03 - The Eternal Rose

by Gail Dayton

  “You would make bargains with a thief?” Leyja swung a fist at Keldrey.

  He slapped it away, voice quiet and full of power. “I'd bargain with demons if that's what it takes to get Sky out of those hands and into ours."

  “Peace, Keldrey, Leyja,” Fox said. “We all would. Quarreling among ourselves won't free him any sooner."

  “Kallista would want to help him,” the small blond woman said. “She would want to free all the Adaran slaves."

  “You don't know that, Aisse,” Obed said. “We can't make decisions on the basis of ‘what Kallista would want’ when she isn't here to tell us what that is."

  “Isn't here?” Aisse pointed an accusing finger at the Reinine. “There she sits. Right there. She's with us. She could tell us what she wants. She just won't."

  “It isn't that simple,” Long Queue said.

  “Shut up, Joh.” Aisse rounded on the long-queued man now. “No one wants to listen to one of your lectures."

  “Leave him alone.” The brown-haired woman stepped between Aisse and Joh Long Queue.

  Things were beginning to turn a touch chancy. Padrey thought he might need to nip back onto his wall out of the way.

  “Bugger this.” Torchay slid his sword into the double scabbard on his back, this hilt rising over his shoulder. He strode across the paving to Kallista Reinine, scooped her up in his arms and carried her toward one of the gauze-draped entries.

  “What are you doing?” Obed hurried after him.

  Torchay didn't lose a step. “We need Kallista. I'm going to bring her back."

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  “What makes you think you can?” Obed moved to block the path into the bedroom.

  Torchay stepped around him. He would let nothing stop him. “She hears me sometimes, when I call. I'm going to make her listen."

  “And you think that will—” Obed tried to block him again, but this time, Fox caught him, held him back.

  “Let him try,” Fox said. “What can it hurt?"

  That was the thing that nagged at Torchay. Could it hurt? What if he drove her farther away? He didn't know, didn't know exactly how he was going to bring her back, or whether he could do such a thing. But he had to try. They needed her.

  Her children needed her. The ilian needed her. Every Adaran in Mestada needed her, not to mention those back home in Adara. But mostly, he needed her.

  He needed her to smile as she brushed the girls’ hair at night. Needed her to laugh at Keldrey's pomposities and frown at her endless paperwork. He needed to feel her kisses on his mouth and her unseen touch on the magic that bound them all.

  Torchay set Kallista on the wide soft bed she shared with Obed, where she'd shared their lovemaking with Torchay and Stone over a week past. She sat, her muscles working to hold her upright. That was a good thing, wasn't it? He wished he knew.

  He eased onto the bed in front of her and brushed back the wisps of hair that had escaped from the simple queue he'd braided for her that morning. Where had she gone? Could he bring her back? He took her face between his two hands and tipped it up so she could see him if she would only look.

  “Kallista,” he murmured, but that would never do. He put more power in his voice, tried to send it down the link. Gweric said the links were still there, and she'd always said his magic held more power than the others. “Kallista. Kallista Reinine."

  Being Reinine had never been one of her favorite jobs. Torchay changed tactics. “Major Varyl. Naitan. Kallista."

  She blinked. Her eyes tried to focus and Torchay had to struggle to keep his hold gentle. Was it working?

  “Come back to us, Kallista,” he crooned. She seemed to drift away and he shifted his voice to whipcrack again. “No. Stay with me. Don't you leave us, Major."

  She pushed feebly at his hands and he moved them to her shoulders. “Kallista, look at me."

  He brushed his nose along hers, too close for her to look in his eyes, but touching her face felt right. He kissed her cheek, swept his lips along it till he found her ear. His voice quiet, he filled it with everything he felt for her. "Kallista."

  “Tor—” She sounded slurred, couldn't find all his name, but she spoke. She hadn't spoken in more than a week.

  Overjoyed, Torchay captured her lips in a kiss. It felt a bit like kissing a sound sleeper, or someone deeply unconscious from a blow. Her lips were warm, if utterly unresponsive. Unresponsive—until she twisted away from him, shoved at his chest with a fraction of her usual strength.

  “No. Don't,” she mumbled. Actual, understandable words.

  He ripped his tunic off and attacked Kallista's. If kisses helped, perhaps more intimate touching would help more. Thank the One they'd dressed her in military issue rather than court dress or he'd be getting her out of it this time tomorrow.

  “Stop it.” She squirmed, her weakness worrying him. Had she harmed herself physically? Worry later. Bring her back first.

  “No.” Torchay upended her, hauling her trousers off over her feet. “If you want me to stop, you'll have to stop me. Make me stop."

  He held her down easily with one hand while he kicked off his own trousers. Why hadn't any of them thought of bringing her back this way? The magic between them so often felt like sex, it should have occurred to one of the eight of them before now.

  “Kallista.” He lowered himself over her and groaned at the feel of her pressed naked along his equally naked self. It had been too damn long, magic sex or no.

  “Leave me alone.” Three words together.

  “No.” He pinned her hands over her head with one hand. Ordinarily it took him two hands and a lot of effort, if she wanted to play this game. With his other hand, Torchay stroked down her side once, twice, then came back to cup her breast. He nuzzled her ear, planted kisses across her face, found her mouth and demanded entry.

  She turned her face away. He followed, abandoning her breast to capture her chin and hold her still for his kiss. His grip tightened on her jaw, forcing her mouth open and he plunged inside, begging with every sweep, every caress for her to kiss him back, to return from wherever she'd gone.

  "Kallista." He let go her hands—she'd stopped struggling to free them—and grasped her hips as he made a place for himself between her legs.

  She planted a hand on his face and shoved, hard. He laughed, triumphant. It was working. “Go away,” she cried.

  He kissed her palm, then peeled her hand off his face. "Make me."

  Kallista bucked, fighting with her whole body to throw him off, and Torchay laughed again. He threw himself at her, magic and all, hoping something would get through. She hit him with her fist and praise be, it hurt. He captured that hand too and ducked his head to kiss her shoulder. She lifted her head and fastened her teeth on his ear. He ripped it free with a howl. Damn, she'd never played this rough.

  He pinned her hands and body as best he could and lifted far enough to see her face. “Kallista? Are you with us?"

  Her braid had come free so that her hair flew over and around her face as she fought like a wild thing, her mouth open to bite whatever she could reach. Her imprisoned hands reached for whatever she could claw, curled into weapons as if her clipped nails could rend and tear.

  “Kallista.” Torchay shook her.

  She snarled at him. Goddess, what was wrong now?

  He glanced over his shoulder at the others gathered in the doorway. Fox and Keldrey had a grip on Obed, as if they'd had to prevent his interference, but he stood quietly at the moment. Was Gweric still here? He wasn't ilias, but—it wasn't as if he could actually see, was it?

  “Gweric, is this demons?” Torchay indicated Kallista's violent thrashing.

  The others looked toward some invisible place behind them and after a moment, Gweric's voice drifted forward. “Of course not. She's Godstruck. But the magic's still dark."

  “But it's working.” Torchay had thought so. She was speaking, moving of her own will. Fighting him. "Isn't it?"

 
; “But it's not finished."

  Torchay looked back at his ilias beneath him, fighting so ferociously. This game was a bit of fun when they played it, but not so much now, when she fought him in earnest.

  “Kallista!” He shouted now. “Kallista Naitan! Major Varyl, look at me! See me."

  She paused for an instant, her gaze bright through her veil of dark hair. “Torchay?"

  In that moment, he laced his fingers with hers and slid inside her on a cushion of liquid passion. “Kallista, love."

  She screamed with mad rage.

  She bucked, bouncing him up but not off. As they came down, he drove hard inside her, calling her name. She was wet, ready, so Torchay told himself she wanted this, wanted him. He nuzzled into her neck—it wasn't safe to kiss her—bringing as much of his weight down on her as he could to hold her still. Her struggles had him moving inside her more than any effort of his and it brought her name riding out of him on a groan.

  “Kallista, please. Look at me.” He groped for the magic, trying to recreate what he felt when she called it, used it. He felt like a blind, armless, legless cripple who wasn't quite totally deaf, hoping to find his way home by listening for the faint sound of mice digging in soft sand.

  He kissed the place behind her ear that always made her quiver. He sucked her earlobe into his mouth and closed his teeth gently on it, and the tension in her body oozed slowly out of her. Torchay didn't bother pausing to check his progress. His magic still crawled around in the dark. She wasn't home.

  He called her name over and over, between each kiss, with each thrust of his hips. She moaned and her body lurched, not to throw him off, but to welcome him in, to meet his motion. It was clumsy and uncertain, but it gave Torchay more hope. He dared let go of her hand and reach down to adjust her position, urge her to bring her leg up and wrap it around him.

  “Look at me, Kallista,” he whispered in her ear. “Where's your magic? I can't find you."

  She whimpered, shaking her head as tears ran from her tight-squeezed eyes down her temples into her hair.

  “I know it hurts, love, I know.” Torchay kissed the tears away, his heart breaking with hers. “But you're stronger than this. We need you. And you need us. You need us, Kallista. We can make it better if we're together."

  Kallista shook her head again, harder. Her liberated hand came up and tried to push him away. When he refused to go, she hit him with her fist, hard enough to snap his head around.

  “Stop it!” He tucked his face back between her neck and shoulder, where it was a bit safer, and recaptured her hand. “Just stop all this nonsense right now. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself, but if you're determined to leave us, I'll be damned if I'm going to let you go alone."

  Torchay had no clear plan, no true knowledge of what he was doing. He just did it. Somehow, he gathered up all of himself, that blind, legless, nearly deaf cripple, and threw himself out into that whispering darkness, shouting her name with something that wasn't his voice.

  He fell, endlessly, into nothing. His cry became a wordless, voiceless scream as he plummeted. He reached out with his stunted, missing limbs, knowing that if he ever reached the bottom, reached the end of the nothing, he would have scattered all of himself across it until he was nothing too.

  Terrified by the thought of that ending, Torchay flailed in the darkness, but he couldn't go back. He didn't know the way, didn't know where he was, didn't—couldn't—

  Kallista caught him.

  The magic snapped into place, as if she'd wrapped her hand around his forearm and enabled him to grab hold of her. He had arms again, and legs. He had eyes—it wasn't dark at all, but misty-gray, glowing with colors that weren't exactly colors.

  None of that mattered. Kallista had caught him. She looked a bit thin, see-through almost, as if some of her had drained away. But she was here. Torchay used his hold on her to haul her into his arms and wrap her tight. “I won't let you leave me. I don't care where you go, you're no’ going to leave me behind."

  “Torchay—what are you doing here?” She caught his face between her hands and drew back so she could look at him.

  “I haven't the vaguest notion.” He looked around. “Where are we?"

  “The dreamscape.” Now Kallista took a look around. “Yes, the dreamscape. How did you get here? Why are you here?"

  “I told you, I'm coming with you, wherever it is you're going. As for how I got here—I'm no’ sure.” He scratched his head, dislodging what little remained of his bedraggled queue. “I ... jumped. Into nothing. And you caught me, and now I'm here, wandering round the dreamscape with you.” He propped his hands on his hips and turned in a full circle as he stared. “Is this where you go then, when you do your true dreaming?"

  Kallista shook back her hair, using the motion to try to shake a bit of order into her thoughts. She studied the dreamscape again. It was different somehow. Brighter. With more colors. “Sometimes,” she said. “When I'm hunting demons."

  But it wasn't the same. Where was she?

  “Is that what you've been doing? Hunting demons?” Torchay reached for her hand, as if needing to be sure she was present. The touch felt warmer, better than it should. Or maybe that was simply the effect of the dreamscape—or wherever this was.

  “No.” She knew that much. But what had she been doing? She frowned, trying to remember. The instant she tried, really tried, it came to her. Stone.

  The severed link ached. It was a burning, empty, bitter hole inside her that couldn't be filled, wouldn't be eased. She'd felt it even when she couldn't remember why.

  “What were you hunting, love?” Torchay brushed a strand of hair back from her face, let his fingers trail down her cheek.

  Kallista rubbed away the tears that followed his fingers. “Stone,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I was hunting Stone.” She cleared her throat of its tightness, but it didn't help. “It hurts so much, Torchay. I can't make it stop hurting."

  “All right, then.” He laced his fingers with hers. “Let's go find him. Which way?” He looked around, seemed to pick a direction at random, and pointed. “That way? Or over there?” He pointed back over his shoulder.

  “Torchay, you can't come with me. You're not a naitan."

  “You're no’ leaving me behind.” He started to fold his arms and realized he held her hand. He folded one arm and held on as if he feared she'd leave him if he let go. He was right.

  But what would happen to him if she left him here?

  “Torchay, no. You have to go back."

  He shook his head. Goddess, he could be so stubborn. “No’ without you."

  “You have no business going where I'm going. You couldn't get back."

  “Can't get back now. I tried.” He shrugged as if it didn't matter in the least. “I'm fairly certain it's impossible unless you take me. Doesn't matter. You're no’ going anywhere without me. After sixteen years, I think you'd have learned that much. Besides, if I have no business going there, neither have you."

  “But—” She turned away from him, needing to find what would fill that hollow burning.

  “Stone's gone, Kallista. I know it hurts. I know losing the link to the lad must have been worse than anything I can imagine. But you can't fix it this way. You'll only bollix things up worse."

  “You don't understand.” Kallista tried to twist her hand free, but he held on tight, somehow stronger in this misty landscape than he'd ever been in the flesh.

  Wasn't that wrong? She was the naitan. She should be the stronger, especially here.

  “Maybe I don't,” he admitted. “But I think there's a few things you're not understanding yourself. What about the promise you made Stone? To get his boy back no matter what? If you're wandering around here in the mists, who's going to do that?

  “We've learned a few things as well, while you've been off wandering. Sky's not the only one. And they're not bondservants. They're slaves.” His words fell like stones on her flesh.

  “If you don't car
e about your promises, what about your ilian? What about your children? Do you want to leave Lorynda and Rozite without any blood parents at all? If you stay, I stay, remember? Are you really that selfish?"

  His scorn ripped her open. Goddess, was that what she'd been? Selfish? So wrapped up in her own pain that she'd forgotten everything and everyone else?

  Kallista looked down at her dreamself, at the gash above her heart pouring blood-red pain out to stain the mist. “I'm afraid,” she sobbed. “It hurt so much to lose Stone, to feel that link snap. I couldn't bear to lose any of the rest of you."

  “So you'll leave us behind to suffer instead?” His scorn didn't lessen. Couldn't he see her bleeding?

  But when she looked at Torchay, she saw he was bleeding too. From two wounds, not just one, both of them heart-deep.

  “Goddess, no.” She pressed her hands over his heart, carrying his along when he refused to let her go, trying to stop the bleeding. She didn't think he would actually bleed out here in the dreamscape. The blood wasn't real. It was a representation of their pain. But you never knew.

  Events on the dreamplane sometimes had an effect in the physical world. You never knew which events, or what the effect would be.

  “Why two?” Kallista had to know. “Why are you bleeding twice?"

  “This one's Stone.” Torchay touched her hand to it, his eyes locked on hers. “And this one's you."

  “Oh, Goddess.” Kallista moaned, sagging against him, still trying without success to stop the gushing flow. “I didn't know. I didn't think—"

  “No, you didn't."

  “I can't stop it. I can't heal it.” Again and again she tried to call magic, to set it to mending what was broken. And every time, she failed.

  “I don't think magic can heal this sort of pain.” Torchay brought her in close against him, matching wound to wound, so that their pain flowed into each other. “At least, not that kind of magic. I think love's the only thing that can do it. Love's the most magical thing there is."