The Eternal Rose

by Gail Dayton

  "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, Kallist
a,” 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 care 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."

  And as Torchay's pain, his love flowed into her through the awful gash in her dreamself, it began—just a bit—to fill up that burning emptiness inside her.

  "I have been so stupid. Can you all forgive me?"

  "Yes, you have been. But I should have expected it, you do stupidity so often and so well.” He was grinning at her when she looked up at him. “As for forgiving, I suppose I have to, don't I? Since I'm in love with you and all. You'll have to go back and ask the others, though. Aisse is likely to smack you first, before she does, she's that mad at you."

  Kallista pressed a hand over her own wound, and this time managed to seal it up, rather like pressing layers of soft clay together. It still oozed a bit, but it stayed shut. Torchay's injuries sealed up the same way, when he helped.

  "Thank you for coming,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I couldn't let you go off alone, could I? I'm your bodyguard."

  She tugged at a lock of his hair, laughing. “I think this could be considered beyond the call of duty."

  Then she turned away to study the featureless dreamscape. Her smile faded. She didn't recognize anything. There was nothing for her to recognize.

  "I don't know if I can find the way back,” she said after several long moments of frantic searching.

  "You'd better. I certainly can't. I don't know how I got here to start with."

  "Weren't you dreaming?” Kallista started walking, sending up a quiet prayer for guidance.

  "No. I was making love to you.” Torchay held her hand as he stalked beside her, bristling with protectiveness even here.

  "And you ... jumped?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

  He shrugged, then stopped, pulling her around to face him. “You know the way back,” he said. “Of course you know the way. Stone's gone, and I'm here, but you've got six other links. You've cut them off, but they're still there. All you have to do is grab hold, the way you caught me. They'll lead us home."

  Goddess, how unbelievably stupid and selfish she'd been. The pain of her loss was no excuse. They'd all suffered the same loss. She'd been too wrapped up in her own misery to see it.