The Barbed Rose

CHAPTER SIX

Torchay was on his feet, a blade in his hand, before Kallista could fight off her body’s after-sex lassitude and scramble to the edge of the massive bed. Obed burst into the room, sword drawn, and Joh cried out again, thrashing on his narrow cot.

“Joh.” Kallista stumbled across the crowded space to bend over her new ilias. She smoothed his hair back out of his face and caught it between her hands. “Joh, wake up. It’s a dream.”

Behind her, Torchay had the key, was unlocking the chain from the wall. Joh shuddered, moaned, still caught by the dream. Her dream, she knew, one she should be dreaming. She got an arm beneath his shoulders, hauling his limp weight up into her lap where she could cuddle him against her naked body. Torchay had awakened from his dream when she held him close. Maybe it would bring Joh back.

“Wake up, soldier.” She spoke into his ear. “Wake. Leave the dream behind. You’re needed here.”

Body racked with tremors, Joh’s arms closed around her and tightened slowly, as if the dream were reluctant to let him go. Kallista held him tighter, murmuring encouragement as he fought his way to consciousness.

She looked up once, saw Obed watching with his flat, black stare, his face devoid of all expression. Save for the tension she could see in his jaw, the flaring of his nostrils. He was not happy.

Deliberately, she turned from him, pressed a kiss to Joh’s forehead and rested her cheek against his hair.

“Oh God.” Joh was fully present now, his voice a frog’s croak.

He held Kallista tight enough almost to hurt. She couldn’t tell whether the damp against her breasts where his head was cradled was sweat or tears. It didn’t matter. She stroked a hand down the long, straight sweep of his hair, past his shoulders to his waist. “Tell us your dream.”

Joh let her go, sitting up, drawing himself straight as he wiped his face with both hands. “Not here. Sergeant Om—Torchay is right. This should not be spoken of in this room. It already invades our sleep. We do not need more.”

Kallista pulled on the tunic Torchay handed her, but didn’t take time for trousers. Obed went with her into the parlor, but waited for the others in silence, across the room from her.

“Is this how you keep your vows as ilias? Your promise to be one of us?” Kallista’s question brought Obed’s head around, and he stared at her.

“I ask only to serve you,” he said after a moment, “and through you, the One above us all. But how can I, if I am not given the opportunity. Even the newest among us has been given—”

“Beware what you ask for, Obed.” Torchay came into the room, Joh jingling behind him, both of them fully dressed. “Believe me when I tell you, you do not want these dreams. You don’t.” Torchay settled onto the sofa beside Kallista, touched her shoulder.

Joh sat on her other side, a careful distance away—enough room for Obed between. Kallista beckoned him closer without even glancing at her dark ilias. His choice, his problem. Joh obeyed, submitting to her arm around his shoulders with only a faint twitch.

“Before, when—” Joh hesitated, choosing words. “When Torchay told his dream, I heard him say ‘demons,’ but I still thought ‘dreams.’ I thought ‘A dream is not so bad. A dream isn’t real.’ Demons are disturbing, perhaps even distressing, but in a dream, they aren’t real. I thought Torchay…exaggerated.”

He took a deep breath, hands closing blindly into fists. Kallista covered one with her hand, turning it, clasping it. After a time, he gripped her tight.

“I was wrong,” he said. “It was not as real as you, here, holding my hand.” He curled his other hand around hers. “But it was no dream.”

“Yes,” Torchay said. “What did you dream?”

Joh hesitated, eyes seeming to turn inward. Kallista used her free hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear, wondering whether she should encourage him or simply wait.

“I dreamed demons.” He turned his eyes on Kallista, capturing her gaze, and held it while he spoke. As if she could keep the horror at bay. “Seven of them,” he said. “The number of misfortune.”

Seven. Kallista didn’t speak aloud, not at this point. She wanted him to tell it at his own pace, without interruption, but her heart sank. Seven demons? Goddess help them all.

“Six were small, as if the largest, the oldest—” a sudden shudder caught him, but his eyes never left hers “—the most evil of them had pinched off bits of itself and sent them out to cause independent mischief. No—not mischief. Wickedness. Destruction. Death out of time.”

“Why do you say that?” Kallista asked. “Death out of time?”

He blinked, slowly, the blue of his eyes shuttered, then shining again. “While I was away—in prison—I came to understand that death in itself is part of life. A blessing. It is death that comes out of its proper time that is an evil thing.”

She tucked his words away to consider later. “Did you see all seven of the demons?”

“I could not see forms. Only darkness. Seven…darknesses. Scattered across Adara.”

“Could you see where?”

“Here. At least one of them is here. Maybe two. If not here in Arikon, the second is close, I think. The others—” He grimaced. “I don’t know. Not close, but how far away, I can’t say.”

Kallista struggled to wake the magic, to send it questing forth, seeking evil, but it merely turned round on its rug and lay down again. She swore. Torchay soothed her temper with a hand on her shoulder.

“Why did you shout?” he asked.

“Shout?” Joh chuckled, wry and self-mocking. “Speak truth. I screamed, friend.”

“Ilias,” Torchay corrected.

Joh’s lips pressed tight. He didn’t seem quite ready to accept the name or the role. But he clung to Kallista’s hand. “It attacked me—I assume the same way it did you.” He shuddered and Kallista put her arm around him again, hoping it would help. “That foulness…touched me. It was like—like the filth in the prison, but all that evil concentrated together into one touch that went through me.”

He hunted words, chose them with desperate care. “It touched not just my skin, my outside, but me. It wiped that rotting filth on—on my soul. I can’t—God.” He shuddered. “I may never feel clean again.”

“Now? You feel it now?” The idea worried Kallista. Could a man wear two marks?

She reached through her skin-to-skin link with Joh and kicked the magic awake. It had to be pushed and prodded every inch of the way, leaving Joh gasping with every shove as she hunted any sign of a lingering taint.

“You’re clean.” Relief had her leaning her forehead against his. “The demon left nothing behind.”

“Saints and sinners.” Joh shifted, turning his face away from the intimacy. “Is it like that every time?” He looked at Torchay, who shrugged.

“She lost her magic the day I was marked,” he said. “After she destroyed the demon. I wouldn’t know. Before yesterday, I’ve only been part of the magic that once.”

Both men turned to look at Obed. Kallista looked, too. He wore his tattoos like a mask. “Yes,” he said, voice empty. “The magic always feels good. Sometimes it feels better than other times, but always, it is good.”

“You are sure the demon…left nothing?” Joh squeezed Kallista’s hand, brought her attention back to him. “Why do I still feel it?”

“Memories linger.” She leaned toward him, not particularly thinking of a kiss, but when he turned his face away to avoid one, she felt the loss.

Sick to death of men pulling away from her, Kallista stood and headed for the bedroom. “We need to see what this magic will do. As soon as we eat.”

Through the half-closed door as she hunted clean trousers, she heard the hoarse tenor of Torchay’s voice quietly pitching into Joh. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t you ever again turn away. If she wants a kiss, you give it. Whatever she wants, you give it.”

Joh’s deeper voice rumbled something and Torchay came right back. “Damn right you don’t deserve it. But you don’t get to decide what you deserve. She does. She’s the naitan and the captain. You’re di pentivas. It’s bad enough dealing with that one. She doesn’t need two of you turning away.”

Kallista sighed. She didn’t need to force anyone either. That was as hard on her pride and her heart as having them back away.

“Torchay.” She called his name through the door and the diatribe stopped. Or became quieter than she could hear.

After food and clothing, Kallista collected her gloves and her men and headed out into the huge palace complex, looking for enough privacy to practice her errant magic. She didn’t know whether any magic would come when called, but she didn’t want to take the chance that it would and then escape her control. Finding what they needed, however, seemed to be a more difficult problem than she’d anticipated.

The palace teemed with people. Kallista and her ilian already had neighbors in the suite below them and likely on the floor above, given the thumping coming through the ceiling. Likely had them on the floors above that as well. When they crossed over into Winterhold, it showed no signs of being emptied out for summer. In fact, it seemed more crowded than Summerglen.

Kallista spotted a familiar face in courier’s gray and reached out to snag Viyelle before she vanished in the crowd. “Are you on assignment?”

“No, Captain.” Viyelle saluted with perfect form. “What are your orders?”

“No orders. Just didn’t want to delay you if you already had them.” Kallista stepped into an alcove out of the jostling streams of people, drawing the younger woman with her. All three men took up posts at its entrance, playing bodyguard. Time to give the courier an opportunity to prove herself. The One was a God of second chances. Kallista could do no less. “Has every minor prinsep in Adara decided to take up residence in the palace?”

Viyelle’s grin looked harassed. “It must be so. If I hadn’t already taken oath as a courier, I would now, just to get a little space to breathe. As it is, I still have to share with my mother, because Courier’s Quarters are filled up with displaced colonels and majors. I’m going to beg for an assignment. Any assignment. Anywhere. It’s that or be taken up for matricide.”

Kallista chuckled, amused by the prinsipella’s irreverence. “If it gets too bad, you can come share our suite. We’re only using one sleeping room. There are plenty more.”

“I may. Since it didn’t happen on our trip south, I know you won’t kill me by accident while you sleep.” She winked at Kallista.

“Brat.” Kallista cuffed the back of her head, laughing. “If the rumors give us some privacy, I don’t mind them. But listen, do you know of any place where we can practice our magic? Where no one will get cut if I happen to break a few windows?”

Viyelle made a face. “I’m not sure. Truly? I don’t think so. The palace is overflowing. I have never in my life seen so many people crammed inside, and I’ve been coming here since before I can remember.”

“What of the yard she used last year?” Joh turned slightly, spoke over his shoulder. “It was badly damaged in the explosion. Has it been repaired?”

Viyelle stared at him, and a slow flush rose on Joh’s cheeks. “Isn’t he the one—” she began.

“Yes,” Kallista said. “But that’s over. He’s ilias now. Joh Suteny, Viyelle Torvyll.”

“Ilias?” Viyelle’s shocked expression smoothed into perfect courtier’s courtesy when she glanced at Kallista. “Of course, Naitan. I am honored.”

She put her right leg forward and swept into a graceful bow, flourishes and all. Joh blushed a deeper red and nodded.

“The courtyard?” Kallista prompted.

“Oh.” Viyelle blinked back to awareness, out of her shock. “As he said, it was badly damaged. It may be available. Do you want me to investigate?”

“No need. We can check ourselves.”

“Please, Naitan, let me see. Give me an assignment. Anything. Please. Do not send me back into that den of prinsipi that is my mother’s chambers.”

Viyelle’s dramatically rolling eyes made Kallista laugh. “Go first and find out whether there might be real work for you. If there are more couriers than assignments, then come back and find me. We can discuss matters then. Oh, and Courier?”

“Yes, Captain?” She snapped to attention again.

Kallista blew out a breath. “I wish I knew whether it would be better to quash rumors or spread them.”

“Which rumors, Naitan?” Viyelle asked carefully.

“Any rumors. About my magic. About our new ilias. Any of it.” Kallista looked at Viyelle, seeing possibilities. “You’ve been coming to the palace since you were born. What would you recommend?”

“Spread them. They’re going to talk anyway. See if you can turn them the way you want.” Viyelle’s eyes strayed toward Joh, her curiosity obvious. “I think—it is a good thing to have them a little afraid of you, Naitan. Taking this one as ilias shows you can forgive, that you are not totally heartless. The fact he is di pentivas, though—that shows you are not wholly foolish either.”

“Good.” Kallista squeezed Viyelle’s shoulder, gratified by the good sense she showed. Maybe she had matured some. “And as we were not bosom friends the last time I was here—” she ignored Torchay’s snicker “—everyone will believe you when you share this gossip.”

“Yes, Captain.” Viyelle saluted, face solemn, eyes dancing with mischief.

“It’s not an official assignment, mind. The Reinine may have real work for you. But if you can…”

Viyelle grinned. “I like working with you much more than I thought I would. No wonder you collect men like honey draws bees.”

And she was gone, leaving Kallista staring openmouthed after her and Torchay choking with laughter.

“Come along, woman.” He snagged Kallista by the back of her neck, drawing her out of the alcove. “Let’s go find your courtyard. Your collection is getting tired of standing about.”

The courtyard was exactly where they had left it last summer. The huge slabs of broken stone that had tumbled from the walls in the gunpowder explosion had all been cleared away and the flooring swept clear of stone dust and powdered glass. But the windows lining two of the walls were still covered with boards on both the first and second floors, and the courtyard itself was abandoned.

Kallista made a circuit of the area, noting where masons and carpenters had put in posts and patches to brace the walls. The flagstone paving gleamed dully under its smooth coating. In one of her practice sessions, she’d converted the glass broken out of the windows by a ghost she’d raised into this impervious floor surface. She supposed it might have made the sweeping a bit easier, but otherwise didn’t know what use it was.

“It looks safe enough,” she said. “I doubt the walls will fall down on our heads.”

“Not without another keg of gunpowder,” Torchay agreed easily, watching Joh flush red.

Kallista slapped his arm. “Behave. And it seems quiet enough. The boards over the windows will help. No more glass to break, and it will keep the curious at bay. We may as well work here. We’re not going to find any place better, not with this many people crowded in here.”

“Agreed.” Torchay looked to the other two, received their acknowledgment. He dropped to one knee and raised his hands palm up over his bowed head. “Naitan, I accept your gloves.”

At those words, at the old, familiar ritual of a military naitan preparing for battle, Kallista felt her magic stir. Not the godstruck magic gifted by the One a short year ago, but her own. Magic given at her birth, wakened at puberty. Magic she knew better than her own heart, the lightning that had directed the course of her life.

One finger at a time, she drew off the supple, brown-leather regulation gloves that blocked all magic save for that under the most exquisite control. Once, the gloves could not block her lightning, but that had changed—along with everything else—one bright dawn on the battered walls of a city under siege. Now, Kallista could not swear to what might happen. Which was why they were here, in this protected place.

“Back away.” She laid the gloves in Torchay’s uplifted hands. “All of you. Joh, as far back as you can go. I’m calling my magic first, not yours.”

Obedient but reluctant, the men moved away, all three of them clumped together at the end of Joh’s magical tether. Kallista took a deep breath, refusing to think of the possibility that her magic might not answer her call. She’d felt it stir at Torchay’s words. It was there. It would come. It had to. She wanted her babies safe.

Thrusting her fears back into the box from which they’d escaped, Kallista shook the tension from her shoulders, down her arms and out her bare fingers. Then she turned to face the direction of her magic—North—opening herself to its cold clarity, its icy precision. Its swift, ponderous, terrible face. And she reached, into the North, into the air around her, and called the lightning.

It was slow to build. It didn’t flash into existence in a split second to blast forth and slaughter supper with a smell of burnt chicken feathers, as it had when she was barely thirteen. Tiny sparks skittered across her skin and set the loose hair at the nape of her neck to standing straight out. Kallista swept the sparks down, focusing the magic in her hands until she held a blazing, crackling ball before her.

She wanted to let it dance, send sparks pirouetting from finger to finger, but she could sense her control was precarious. The magic might simply fade away, or it might suddenly blaze with the power of a thousand natural lightnings and go blasting through the courtyard with deadly results.

So she focused carefully on what she wanted the sparks to do, compressing them between her hands until they became one, glowing almost too bright to look upon. Then with an out-flung breath, she threw her hands wide and let the lightning fly. It slammed across the yard into the broken-off head of a gargoyle, scorching it black.

“So.” Torchay sauntered toward her. “The lightning is back, but your control is not.”

“And how would you know, Sergeant Know-It-All?” Kallista called a tiny spark, to be sure she could, and flicked it at him.

He dodged it, experience of years giving him the skill, and she snuffed it into nothing. “Because, love, if your control was all it should be, you’d still be putting on a show to impress our new ilias, rather than just blackening that poor, put-upon gargoyle.”

She flicked another spark at him, catching him this time with a tiny shock on his shoulder. He simply stretched out his hand and touched her cheek, shocking her in return with the static that had built up around her. She laughed. “Not fair. I can’t run or Joh will fall over.”

“Then keep your sparks to yourself, woman.” Torchay beckoned the others over. “What about your other magic?”

“Goddess, you are such a drill sergeant.”

“I’m damn good at it, too. Can you call the other?”

Kallista let out a breath. She had her lightning back. She did not particularly want the rest of it, though she knew it was there. She’d been part of its violent reawakening, after all. However, much as she might prefer it, she couldn’t ignore this godstruck magic. Truly, she wouldn’t wish it away. She needed it. Torchay had seen demons. Joh had seen demons. Seven of them.

She held her naked hand out toward her newest ilias. With the link not yet fully formed between them, she needed skin-to-skin contact to call his magic. Without hesitation, Joh slid his hand into hers and closed his fingers gently. His trust felt good.

When the magic didn’t rouse on its own, Kallista reached into Joh and nudged it. Then she hauled back and kicked it with iron-toed boots. The magic sputtered blearily into motion, and Kallista reached through the links to her other men.

The magic Torchay carried came only half-awake, but his magic held so much power that half-awake felt about right. She twined his magic together with Joh’s, smacking it now and then to keep it alert, and she reached for Obed’s magic.

Instead of answering her call and coming to do her bidding, the magic…turned its back on her. That wasn’t exactly what it did, but that was what it felt like, like all the times Obed turned his back or walked away or looked through her. Kallista reached again, ready to shake it into obedience as she had been forced to do with Joh’s and Torchay’s magic. And it snarled at her, showing sharp, ugly teeth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kallista jerked back, physically as well as magically. The braided magic in her hands fell to pieces, snapping back into its respective homes, leaving her with nothing.

Joh fell to his knees with the backlash, crying out in pain.

Torchay staggered but remained standing. “What happened?” He bent double, gasping as the reaction rebounded through him, hands braced on his knees. “What was that?”

“Backlash.” Kallista tipped Joh’s face up, checked him quickly—no permanent damage—and crossed to Torchay. “Sit down before you fall. Don’t be such a bodyguard.”