02 the barbed rose, p.27
02 - The Barbed Rose, page 27
Or maybe he was still thinking. Her suspicions were confirmed when he spoke.
“You said thinking was one of my best things, but not yours.” Joh caught her hand and pulled her down on top of him for a kiss that went on longer than he seemed to have intended.
“What if—” He paused, speaking with his mouth pressed to her forehead. “What if I help you sort it out?”
“Sort what out?” Kallista slid her hands across his chest, pausing to play in the puff of hair over his breastbone.
“Why now?” He tugged her tunic up but stopped halfway apparently distracted by the feel of her back under his hands.
Kallista pushed herself up far enough to see his face. “Do you ever stop thinking?”
He flushed. She couldn’t see it well in the moonlight, but she could feel his face burn, faintly, through the link. “Hardly ever,” he admitted.
“I am trying to distract you.” She rose to her knees to finish removing her tunic and chemise.
Joh helped, or tried to. “I know. Sorry. I’ve never been very distractible. I just—I want to know.”
“Why now?” Kallista lay beside him again and rolled to her back to get her trousers and smalls off. Joh was more help this time.
“Does the link make the difference?”
She sighed. He was obviously not going to leave this alone, so she might as well answer his questions—even if she didn’t quite know what the answers were. But she was not about to give up her campaign to distract him. She’d always enjoyed a challenge. She would even play fair and keep the magic out of it. As much as she could.
“Yes,” she said. “It does.”
“How?” He shivered when her fingers found his nipples and pinched. “Does it create a physical awareness, or is it just—what does it feel like?”
Now she paused, turning inward to test, to probe, to measure.
Joh’s lips skimming across her shoulder distracted her, made her shiver and arch upward, begging for more. His hand settled warm and still on her stomach, over her navel. “Tell me,” he murmured, his breath warming her ear.
“It’s like—a tiny piece of you curled up safe inside me.” Kallista’s fingers dug into his shoulders, tangled in his hair as he kissed his way down the upper slope of her breasts. “So yes, there is a physical awareness. I can feel what you’re feeling, in a way. And you’re new, so I’m not used to it yet.”
He pressed a kiss at the margin where her breast changed from white to pink. “Like a new toy at Year’s End?”
She twisted, brushing her nipple against his cheek, wanting more. “Yes. But no. That’s part of it, but—” She caught his head between her hands and tried to move it where she wanted him, but Joh wouldn’t move.
He caught her wrists and pinned them to the bed, continuing his leisurely exploration. Just who was distracting whom, here?
“What’s the rest of it? A new toy and—what?” Finally, finally his mouth closed over her nipple.
Kallista’s whole body reacted, jerking into a high arc, and she cried out. Her hands convulsed where he held them helpless, curling into claws that would have marked him had she been able to reach him.
“What?” He moved to her other breast and she cried out again, unable to keep from tweaking the magic inside her. Joh’s gasp echoed from other throats.
“Mine,” she said before she could think. “You’re mine now.” She struggled for control, to grasp one magic and leave the others to themselves.
“I always was.” Joh released one wrist to smooth a hand down over her stomach.
She used the freedom to touch him, memorize the shape of his shoulder, play in his hair. “It’s different now. You’re part of me. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’ll know it. No matter how far you might run, I still have you with me. Here.”
She set his hand on the lower reach of her stomach, just above the tangle of black hair where her skin showed a few pinkish marks left by her twins.
“Is this where we live?” Joh curled down to kiss her navel, to kiss the places his hand covered. “No wonder the magic feels like it does.”
He made as if to move lower and Kallista stopped him. “Another time.” She wrapped her hand around him. “I want you inside me.”
Joh groaned and collapsed, pulling himself from her hold, his face pressed against her belly. “I’ll never last.”
“Yes you will.” She caught a fistful of hair and lifted his head until he looked her in the eye. “I won’t let you fail.”
He shivered. “That’s almost a frightening thought.”
She wanted to shake him. Wanted much more. “Do you want this?”
“Do you?”
Patience stripped from her, Kallista took hold of him with both hands and magic. She brought him up over her, wrapped her legs around his waist, and when she felt the blunt head at her entrance, she lunged upward, impaling herself on him.
“Don’t ask—stupid—questions.” She gasped the words out between clenched teeth.
Joh seemed at last to be beyond thought. He froze motionless for a few ticks, then exploded into a near frenzy. The bed rocked, banging into the wall with the force of his thrusts. Kallista rose to meet him, her passion as fierce as his. Strange sounds emerged from his throat, others came from hers. She held tight to his magic as the sensation built. He touched her deep and deep and deep again. Her body seemed too small to hold all he made her feel, until she screamed with the pleasure he drove into her.
She lost her grip on the magic and he shouted. His body shook as he poured himself into her. His hair fell in a curtain to either side of her face, hiding them in a private world of their own, until he lowered himself carefully onto her. “I’ll move in a bit.”
“Don’t bother.” Kallista had strength enough to stroke her hands up and down his back. She needed to touch him more, know this body by heart. “I like you there. For a while longer, at least.”
“Then I’ll stay.” He turned his head so his lips rested against her cheek. “For a while longer, at least.”
“Did you learn what you wanted to know?” She found a scar, a long thin one slanting across his lower back. A riot in Kishkim, she thought he’d said.
“Yes.”
“Really?” She pushed him back to see his face and he slid off to one side. “I thought I’d managed to distract you.”
He smiled. “You did. Very well.”
“But you got your answer anyway.”
His smile went smug. Joh tucked her into his shoulder so she couldn’t see him. Probably best. She didn’t want to get mad over a silly thing like smugness. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”
“Well, what was it?” She didn’t mind him knowing, but it was annoying not to know it herself.
“You’re sure of me now.” He kissed her forehead and left his mouth there, speaking against her skin. “I’d never have left you before, but now I’m part of you. I’m the same as the others, so you’re sure.”
Kallista frowned. She didn’t think she liked his reasoning. It made her sound insecure. Needy.
Joh’s arms tightened around her and he kissed her again on her forehead, then used his straight blade of a nose to brush her hair aside and kiss her temple. “And if you’re sure of me,” he murmured against her ear, “then I can be sure of you.”
She wanted to pull back to look at him, but Joh kept his hold tight. She’d been treating him like some mechanical, wind-up thing, she realized. Because he was easier than the others, because he did what was needed without being asked and made no demands, she’d been able to ignore him. To pretend he didn’t have his own needs or even emotions.
She couldn’t do it anymore. He was inside her, part of her like the others, but still himself apart, like the others. She couldn’t pretend anymore. She held six links inside her now, with one yet to be formed. Could she manage so many? How many more would there be? Was there a way to find out?
Kallista snuggled down into Joh’s arms, wriggling her head across his shoulder until she found a comfortable place and went still. Sleep stole her thoughts a moment later.
Torchay took Joh out spying with him the very next morning. He showed him all the safe paths and the hidden ways back to their quarters, then took him to the trade sector around the Mother Temple. They returned well before dusk, tumbling down the steep stairs to the stables below their room, bringing Obed awake with sword in hand.
“Peace, ilias. It’s only us.” Torchay drank a dipper of water from the bucket hanging on its nail, then poured a dipperful over his head. Brown rivulets trickled down his neck as he passed the dipper to Joh, leaving his hair brighter.
“One day out and he’s found our missing ilias,” Torchay announced. He waited for Joh to finish drinking before pounding him on the back in celebration.
“You’ve found him? Where?” Kallista bounded over the sacks of grain she’d been stacking to throw herself at Joh. He caught her in midair and swung her around in a bear hug.
“Near the Mother Temple.” Torchay looked around the stable, the horses standing hip slung in the rising heat, and led the way into a vacant stall. “You were right, Kallista. They were holding him there.”
“I told you I could feel—”
“They weren’t holding him.” Joh watched her face as he said it, his words, his tone careful. “He was walking free. With the rebels, like one of them.” He licked his lips, never moving his eyes from Kallista.
“You’re sure it was Fox?” Kallista looked at Torchay. “Joh’s never met him.”
“I saw him myself. It was Fox.” Torchay’s face had become as careful as Joh’s. “He did seem very comfortable with the rebels. They were loitering in the plaza on the south side of the Temple.”
What weren’t they telling her? She knew they held something back simply by the way they held themselves. “How comfortable?”
Torchay sighed. “Very. One of the women…” He trailed off, as if not sure how to phrase his meaning.
“He wore her like a cloak,” Joh said.
“Yes.” Torchay nodded. “That describes it. She acted as if he was her personal property. Her pet.”
Kallista took a deep breath, but it wasn’t needed to control her temper. Fox was hers—theirs—and anyone who pretended otherwise would pay. But her rightful anger was overridden by fear. What had they done to him? Why was his link closed off so tightly? Why couldn’t she reach him when he was here in the same city?
“I have to see him.” It was the only solution.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Kallista, no.” That was Obed.
“We won’t risk you,” Torchay said at the same moment.
“That wasn’t the plan.” Joh still watched her, had never stopped. “You don’t see him until we’re ready to leave Turysh. Are we ready?”
“Maybe you could see him through your sister’s eyes,” Viyelle said. “Like you did last night.”
Kallista was shaking her head already. “No, they know Karyl. They’re already watching her. We don’t want to make them any more suspicious.”
“But would it work?” Viyelle insisted.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been able to do that before. I don’t know if I could see what needs seeing.”
“Well, what is that? What is it you need to see?” Torchay sounded on the edge of his infinite patience.
“Demons. I need to see—” Kallista hugged herself. “He’s been property before. When he lost his caste, they made him nothing, and he survived. He knows how to survive. Maybe that’s all this is. Trying to survive by playing a part.”
“But if it’s not?” Torchay’s voice gentled, offered sympathy.
“That’s why I need to see him.” Kallista held on to her composure with both hands. “I need to see if the demon succeeded. I know it tried to take him over. But I don’t know anything more. I can’t get through the link. It’s there, but Fox—or something—has shut it down. I didn’t know it was possible, for the link to keep me out. Belandra told me I couldn’t close them off. But it is and I need to know why. For that, I need to see him.”
“What if you could see through our eyes?” Joh spoke hesitantly, gesturing between the three men. “You can heal us. You can contact us across leagues of distance. Maybe you can far-speak through us as well, not just to other farspeakers.”
“I haven’t been able to speak to our other iliasti, except through dreams.” Kallista was afraid to hope. But now that the idea had been broached, Torchay would never let her go see Fox unless they had tried—really tried—this method.
“They’re much farther away” Joh said. “It should be easier, since we’re closer.”
“Try it,” Torchay said.
How had she done it with Karyl? Kallista drew magic and realized that, if she could do it at all, it should be easier than with Karyl. Not only were all her iliasti in the same room with her, they were already connected to her. Viyelle reached out, offering her magic.
“No, Viyelle, don’t touch me. I want to do it with their magic alone, because they’re the ones I’ll be seeing through.” Kallista reached, asking the magic to see.
There was a long moment of confusion. Her vision blurred, then cleared. She was looking at the same stall in the same stable with the same people looking back at her. Then she realized that a faint shadow image overlaid the other.
She concentrated on the shadows, and slowly they solidified, overshadowing the other view. Still the same stall in the same stable, but now she was herself in the center of the field of view. Whose eyes did she look through?
Kallista struggled to refocus her vision, to pull other shadows up and over, and was looking through her own eyes again. She tried once more to pull up a third view, but apparently there were only two: hers and one other.
“I can see through one of you,” she said, blinking as she switched again to the other sight. The change was getting smoother with practice, but was still an effort. “But you’re all three standing so close together, I can’t tell whose eyes they are.”
Three heads turned, swinging as they looked at each other. The motion dizzied Kallista and she closed her eyes. It didn’t block what she saw, and it helped with the dizziness.
“Joh,” she said. “I can see Torchay and Obed, so it’s Joh’s eyes I see from.” She paused. “That makes sense. Joh’s magic has…vision. Clarity of understanding.” She saw herself again as Joh turned to face her. Kallista grappled with the magic, slid back into her own sight and let the magic go.
“I thought Obed’s magic had truth,” Torchay said.
“Knowing what is true doesn’t always help, if you don’t understand it.” She closed her eyes, pressing her fingers against them. The magic didn’t affect them physically, but still they ached. “Did it affect your sight, Joh? Could you feel me there?”
He shook his head. “I could tell you were using magic, but nothing else. Should I go back to the plaza now?”
Kallista judged the light. Hours yet till sunset. The sooner they found Fox and she could know whether demons held him, the sooner they could get him out of that place and retrieve the rest of their ilian.
“If he is taken,” Torchay spoke before she could. “What will you do?”
“Take him back.” She glowered at her bodyguard. “Do you expect me to leave him in the power of that thing?”
“Did I say that?” He gave her scowl for scowl. “But they have likely left the square by now. We’ll have to hunt and find him again. By the time we do—if we do—it could be late. I know you, Kallista. You may say ‘I only want to see him,’ but the instant you do, you’ll want to act. And we’re not ready.”
“We could be ready,” Obed said. “The horses are rested. Our supplies are replenished. We need only to put them together.”
Torchay turned his scowl on Obed. “You’re no’ helping.”
“If I stay here and just look through Joh’s eyes, I won’t be able to act. I’ll be here.” Kallista couldn’t bear the thought of waiting longer to rescue him, but she would do it. She would try anyway.
Torchay’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t expect it to. She knew him too well. Just as he knew her.
“I don’t trust you to stay here unless I’m here to sit on you myself,” he said.
“Fine. Stay. Go. Stand on your head. I don’t care.” Kallista shoved past Joh toward the stall door. She would not let them see her tears.
Torchay caught her, held her. “Don’t get your hair on so tight. We’ll work it out.”
In the end, they did. Joh would go back to the temple square near dusk. Obed would follow as backup and guide, in case Joh got lost in the unfamiliar city or ran into other trouble. Torchay would stay behind to sit on Kallista, and help Viyelle with the evening feed while Kallista rode Joh’s vision into the city center and veiled their magic from demonsight.
When Joh got back to the Mother Temple square, walking as quickly as he could without drawing notice, the tall, yellow-haired man was gone. If he’d retreated inside the temple or the temple house, Joh doubted he could be found. But the man Torchay had identified as Fox had the look of someone out for a good time. Joh had hopes.
He scanned the square. Turysh’s Mother Temple was built on the same plan as all others, in a square four-petaled shape with wings extending in each of the cardinal directions and a high-roofed sanctuary in the center. At most temples, each wing was fronted by a plaza, but at this Mother Temple, the plazas spread to either side, each melting into the next, making a huge hollow square of pavement, with gardens filling in the spaces between wings.
The earlier population of young parents and small children mixed with merchants striding purposefully through or gathering in small close-bunched clusters had given way to gangs of boisterous young women on the stroll. Ordinarily they would meet up with swarms of equally young off-duty soldiers to flirt and show off. Joh knew the pattern, had once been one of those soldiers, but soldiers were thin on the ground tonight. The girls talked and laughed and indulged in mild horseplay, but it was obvious they just went through the motions. Joh didn’t think they would linger long.
