03 - The Eternal Rose

by Gail Dayton

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  The Eternal Rose

  by Gail Dayton

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  Fantasy

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  Juno Books

  www.juno-books.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Gail Dayton

  First published in 2007, 2007

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  THE ETERNAL ROSE

  Praise for the First Two Books of

  The One Rose Trilogy by Gail Dayton

  The Compass Rose

  With unadulterated sensuality that practically ignites the pages and a fantasy quest that is as masterfully intricate as it is entertaining, Dayton's The Compass Rose will absolutely blow away fans of romance-powered fantasy. In a word: wow!

  -Paul Goat Allen, Barnes & Noble's Explorations

  From amazing characterizations to a world unlike any you've read about before, this book takes you straight into the heart of the story and makes you a part of the action, the mystery, the romance, and the unimaginable magic that is the nation of Adara.... Gail Dayton has created a magical world unlike anything I've ever experienced.

  -Romance Junkies

  [A] fantastic read ... this hybrid of fantasy and romance treats the reader to a very creative, and very sensual exploration of what fantasy romance can be.

  -Smart Bitches

  In this sprawling romantic fantasy, personal battles are mirrored neatly in large-scale conflicts. Kallista is a convincing heroine, torn between her sworn duty and her desires, and the men ... are marvelous, larger-than-life characters, with complementary skills set in careful counterpoint. (4 1/2 Stars)

  -RT Bookclub magazine

  + Nominated for a Reviewer's Choice Award by RT Bookclub magazine as Best Fantasy Novel of 2005

  + Finalist, 2006 Prism Award from the Romance Writers of America's Futuristic, Fantasy & Paranormal Chapter

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  Praise for the First Two Books of

  The One Rose Trilogy

  By Gail Dayton

  The Barbed Rose

  [With] The Barbed Rose, Dayton springs a powerful, breathtaking novel on eager fans. New characters and old favorites are as deeply sympathetic as always, and their adventures take on a heightened level of excitement as they once again battle demons to save their world.... Dayton is a fantasy storytelling master. She imbues her prose with wonderful sensuality, elaborate details and captivating emotional depth.... For an intricately plotted, beautifully written romantic fantasy, look no further than The Barbed Rose. I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.

  -BookLoons

  The world building in The Barbed Rose is fantastic; making readers feel the place really exists. The characters are real, totally likeable and complex and readers enjoy getting to know the members of the ilian. In a world where everyday magic is taken for granted the heroine stands alone because she has great magic and an ever growing magical ability. Gail Dayton's tale has many surprises in store for the reader especially the dramatic ending.

  -The Best Reviews

  I can only say, damn, this is some good storytelling ... I hope someone has the good sense to publish it, because I personally am eager to know what happens. Seriously.

  -Smart Bitches

  * Nominated, 2006 Prism Award from the Romance Writers of America's Futuristic, Fantasy & Paranormal Chapter

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  Books by Gail Dayton

  The Rose Trilogy

  The Compass Rose

  The Barbed Rose

  The Eternal Rose

  Other Books

  Her Convenient Millionaire

  Hide-and-Sheikh

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  THE ETERNAL ROSE

  Gail Dayton

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  THE ETERNAL ROSE

  Copyright © 2007 by Gail Shelton

  Cover design © 2007 by Stephen H. Segal

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8095-7165-9

  ISBN-10: 0-8095-7165-X

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007928882

  Publisher's Note:

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder except for brief passages quoted by reviewers or in connection with critical analysis.

  Juno Books

  Rockville, MD

  www.juno-books.com

  info@juno-books.com

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  To Jared in the U.S. Army;

  his brother, Chad, in the U.S. Navy;

  and their sister, Lindi, in the U.S. Air Force.

  Thanks guys, and take care of yourselves.

  Also a big, big “thank you” to

  Catie in Ireland and Sarah in College Station for pitching this book to Juno for me.

  I scarcely had to lift a finger. You're the best.

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  Chapter One

  The air tasted wrong.

  Not like yestereve's fish course lingering beyond its welcome, nor like the stinks of backed-up palace plumbing. Nothing so simple, so ordinary, could taste so wrong. She hesitated, breaking the rhythm of her stride to sample the air more carefully, and her entourage stumbled into confusion around her.

  “What is it, my Reinine?” one of them asked.

  After six years, she had finally got past the urge to look around to find whom the courtiers addressed, had finally grasped the idea they were talking to her. To Kallista Varyl, Godstruck Naitan of the One, Ruler of all Adara from the Devil's Neck and the Jeroan Sea in the north to the Mountains of the Wind in the south, from Dostu prinsipality far to the east to Emtai in the west. She was Kallista Reinine.

  She still didn't feel like a Reinine, but she'd become fairly adept at pretending. And after six years thecourt had mostly stopped sayingthings like “but Serysta Reinine always—” or “a Reinine must never—” They had learned that Kallista Reinine had her own way of doing things.

  “Kallista?"

  Her name, the touch on her elbow, brought her out of her thoughts. She looked up at the chief of her security and answered the question in his eyes by spinning a tendril of magic from him. His mouth quirked in the tiniest of smiles and he moved a step closer, motioning her other bodyguards into tighter formation with a sweep of his eyes and a turn of his head. Torchay Omvir had been her bodyguard for more years than she liked to remember and one of the first of her iliasti, her temple-bound mates. He was also father to her eldest child.

  “Trouble, my Reinine?” Leyja Byrek rested a hand on the hilt of her sword, eyes scouring the palace around them for enemies. Sunlight pooled just under the tall windows that lined one side of the corridor in Summerglen Palace here in the heart of the capital city, making the white marble floor almost too bright to look at.

  The last of Kallista's godmarked, magic-linked mates, Leyja had been bodyguard and ilias to the Reinine who had come before. Tall and freckled, with hair a lighter red than Torchay's near-crimson mane, she could have passed for his kinswoman. But Torchay hailed from the Devil's Neck prinsipality of Korbin while Leyja's home was in the coastal swamps of Kimishen prinsip
ality, near the port of Kishkim.

  “Maybe trouble. Maybe not.” Kallista gave as much of an answer as she knew. She swept a hand forward. “Let's move on. I grow impatient for my luncheon."

  She spilled magic gently into the air, sending it to search out the tastes and find the wrongness. Her midday meal was waiting, her favorite time of day when all the sycophants and hangers-on were dismissed, and her family gathered. All ten members of their ilian, plus the nine children.

  Thenoisetendedtowarddeafening,themannersnon-existent—andthat was without considering the children. But the whole family was together.

  Her councilors hated it, begrudging any of the time between the chimes of the countless clocks spent on anything besides Adara's affairs—and hence their own—especially at midday. But Kallista was adamant. She was ilias and parent before she was Reinine. She could delegate many of the Reinine's duties. She would not delegate her role as parent to her children.

  A flicker of motion ahead caught her attention. Had the magic found something?

  Shechecked,foundherspellburblingmerrilyalong,pokingintocorners, sweeping up desiccated husks of expired spells cast by various naitani in the palace, including herself. Torchay's shout explained what she'd seen.

  “Girls!” His roar could surely be heard halfway across the city of Arikon. “Stop right there."

  Two small bodies froze in midstep where they'd been scurrying along, hugging the corridor wall leading to the family dining room.

  Kallista's twins hunched their shoulders in anticipation of the scold about to come thundering down on them.

  Torchay strode forward, catching each girl by the arm to lead them farther from the company of courtiers. Kallista turned and inclined her head at the entourage. “I leave you here, prinsipi, friends."

  Someone protested. Someone always protested. Kallista gave them the narrow-eyed glare she'd been working on for the last six or so years. Apparently she didn't have it yet perfected, because the protests didn't stop until Leyja glared at them. Her troop escort remained to make sure the courtiers actually stayed where they'd been left, while Kallista stretched her steps to catch up with Torchay and the little girls.

  “You know better than comin’ off alone into the palace, do you no'?” His north mountains accent thick with the strength of his emotion, Torchay was barely getting into his scold.

  Kallista folded her arms and scowled to hide her trembling reaction to the thought of what might have happened to her precious daughters, even here in the Reinine's palace tucked into the heart of Adara's capital city.

  Six-year-old Lorynda gazed up at her father, waiting patiently for him to be done with his lecture. Her night-dark baby hair had fallen out and come back in auburn waves by her second birthday. Already she was taller than her fraternal twin Rozite, fidgeting next to her. Rozite's hair had bleached yellow-white in the summer sun, like her father's, but now that fall had arrived, it would be darkening again over the winter.

  Kallista took pity on her. “Do you have anything to say for yourselves, girls?"

  Rozite's eyes flashed to hers in relief. “We wouldn't have gone, Mami, we wouldn't, but we can't find Omri."

  Kallista eased her alarm with the reminder that her son's favorite game was hide-and-seek. With a flick of her eyes, she summoned Leyja to organize the search for their wild child. Omri was three, almost four, with an insatiable curiosity and an uncanny ability to move from one place to another with the speed of his mother's native lightning magic and the silence of nothing Kallista knew.

  “Search the whole palace,” she murmured, “but keep it as quiet as possible. I don't want anyone taking advantage."

  “No.” Leyja's expression was grim. She had always taken her bodyguard duties as seriously as Torchay took his, but when it came to protecting their children, she became a fire-breathing guardian that no one dared cross. None of the children were of her body, but it seemed to make no difference to Leyja.

  Keldrey Borr arrived out of breath from the family quarters to fall on the twins with another scold. As both ilias and bodyguard, he supervised security for the family quarters.

  “Wait, Kel.” Kallista put a hand out. “Omri's missing."

  “I know. I got the whole staff scouring quarters for the little devil."

  “But—” She gave her daughters a stern look. “Why were you looking for him here, girls? What makes you think he's not at home?"

  Lorynda bit her lip. Rozite stared at her shuffling feet. Finally, Lorynda spoke. “We were playing hide-and-seek with him because he wanted to come find you, Mami. Or Papi Obed. He didn't want to wait for lunch."

  “He wanted lunch early,” Rozite said. “So we were playing with him so he would wait."

  “But what if he came to hide in the lunch room?” Lorynda was biting her lip again.

  Keldrey gave them a little shake. “Why didn't you come tell me?"

  “Omri's our brother,” Rozite blurted out. “We didn't—"

  “We didn't want him to get in trouble,” Lorynda finished for her twin.

  “Well, now it's all three of you in trouble.” Keldrey gave them another gentle shake as he spoke to Kallista. “I'll look after these two. You go find that little imp."

  Kallista glanced over her shoulder at the courtiers still standing half a corridor behind them, blocked by the guards from advancing, eagerly watching everything she said and did. Resentment swelled in a relentless internal tide. She'd never wanted to be Reinine, never asked for it. She wanted to live her own life with her family, without everyone gawking at her, gossiping about her, wanting things from her.

  She should never have agreed to move the family luncheon from her private quarters to a state dining room. Just because it required a good fifteen ticks to walk from the audience chamber and workrooms to the family's quarters and another fifteen to walk back was no reason to bring the children out of that secure environment. The sleeves of her red overrobe billowing around her, she waved her bodyguards on. She needed to be away from those grasping busybodies before she throttled one of them. And she needed to find her son.

  Torchay led the way, slightly to her right, with Leyja on her left and the third bodyguard—the new one whose name she could never remember and who was too, too young—at her back. Since the rebellion that had ended in the assassination of the Reinine before her, Kallista always had at least three bodyguards on duty. It had been several years since they'd proved necessary, but she still had them.

  Leyja whirled, sword half-drawn, at the sound of boots running up behind them, then slid it back into the scabbard. Kallista already knew through the magic linking her to her godmarked iliasti that Omri's father approached. She turned, walked backward a few steps till Obed reached them.

  “Have you found him?” He caught Kallista up in a quick, fierce hug and kiss.

  “The twins think he's in the dining room.” She walked faster as Obed fell in on her right side. Obed im-Shakiri might act as the family's man of business and trade like any merchant, but his sword-skills were the equal of the best bodyguards.

  “I swear, even I was not this bad as a child.” Obed shook his head. “I did get into a great deal of trouble, yes, but not this much."

  Torchay grinned over his shoulder at them while he strode down the corridor. “The two of you are a dangerous combination."

  Before Kallista had time for retort, the magic screamed.

  Danger. Inside the palace. Kallista froze motionless, her body unable to move while her mind scrabbled to read what the magic told her.

  “Oh dear heaven, the dining room.” She burst past Torchay at a dead run.

  Please, Goddess, Omri wasn't in there with it.

  Torchay and Obed overtook her, running ahead. Leyja and the new guard kept pace with Kallista. She opened her senses to the dining room, searching as they reached it. The men grasped the handles to open the doors, their motion as simultaneous and synchronized as ever.

  “Don't!” she screamed, snatching at their magic
to stop them, in case fear for their son overrode her order.

  “Why?” Obed shuddered with the need for action.

  Her little twist of magic had found the wrongness, the danger, but it hadn't been able to name it. Now she could.

  “It's a murder knot.” She fought to control the pounding of her terrified heart. “West magic. Assassin's magic."

  “Goddess, will they never leave us alone?” Obed's cry echoed her own heart's plea.

  “For a group that claims to hate West magic, the Barbs certainly seem to have no problem with usin’ it.” Torchay sounded as bitter as she felt. “Why won't they just die?"

  “Because we didn't get all the demons.” Kallista had broken the back of the Barb-led rebellion six years ago by destroying the demons who'd driven it. All but one. She'd been hunting it ever since, but it had eluded all her magic-driven skill. And she didn't have time now for guilt or regrets.

  “Is Omri in there with it?” Leyja asked. “What will it do if he is? What is a murder knot? I've never heard of such a thing."

  Kallista called up every bit of rumor and fact she'd ever heard about the deadly magic. “They're part magic, part poison bomb and can be spelled to seek out a single person, or to eliminate every living thing in a given space. The magic empowers the seeker part of it and adds to the deadliness of the poison. They key off motion."

  “Oh, sweet Goddess.” Obed's hand tightened on hers in a crushing grip. She hadn't noticed taking it. “Is Omri in there with that thing?"

  “I don't know. They can also be constructed to track magic. If I look, the magic could draw the knot to him. If he's there."

  “So what do we do?” Torchay's twin Heldring-forged short swords were in his hands, a sure sign of his agitation.

  Kallista had to think. Panic wouldn't save her son. She drew on the magic her godmarked iliasti carried within themselves, magic only she could use. The hot rush of power calmed her.