02 - The Barbed Rose (51 page)

Fox flinched at the low blow, making Kallista want to take it back, but how could she take back truth?

“Ashbel
didn’t
take Fox. It was Merinda’s fault she was vulnerable to being taken,” Torchay said. “She wasn’t marked.”

“Neither were you when we took on Tchyrizel last year.”

“But when it came down to it, I didn’t refuse,” Torchay retorted. “Merinda did. She turned her back on the mark and she turned her back on us.”

“So just like that, she’s out? No second chances, no forgiveness.” Kallista held on to her temper, badly. “Why bother with choices then? Why should any of us have been given a choice if making the wrong one gets you kicked out in the cold? The demon took her. She didn’t betray us.”

“She betrayed us before we ever get to Korbin,” Aisse said, her agitation stealing her grasp of Adaran. “She taked—took advantage because we were Tibran.” She gestured between herself, Fox and the room where Stone still slept. “We didn’t know the rules. She did. She wanted to be one of us, then she change her mind. That is betraying.”

Kallista sighed, rubbing her aching temples. “You’re right. Torchay’s right. And so am I, dammit. Maybe I’m mad at her, too, but she’s carrying our child and she deserved better from us than this. How will divorcing her solve anything? Especially since we don’t even know where she is?”

“Goddess.” Viyelle sank onto a delicately carved chair. “What a mess.”

The others murmured agreement.

“And that’s without taking Leyja or Keldrey into consideration.” Kallista slumped lower on the blue-and-silver sofa. “My head hurts too much to even try thinking about it. Joh,
you
think about it for me.”

He stammered a moment, then inclined his head in acquiescence. “If I might appoint assistance?”

“Certainly.” She waved a generous hand. “All you like, as long as it isn’t me. Did I hear someone mention food?”

“I didn’t mention it,” Aisse said. “But I have it brought.”

“Had,” Joh corrected gently. “You had it brought.”

“I must have smelled it, and it spoke to me.” Kallista rubbed her hands together before extending them to whoever might be willing to help her up. “While we eat, you can tell me what’s happened in the palace since I passed out.” Fox and Torchay reached her first because Obed had Rozite clinging to his leg where she’d pulled herself up.

Viyelle waited for Kallista to reach the dining table before speaking. “I already told you about the call for selection. Word is that the prinsep of Tironde and the prinsep of Turysh as well as Head Prelate Omunda here in Arikon are campaigning hard…”

It would take close to three weeks for all the absent selectors to reach Arikon, but none of the intervening time was wasted. Palace functionaries went into full attack mode, preparing for the coronation of…whoever.
Someone
would be crowned Reinine as soon as she or—wildly unlikely—he was selected. Judging by the flurry of activity, three weeks was scarcely enough time to prepare.

Kallista’s ilian decided to leave the situation with Merinda alone, at least until they found her and dealt with the demon that had taken her. Their problem was that she truly seemed to have melted into the paving stones. No one had seen any trace of her, inside the city or out on the roads. Not that any could recall, that is.

Leyja had consented to marry into the ilian without argument. Without much reaction at all, truth be told. It worried Kallista, and she said as much when she and Torchay went to talk to Keldrey.

The stocky bodyguard was in one of the suite bedrooms, packing a trunk. The gear looked as if it would fit him, but he and Ferenday had been much of a size. The funeral for all three of their iliasti together had been two days before. He could be packing away his dead ilias’s belongings, but somehow, Kallista didn’t think so.

“I’ll be out of your way by tomorrow,” he said, confirming her surmise.

Kallista chose and discarded a dozen openings before giving up. She wasn’t eloquent. She’d go with what she did best, plain speaking. “I’d rather you weren’t,” she said. “I’d—
we
would like you to stay.”

“We want you to join us.” Torchay’s statement caught Keldrey’s attention, stopped his activity.

“Join…What d’you mean,
join?
” Suspicion oozed from his every pore.

“Marry us,” Kallista said.

“I ain’t marked. You don’t need me.” He straightened, turned to face them, his hands curling into fists apparently without his notice.

“Actually, we do.” Kallista rushed on, over his skeptical snort. “I’m worried about Leyja. She’s too calm. Her whole world has turned over and she’s scarcely blinked an eye.”

“Leyja’s like that. Practical. This mark thing happened. It’s done, deal with it how you have to. No use moaning about it.” He raised a hand to stop Kallista speaking. “And yeah, I know. Our ilian’s dead. But Leyja’s not gonna cry an’ wail or make a big fuss, especially not where people can see her. She keeps to herself. We’re all like that—we
were
. Reckon it’s why we got on so well. We didn’t have to say nothin’ but we knew.”

“That’s exactly why we want you. Leyja’s been jerked from one ilian into another without time to catch breath. I don’t want her to lose the last bit of familiarity she has.” Kallista willed him to understand, to agree. “What will you do, if you don’t stay?”

Keldrey turned his back on her and started packing again. “I don’t need your pity. Don’t want it. Leyja don’t need me. It was all Serysta. We all—it was about
her
, for all of us. I’m bodyguard. The army lost too many of us in this rebellion. They’ll have a place for me.”

“That’s why I want you to stay,” Torchay said. “We’ve got Tibran Warriors, and Obed’s as fine a fighter as ever I’ve seen, but they’re not bodyguard trained. We’ll have Leyja, too, when she heals, but they’re saying that knee could have trouble. We need you. Because you’re
not
marked. The magic can be quite—distracting when she calls it.”

“I can be bodyguard without being ilias.” Keldrey’s hands had gone still.

“You think they’ll assign you to us?” Kallista edged closer. Not enough to make him uneasy. “I have a bodyguard. No naitan under the rank of general gets two. And if they conceded the need for more because of the marks, it wouldn’t be you. It would be some youngster, like those we burned yesterday. You were the one who fought off those rebels and lived to talk about it. We want you. If you’re ilias, we have you.”

Keldrey gripped the sides of his trunk, leaning on it. After a long moment, he sighed. “I won’t have your pity.” He stabbed a finger toward the parlor. “And that convict ponce of yours better
never
correct my grammar if he don’t want his head shoved up his arse.”

Kallista laughed, dared to touch his arm, briefly. “He does it for Aisse because she wants him to. She wants to be Adaran, not Tibran, and that means speaking proper Adaran.”

“Need help unpacking?” Torchay reached for the trunk, grinning.

Keldrey knocked him away. “I don’t need help from you.”

“Wedding’s in two days, on Graceday afternoon,” Kallista said. “Quiet. Here in the parlor—and we’re keeping it that way because we’re not telling Viyelle’s parents till just before time. Her idea.”

“Always suspected that one was sharper than she looked.” He paused and looked at Kallista. “I’ll tell Leyja, if you want. Better coming from me, I think.”

She nodded. “If that’s what you think.”

“One thing,” Torchay said, face solemn now. “This ilian is like your last in one way. It focuses on Kallista, but not exclusively. Leyja may have to…find comfort with one of the others. She can, I think, if she will.”

Keldrey raised an eyebrow. “What about me?”

Kallista laughed, dared to kiss his cheek. “Ask me again on Graceday.”

They did manage to keep the wedding quiet, though the ceremony itself wasn’t with the twins babbling and Niona making her discomfort clear halfway through. Kallista didn’t find the babies half so distracting as Saminda Prinsep’s muttered complaining over lost opportunities.

That may have been why, beginning the day after the wedding, Saminda insisted on dragging them bodily into palace politics. She introduced Kallista to every prelate and prinsep in the city, starting conversations about diplomacy or trade—things Kallista knew little or nothing about—then abandoning her to carry on alone.

Stone took to hiding whenever he saw Viyelle’s mothers approach. Aisse used her infant as an excuse to avoid unwanted socializing, and Kallista was half convinced Leyja used her healing injuries the same way. Kallista would have followed Stone’s example, but—unfortunately—Saminda’s arguments made sense.

Kallista would still be Adara’s godstruck naitan, no matter who was selected Reinine. The demon Khoriseth had escaped with its hostage. It would have to be found and destroyed. And she had not forgotten the name screamed by the demon Tchyrizel in the Ruler’s palace in Tsekrish a year ago.
Zughralithiss
.

The name alone filled her with horror.

Better that the new Reinine knew and understood what Kallista was capable of, and what was facing Adara.

So she dressed in the finery Obed brought her and ventured out into the corridors of power to somehow at the same time impress the selectors and allay their fears. Her iliasti came with her, most of them, most of the time. Torchay, Obed and Viyelle were always with her. Joh, Fox and Stone came much of the time. Keldrey would have also, had his injuries allowed it. They all appeared at the formal dinners.

The presence of her ilian seemed to soften many of the strained attitudes Kallista first encountered. The babies did more, during their outings in the gardens and courtyards. Kallista assumed it was difficult to fear a naitan’s power when her nose was being pinched by an infant.

Finally, the last selectors arrived, the prinsep and prelates from far Dostu on the eastern coast just north of the Mountains of the Wind. Kallista sought them out on her own at the formal reception that evening, beating Saminda to it by only a few ticks. She’d introduced herself to new people so many times by now, it was no longer agony, and having her entire ilian with her eased the slight pain that remained. Goddess, she hated politics.

At the end of the reception, while the musicians put away their instruments—not that they’d been heard over the buzz of voices—the selectors were escorted by the entire crowd across the broad entry courtyard, out the palace gates and around the Mother Temple to its west entrance. Each selector was marked off a list held by the Mother Temple’s own head prelate, and admitted one at a time.

Kallista had been a child, newly come to the North Academy in Arikon, the last time a Reinine had been selected. The Temple had been locked for a full week. The selectors had tottered out after nine days, rumpled and exhausted, with the word that Serysta Kallynder, a minor prelate from a minor prinsipality had been selected to rule. All the other candidates had apparently been knocked out of contention by the bitter strife.

Given the circumstances, Kallista expected no less this time. Likely the decision would take longer, the fight would be more bitter.

So she was not prepared for the pounding at the door to their suite in the dark hours of the morning. Aisse, up with her baby, answered it.

“What in seven hells is it?” Keldrey headed out into the parlor to find out, and returned shortly. “They’ve made a decision. They’ve selected a new Reinine. Announcement in the Great Hall in half an hour, soon as they let ’em out.”

“So quick?” Kallista kicked the blankets off and reached past Stone to shake Viyelle again.

“That’s what they’re sayin’. It’s done.” Keldrey pulled on his trousers and held Leyja’s for her to step into. “Must’ve been on first ballot.”

“They never select on first ballot,” Viyelle mumbled, shoving her hand through her short hair. She always woke hard.

Kallista tossed a tunic at her. “They must have done it some time or other in the past. Where’s my red tunic?”

“You’re holding it.” Stone yanked his trousers up and frowned at them. “Did I shrink?” Too long, the trousers crumpled over his feet.

“They’re mine. These are yours.” Torchay shoved another pair at him and took away the tunic Kallista held. “And this belongs to Fox. Yours is hanging in the wardrobe.”

“Are we required to go?” Aisse stood in the bedroom doorway juggling Niona.

Kallista exchanged glances with the others before replying. “Not
required
exactly. But everyone always does. The whole city turns out. Everyone wants to know who the new Reinine is.” She got her best red tunic out of the wardrobe and pulled it on. She didn’t want to go in uniform tonight. “It’s up to you, Aisse.”

She considered a moment. “I go. Maritta can get Niona to sleep. That’s what nursery workers are for.”

Viyelle laughed. “You’re learning.”

Dressed at last, their ilian hurried through the corridors at Leyja’s best pace. Keldrey offered to carry her and laughed when she smacked him. Other courtiers straggled behind them. They weren’t so very late. The Great Hall was only beginning to fill up.

The dais had been set up in the center of the room, the space behind it kept open for the selectors who were just starting to file in when Kallista and her ilian scrambled into a place near one of the white marble columns that marched up either side of the vast chamber.

Who had they chosen? Would Kallista be able to work with the new Reinine, or would she be one of the few skeptical of Kallista’s unusual abilities? For the most part, the selectors looked satisfied, almost pleased with themselves, though there was the occasional solemn face. Those selectors didn’t seem angry, though, or aggrieved, as if they’d lost a quarrel. More as if the moment were too important for anything less than solemnity. But Kallista didn’t have a clue what it might mean.

“What do you think?” she murmured to her ilian.

They all looked at Viyelle, who shrugged. “No idea. Though I have never heard of them selecting so quickly.”

Finally, all the selectors had crowded into the room. Kallista grabbed Aisse to keep her upright as they were jostled from behind. More people trying to cram through the doors rather than be relegated to the spillover in the corridor.