03 - The Eternal Rose (11 page)

“No. Even if he's another one of Fox's, I want him back.” He looked up then, the blue of his eyes somehow visible in the moonlight, and held her gaze. “But he
is
mine, Kallista. There's some connection, some ...
thing.
The same connection I feel with Rozite. I don't love her any more or less than the others, but that connection is there. And we have to get him back. Whatever it takes. Whatever we have to do. We have to have our son."

A shiver traveled down Kallista's spine and she tightened her grip on his hand. This connection he spoke of was what a prelate naitan read to determine a child's sire within the ilian for the temple records. They spoke of reading bloodlines, but it was magic they read. The connection was weak, difficult to detect, and at the same time one of the most powerful magics in the universe because it was virtually impossible to break. A child's cry for his parents, a parent's need to protect. If Stone felt it this strongly, Sky's situation couldn't be good.

“We will get him back, Stone. I promise you."

“Whatever it takes.” He stared hard into her eyes, his face more serious than she had ever seen it.

“Yes,” she said. “Whatever we have to do."

“No matter what,” he insisted.

“Yes, Stone.” Goddess, could she reassure him enough? She needed to hold him. “No matter what. I swear it."

He held her gaze another moment, then nodded, once. “Good."

Stone swallowed hard, sudden longing in his eyes, thrumming through the link, a need simply to be held, a need for the comfort of human warmth and contact.

Kallista reached for him and he twisted away, stumbling to his feet. “We don't dare,” he rasped out, and fled.

An instant behind him, Kallista followed. At the doorway, Torchay met her gaze, then turned and loped after Stone. Kallista fell into Obed's arms. She
hated
this, but Stone was right. They didn't dare.

Obed held her tight, pressing kisses to her hair, then he swept her into his arms and strode with her into the Reinine's sleeping room. When he would have set her on the bed, Kallista clung, her arms twining around his neck.

He followed her onto the bed, stretching out beside her, hand resting on her stomach. He nuzzled her ear, his tongue licking out to tease. “You said you did not want this."

“I changed my mind.” Kallista looked inside herself, where the links with her godmarked lived, and lifted out the two that tasted of Torchay and of Stone—sweet and rich, powerful and joyous. She wrapped them around herself and called magic, sharing it with Obed. She turned her head, spoke with her lips brushing his. “But we won't be alone in it."

“I do not care.” Obed rose to his knees, dragging off the tunic that concealed his body tattoos.

Kallista sent the magic flowing back down the links. Torchay and Stone were together. The room was designated for Stone and Merinda, but for now, Torchay shared it. None of them liked sleeping alone any more. Stone groaned as the magic shivered through him, and collapsed onto the bed. Torchay shuddered, sitting on the opposite edge when his knees gave way.

Playing the magic as six years of practice had taught her, Kallista stripped off her clothes and pressed herself against Obed's bare, sleek skin, sharing the sensations among the four of them. She brushed kisses across Obed's cheeks, feathered them along his eyes and down his nose, cherishing Stone with Obed's body. He was beautiful. He was beloved, whether she touched him with hands of flesh or of magic.

She reached the tattoo around Obed's navel and her tongue licked out to trace the flowing script. Someone cried out—the rough tenor was Torchay's, but it held some of Obed's dark richness, so perhaps he cried out too. She moved lower, slid her mouth over him, drawing the feel of it through Obed's link and sending it to the others. Stone's arm flew out, reaching for support, connection. Torchay caught it and they held on, gripping forearms as they writhed, fully clothed, on the bed.

Kallista had played long enough. She rose to her knees, took Obed inside her and sent the magic spinning between them. Almost, it felt as if they were all in the same room together, loving her, letting her love them. The sex was incredible, but the love—ah,
that
was the glorious thing. She poured her love for them down the links and received it back in return as the magic built the pleasure higher and higher still.

"Enough."
Obed's body bowed upward, spilled into her. His climax exploded the magic, sent it blasting through all of them. Kallista held on, screamed as the magic wrung them dry, left them drained and satiated with delight before she let the last dregs slip away, back into its various homes.

She collapsed on top of Obed, her face mashed into his neck because she hadn't the strength to move. Obed lay suspiciously still, his hands flat on the mattress beside him rather than stroking her as he usually did afterward. Goddess, what now? Didn't she already have enough emotional debris to clean up?

Kallista carefully stifled her impatience. It wouldn't help. “Obed?” She slid off him, to the side, keeping her leg over his in case he thought about running. He hadn't done it in a long time, but coming to Daryath seemed to have unsettled him.

He huffed a breath out through his nose. “You made love to
them,
using
my
body."

“Yes, I did. I'd have used their bodies if I could have, but I couldn't. Not here. I made love to you too. And you said you didn't care."

“Would you have touched me at all if you had not wanted them?” The look in his eyes accused her. “Did you even want me?"

“Of course I did. I always want you. Always. You know that.” She moved his arm out to make a place for herself inside it, snuggling close. Touch always made him feel better, especially skin-to-skin. Her too.

He seemed reluctant to bring his arm up around her to hold her, but he did. As if he couldn't help himself and didn't like that he couldn't. “But I don't. How can I know such a thing when you turn me aside?"

“When did I—? Oh.” She had. Just last night.
Saints.
Men and their fragile sense of self. “It wasn't that I didn't want you, Obed. I did. I just—It was—
This place
...” She trailed off, confused, not sure she could explain it to him. A lot of things confused her lately, as if her thoughts were stolen away before she had time to think them.

A long moment later, Obed sighed and rolled to face her, his dark eyes solemn. “You are right.
This place
. It has me falling back into old habits. Old
bad
habits. I have no need for jealousy."

Because Obed had grown up in Daryath where pairs were the rule, he'd had difficulty adjusting to life in an ilian. Especially after the twins were born and their bloodlines followed to different fathers. It had led to backlash—a dangerous collapse of half-formed magic—when his jealousy had cut his magic off from Kallista's call.

The situation had been resolved with the help of a set of gold arm bands that locked together, allowing Obed to give up his rigid control. Backlash had never been a problem again. Obed had learned to share Kallista with the other members of the ilian, but he still could not manage to share himself. In six years, he had not made love to any of the others.

Obed looked ruefully at the metal cuffs he still wore, mostly because they both enjoyed the games that could be played with them. “I may yet need these."

“Or maybe it's the demons, rather than the place.” Kallista realized what she'd forgotten. “I haven't yet sent out the magic to hunt them. Gweric said there's demonshadow everywhere."

“Do you have enough magic left to you?"

She smiled. “No matter how much magic I use, there is always more. The gifts of the One have no limits. The strength of the naitan who uses them is the only boundary. And I feel wonderful.” She stretched, leaning into Obed for a kiss, then drew magic,
reaching
for more from each of her other links.

In the distance, she caught a faint, amused sense of
Again?
from Torchay that faded quickly as she wove the magic first into a spell that would scrub the embassy clean of any demon taint and protect it against further intrusion. She had to strengthen it twice with more magic before it could eliminate the last of the stains, then fed even more into the protections.

“The demon has to know that we know it's here,” Kallista said when she was done. “After all that.” She sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, Obed curled around her.

“All of—your hunting?” He traced a finger down her naked spine.

Kallista shook her head. “I cleaned it out of the embassy—all the demonshadow—and warded the place against more coming in. Maybe I shouldn't send the hunter magic out."

“If it knows that we know it is here,” he said, “why not send the magic? What harm can it do? You hunt for demons every night. If suddenly you stop, would that not cause more notice?"

“Hmm. You're right. If it expects ... But what if it does something to Sky? Or Merinda?"

“Would it not do this something anyway? Even if you do not hunt it?"

Kallista blinked at him. “Right. You're absolutely right. Were you always this smart and just never let on?"

He smiled and bowed, a difficult thing to do while reclining on one elbow. “Association with you has made me smarter."

“Flatterer. I know better. It's just that by comparison with me, you're brilliant.” She called more magic to shut him up. The brief, quick rush of pleasure usually did. Braiding in the separate strands, she shaped the magic to hunt and to count, to scent any different flavors of demon that might be in the city. Then she sent it out, leaving a thin strand connected to bring it home again.

A yawn caught her, stretching her jaw until it ached. Obed eased her down into the bed, cradled her against him. “Sleep,” he said. “Today was a long day. Tomorrow could be longer."

Sometime in the night, the magic returned, whimpering with frustration. In her dreaming, the wrinkled scent hound that represented the spell conveyed its confusion and unhappiness. So much demonshadow overlaid the city of Mestada, it was impossible to trail it to its source. And it all stank the same. Kallista scratched the long floppy ears and sent it home, than stalked the multi-colored misty dreamscape alone, searching. She also found nothing but stains and shadow.

* * * *

Kallista took the next morning to communicate through farspeakers with Arikon, to maintain contact with what was happening in the government at home. High Steward Edyne had the Steward's Privy Seal so business could be conducted, but there were still decisions Edyne did not want to make herself. Kallista could do her own farspeaking, but she preferred not to, except in emergency. People tended to panic when they heard the Reinine of all Adara speaking in their heads. Besides, farspeakers made excellent secretaries.

She had just finished the most pressing of the business—everyone was still squabbling over those new mines north of Heldring—when Torchay approached and bent to murmur in her ear.

“Messenger,” he said. “From Habadra."

Kallista stood, with dignity and aplomb rather than leaping from the chair fast enough to knock it over the way she wanted. “That will be all for now, Taylin.” She dismissed the secretary-farspeaker. “Have Fenetta stand ready in Arikon at the same time tomorrow. I may not need her, but I'll let you know tomorrow."

The young farspeaker bowed and began gathering paperwork as Kallista led the way to the formal reception room where the messenger would be waiting.

Kallista hadn't been in this room before. Quietly impressive, it had the wide Daryathi floor-to-ceiling doors open to the courtyard breezes—a different courtyard from that off the family quarters. It was decorated in Adaran fashion with inlaid stone mosaics on the floor and columns along the walls.

A young man, his black hair caught back in an unbraided queue, stood at attention in the center of the room. Bare-chested beneath a leather harness, he wore a purple kilt embroidered with white cranes from waist to knees held in place by a wide belt from which two empty scabbards hung, both of these on his left side. Sandals laced up to his knees.

Kallista had seen a good number of similarly dressed young men at the en-Kameral yesterday, and had assumed they served the same purpose Torchay and her other bodyguards did. But here this one was, serving as messenger.

He straightened from his bow. Tattooed face, unmarked hands, Kallista noted. In fact, he had no tattoos anywhere but his face. With most of him on display, it was easy to see. Champion then, but not dedicat. Obed had explained that only dedicats carried the body tattoos, and the more tattoos a champion bore, the higher he had developed his skills before leaving his skola. Was this why Obed was so modest now? Because he'd worn so few clothes before, to let the tattoos show?

She inclined her head in recognition of the man's bow. “You have a message for me?"

The young champion bowed again. “Honor to the Reinine of all Adara."

He paused as Stone entered the chamber, followed by Namida Ambassador, then bowed to each of them in turn.

“Habadra Khori bids me say these words to you,” he went on when all the bowing was done. “Habadra Khori will meet with the husband of her servant this night at the first bell after sundown, to discuss terms. As a sign of her high esteem for the Reinine and of her eagerness to treat with you in an open and honorable fashion, the Habadra has sent this one—” Here the young man bowed again, lower than before. “—as a gift to the Line of the Reinine to serve as pleases her."

Chapter Seven

When he finished speaking, the messenger—
gift?
—widened his stance and clasped his hands behind his back in what would be Adaran parade rest, while Kallista tried with all her might not to goggle at him. She beckoned Namida closer and whispered to Torchay, “I think we need Obed on this one. Send someone—"

Torchay was already signaling one of the other men in bodyguard's red-trimmed blacks. With Stone here, Torchay would allow her secondary guard to play errand boy.