by Gail Dayton
“What's going to happen when I do?” He couldn't help asking, but quietly, so only she would hear.
“Tonight?” She paused, then took a deep breath, lifting him a little with it. “A wedding, I should think."
“A—what?” Shock had Padrey jerking back to stare at her.
“A wedding?” The Reinine bit her lip, suddenly looking uncertain, vulnerable. Like a woman rather than a ruler. It made Padrey want to cuddle her, tell her everything would be fine, even though he didn't know any such thing and had no business telling her anything, much less cuddling.
She squirmed from beneath him, coming up onto her knees. The sway of her breasts distracted him. Someone brought a houserobe, helped her into it, and Padrey could hear again, could think. Someone—Goddess, Viyelle Reinas—put his arms into the sleeves of a red silk houserobe and tied it around him. He'd never felt anything so fine against his skin. Well, except for the skin of the Reinine.
Padrey dared to glance at her. She gazed back at him as if waiting for something. Perhaps for his look, for she took both his hands in hers.
“Padrey Emtal.” The Reinine looked deep into his eyes, her expression formal. “Will you marry us?"
He swallowed, hard. Was this a joke? He looked from the Reinine to the Reinasti positioned around the room. Some of them smiled. Keldrey Reinas—he winked. Leyja Reinas wasn't one of the smilers but she held his eye a moment, then nodded. She meant it? Obed Reinas nodded. So did the Tayo.
The Reinine seemed to take his confusion for reluctance, for she gripped his hands tighter, drew them closer. “We need you, Padrey. I need you. Desperately. What happened just now was the magic of your mark binding with the rest of us. You are our ninth, completing the magic."
Padrey nodded. “Yeah, they told me that. You need my mark to fight demons. Whatever you need, my Reinine, it's yours."
“Good. And it's Kallista, not ‘my Reinine.'” She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, too quick. “Vee, can you get everything organized? We have Gweric for the ceremony, I think he'd like that.” She looked at Padrey as she slid from the bed. “You and Gweric are friends, aren't you? Is there someone you would like to invite?"
She made a face. “I don't think we can wait till we get your sistersedil free. We need to do this now, tonight. But I'm sure we'll have to have another ceremony once we get home. Your sedil can come to that."
The Reinine's flow of speech slowed, halted as she looked at him. Then she smiled hesitantly and held her hand out to him, palm up. “You did say yes, didn't you? You will marry us? Some of our others—Stone first, and then Joh—didn't have a choice. They were married di pentivas, by order of Serysta Reinine."
Padrey didn't know what she meant at first, until he remembered the stories his sister-sedili had liked to read, about war prizes, men married without choice. Joh Reinas was di pentivas?
“But I'm Reinine now, and I—” She cleared her throat. “I won't force you. I only ask. Will you?"
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Padrey stared at her, at that plea on her beautiful face, her hand stretched toward him. His heart thundered in his ears, making everything even harder to comprehend. “Why?"
She didn't pretend to misunderstand. “We are already bound by the marks, you and I, all of us. What we just did, that made us an ilian, together. In a sense, you already are ilias. But I think the ceremony somehow ... seals the binding, perhaps by making the commitment we've already made a public one. I'm not exactly sure what it does, to be honest. But it does something."
“So, it's important?” Padrey still didn't completely understand, but he trusted the Reinine and she did.
“Yes, Padrey, it's important."
He flicked his eyes to the others in the room before returning them to the Reinine. “And everybody's okay with it? With marrying me?"
The Reinine didn't take her eyes off him. Leyja Reinas stepped forward on her own. Padrey goggled as she bowed to him.
“Padrey Emtal, I would be pleased to have you marry us,” she said. “You were a child, trapped in a terrible place, and despite all, you have become a good and honorable man."
“For a thief.” He added the words he knew she was thinking.
“For anyone.” Leyja's fierce retort startled him. “I didn't understand how it was. Now, Kallista's magic has shown me. Shown us all. I know.” She took a step closer, slid her hand under the Reinine's, supporting her appeal. “Will you say yes?"
The others moved, joining her, adding their hands so that they all reached out with the Reinine's hand.
Overwhelmed, Padrey couldn't speak, could scarcely meet their eyes. But his muscles worked, some of them. He nodded. He took the hand offered and in the next instant, he was lifted off the bed and tossed into the middle of a ten-way embrace.
Everyone hugged him. The women all kissed him, and some of the men. Padrey didn't know how he felt about that. The women kissed him again, even Leyja Reinas, then the Reinine wrapped her arms round his waist and waved the others off.
“Go on. Get busy.” She laughed as she clung to him. “I want the ceremony at the nineteenth chime, so the children can attend without being too cranky. Aisse, can you find something suitable for our Padrey to wear? Joh, the location is up to you. Find something—"
“Suitable, yes.” He tipped his head in acknowledgment, his long queue sliding forward, a smile in his eyes if nowhere else.
That first day, Padrey made the mistake of straying too far from the Reinine once and collapsed into the fit they'd warned him about—fortunately just after he'd got out of the bathing pool, so he wasn't in danger of drowning. It hurt though. A lot. Bad enough he made sure not to do it again.
The Reinine—Kallista—she corrected him every time he called her “my Reinine,” but it was deathly hard to remember. Kallista kept touching him, and when she did, he forgot everything including his own name. She would sling an arm over his shoulders, or pat his hand, or stroke a finger around his ear, and every time, something inside him sizzled, or sparked, or glittered, or came awake. Though the waking wasn't entirely inside him.
Torchay Reinas—just Torchay, the Tayo insisted—kept teasing her for petting him. She'd tease back, saying she had to get acquainted with his magic. That's what the glittery sparks were. His magic. Joh Reinas said it would stop reacting like that eventually, would only rise and sparkle when she called it. Padrey didn't know whether or not he hoped that was true.
Aisse Reinas started calling him Padrey Reinas every time he forgot to leave off the title. It sounded strange—but good. Who would have thought? Him, one of the Reinasti.
The others touched him too, patting his back or squeezing his shoulder mostly. Fox Reinas kept scruffing up Padrey's hair, and Viyelle would smooth it down again for him. Aisse leaned. She would lean past him for something, or into him, or over him. She kissed too. His cheek or the top of his head, usually, but sometimes his mouth, always too quick for him to kiss back.
Aisse was exactly his age, or around there. She nor Fox knew exactly how old they were, but Fox thought he was a couple of years older. Aisse was glad to have another “youngest."
They found him a red tunic done all over with gold braid and real jewels,so fancy it made his guts quake at the thought of getting something on it. The servants were setting the last stitches in the hems of his trousers while he wore them, as the nineteenth chime sounded. Everything was ready, or would be by the time everyone was assembled and the servants and troopers pressed into service stilled their scurrying.
Padrey waited with the men of the ilian in a small antechamber off the embassy's ballroom. The night was too chill to have the ceremony in a courtyard as Viyelle had suggested. The head of the bodyguard corps put his head in the door. “It's time."
With Jondi in the lead, they strode into the ballroom in the order they had joined the ilian. Torchay came first, as one of the original four creating the ilian, then Obed, followed by Fox. They had joined in that firs
t year. Joh came next—he'd been marked and married the next year—with Keldrey behind, married in after the last Reinine died and before Kallista was selected Reinine. Padrey trailed them all, feeling incredibly young, terribly ignorant and unfathomably grateful.
The ballroom blazed with hundreds of candles, glittering in the mirrored walls. The candelabra were draped in gauzy red, the Reinine's color, and a floor cloth painted with the design of the compass rose had been rolled out onto the hardwood floor. In a masterpiece of timing, Kallista was moving to her place on the north arm of the compass, just far enough ahead of Padrey to keep him from collapse. Padrey followed her around the arc to his place, nearest her on the east. Each of the other women stood on one of the compass points—Aisse to the east, Leyja, west and Viyelle, south. The men spaced themselves out between.
Gweric stood in the middle, in his black prelate's robe, looking nervous. He kept clearing his throat. The three oldest girls stood a pace behind Kallista, trying to keep the bands they held from chiming together too much. Sky and Tigre stood behind Torchay, who was closest to Kallista on the West. Beyond them, around the large chamber, the Tayo Dai, the embassy staff, servants and escort troops ringed them with solemn faces. On the front row, the rest of the ilian's ten children were gathered.
“This is my first wedding.” Gweric's voice cracked and everyone chuckled.
It was Padrey's first wedding too. The first time to see one—a proper one—and his first time to marry.
“I suppose that's obvious to everyone,” Gweric went on, “but I am overjoyed to have this opportunity. I have known this family since Captain Naitan Kallista Varyl refused to leave me, a crippled Witch Hound, in the Ruler's palace in Tibre, and Fox, Warrior vo'Tsekrish carried me out because I could not walk."
Padrey listened, fascinated. Gweric had told him some of this the few times they were in their shared room at the same time, but not all.
“I am sure all of you know, as I do, how fortunate Adara is in her choice of Reinine. We mourned with them when this ilian lost one of their own, and now we rejoice with them because the One has brought them someone new to love.” Gweric paused to clear his throat. “We have a new Godmarked."
A spontaneous cheer broke out among the crowd of witnesses, and faded quickly under Gweric's glare. “Once, when I was young and foolish, or younger and more foolish than I am now—” He got a chuckle. “I was jealous of the magic binding the Godstruck with her marked ones. You all know, I think, that magic is all I can see, and the magic that flows between the godmarked—"
He paused to turn his scarred face upward, an expression of joyous awe spreading across it. “This magic is the most beautiful I have ever seen. And I wanted badly to be part of it. But over the years, I have come to accept that the One knows what She is doing, knows much better than we do.
“Those brought to this ilian are exactly the persons who need to be here. The magic that binds them together is based on love, and it binds all of them, marked or not.” Gweric smiled. “Yes, Keldrey Reinas, I can see you also, though perhaps not as clearly as the others. The magic is still there. The love is there. And that being said..."
He moved into the vows portion of the ceremony. The women went first, beginning with Kallista. Aisse came next, because though she was the youngest, she was one of the ilian's original four, then Viyelle and Leyja. One at a time, they went to one knee before him, placed a band on his right ankle, recited the vow, kissed him and returned to their places. When the women were done, the men came, placing their bands on Padrey's left ankle, until he wore nine anklets, five left and four right.
Then it was Padrey's turn. Gweric had agreed to act as attendant as well as prelate, so he moved outside the circle behind Padrey and handed him the first bracelet.
Obed had offered to provide the ilian bands, but Padrey refused. He had the money he'd been saving first to buy his way free, then to buy his sister and her babies. Maybe some of the money—most of it—was made by thieving, and maybe the bands he'd bought weren't as fancy as the ones they'd given him—though the one from Torchay was plain chased silver like what he'd bought—but it was his money that he'd more or less earned. The bands he gave were from his own efforts, his own heart.
Padrey crossed the few paces to Kallista and went to one knee, slipping the slender silver band onto her left wrist with the six already there. “I come pledging myself to you,” he said. “Heart to heart, my body for yours in whatever comes our way. We, above all others, joined as one before the One who holds all that is, was and will be. So I swear with everything that I am."
He stood and with trembling hands touched her face as he leaned in for the kiss. This was real.
He was actually, seriously, truly marrying into the royal ilian of Adara. Him. Padrey Emtal, trader's boy, slave, thief, spy—now godmarked Reinas of Adara. It still felt more like dream than reality. He touched his lips to Kallista's and drew back, searching her face.
“Yes.” She smiled. “This is me, and that's you.” She laid her hand over his heart. “But remember—” She laid her other hand over her own heart. “Here, I am only Kallista Varyl. A soldier naitan. Don't let all this blind you with its glitter. Please."
Padrey blinked. That sounded like an actual plea. Did it matter so much to her? The thought that it might made him smile. She smiled back and he couldn't help but burst out grinning.
“Kallista.” He said her name. It seemed important to her. He bowed, and yeah, maybe it was just a bit cocky, a bit of a tease. It made her laugh, and when he walked back to get the next bracelet from Gweric, he walked with a touch of swagger.
Padrey made his vows to the rest of the ilian, twice nine trips in all across the compass rose. Kallista had to take a few steps into the center when he crossed to Viyelle on the southern-most point to keep him from collapse. They'd made the compass rose symbol as small as possible, but with ten of them to space around it, it couldn't be too small. Finally, he worked the last anklet over Keldrey's foot, made his last vow, gave his last kiss, and it was done. Nine vows taken, nine given. No wonder the ceremony seemed endless. It was.
Gweric stepped forward, not into the center of the circle, but into the space between Kallista and Padrey. He took their hands and nodded for the rest of them to hold hands as well. When they were joined in a circle, Gweric spoke the final words.
“As you have each vowed today, giving and receiving these bands in pledge and in symbol of the vows you have made, as a prelate of Arikon in Adara, I recognize this ilian."
He smiled, looking at each of them. “May the One bless you with love, with loyalty, with grace, hope and peace."
“May it be so.” Everyone in the ballroom spoke in response.
And now it was really done. He was married. To these.
Gweric stepped back outside the circle and placed Padrey's hand in Kallista's. The instant the circle closed, something slammed into Padrey, a crashing boulder of pure pleasure. His body went tight and hot, and he cried out.
Welcome, Godmarked, our Padrey.
It was Kallista who said it, he knew that, but not with her voice and he didn't hear it with his ears. Nor did he know how he knew it was Kallista, except that it simply was. She was inside him somehow. Or he was inside her. Or—
Kallista chuckled. It's the magic, sweet Padrey. We are together inside the magic.
Somehow she wrapped herself completely around him as the magic stretched, rushing on. Torchay was there, and Obed and Fox, tangled up inside Kallista and the magic. Aisse and Viyelle and Joh and Keldrey and Leyja, all of them together with the strange delight that was the magic. Padrey couldn't see them or hear or even touch them, but they were there. Part of him somehow. His. Like he was theirs. Part of them.
The magic drew them tighter, bound them closer, until Padrey couldn't tell where he ended and they began. He was still himself, and they were each definitely their own selves, but the edges between were hard to find. Not that he tried very hard. The magic felt so good. A bit lik
e yesterday, with Kallista.
Padrey's thoughts dissolved. He felt stretched out, his body pulled up onto tiptoe, arms stretched wide, hands holding tight. The magic burst, showeringtheirconjoinedselveswithcascadingpleasure.Heheardhisshout echoed by other voices. Kallista let them slip away from her as the magic faded until last, she poured Padrey back into his body. He shuddered.
“Tell your children and your grandchildren,” Gweric called into the silence. “That was the mystery of the ilian bond played out on a scale bold enough to be seen. And you have been privileged to see it."
The witnesses burst into cheers again, a few of the bravest coming forward to offer congratulations and well wishes. They were accepted graciously and everyone diverted to the wedding supper set up in the reception halls. Kallista and her ilian made a brief appearance before slipping out with the excuse that the children needed to be put to bed.
Kallista was worried. The demons had left them alone for a whole day. What did it mean? Did they have more time? How much?
Did they dare sleep tonight? Did they dare ... not sleep? A great deal of sex had been done lately, to the accompaniment of a great lot of magic. The demons could not possibly have missed it. Why hadn't they attacked? Could they still be hoping Kallista might meekly give up and go away? Surely not.
She stole one of the flaky honey-and-nut pastries from the tray brought to her chamber where they'd all gathered, and swore when the honey dripped onto her elaborately trimmed tunic.
“What is it now? Not just the honey.” Torchay handed her a plate with more substantial food on it.
“Isn't anyone else wondering what they're waiting for?” She waved Padrey into a chair and took the one beside him.
“Who?” Padrey asked.
“The demons,” Aisse whispered to him.
“Vulnerability,” Joh said. “Since they didn't—perhaps couldn't—attack before Padrey's mark, I'd wager they're waiting for something to soften us up. To make us an easier target."
