by Gail Dayton
“Good. I trust that it will not happen again. See to your prisoner.” Joh turned from dressing down the sergeant. His eyes widened briefly in surprise when he found Kallista standing so closely behind him. He inclined his head. “Naitan.”
“You handled that well.” She smiled. “I’d likely have made a mess of things. I’m used to dealing with sergeants who are all bodyguards, some with dozens of years of service. It’s like walking through sleeping wildcats to deal with them.”
Joh returned a hesitant smile, as if he wasn’t quite sure smiling was safe.
Torchay called from across the room where he was exploring. “The bedrooms are behind these doors.”
“Choose one for us then,” Kallista called back, then spoke to Joh. “I’ll leave it to you to assign quarters for your men and your prisoner.”
“As far from the naitan as possible, if you please, Lieutenant,” Torchay said, returning. “We’ll take the south room farthest from the door.”
“I don’t want Stone hard by the exit, but the next one over on the north side will do,” Joh said. “My men will take the rooms nearest the door.”
“Where will you be?” Torchay asked.
“With the prisoner.”
Kallista let her surprise show. “Really?”
“I can keep a better watch on him that way. He…wanders.”
“Wanders?” Torchay’s head came up in alarm. “What about chains?”
Joh waved a hand, wiping away his words. “Wanders in his mind. Whatever happened to him…disarranged his thoughts. He wanders physically as well, but the chains are effective. He’s had to be chained since he tried to leap off the boat on the journey here.” He gave the Tibran warrior standing passively a few paces off a pitying look. “He’s more likely to harm himself, I believe, than someone else.”
“Guarantee that, can you?” Torchay asked, eyeing the Tibran.
“No, but I believe it.”
“Has he—” Kallista stopped. She was too tired to stand for long and this promised to be a long conversation. She beckoned Joh and Torchay toward one of the seating arrangements. “Stone too. We should talk.”
The Tibran shuffled forward, the shackles limiting his motion, and perched gingerly on a delicate chair upholstered in pale yellow silk. The fat sergeant took up a post directly behind his prisoner. Torchay held the chair at the opposite end and frowned when Kallista sat on the white-and-gold brocade sofa instead. It looked more comfortable. She waved Torchay down on the end nearest Stone. Joh took the sofa opposite.
“Has he ever—” Again she stopped and addressed her question to Stone. He was the one with the mark. “Have you ever had that happen before? What happened just now?”
He shook his head, then paused, looking to Joh. “Not exactly like that. I don’t remember—”
“You went into convulsions back in Turysh,” the lieutenant said. “But you’re right. It wasn’t the same.”
“Wait.” Kallista put up a hand as more cold chills danced through her. “In Turysh? On…Thirdday last week? On the docks?”
Joh nodded, looking as uneasy as Kallista felt. “Yes. Why?”
She looked at Stone, tried to picture the man she had seen. “I saw you,” she said. “I think. Your hair was loose—wild…”
Stone stared back at her, horror in his eyes. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you think—” Joh began hesitantly.
“What?” Kallista didn’t bother hiding her impatience.
“Could it be possible that—that your presence triggered these fits?”
“How?” She didn’t want to believe it, but it had a feeling of rightness about it.
“I don’t know. I’m no naitan. I know nothing of magic and this…” Joh paused for breath. “This reeks of it.”
“The Hand of the One,” Sergeant Borril said.
“But I’m perfectly all right now.” Stone’s chains rattled as he shifted position.
“Maybe it’s ended.” Kallista didn’t like the idea of throwing people into bellowing fits.
“Maybe it requires touch,” Joh said.
Torchay skewered him with a glare. He did not want them touching. Kallista didn’t have to read his mind to know.
“If a touch is going to throw us into another one of those episodes, we need to know it,” she said.
Grudgingly, Torchay nodded and stood, moving out of the way. Kallista extended her hand. Stone stared at it, seeming to shrink away without actually moving.
“Take my hand, Stone,” she said. “It can’t be any worse than before.”
“Are you sure?” But he lifted his manacled hands and folded one of them around hers.
Nothing happened.
“Is that how you were touching before?” Joh studied their clasped hands. “It doesn’t look right.”
“No. Stone, you had hold of my arm. Here.” She indicated her bare forearm above the glove.
“Skin to skin,” Joh said.
The words made Kallista shudder with want and memory.
“Touch her arm, Stone.” Joh’s intense scrutiny didn’t change.
“You’re enjoying this,” Torchay accused the lieutenant. “You like experimenting with my naitan’s safety.”
“It’s important to know.”
“The lieutenant is right.” Kallista untangled her hand from Stone’s and pulled off her gloves, handing them to Torchay. Joh swallowed hard at the sight of her bare hands and some of the guardsmen backed away.
Kallista sighed a quick breath. “I don’t often wear gloves in private. If any of you has trouble with that, perhaps he ought to request reassignment.”
“I’m fine.” Joh looked back at the soldiers. They straightened to attention and remained at their posts to either side of the door, though one young man’s eyes were white with nerves and another kept swallowing.
“My magic—the magic I was born with,” she corrected, “is lightning. I would normally tell you that my control is excellent, but since—well, nothing is as it was. I will do my best—and Torchay will help—to be sure no one is harmed.”
“There are six tower spires just outside the window,” Torchay said, “if they are needed.”
Good, he had checked for safe targets for the lightning. And perhaps the spires would make safe targets for any other magic that might come strolling through her. They were as ready for what might happen as they could be without knowing what would actually happen.
Kallista turned back to Stone and held out her bared hand, leaving it up to him to decide. He met her gaze, blue eyes to blue, and his chin came up, answering her unspoken challenge. With a rattle of chains, he raised his hands and clasped hers.
Magic stirred, inside Stone, not Kallista. It lifted, as if asking what she required, waiting for her command. She touched it, felt it answer, felt Stone’s gasp, and backed away. She could call it. But this was not the place to experiment. She had no desire to destroy the Reinine’s delicate furniture with who-knew-what-sort of stray magic crashing around.
Stone shuddered when she released his hand. As did Torchay. “You called magic,” her bodyguard said, going down to one knee beside the sofa. It brought him closer to her.
“Yes.” She nodded, taking her turn to shudder. “No. I touched magic. Inside Stone. I didn’t call it. This isn’t the place or the time. Not when we don’t know what it will do.”
“No.” Stone shook his head, huddling inside his chains. “No. I am no witch. I have no magic. Impossible.”
Kallista looked at him—it was no hardship. He was a beautiful young man. “You have never called magic? Never done something you should not have been able to do? Or done something very much better than everyone else?”
“I am fastest at reloading my musket, fastest with a bayonet, but that’s skill, not magic.”
Aisse fidgeted in her chosen place near Kallista, drawing attention to herself for the first time. Attention she didn’t want, by her demeanor. “Magic not—is not liked in Tibre. Those with magic are punished.
Lose caste, lose magic or—made dead.”
“Killed,” Torchay corrected automatically. Aisse repeated the word while Kallista thought.
“Perhaps,” she said slowly, “the magic is not there for your use, since you are no naitan. I do not call magic from inside myself but from—from the air around me, from the sky, from the One. I ask Her gift and She gives it. Could it be there for me to call?”
The sound of hands clapping brought Kallista’s head up. Belandra stood behind the sofa where Joh sat, clapping her hands in sardonic applause. “Congratulations, you discovered something on your own.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kallista’s mouth opened to demand where Belandra had been, and her eyes fell on Joh, his face filled with overdone curiosity. “Out,” she said instead. She did not want outside witnesses to this conversation. “Everyone out.”
She retreated a few paces toward the window, holding her hands up so they might believe she held magic. She pointed an elbow at the guards nearest the door. “You two, outside the door. Don’t let anyone enter until you’re told otherwise. The rest of you, in your rooms. Now. Torchay, with me.”
Joh picked Stone up from his chair, knocking it over, and hurled him toward the chosen bedroom. The rest of the soldiers vanished in a flurry of action as Kallista moved a few steps more toward the window.
“You too, Aisse,” she said when the small woman stood frozen in a panic of indecision.
“I help,” Aisse protested, despite her trembling.
“Torchay’s enough. You go.” Kallista threw out her hand to point at the bedroom door and both Aisse and Torchay flinched. Aisse hesitated a moment more, then ran to do as she was told.
When the room was empty, Kallista lowered her hands and took a deep breath, looking back at Belandra, who appeared highly amused by all the activity.
“I feel magic,” Torchay said, moving close to Kallista as he searched for danger. “But it’s not yours. It’s like yours, but it isn’t yours…Belandra?”
Kallista nodded. “She’s here.”
Belandra left her position and walked toward them, circling to inspect Torchay. Kallista circled too, keeping herself between her bodyguard and the long-dead woman.
“Why didn’t you come before now?” Kallista demanded. “Two Hopedays have passed.”
“I thought the redhead here was godmarked. Your marked companion. But he’s not, is he?”
“No, he’s not marked. And that doesn’t answer my question.”
“Who’s the little blonde?” Belandra strolled toward the door where Joh and Stone had disappeared, but didn’t enter.
“Answer my question.” Kallista forced the words through gritted teeth.
“I could not come because you had not yet found him.” Belandra pointed through the closed door. “You had not joined with any marked companion.”
“Well, why—No.” Kallista waved her hands, wiping out the question before she got it asked. She didn’t want to waste any of the six allowed, and she’d already asked one. She thought over the things Belandra had already said. “You didn’t tell me because you thought this ‘marked companion’ was Torchay. My bodyguard.”
“Exactly.” Belandra wandered toward the window and looked out, then swung around, shock in her expression. “This place is Arikon.”
Kallista nodded. “Arikon the Blessed. It’s the capital of all Adara.”
“It’s—” She turned to look again, leaning on the windowsill. “I recognize nothing but the mountains.”
“Look there.” Kallista joined her at the window, Torchay at her back, and pointed down and to the left. “Beyond that dome-topped tower. That’s Sanda’s Hall. It’s all that’s left from your time. Most of the old palace was destroyed in the Plains Rebellion about six hundred years ago, and what wasn’t, tumbled down on its own a hundred years later. It’s been a thousand years. You should have expected as much.”
Belandra shook her head. “I didn’t think. I don’t—a thousand years. For a thousand years, the people have been safe?”
Kallista blinked. She hadn’t thought of it that way. But wasn’t that what she had demanded of the One? To keep the people safe? “Not…perfectly safe, but yes, safe enough.”
She put her hand up to keep Belandra from speaking again. “It’s my turn. There are things I need to know. My bodyguard says that the night you gave me the ring, I stopped breathing. I almost died. He wants to know—I am asking—If it happens again, what must he do to keep me alive?”
“You stopped—” Belandra actually appeared worried. She turned around and leaned against the windowsill, folding her arms. “It must have been because you had to travel so far. You had to come to me the first time, to receive the ring. You must have something of mine in your possession so I can come to you. It will not happen again. I come to you now. Tell your bodyguard to stop worrying.” She frowned. “Why do you have a bodyguard?”
“For protection, of course.” Stupid question.
“Can you not defend yourself?” Belandra’s retort was scornful.
“Of course. But not during battle when I am calling magic. Very few naitani can keep track of their immediate surroundings when they call magic, and in a battle with bandits—or opposing armies—that can be deadly. The bodyguard watches for us. A naitan and her bodyguard work in tandem.”
“What danger faces Adara—”
“My turn,” Kallista interrupted.
Belandra swelled up with temper, then seemed to think better of it and subsided.
“What has happened to me? What is all this?” She cursed herself when she realized she’d asked two questions, using up four of her precious six.
“Do you not know already?”
“I don’t know anything except that my magic is tangled like an old fishing net and I’m afraid to call it because I don’t know what it will do next. I speak perfect Tibran as well as Adaran, but I can’t tell which one I’m speaking when it’s coming out of my mouth. I killed tens of thousands of the enemy in one sweep of magic from these hands.” Kallista held them up, then quickly tightened them into fists to stop their shaking.
Torchay touched her shoulder and this time she let herself lean back into his support. He stiffened for a second, then relaxed, his chest against her back. He stroked his hand down her arm. He must have decided this was duty, not pleasure.
“You’ve been godstruck,” Belandra said. “Chosen to join with those who’ve been marked as your companions to protect the people of the One. The marked ones carry the magic. You use it. You are the naitan. The focus.”
“Use it how? And—”
This time Belandra put up her hand. “Don’t ask your last question. Not yet. I have to leave soon after it’s asked and there is much I want to know. As for how you use the magic—it varies. It depends on what sort of danger, what need you face. You are given what you need. When you killed all those enemies, were you alone?”
“Torchay was with me.”
Belandra frowned. “But he is not marked. The magic—was it like a dark mist? Spreading in all directions with you at its center?”
Kallista nodded, clamping her teeth tight together to keep the questions inside. Had Belandra used that particular bit of magic herself?
“The dark veil requires a tremendous amount of power. Even the most powerful naitan working alone can rarely create a circle of more than twenty paces around her. And yet you—how big was the circle?”
Kallista looked back at Torchay. “The dark scythe—how far did it travel? How far would you say the Tibran camp was?”
“At least two hundred paces. Maybe a little more. The scythe didn’t travel quite the whole distance.”
“Goddess,” Belandra swore. “There had to have been someone else to channel all that power. There had to have been. And you’re sure this one’s not marked?”
“Bend your head down.” Kallista moved away from Torchay so he could do as she asked. She pushed aside his thick queue and the few curls that had escap
ed it to expose his pale, unmarked nape. “Both I and the Tibran are marked here.”
Her mouth dropped open as she realized what she had said, as Torchay straightened. “The Tibran. Stone was in the battle. On the other side. The only one of the invaders inside the city who lived. Could he have—Goddess, one of the enemy?”
“Stone is the one who is marked? The good-looking blonde?”
“Yes.” Kallista realized something else. “The questions—I wasn’t asking you. I was just—”
“Just wondering.” Belandra gave one of her crooked, sardonic smiles. “I know. Sometimes they count, sometimes they don’t. I think it depends on intent. If you ‘just wonder,’ hoping to get around the six-question limit, it counts. And the One does not care which side of battle her people are on. What matters is surrender. That man—”
She pointed at the door behind which Stone had vanished. “He surrendered himself to the will of the One. That is why he still lives. That is why he bears the mark.”
“Goddess.” Kallista sagged against Torchay once more.
“For even one companion to carry so much power as you describe is unusual. There’s bound to be another out there. Maybe two.”
“How do I find them?” Kallista asked, and then swore. She hadn’t meant that as her last question.
Belandra grinned, a wicked grin if ever there was one. “They’ll find you. The marks draw them. Wait. They will come.”
“How many?” Kallista cried. “How will I know them?”
But the red-haired woman was gone. Vanished between one breath and the next. Kallista swore again. A limit on questions was stupid. How would she ever learn what she needed to know?
“She’s gone?” Torchay backed away, putting space between them.
“Yes.” Kallista spent the next few minutes telling Torchay the few things she had learned. Important things they needed to know, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
When she was done, she took a deep breath. “I suppose you can let the others out of their rooms and tell the two standing guard they can admit visitors again. Someone’s supposed to be bringing our trunks, aren’t they?”
Torchay nodded and went to take care of matters. Kallista turned to look out the window again, trying to soak up the beauty of the palace and surrounding city, rather than find safe points for her lightning.
