01 - The Compass Rose (32 page)

A faint, red, pulsing vapor appeared around the prinsipella’s head. Kallista frowned, but as she wondered what the stuff was, the magic told her. “She’s been bespelled,” she murmured.

“The prinsipella?” Torchay sounded shocked.

“I told you something seemed odd. I didn’t see her as so quarrelsome at that first meeting. Reckless, yes. Dramatic and foolish. But harmless. This anger has been forced on her.”

“Can you do anything?” Stone asked.

“Shouldn’t you tell someone?” Aisse looked toward the Reinine’s throne.

Kallista looked too. A herald was handing the Reinine a small scroll. As she took it, she looked out over the crowd, directly at Kallista and held her gaze a moment, before turning to speak to the herald again, assenting to something.

“Later,” Kallista said. “She’s busy now. I think I ought to…do something. Before the prinsipella causes more trouble.”

“What, exactly do you plan to do?” Torchay said.

“I’m going to see if I can undo the spell. Pulling more, Stone.”

“Have you tried anything like this before?” Torchay pushed off the pillar where he’d been leaning and stood straight.

“No, but I think I can do it.” Ignoring his protests, Kallista drew another tiny thread from Stone and sent it after the first. It attacked the red vapor like a terrier on a rat, ripping it into shreds that faded into nothing.

The prinsipella looked a bit bewildered as the scowl left her face. Then one of her companions spoke and she joined in the laughter. Kallista let Stone’s magic dissipate with the vanished spell.

“Done.” Kallista drew one more tendril of magic, using it to see whether anyone else in the chamber had been bespelled. “Do you think anyone’s noticed?”

Torchay scanned the room. “I noticed.”

“You always do. I meant anyone else.”

“What are you doing now?” He scowled at her, resting a hand on the hilt of the blade he wore at his hip. The blades at his wrists were worn just as openly but didn’t look as threatening as his stance.

“Looking for more trouble. Other spells.”

“If you’re not careful, you’ll make trouble.”

“No one is watching us more than before,” Aisse said. “No trouble.” She spoke almost exclusively in Adaran now. Kallista still couldn’t tell which language she spoke herself, but the men asked for translation less often, so she thought she spoke Adaran to Aisse as much as Tibran.

Kallista found a bit of loose magic floating around hunting someone to latch on to and appropriated it into her own spell. As it was a love charm rather than more of the anger magic, she didn’t bother seeking its source. She was about to continue when a commotion among the gathered courtiers distracted her.

The disturbance seemed to be moving from the grand entry doors directly toward Kallista’s ilian. Quickly she pushed her hand back into the glove propped on Stone’s arm. Torchay stepped forward to block whoever approached and Stone instantly moved up beside him, stretching the magical link, but not breaking it. Aisse took his other side, forming a wall of her iliasti between Kallista and whatever approached.

Annoyed, Kallista stepped behind Aisse. She could at least see over the smaller woman. Courtiers parted, revealing a man.

Taller than Torchay, he had hair black as the West briar, skin browned by a hotter sun than Adara’s and eyes as dark and sweet as a night’s pleasures. His hair curled slightly as it brushed broad shoulders, framing a face that haunted Kallista’s dreams. She had kissed that mouth with its short upper lip and full, sensuous lower one. She had smoothed her thumbs over the tattoos marking those high, sharp cheekbones. She had gazed deep into the dark seduction of those eyes.

Who in heaven was he?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

H
is loose white clothing flowed around him as he walked to Torchay, where he halted and bowed. “I asked permission of your queen to meet the Chosen One. I failed to consider that I might have to present myself to others who are as I am.”

“Who are you and what do you want with us?” Torchay’s expression didn’t change.

“I am Obed im-Shakiri.” He bowed again from the waist, a straightforward motion devoid of the hand flourishes of the courtiers. “I have traveled from the South, far beyond the Mother Range. I am a vessel of the One. I come to join with you. To serve.”

A vessel?
Kallista stepped forward, wanting desperately to remove her glove again. Could this be one of the others Belandra had mentioned? She let her arm rest against Stone’s, strengthening the link between them as she let go of the magic she’d called. She pushed at Torchay so she could draw as near to the stranger as he would allow. “Are you marked, Obed im-Shakiri? Marked by the One?”

“I—marked?” He looked puzzled.

Torchay folded his arms. “Why don’t you come back later, in the morning perhaps, when we have time for a chat.”

“Wait, please. I brought gifts.” Obed rummaged in his robes, but apparently couldn’t find what he sought. He gestured toward the doors. “I have a caravan, at the inn. Fifty mules, laden down. Horses. Garments. Blades of the finest steel.”

“You think to buy her favor?” Torchay took a step forward, crowding the stranger.

“No. My apologies.” He bowed again. “Do not send me away. I beg you. I cannot—it—please.”

Everything in the hall had stopped, even the setting up of tables for the meal, while every person present watched the drama. All this attention could not be good. Kallista touched Torchay’s arm, stretched up to murmur in his ear. “We should move this elsewhere.”

He nodded, gestured toward the door. “If you would—” But he got no farther.

“I’ve been traveling for a year,” Obed cried. “Coming to this place. To you. To
her
. I cannot—” He reached toward Kallista.

Stone intercepted him, grasping Obed’s bare wrist in his naked hand. The magic roared.

It raced screaming through Stone to crash over Kallista like storm waves over rock. The scream poured from three throats. She sensed something inside Obed wrench to one side and he shouted again, this time in pain. Then he was there with them, sliding through Stone, through Kallista, as she went sliding through each of them. The faint echo of pain vanished in rushing pleasure and Kallista reached for Obed.

Her glove was in the way. She couldn’t take it off, not here, but she needed his touch. “Take my arm,” she gasped. “Past the glove. Now.”

Torchay stepped out of the way, eyes on the gaping courtiers rather than his iliasti and this new man. Kallista was aware of that much before the magic stole her senses. Obed caught her arm and the touch of his bare skin to hers nearly sent them all to their knees as the magic erupted into more pyrotechnics. The human body wasn’t made to hold so much pleasure, not without coming apart.

She screamed and the magic seemed to take that as its signal. It quieted, flowing swiftly back into the bodies of the two men.

“Get me out of here,” Kallista gasped when she could form words. “All of us. Out. Home.”

Torchay commandeered Lieutenant Suteny to help support the weak-kneed Stone. Joh didn’t seem so averse to touching the Tibran. Torchay got a shoulder under Obed’s, leaving Aisse to hold up Kallista. They stumbled from the hall, the entire Adaran court gaping after them. Suteny’s soldiers fell in behind them outside the heavy carved doors.

“Trouble.” Kallista tried not to lean too hard on Aisse, afraid they’d both go down if she did. “Not my fault.”

“No, not your fault.” Torchay hauled the stranger down the corridor at a quicker pace.

Thank goodness Daybright Tower and their suite wasn’t far from the great hall’s entrance. “Not his fault either,” Kallista said. “He had no way of knowing what would happen.” They reached the stairs and started up.

“Do not send me away.” Obed still gasped for breath. “Do not, I beg—”

“We’re not sending you anywhere, you stupid git.” Stone shook himself free of the lieutenant and opened the door to their suite.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Kallista smiled at the man but didn’t offer her hand. He’d become one of those unwilling to take it. “We’ll be fine from here.”

“Captain.” He stepped back and saluted as the ilian disappeared into their rooms with the stranger.

Kallista crossed the bare stretch of the parlor where they’d removed the furniture to have room to practice Torchay’s Fan Dai instruction. Aisse turned back to the door for a moment, joining the others in the seating area a moment later.

“I asked Lieutenant to send for food,” she said as they watched her sit in the corner of the sofa she favored. “No one has eaten yet. You say I am in charge of supplies, so I get food.”

“Good.” Kallista smiled at her. “I’m glad someone’s making sure we get fed.”

Stone swept low in a credible imitation of a courtier’s bow, despite the wobble at the end. “I thank you, dear ilias, and my stomach thanks you.”

Aisse scowled, tucking her feet beneath her on the sofa. “I still don’t do sex with you.”

Stone laughed and threw himself down on the opposite end of her sofa. “After what just happened, who cares? Stop obsessing about sex, dearest Aisse. You’re the only one who is.”

Obed watched the exchange with an air of bewilderment, still leaning on Torchay. “I do not under—you are not sending me away?”

“Just try and leave.” Stone propped a foot on the delicate serving table in front of him. “I doubt you’d get twenty paces.”

“Stop it, Stone.” Kallista pulled her eyes from the sight of the two men, dark and bright, and moved to the center of the furnished parlor area. “He’s confused enough. Please, Obed, sit.” She indicated the chair between the sofas at one end of the seating area. Its position made it look a bit like an inquisitorial chair from a judgment hall, but she couldn’t help that.

He did as she asked, his eyes trained on her, like a dog awaiting instruction from its owner. As if he wanted only a command to obey. The notion disturbed her.

Kallista moved behind him, elbowing Torchay out of her way as she pulled off her gloves. “I’m going to touch you. The magic should be quiet now, but I don’t know for certain.”

Obed’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair, but he gave no other reaction. Kallista laid her hand on the black silk of his hair to tip his head forward, struggling to ignore its sleek warmth. She brushed his hair aside, exposing the nape of his neck, and there was the mark.

“Well?” Stone propped his other foot on the table.

“It’s there.”

“Did you have any doubt? After what happened?”

“No.” She sighed. “Come show him yours.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Show him my
what?
”

“Your mark. What did you think I meant?”

He winked as he levered himself off the sofa and sauntered toward her. “I don’t know, do I, ilias? That’s why I asked. Why don’t you just show him yours?”

“Because mine is different. Yours and his are alike.”

Stone stopped and looked from Obed to Kallista, then down at himself. “I should think that would be obvious.”

Her face burned hot as she finally caught on to his innuendo. She should never try talking to the man when she was this tired. “Just get over here and show him your neck before I throw something at you. Like a lightning bolt.”

He made a great show of mock fear, dropping to his knees and bowing. When had he learned he could tease like this without reprisal?

Aisse giggled. Torchay’s cough covered a laugh. Kallista couldn’t help smiling, though she truly wanted to smack him with something. Stone slid toward Obed. Once there, he bowed his neck and pulled his hair aside, showing the rose-shaped mark to the dark man.

“You see?” Kallista leaned over Obed’s shoulder to trace her finger over Stone’s red-stained skin. “You bear the same mark, just like this one.”

“You bear one as well?”

With a sigh, Kallista went to one knee beside his chair and pulled her hair aside. The touch of Obed’s finger as he traced the compass points of her mark called up shivers from deep inside her. Had she dreamed him because of his mark? Torchay wasn’t marked and he inhabited her dreams as much as Stone or this man. But he was also her ilias.

“Have you seen enough?” Kallista asked.

“I—yes.” Obed folded his hands in his lap.

She moved to the sofa opposite Aisse, then scooted down as Torchay squeezed himself between her and the new man. Stone sat on the floor where he was, arms loosely wrapped around up-thrust knees. Kallista didn’t quite know where to begin.

Awed by what he had seen and felt, Obed stared at the backs of his hands, tattooed with ideograms similar to those on his face, then held them up to display the marks. “I marked myself to show my devotion to the One God. Never did I dream that She would mark me with Her own hand.”

“You have other tattoos,” the Chosen One said. “Nine of them in all, the number of perfection completed.”

“Yes.” He stared at her, eyes wide with wonder. Truly she had been touched by the One. “How do you know this?”

“I dreamed them.”

The red-haired man gave her a sharp look. “You never told me about any dream like that.” He was possessive as well as protective, the leader of the group after the Chosen. Was he her mate?

She turned a delicate shade of pink and Obed’s heart shuddered. She was not beautiful, exactly. She had a strong face—thin, angular, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth, pale-skinned beneath hair almost as dark as his own. She was magnificent. “The dreams were all mixed up. I didn’t think they were real.”

“Were they?” The man looked at Obed again, a challenge in his eyes. “Where are they then, these other tattoos?”

“Two on his face, two more on his hands.” She told them off. “Two on his feet.”

Obed shivered deep inside where she had touched him, moving quickly to unlatch his shoes and kick them off. He displayed the dark blue marking above the arch on each foot.

“Two on his chest, high.” The Chosen touched her own chest a short distance below either shoulder, where his tattoos lay. “Here.”

Obed stood and removed his outer robe, then untied the neck of his long, loose tunic. He had never exposed his body, other than hands, face and feet, outside the most private intimate moments. But whatever the Chosen required of him, he would give, up to and including his life. Removing his clothing to display the devotion written on his body was nothing.