The Barbed Rose

“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped, again taking refuge from fear in anger. “The links were there. Now they’re not.”

“Look again.”

She already was, scarcely aware of Obed dismounting, coming to stand close, at guard. She rummaged through that hidden place. Obed, there. Torchay there. Fox…not there. Nor Stone. Nor Aisse. Frantic, she reached, as high and wide and far as she could. And she could not get outside her own skin.

“Oh Goddess, oh Goddess,” she whispered over and over in prayer, having no other words, trusting the One to know what she prayed for.

“Kallista.” Torchay shook her. He caught her face in one hand and turned it up to his. “Captain. Don’t fall apart on us now. We need you. They need you. Don’t assume the worst. Isn’t that what you’ve always told me?”

“Prepare for the worst,” she mumbled through numb lips.

“Prepare, yes. But don’t anticipate trouble before it comes.”

“Yes.” She gathered up all her fear and shoved it into a mental box, sitting on it to get it closed. She stiffened her knees by sheer force of will and made herself stand on her own, away from Torchay’s support. “Yes, you’re right. They are a long way off, after all. A hundred leagues or more. Almost two, if they’ve already reached Sumald.”

Goddess, if only Torchay or Obed could search on their own—but all the magic was hers to control. Without her at the center to power it, the rest had no connection to each other. Kallista took a deep breath, swallowed, blinked her eyes dry. “We’ve never been so far apart, have we? Not since the links formed. And with my magic the way it is…”

“Aye. I’m sure that’s the only problem.” Torchay still watched her with haunted eyes.

Obed took a moment from watching the crowd to look at her. Was that concern in his eyes? Who was it for?

“Are you all right, then?” Torchay called her attention back from its wandering.

“Yes.” She wiped her face. She hated tears, most especially her own, but since the babies, she hadn’t been able to control the stupid leaking. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” He tilted his head toward the gate, a spiral strand of red hair escaping from his queue to slide across one eye.

Kallista followed his direction and saw an officer striding toward them—a general by the layered fringe of red ribbons sprouting from the shoulders of her dun-brown infantry tunic. A few more paces and Kallista recognized General Huyis Uskenda. She had been in command of the garrison where Kallista was serving last year during the beginning of the Tibran invasion.

The Tibran king had sent his boats and warriors—and his cannons—to take Adara from those who lived here. He might have done it, but for the magic that struck Kallista on the city walls of Ukiny the morning the Tibran army invasion very nearly succeeded.

“General.” Kallista drew herself to attention and saluted, relief ringing through her. Uskenda was one of the better commanders in Adara’s army, more concerned with effectiveness than appearance or her own comfort. “Captain Naitan Kallista Varyl reporting for duty. I would like to request a troop escort for my family, General, to—”

“Wouldn’t we all, Captain. You’re not getting it.” The general’s gaze paused on Torchay, acknowledging his presence, then moved on to Obed. “Who’s this?”

“My ilias, Obed im-Shakiri. You may have heard I married after you sent me to the capital last year. There are six of us in all now. We have two babies and our other ilias is pregnant.” Kallista raised her right hand to show the single bracelet from her only female ilias. “They’re traveling alone to—”

“You vouch for him?” Uskenda ignored Kallista’s implied plea. “You and your sergeant I know, but—”

“He’s no rebel.” Kallista risked interrupting the general. “He’s godmarked like the rest of us. Like our other iliasti. They’re carrying out a request from the—”

“We have no troops to spare,” the general snapped the words out, voice hard as iron. “Do not ask again, Captain. Do not even hint at asking.”

Kallista braced to hard attention, staring straight ahead at nothing at all. “No, General, I won’t.”

Uskenda didn’t waste another moment, turning on her heel. Kallista fell in behind her, Obed and Torchay on guard at either side. They marched past the long lines of people waiting their turn with the truthsayer. Their frantic desperation to get behind the safety of the walls and their resentment toward those who seemed to be bypassing the system gathered thick enough to make an almost physical barrier for the small party to push through.

Something had happened. Kallista knew it, but didn’t dare ask what. Not now. And sergeants didn’t question generals about anything, so Torchay couldn’t ask. She slid a glance toward Obed, the civilian. Would he understand what she wanted to know? And if he did, would he ask?

He met her look, flicked his eyes toward the crowd, the truthsayer, the full troop of guards at the gate, then looked back at Kallista. He somehow bowed without moving his head. “General,” he said, his exotic Southron accent stronger than usual, “has something occurred that makes all this security necessary? Why a truthsayer?”

“You don’t know?” Uskenda addressed her response to Kallista.

“We’ve been on the road almost a week and the courier took even longer coming with the Reinine’s orders, so our news of Arikon is a good two weeks old.” Kallista tugged at her gloves, a fresh attack of worry making her hands itch. Because the magic was returning? She stretched to keep up with the general’s brisk pace.

Uskenda’s face went grim, worsening Kallista’s fears. “Graceday before last, twelve days ago, assassins struck all across the country, targeting naitani serving with the army. Even here in Arikon itself. Thank the One, your location was kept secret for your safety, or likely they’d have attacked you as well.”

“We were already on the road coming here by then.”

“They’d no’ have touched her,” Torchay muttered at almost the same moment.

“Yes, well—double thanks to the One. Besides military naitani, they went after high-ranking officers—colonel and above. I would have thought they were Tibrans retaliating for your…for the deaths last year, but…”

Kallista hid her reaction. It still disturbed her, some of the things her new magic had done. When she had destroyed the demon, all those who had worshipped it—all the Tibrans in the Ruler caste and many of the high-ranking Tibran Warrior caste—had died with it. It had ended the war, but left Tibre in chaos. “Are you sure they weren’t Tibran?”

“They were Adaran. Adaran traitors.” The general spat her contempt on the gray cobblestone paving. “The one who attacked me wore her infantry uniform. Bodyguards turned on the naitani they’d sworn to protect.”

“Impossible!” Torchay burst out, shock and horror wiping out discipline.

“Not all of them turned, Sergeant.” The general’s eyes warmed in a faint smile. “But enough. They targeted the military naitani with the generals. I’m the highest ranking officer left. The army is in shambles, half or more of our soldiers gone over to the rebels. We’ve scarcely a dozen naitani still alive, and those that are—”

Uskenda paused in midstep, her foot hovering in the air while she seemed to make some decision. She pivoted, taking her step in a new direction. “The Reinine gave orders to bring you to the palace as soon as you arrived, and I am doing that, but we will take a different path.”

She held Kallista’s gaze as they kept moving through the crowded streets. “You need to know what we are up against.”

Fox took the warm, squirmy bundle Stone handed him and tucked her inside his shirt, next to his skin. A squeak of protest told him Lorynda was not yet interested in sleeping, so he turned her around to allow her to see out while he wrapped them both in his layers of clothing. He had trouble with some elements of infant care, particularly cleanup, since his blindness kept him from seeing when the job was properly done, for which he thanked the One daily. But he was a master at keeping the babies warm and not bad at getting them to sleep.

He leaned his head against the rock wall behind him, then as the cold from the stone penetrated, he fumbled for the hood of his cape to pull up an extra layer between himself and their shelter. “Still snowing?” he asked the cave in general.

“Can’t tell.” Stone’s soured voice came back. “It covered the cave entrance sometime last night. But it’s been snowing for six days running. Why would it stop now?”

“At least we’re not out there in it.” Merinda spoke from near the fire.

Fox was getting heartily tired of her forced cheer, her “look on the bright side” comments. If it didn’t require moving from his spot, he’d throttle her. But as it did, he supposed he would have to let her live.

“You’re right.” Aisse’s voice so close to him would have startled him if he hadn’t known where she was. “We could be out in the storm, but we’re not. And I for one, am grateful not to be in the saddle all the hours of daylight. Fox, do you have room for Rozite, too?”

“Aye.” He opened his cloak and overshirt again and loosened the lacings on his tunic more. The second twin snuggled in next to her sister and seemed to take on some of her calm, losing her restless fidgeting. They were warm and soft and smelled like contentment.

Fox rested his cheek atop their fuzzy heads a moment as he wrapped the coverings more securely about them. Then, with the babies secure in his arms, he closed his useless eyes and let his senses flow outward. Somehow, the act of shutting his eyes helped him know the things he couldn’t see.

There was Aisse, lowering herself onto the pallet nearest the fire. Was it normal for her to sleep so much? He supposed it was, or Merinda would be jollying her awake. The healer took her responsibilities seriously, urging Aisse to eat more when she picked at her food, watching the babies with sharp eyes and with magic to see how they fared in this cold. Fox just wished she didn’t have to be so bloody cheerful about it.

At the moment, Merinda was busying herself near the fire with something or other. And Stone knelt near the cave’s entrance, his attention focused on it. Perhaps trying to measure the depth of the snow?

Fox let his knowing quest onward. It was how he had brought them all to this place, the day the late spring blizzard had fallen on them. Right up until the moment he “found” the opening in the rock, he’d been afraid that the odd extra sense Kallista had given him couldn’t do such a thing. But it had. They had shelter from the snow and the cold.

Outside the cave, the world lay empty and silent. They might be the only souls left in existence, for all Fox could tell. He couldn’t sense things at much of a distance. He stretched, reaching as far as he could, wanting desperately to feel Kallista’s comforting touch against…whatever it was she touched inside him. He found only emptiness.