluine. You are all…nothing.”