02 - The Barbed Rose (32 page)

Viyelle stopped, turned to face inward, her face smiling and solemn both at once.

“We will repeat our vows when our ilian is whole again.” Kallista used her parade ground voice, letting it carry through the grassy garden. “Thank you for sharing our joy. Now please join us in the Great Hall of Summerglen for celebration.” Short and sweet. Just how she liked it.

They remained in place on the small flagstoned terrace, receiving the well-wishes of a horde of people while Kallista fought to keep her smile on her face. They needed to be away. But shouting at all these silly people wouldn’t help, and if they lingered long enough under the falling petals of the apple trees, it would be ages before anyone noticed they hadn’t appeared at the feasting and dancing.

Their packs and horses were waiting at the stables, including the remounts they’d brought from home. Anything not making the journey with them was packed in trunks ready for transport to storage rooms. Viyelle and Joh had even arranged for a place near the stables where their riding clothes waited for them to come change out of their finery. But first they had to be rid of all these people.

Finally, the crowds dwindled to a last, lingering few. Unfortunately, those few included Viyelle’s family.

“A beautiful, beautiful ceremony.” Saminda embraced her daughter, then looped her arm through Kallista’s. “Come. Let us walk together to the Great Hall.” She took a step, then halted, frowning, when Kallista remained in place.

“I am sorry, Saminda,” Kallista said, gently disengaging her arm. “We are not coming to the celebration.”

“
Not coming?
Don’t be silly. You must come. The celebration is to honor you.” She took Kallista’s arm and tried to urge her along. Kallista sighed. She had hoped to avoid this.

“Think of the scandal,” Viyelle’s birth mother Sanda said. “It won’t hurt to delay your wedding journey by a few chimes of the clock.”

“Mother, you can look at my beautiful iliasti and say that delay won’t hurt? We are in agony already.” Viyelle’s smile was wide and bright, laid over half-hidden worry. “Besides, this celebration is what
you
wanted, not of our—”

Kallista laid a hand on Viyelle’s shoulder. They didn’t need old family quarrels either. “Adara is torn by rebellion. We have orders from the Reinine. The sooner we ride, the sooner we return.” She looked each of Viyelle’s parents in the eye—thank the One her sulky sedil had already departed. “I am telling you because you are Viyelle’s parents and have a right to know, and because you are prinsipi and know how to hold secrets. Do not share this with anyone, not even your own family members. To the rest of the court, we must be merely overeager to reach our home for some privacy.”

“When will you return?” Saminda asked.

“When our task is accomplished.” Kallista paused, considering. No, she wouldn’t tell them any more, not about Fox or the planned journey to Korbin afterward to collect the rest of their ilian. Saminda might be as tight shut as a river mussel, but Kallista had her doubts about Sanda’s judgment. Instead, she swept into a bow, collected her piece of an ilian with a gesture and hurried away to the stables.

They rode all the way to Turysh, rather than risking a boat. The river was bound to be heavily monitored, and the road from Arikon in the mountains to Boren on the river was held by rebels. The rebels didn’t have enough manpower to patrol all the passes through the mountains or all the paths on the plains.

Kallista tried calling a veil as they left the city, but without her links to Joh and Viyelle fully formed and only two magics to use, she couldn’t veil much. She couldn’t hide any of them from physical sight, but she did manage to hammer together something she thought would hide them from demon sight. She didn’t want any demons invading any dreams and she especially didn’t want them to know they were on the move.

The magic was a struggle to maintain, however. She couldn’t simply lock it in place and forget about it. Without the traits carried by her absent three, the veiling magic required frequent attention. A dozen times a day, she had to call more magic and beat it into the veil. She woke up several times at night, like one chilled from the dying of a fire, to throw more magic on and build it up again.

She didn’t want demons to find them, but she didn’t know if she had strength to keep even this partial veil up for the length of time it would take to reach Turysh.

A week and a half after leaving Arikon, they rode into Turysh and across the bridge into the city proper on the south bank of the Taolind. Obed rode pillion behind Kallista. The last few days, since Miel’s spring had given way to the summer days of Katenda, one of the men had ridden with her to hold her in the saddle when her exhaustion became too great.

Obed had been chosen for the entry into the city in hopes that behind Kallista, the greasepaint used to disguise his facial tattoos would be less noticeable. Fingerless gloves hid the markings on his hands and turned-up collars hid those on everyone’s neck.

The brown dye had flattened much of the curl in Torchay’s hair, making him almost a stranger, though his high, hooked nose was impossible to disguise. He’d suggested cutting Joh’s distinctive long queue, but the idea had been vetoed by Kallista and Viyelle, though strangely not by Joh. He wore a wide-brimmed Filornish drovers’ hat with the braid tucked up beneath it.

They had considered cutting or dying Kallista’s hair, but such a dark brown didn’t take dye well and she’d spent so many years wearing a tight military queue they decided that leaving it loose would be enough to turn aside a casual glance. Anyone who knew Kallista would recognize her behind any of the simple disguises they could manage. Turysh was the city of her birth. She hadn’t spent much of her adult life here, but her friends and family still knew her.

They hadn’t bothered with a disguise for Viyelle. Medium height, medium build, medium brown hair and attractive-but-not-striking face, she had nothing distinctive to mark her like Obed’s tattoos or the red of Torchay’s hair. No one in Turysh knew her, and if someone had perchance seen her at court, no one would believe a prinsipella to be riding into town with a down-on-their-luck ilian.

Kallista rested against Obed and closed her eyes to better see the veil that was supposed to be hiding them from demon sight. The horse would follow Torchay’s and he knew where they were going. The veil was thinning
there
. She felt Obed’s shiver when she pulled more magic.

Was it just the usual magical caress, or did it drain them the way it did her? Did it matter now? They could all rest—she hoped—when they reached sanctuary.

Obed reached around her and took the reins from her limp fingers. “We are in the city,” he murmured, his lips moving against the sensitive skin of her neck. “More things to startle our mount. More paths to go astray. If you will not attend, someone must.”

“Thank you.” She shoveled the new magic into the raveling gap and mashed it into place. Were her patches holding a bit longer? She wasn’t sure, but it seemed so. Because she was getting better at it, or because they were closer to Fox? She wished she knew.

The horses slowed and came to a halt. Kallista opened her eyes. Torchay had stopped outside one of the inns near the docks that catered to river traffic. Not one of the better ones. Obed lowered Kallista into Joh’s arms while Torchay went inside to haggle for rooms and stable space. They’d decided to play a droving family off the plains, cash poor but horse rich. The drovers who wandered Adara’s plains with their herds and flocks would sooner sell a precious child than one of their prized horses. The story would explain the quality of their Southron mounts.

Kallista pushed away from Joh to stand on her own. “The innkeeper won’t want to give us rooms if he thinks I’m sick. I can walk in under my own power.”

Obed tossed the reins to a stable boy who was trying to avoid notice and took her arm. “If you stumble and fall, you will look more ill than if you lean on us out of weariness.”

He had a point. Kallista gave in and leaned. Viyelle stumbled over the threshold. Kallista didn’t think it was entirely acting for her benefit. They were all tired.

Torchay led them to the big room they’d taken on the third floor and Kallista managed to kick off her boots before she fell into the bed and slept. When she woke, it was dark. Joh lay tucked in next to her, but the glimmer of candlelight reflected in his eyes told her he didn’t sleep. Obed and Viyelle sat at the table in the center of the room eating by the light of a single candle.

“Why aren’t you eating with them?” She brushed back the hair that had fallen from Joh’s queue.

“You sleep better when you’re not alone.” He propped his head on a hand to look down at her. “You’re our naitan. We thought it better that you sleep as much as you could, and it was my turn to help you do so.”

“Where’s Torchay?” She took the hand Joh offered and sat up.

“Gone to meet with your sedili as we discussed. So they can tell us how things stand here before we begin our search for Fox and the Reinine’s information. Remember?” Obed moved a chair out for her as she walked yawning to the table.

“Oh. Yes.” She knew it, but she was too tired to recall.

Obed filled a bowl of stew for her, then another for Joh while Viyelle hacked off pieces of the pale brown loaf. “Eat,” he said. “You need your strength.”

“Why do I feel like a prize pig being fattened for the fair?” Kallista pulled the bowl closer and sniffed.

“I don’t know. Why?” Obed squeezed her arm, playing farmer checking his fatstock. “Needs more meat on her.” He ladled another dip of stew into her bowl, face bland while the others laughed.

“Don’t smell it,” Viyelle advised. “Just eat it. It tastes reasonably good, but it won’t do to ask what kind of meat’s in it. Not fish. Other than that…”

“Given some of the things I’ve eaten on campaign, I know better than to ask.” She took a bite—reasonably good, as claimed. “I’ve never been able to cure myself of trying to
guess
, however.”

Joh’s bark of laughter made him choke and brought on a flurry of back pounding and water bringing. Crisis over, they had almost finished the meal when Torchay slipped through the door, followed by Kallista’s sedil Kami.

She and her twin sister Karyl were Kallista’s full sisters by blood through both parents, though twelve years younger. Karyl had farspeaking magic and magicless Kami ran their business. The twins had married a pair of brother sedili last fall, after Kallista’s ilian had returned from their adventures. They’d delayed the wedding for several days, in fact, so Kallista could reach Turysh and act as attendant for her sisters.

“Are Shaden and Deray over being mad at me?” Kallista asked when she had hugged her sister.

“If they’re not, they should be.” Kami hugged her again, then startled Obed by hugging him before turning to the others. “Who are these, then?”

Kallista cleared her throat, slightly embarrassed, though she had no reason for it. “New iliasti. Joh Suteny from Filorne and Viyelle Torvyll of Shaluine.” Quickly she explained where Stone and Aisse had gone, to forestall the question.

Kami frowned. “You should have gone with them. Or at least not come here. Turysh is overrun with rebels. They claim to want only ‘the people’s welfare,’ but Karyl says there’s something off. Things going on we don’t know about. The barracks are locked down, nobody going in or out except for rebel patrols.

“Karyl had to register at Mother Temple as a naitan. All the naitani in Turysh had to register, but…I’ve seen people watching her. These Barbs. There’s almost always one or two in the street whenever one of us sticks our nose outside. They just watch…like they’re afraid of North magic now, not just West. They aren’t following us. Yet.”

“Farspeaking was once affiliated with the West,” Kallista said gently. “So was truthsaying. It’s only been a few hundred years since they were shifted over to the North.”

“That’s ridiculous. Farspeaking’s inanimate magic. Of course it’s North.”

Kallista shook her head. “Think about it, Kami. North magic has to do with inanimate
objects
. Things. Wind. Water. Earth. Metals. Lightning. Lightning is still a
thing
. It has a physical existence. Truthsaying and farspeaking exist only in the mind. They are
meta
physical mysteries. West magic. Ask Karyl if the North truly answers her when she turns to it. Ask her if she’s ever spoken to the West. Ask her if it answers.”

Kami had gone pale as Kallista spoke. She hated to frighten her little sister, but she wanted them safe. They couldn’t trust in false information. “Those two magics, along with farseeing were shifted North because they are so useful. The Barbs’ heresy was very strong back then, spreading even into the prelacy before the truth pushed it back. The four Academies decided together to make the shift in hopes of preserving some West magic. The more useful of the West magics.

“From what you’ve said, however, I fear the Barbs remember what everyone else has forgotten.” Kallista took her sister’s hand, hoping to comfort. “Warn Karyl and the others.
Be careful
.”

“Bloody hells.” Kami sank down on the edge of a bed. “Seven bloody, bloody hells.” She looked up at Kallista, hand tightening fiercely. “What about the rumors? The ones about all the military naitani being killed and their hands taken for trophies? Is it true?”

Kallista swallowed hard. She didn’t want to share that horror with her baby sisters. But they weren’t babies anymore. “Their hands were taken. I saw myself one who survived it. Many—most of them, I think—were killed. I do know that some soldier naitani survived, but how many, and whether the hands went for trophies? I don’t know. Information has been hard to come by, even in Arikon. We simply do not yet know.”

“Goddess.”
Kami looked undone. “We have to get out. You have to help us get her out of here.”

“I will and soon, sister, I promise. But we have things we must do first.”

“What could you possibly have to do that is more important than saving Karyl from—”