Читать книгу The Barbed Rose - Gail Dayton, Gail Dayton - Страница 8

“Halt. Stand and identify yourself and your business.”

Kallista Varyl, Captain Naitan of the Reinine’s Own, just recalled from extended leave, somehow managed to refrain from swearing. The guard at the Mountain Gate leading into Arikon was only doing his duty. He couldn’t know the urgency riding her.

She saluted, snapped off her name and command. “I’ve been ordered to Arikon by the Reinine herself.” She handed over a copy of her orders.

The guard’s eyes widened when he saw the seals and signatures on the paper, but still he blocked her path.

Harnesses jangled as another in Kallista’s party pushed her way forward and saluted. “Courier Viyelle Torvyll, Prinsipella of Shaluine.” The courier began formally, then switched to a familiar, friendly tone as she addressed the guard. “You know me, Daltrey. You were standing duty here when I rode out to fetch the naitan back. This is Captain Varyl. These are her iliasti. I can swear to their identity. I know them all from the last time they were in the city, at court. The captain has urgent business. Do you honestly want to delay them?”

Kallista remembered the prinsipella from last year as well, and not fondly. The young woman had been a useless, annoying, mischief-making blot on Adaran society, and that was before the quarrelsome magic had got hold of her. Still, she seemed to have found something better to do with herself since then, joining the courier corps.

The prinsipella-courier had brought the Reinine’s orders to Kallista along with a warning of the rebellion stirring down on the plains. Viyelle had traveled back to the capital with Kallista’s party, fought through rebel ambushes with them, and at this moment, Kallista was liking the courier more and more.

“I’m sure you can, Prinsipella.” The guard, who had to be nearing the end of his military service, which would make him all of twenty-two, blushed under Viyelle’s attention, but he did not budge. “But rules are rules and with this rebellion on, it’s worth my head if I break them. The captain must be identified by an officer she served under previously.” He signaled to another footguard.

“I’ll go for you,” Viyelle said. “It’s on my way, and I’m mounted. I’ll be faster. My orders were to get the captain here, but she’s not here till she’s reported in, is she?” She turned to Kallista. “I’ll leave your horse in the palace stables so you can find it later.”

“Yes, fine, go.” Kallista waved a hand and the courier clattered off at the best speed she could make. Perhaps she did mean to make amends for last year’s calamities, as she said. Kallista decided to reserve judgment, watch and see how things unfolded. This guard, however…

Kallista glared at him, thinking hot and angry thoughts. He cleared his throat, stiffened to even more rigid attention, and didn’t move.

“Don’t twist yourself into a knot,” Torchay murmured from beside her, trying to calm her temper when it didn’t want to be calmed.

Sergeant Torchay Omvir had been doing that sort of thing for the past ten years, first as her assigned military bodyguard, and for the past year as her ilias—one of her temple-bound mates. He was an exception to the old saying that redheads have fiery tempers. Kallista’s temper was many times hotter than his, but her hair was so dark a brown as to be almost black, while Torchay’s hair was a deep, pure, true dark red that curled wildly when not confined ruthlessly in a military queue as it was now.

“Look around you,” he said. “Have you ever seen this many people at the Mountain Gate? Something’s happened.”

She wanted to let her anger rage, but Torchay’s murmur reached her, despite all. She looked.

Here on the north side of the city, where Arikon backed up into the sharp beginnings of the Shieldback Mountains, the walls didn’t rise so high as those facing the valley to the east and south. The mountain itself gave protection to Arikon. Fewer people lived in the mountain valleys than down in the vast eastern plains, and those who lived in the mountains beyond the Shieldbacks found it easier and quicker to come through the Heldring Gap to the plains and thus to Arikon, though the distance might be greater. In all the times Kallista had been in Adara’s capital city, the Mountain Gate had never seen more than a few dozen individuals seeking admittance, even on the busiest days.

Today, merchants driving carts laden with household goods were lined up behind farmers driving livestock before them, and they stood behind craftsmen bearing the looms or anvils or hammers and saws of their trade, all waiting for access to the city. Old people rested by the side of the road. Children chased each other, playing loud games with best friends just met while their parents tried to keep track of them. Kallista had been vaguely aware of the crowds as this half of their ilian approached the gate, but she hadn’t truly seen them.

Guards searched baggage, and one by one, those wanting into the city filed up to a table set before an army colonel with a single row of red ribbons fluttering fore-and-aft from her shoulders and a male naitan dressed in North magic blue. He looked weary, as if he’d been working magic for hours on end.

The next in line came up to the table and laid her hands flat on the rough wooden top. The naitan covered both her hands with his, and the colonel began asking her questions. A few minutes later, the naitan nodded, the woman gathered up her goods, joined the family waiting near the gate and together, they entered the city.

“Truthsayer?” Kallista spoke her thought aloud, not seeking an answer. No wonder the man looked tired, if he had to verify every person wanting to enter the city. She shivered with a sudden chill. “You’re right, Torchay. Something has happened. Something bad.”

And the rest of their ilian was on the road alone, traveling to the northern edges of Adara and Torchay’s family, away from the rebellion disturbing the eastern plain. Her babies—twin daughters—were so small, only ninety days old. Not even three months yet. How could she have left them? What kind of mother was she, to be here, instead of there, with her children?

“Obed should have gone with them.” Her voice was bitter, angry, quiet. “You should have gone with them. How can they travel safely all the way to Korbin Prinsipality with only one able-bodied fighter? We sent him alone to guard a pregnant woman, a blind man, a healer and two tiny babies.”

She whirled her horse to ride north and find them, keep them safe. The two with her—the best fighters in their ilian—would never leave her.

Torchay threw himself at her reins and missed, landing hard in the lingering puddles on the rocky road. Kallista called for speed and her mount did its best, but there were too many people crowded in the road and she wasn’t—quite—willing to sacrifice someone else’s child to save her own. Obed caught up with her easily, wresting the reins from her hands.

Kallista fought for the reins, for control of her horse. Confused and frightened, the animal reared. Obed caught her around her waist and pulled her onto the saddle in front of him. Kallista’s fear flashed into anger and she turned it on Obed, her fury rising as he accepted her blows without expression, without reaction, simply allowing her to rain them down on him.

“Damn you,” she raged. “Don’t you care about anything?” She wanted to mark him, to cut him open and see if he would bleed. Her beautiful, exotic Southron ilias with his black hair, brown skin and the tattoos of his devotion to the One God written on his face and body was beyond anything in Kallista’s experience. She didn’t know how to deal with him. And just now, that infuriated her.

Like the rest of their ilian, he’d been marked by the One and bound by that godstruck magic into a whole as unlike other iliani as a military troop was from the rabble of a mob. But since her daughters’ birth, Obed had been pulling back, withdrawing into himself until he seemed a stone carving, rather than a man. And she didn’t know why.

His behavior worried her, for more reasons than the personal. It drove cracks through their ilian, because much as she tried to hide her hurt at Obed’s actions, she couldn’t quite, and that made the others angry for her sake.

Torchay pushed his way into the space around the restive horses, limping slightly. Kallista refused the rising guilt, but it seeped inside her anyway. She’d caused that limp. Obed released her into Torchay’s arms and he pulled her from the saddle, holding her tight when she would have turned her anger on him. He wouldn’t let her strike him.

“You don’t want to cause any more of a scene. Not here.” He spoke into her ear, holding her head still with one long-fingered hand planted on the back of her skull. “Think, Kallista. If you ride out of here, you’re more likely to lead the danger to them. You’re the godstruck. You’re the one the rebels will watch, if they’re watching any of us. You don’t know for certain that there is any danger at all, do you?”

Gradually, his words sank in and made sense. She did not want to make anything worse than it already was. She stopped struggling and Torchay loosened his hold. He didn’t let go of her entirely—he knew her too well for that—but he would know she was listening now.

“You have to trust in the plan.” He led her back toward their place near the gate where his well-trained horse waited, calmly cropping grass. Obed followed, leading Kallista’s mount.

“They’re my daughters too, remember?” Torchay said. “Blood or no, Lorynda and Rozite are both mine. Don’t you think I want to be there myself, watching over them, as much as you do? But this was the plan. To draw attention our way, make anyone interested come after us. And for that, we need Obed here.

“If we’re drawing attention to you, I want our best fighters protecting you, and that’s Obed and me. I won’t risk you, too. We fought through rebels more than once on our way here, and more than once, it was Obed who made the difference. Trust the plan. Trust Stone and Fox and Merinda to keep them safe.”

“Fox is blind, and Merinda’s a healer, not a fighter.”

“You know as well as I do that Fox’s blindness doesn’t make any difference in his ability to fight. That extra sense of knowing he has from your magic gives him eyes in the back of his head. You’ve seen it. You know it. And a healer’s exactly what they need right now with Aisse so close to her time. You brought Merinda into the ilian. She’ll watch over the girls and Aisse like they were her own.”

The durissas rites weren’t used much in the cities any more, but in the countryside, in the mountains and plains, they were still fairly common. During a crisis a person could be temporarily made ilias, or two iliani could bind themselves into one, swearing to guard the others—especially the children—as their own.

Merinda had come out from the capital, a cheerful, comfortable tabby cat of a woman, to help with the twins’ births and wait for Aisse’s baby, so she had been present and available when Courier Torvyll had brought word of the emergency. Merinda had accepted Kallista’s offer, taken the bracelet from Kallista’s own arm bound together with the band from Torchay’s ankle, and become part of their ilian just before they’d left on their separate journeys.

Usually a durissas bond lasted only as long as the crisis, though sometimes it became permanent, if a child resulted or the parties agreed. In this instance, Kallista didn’t care much which way it went, as long as Merinda took care of those who needed her. Kallista couldn’t do it, and it was ripping her apart.

At the gate again, Torchay looped an arm around her neck for a rough hug. “They’ll be all right.”

“How do you know?” Kallista couldn’t stop the retort, her fears eating holes in her. “You don’t have any idea how they’re faring.”

“But you do.”

Did she? She should. At the least, she ought to be able to find out. Kallista took a deep breath, fighting for calm. Could she do it?

Turning her back on the city, she faced North and opened herself. There, that was the sound of all the people dammed up before the gate, talking, laughing, complaining. She named it and set it aside, letting it fade from her consciousness. And that was the horses, and those noises belonged to the other animals—cows, chickens, dogs, cats. Kallista closed them from her mind as well.

She shut out the sound of the wind whipping the flags atop the city walls and making the trees whisper to each other. One at a time, she identified and eliminated the sounds falling on her physical ears. With everything that was in her, she listened for more. And she heard nothing.

No hum from the mountains. No whisper from the sun. No joyous song of magic.

She wanted to scream with frustration. Once, she had destroyed a demon with the magic she wielded. Today, she could not destroy a gnat.

Kallista pulled back inside herself and let the physical world back in. Other female naitani gradually lost their magic during pregnancy and gradually got it back after the birth. Kallista’s had vanished all at once, and it had yet to reappear. At least she still had the assurance of the magical links binding her to her iliasti that the magic would return.

She wouldn’t worry—hadn’t worried about the magic’s absence until Courier Torvyll had arrived at their mountain home, where they had retreated for the birth of their children, with news of the rebellion spreading from the plains westward into the mountains, toward Arikon. Now Kallista wanted it back. The sooner her magic returned, the sooner she could help quash the rebellion and go back home.

Needing the reassurance, Kallista reached for the place deep inside her where her magic slept, where the links with her iliasti abided, and touched them with incorporeal fingers. There was Torchay and there, Obed. And—stormwaves of panic rolled through her.

She caught Torchay’s arm to keep from falling. “They’re gone.”

“What?” He put an arm around her, held her up. “Who’s gone?”

“The others. Fox and Stone and Aisse. The links are gone. I can’t find them.” She wrapped her hand in his tunic and held on tight, shaking. “Oh Goddess, they’re gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped, again taking refuge from fear in anger. “The links were there. Now they’re not.”

“Look again.”

She already was, scarcely aware of Obed dismounting, coming to stand close, at guard. She rummaged through that hidden place. Obed, there. Torchay there. Fox…not there. Nor Stone. Nor Aisse. Frantic, she reached, as high and wide and far as she could. And she could not get outside her own skin.

“Oh Goddess, oh Goddess,” she whispered over and over in prayer, having no other words, trusting the One to know what she prayed for.

“Kallista.” Torchay shook her. He caught her face in one hand and turned it up to his. “Captain. Don’t fall apart on us now. We need you. They need you. Don’t assume the worst. Isn’t that what you’ve always told me?”

“Prepare for the worst,” she mumbled through numb lips.

“Prepare, yes. But don’t anticipate trouble before it comes.”

“Yes.” She gathered up all her fear and shoved it into a mental box, sitting on it to get it closed. She stiffened her knees by sheer force of will and made herself stand on her own, away from Torchay’s support. “Yes, you’re right. They are a long way off, after all. A hundred leagues or more. Almost two, if they’ve already reached Sumald.”

Goddess, if only Torchay or Obed could search on their own—but all the magic was hers to control. Without her at the center to power it, the rest had no connection to each other. Kallista took a deep breath, swallowed, blinked her eyes dry. “We’ve never been so far apart, have we? Not since the links formed. And with my magic the way it is…”

“Aye. I’m sure that’s the only problem.” Torchay still watched her with haunted eyes.

Obed took a moment from watching the crowd to look at her. Was that concern in his eyes? Who was it for?

“Are you all right, then?” Torchay called her attention back from its wandering.

“Yes.” She wiped her face. She hated tears, most especially her own, but since the babies, she hadn’t been able to control the stupid leaking. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” He tilted his head toward the gate, a spiral strand of red hair escaping from his queue to slide across one eye.

Kallista followed his direction and saw an officer striding toward them—a general by the layered fringe of red ribbons sprouting from the shoulders of her dun-brown infantry tunic. A few more paces and Kallista recognized General Huyis Uskenda. She had been in command of the garrison where Kallista was serving last year during the beginning of the Tibran invasion.

The Tibran king had sent his boats and warriors—and his cannons—to take Adara from those who lived here. He might have done it, but for the magic that struck Kallista on the city walls of Ukiny the morning the Tibran army invasion very nearly succeeded.

“General.” Kallista drew herself to attention and saluted, relief ringing through her. Uskenda was one of the better commanders in Adara’s army, more concerned with effectiveness than appearance or her own comfort. “Captain Naitan Kallista Varyl reporting for duty. I would like to request a troop escort for my family, General, to—”

“Wouldn’t we all, Captain. You’re not getting it.” The general’s gaze paused on Torchay, acknowledging his presence, then moved on to Obed. “Who’s this?”

“My ilias, Obed im-Shakiri. You may have heard I married after you sent me to the capital last year. There are six of us in all now. We have two babies and our other ilias is pregnant.” Kallista raised her right hand to show the single bracelet from her only female ilias. “They’re traveling alone to—”

“You vouch for him?” Uskenda ignored Kallista’s implied plea. “You and your sergeant I know, but—”

“He’s no rebel.” Kallista risked interrupting the general. “He’s godmarked like the rest of us. Like our other iliasti. They’re carrying out a request from the—”

“We have no troops to spare,” the general snapped the words out, voice hard as iron. “Do not ask again, Captain. Do not even hint at asking.”

Kallista braced to hard attention, staring straight ahead at nothing at all. “No, General, I won’t.”

Uskenda didn’t waste another moment, turning on her heel. Kallista fell in behind her, Obed and Torchay on guard at either side. They marched past the long lines of people waiting their turn with the truthsayer. Their frantic desperation to get behind the safety of the walls and their resentment toward those who seemed to be bypassing the system gathered thick enough to make an almost physical barrier for the small party to push through.

Something had happened. Kallista knew it, but didn’t dare ask what. Not now. And sergeants didn’t question generals about anything, so Torchay couldn’t ask. She slid a glance toward Obed, the civilian. Would he understand what she wanted to know? And if he did, would he ask?

He met her look, flicked his eyes toward the crowd, the truthsayer, the full troop of guards at the gate, then looked back at Kallista. He somehow bowed without moving his head. “General,” he said, his exotic Southron accent stronger than usual, “has something occurred that makes all this security necessary? Why a truthsayer?”

“You don’t know?” Uskenda addressed her response to Kallista.

“We’ve been on the road almost a week and the courier took even longer coming with the Reinine’s orders, so our news of Arikon is a good two weeks old.” Kallista tugged at her gloves, a fresh attack of worry making her hands itch. Because the magic was returning? She stretched to keep up with the general’s brisk pace.

Uskenda’s face went grim, worsening Kallista’s fears. “Graceday before last, twelve days ago, assassins struck all across the country, targeting naitani serving with the army. Even here in Arikon itself. Thank the One, your location was kept secret for your safety, or likely they’d have attacked you as well.”

“We were already on the road coming here by then.”

“They’d no’ have touched her,” Torchay muttered at almost the same moment.

“Yes, well—double thanks to the One. Besides military naitani, they went after high-ranking officers—colonel and above. I would have thought they were Tibrans retaliating for your…for the deaths last year, but…”

Kallista hid her reaction. It still disturbed her, some of the things her new magic had done. When she had destroyed the demon, all those who had worshipped it—all the Tibrans in the Ruler caste and many of the high-ranking Tibran Warrior caste—had died with it. It had ended the war, but left Tibre in chaos. “Are you sure they weren’t Tibran?”

“They were Adaran. Adaran traitors.” The general spat her contempt on the gray cobblestone paving. “The one who attacked me wore her infantry uniform. Bodyguards turned on the naitani they’d sworn to protect.”

“Impossible!” Torchay burst out, shock and horror wiping out discipline.

“Not all of them turned, Sergeant.” The general’s eyes warmed in a faint smile. “But enough. They targeted the military naitani with the generals. I’m the highest ranking officer left. The army is in shambles, half or more of our soldiers gone over to the rebels. We’ve scarcely a dozen naitani still alive, and those that are—”

Uskenda paused in midstep, her foot hovering in the air while she seemed to make some decision. She pivoted, taking her step in a new direction. “The Reinine gave orders to bring you to the palace as soon as you arrived, and I am doing that, but we will take a different path.”

She held Kallista’s gaze as they kept moving through the crowded streets. “You need to know what we are up against.”

Fox took the warm, squirmy bundle Stone handed him and tucked her inside his shirt, next to his skin. A squeak of protest told him Lorynda was not yet interested in sleeping, so he turned her around to allow her to see out while he wrapped them both in his layers of clothing. He had trouble with some elements of infant care, particularly cleanup, since his blindness kept him from seeing when the job was properly done, for which he thanked the One daily. But he was a master at keeping the babies warm and not bad at getting them to sleep.

He leaned his head against the rock wall behind him, then as the cold from the stone penetrated, he fumbled for the hood of his cape to pull up an extra layer between himself and their shelter. “Still snowing?” he asked the cave in general.

“Can’t tell.” Stone’s soured voice came back. “It covered the cave entrance sometime last night. But it’s been snowing for six days running. Why would it stop now?”

“At least we’re not out there in it.” Merinda spoke from near the fire.

Fox was getting heartily tired of her forced cheer, her “look on the bright side” comments. If it didn’t require moving from his spot, he’d throttle her. But as it did, he supposed he would have to let her live.

“You’re right.” Aisse’s voice so close to him would have startled him if he hadn’t known where she was. “We could be out in the storm, but we’re not. And I for one, am grateful not to be in the saddle all the hours of daylight. Fox, do you have room for Rozite, too?”

“Aye.” He opened his cloak and overshirt again and loosened the lacings on his tunic more. The second twin snuggled in next to her sister and seemed to take on some of her calm, losing her restless fidgeting. They were warm and soft and smelled like contentment.

Fox rested his cheek atop their fuzzy heads a moment as he wrapped the coverings more securely about them. Then, with the babies secure in his arms, he closed his useless eyes and let his senses flow outward. Somehow, the act of shutting his eyes helped him know the things he couldn’t see.

There was Aisse, lowering herself onto the pallet nearest the fire. Was it normal for her to sleep so much? He supposed it was, or Merinda would be jollying her awake. The healer took her responsibilities seriously, urging Aisse to eat more when she picked at her food, watching the babies with sharp eyes and with magic to see how they fared in this cold. Fox just wished she didn’t have to be so bloody cheerful about it.

At the moment, Merinda was busying herself near the fire with something or other. And Stone knelt near the cave’s entrance, his attention focused on it. Perhaps trying to measure the depth of the snow?

Fox let his knowing quest onward. It was how he had brought them all to this place, the day the late spring blizzard had fallen on them. Right up until the moment he “found” the opening in the rock, he’d been afraid that the odd extra sense Kallista had given him couldn’t do such a thing. But it had. They had shelter from the snow and the cold.

Outside the cave, the world lay empty and silent. They might be the only souls left in existence, for all Fox could tell. He couldn’t sense things at much of a distance. He stretched, reaching as far as he could, wanting desperately to feel Kallista’s comforting touch against…whatever it was she touched inside him. He found only emptiness.

It had been months and months since any of them had felt that seductive brush of magic across their souls. He missed it. He wondered whether they would ever get it back. Kallista said they would, but when?

Stone was moving, doing something where he knelt, but Fox couldn’t tell what it was. “Learning to dance on your knees like the horse tribes?” he asked.

“Digging a path out of this hole you’ve buried us in.” Stone’s voice sounded sharp, on edge. The women didn’t seem to notice, but Fox had been partnered with Stone for almost twenty years. Since they’d entered Warrior Caste training at six. He knew the man’s nuances.

Carefully, Fox rose to his feet and walked toward the cave entrance where he sat down with his back to the drifted snow. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to be sitting in snowmelt in another five ticks if you don’t move.”

Fox shifted a pace away and waited, wishing this knowing of his let him know more than mere presence or motion. He wanted to see Stone’s face, his expression. “Well?” he finally had to prompt.

“We’re running low on supplies.” Stone kept his voice quiet as he continued digging. “There’s enough for the adults for about a week yet, but milk for the babies—they’re too young to be able to eat our food, Merinda says, even were it chewed for them. They could do it for a bit, in an emergency, but not for long.”

Fox’s arms tightened around the little bodies snuggled in against his chest. “We have to find more. A cow. Something.”

“How, if the snow doesn’t stop?”

“We’ll find a way. I will not let our children die.” The fervor in his own voice surprised Fox.

Children had little value in Tibre, until the males joined their castes at six. Women had no caste save the one that they served, so girl children were worth even less. In Tibre, children belonged to the caste, to no one. These tiny girls were his. His and the rest of the ilian’s. That made all the difference in the world.

A gust of icy wind announced that Stone had broken through the layered snow. “Still snowing,” he said.

“How thick is the snow cover?”

“Maybe two paces. Not bad.” Stone moved a short distance away, then returned and laid something over the fresh opening that blocked the wind a bit. Fox touched it; a saddle blanket. Stone laid another atop the first.

Fox was about to rise and head back nearer the fire when Stone sat on the cold cave floor beside him. Apparently in the snowmelt he’d warned Fox against, for he swore and moved to Fox’s other side.

“So, is Merinda ilias? Like the rest of us?” Stone asked in a voice quieter than any Fox had heard from him.

“I—” The question tumbled Fox’s thoughts into a stinking pile. “What do you think?” Maybe if he played for time he could dredge an answer from his memory.

“I don’t know. You were there when it happened, right before we left. You heard what Kallista said when she gave her the bracelet.”

“Ilian together,” Fox quoted. “But that’s not what she said—what any of us said—the night you all married me. Was it the same before?”

As one of the original four in their ilian, Stone had been through the ceremony three times, once when the ilian was formed, once when Obed joined them and once for Fox. “Those were all the same. Not like with her. So I’m asking. Is it just to help look after Lorynda and Rozite, or is it—?”

“You want to have sex with her?”

“Khralsh.” Stone swore by the warrior face of the One they all worshipped. “It’s the other way round. You can’t see the way she’s always touching me, or the looks she gives me. She says we’re ilian now, that I don’t have to be—uncomfortable, she said. You know how long it’s been, what with Kallista so soon after her time and Aisse so near hers and the magic gone besides. It wouldn’t be a problem, except Merinda’s always…there.”

“And you never were one to turn down sex.” Fox grinned. “I wish I could see it. Stone Varyl, vo’Tsekrish, evading a woman’s advances like some—some girl before her rites.”

Stone clouted him openhanded on the back of his head, gently, because of the babies. Otherwise he’d have dealt him a blow hard enough to lay him flat. All in fun, of course. “You’re just jealous she’s not chasing you.”

“Damaged goods.” Fox couldn’t blame her. What woman wanted a man cursed with blindness?

Stone snorted in derision. “I think she’s more afraid Aisse would have her head if she tried.”

“Aisse?” He went still, as one of the babies twitched in her sleep then settled again. “Not that she couldn’t do it, but why would she want to?”

“Beside the fact you sired the child in her belly? She favors you. Over all of us.”

Fox choked off his laugh. “Small favor. Just because she will consent on rare occasions to actually speak to me as well as point and order.”

“See? Favor. So what do I do about Merinda? Is she ilias?”

Fox sighed. “I don’t know, and there’s no one to ask who does, with all of us here born Tibran.”

“Except Merinda.” Stone’s sigh was a longer echo of Fox’s. “I won’t betray my ilian.”

“No.” His brodir’s loyalty was never in doubt. Once given, it remained. Fox took another deep breath. “Ilian together, Kallista said.”

“And Torchay.”

“So.” Fox moved a tiny hand that was digging tiny furrows in his skin with tiny fingernails. “All we can do is assume that means what it says. We are ilian together, in all ways. If you want what she offers, take it.”

Stone remained where he sat. “I wish Kallista were here.”

“So do I. But since she’s not, we can only muddle through as best we can.” He froze. “There’s something outside.”

Stone scrambled for weapons as Fox stretched his peculiar sense in a desperate attempt to discover what it was. Rozite squalled when Merinda plucked her from inside Fox’s shirt but quieted once she was placed against Aisse’s warmth.

“Not human,” Fox said, relinquishing Lorynda to the healer. “Large. A deer, perhaps. We hunt.”

“In the storm?” Stone asked as he handed Fox a quiver of arrows and a spear.

“I can find our way back,” he said with a confidence he did not quite possess. “The babies might not like the blood, but it will feed them, will it not?”

Stone merely moved aside the blankets from the entrance and ducked through it.