The Barbed Rose

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“Any rumors. About my magic. About our new ilias. Any of it.” Kallista looked at Viyelle, seeing possibilities. “You’ve been coming to the palace since you were born. What would you recommend?”

“Spread them. They’re going to talk anyway. See if you can turn them the way you want.” Viyelle’s eyes strayed toward Joh, her curiosity obvious. “I think—it is a good thing to have them a little afraid of you, Naitan. Taking this one as ilias shows you can forgive, that you are not totally heartless. The fact he is di pentivas, though—that shows you are not wholly foolish either.”

“Good.” Kallista squeezed Viyelle’s shoulder, gratified by the good sense she showed. Maybe she had matured some. “And as we were not bosom friends the last time I was here—” she ignored Torchay’s snicker “—everyone will believe you when you share this gossip.”

“Yes, Captain.” Viyelle saluted, face solemn, eyes dancing with mischief.

“It’s not an official assignment, mind. The Reinine may have real work for you. But if you can…”

Viyelle grinned. “I like working with you much more than I thought I would. No wonder you collect men like honey draws bees.”

And she was gone, leaving Kallista staring openmouthed after her and Torchay choking with laughter.

“Come along, woman.” He snagged Kallista by the back of her neck, drawing her out of the alcove. “Let’s go find your courtyard. Your collection is getting tired of standing about.”

The courtyard was exactly where they had left it last summer. The huge slabs of broken stone that had tumbled from the walls in the gunpowder explosion had all been cleared away and the flooring swept clear of stone dust and powdered glass. But the windows lining two of the walls were still covered with boards on both the first and second floors, and the courtyard itself was abandoned.

Kallista made a circuit of the area, noting where masons and carpenters had put in posts and patches to brace the walls. The flagstone paving gleamed dully under its smooth coating. In one of her practice sessions, she’d converted the glass broken out of the windows by a ghost she’d raised into this impervious floor surface. She supposed it might have made the sweeping a bit easier, but otherwise didn’t know what use it was.

“It looks safe enough,” she said. “I doubt the walls will fall down on our heads.”

“Not without another keg of gunpowder,” Torchay agreed easily, watching Joh flush red.

Kallista slapped his arm. “Behave. And it seems quiet enough. The boards over the windows will help. No more glass to break, and it will keep the curious at bay. We may as well work here. We’re not going to find any place better, not with this many people crowded in here.”

“Agreed.” Torchay looked to the other two, received their acknowledgment. He dropped to one knee and raised his hands palm up over his bowed head. “Naitan, I accept your gloves.”

At those words, at the old, familiar ritual of a military naitan preparing for battle, Kallista felt her magic stir. Not the godstruck magic gifted by the One a short year ago, but her own. Magic given at her birth, wakened at puberty. Magic she knew better than her own heart, the lightning that had directed the course of her life.

One finger at a time, she drew off the supple, brown-leather regulation gloves that blocked all magic save for that under the most exquisite control. Once, the gloves could not block her lightning, but that had changed—along with everything else—one bright dawn on the battered walls of a city under siege. Now, Kallista could not swear to what might happen. Which was why they were here, in this protected place.

“Back away.” She laid the gloves in Torchay’s uplifted hands. “All of you. Joh, as far back as you can go. I’m calling my magic first, not yours.”

Obedient but reluctant, the men moved away, all three of them clumped together at the end of Joh’s magical tether. Kallista took a deep breath, refusing to think of the possibility that her magic might not answer her call. She’d felt it stir at Torchay’s words. It was there. It would come. It had to. She wanted her babies safe.

Thrusting her fears back into the box from which they’d escaped, Kallista shook the tension from her shoulders, down her arms and out her bare fingers. Then she turned to face the direction of her magic—North—opening herself to its cold clarity, its icy precision. Its swift, ponderous, terrible face. And she reached, into the North, into the air around her, and called the lightning.

It was slow to build. It didn’t flash into existence in a split second to blast forth and slaughter supper with a smell of burnt chicken feathers, as it had when she was barely thirteen. Tiny sparks skittered across her skin and set the loose hair at the nape of her neck to standing straight out. Kallista swept the sparks down, focusing the magic in her hands until she held a blazing, crackling ball before her.

She wanted to let it dance, send sparks pirouetting from finger to finger, but she could sense her control was precarious. The magic might simply fade away, or it might suddenly blaze with the power of a thousand natural lightnings and go blasting through the courtyard with deadly results.

So she focused carefully on what she wanted the sparks to do, compressing them between her hands until they became one, glowing almost too bright to look upon. Then with an out-flung breath, she threw her hands wide and let the lightning fly. It slammed across the yard into the broken-off head of a gargoyle, scorching it black.

“So.” Torchay sauntered toward her. “The lightning is back, but your control is not.”

“And how would you know, Sergeant Know-It-All?” Kallista called a tiny spark, to be sure she could, and flicked it at him.

He dodged it, experience of years giving him the skill, and she snuffed it into nothing. “Because, love, if your control was all it should be, you’d still be putting on a show to impress our new ilias, rather than just blackening that poor, put-upon gargoyle.”

She flicked another spark at him, catching him this time with a tiny shock on his shoulder. He simply stretched out his hand and touched her cheek, shocking her in return with the static that had built up around her. She laughed. “Not fair. I can’t run or Joh will fall over.”

“Then keep your sparks to yourself, woman.” Torchay beckoned the others over. “What about your other magic?”

“Goddess, you are such a drill sergeant.”

“I’m damn good at it, too. Can you call the other?”

Kallista let out a breath. She had her lightning back. She did not particularly want the rest of it, though she knew it was there. She’d been part of its violent reawakening, after all. However, much as she might prefer it, she couldn’t ignore this godstruck magic. Truly, she wouldn’t wish it away. She needed it. Torchay had seen demons. Joh had seen demons. Seven of them.

She held her naked hand out toward her newest ilias. With the link not yet fully formed between them, she needed skin-to-skin contact to call his magic. Without hesitation, Joh slid his hand into hers and closed his fingers gently. His trust felt good.

When the magic didn’t rouse on its own, Kallista reached into Joh and nudged it. Then she hauled back and kicked it with iron-toed boots. The magic sputtered blearily into motion, and Kallista reached through the links to her other men.

The magic Torchay carried came only half-awake, but his magic held so much power that half-awake felt about right. She twined his magic together with Joh’s, smacking it now and then to keep it alert, and she reached for Obed’s magic.

Instead of answering her call and coming to do her bidding, the magic…turned its back on her. That wasn’t exactly what it did, but that was what it felt like, like all the times Obed turned his back or walked away or looked through her. Kallista reached again, ready to shake it into obedience as she had been forced to do with Joh’s and Torchay’s magic. And it snarled at her, showing sharp, ugly teeth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kallista jerked back, physically as well as magically. The braided magic in her hands fell to pieces, snapping back into its respective homes, leaving her with nothing.

Joh fell to his knees with the backlash, crying out in pain.

Torchay staggered but remained standing. “What happened?” He bent double, gasping as the reaction rebounded through him, hands braced on his knees. “What was that?”

“Backlash.” Kallista tipped Joh’s face up, checked him quickly—no permanent damage—and crossed to Torchay. “Sit down before you fall. Don’t be such a bodyguard.”

“I am a bodyguard,” he rasped out as he sat on the ground. “I can’t help it.”

She could sense his nausea through the link, and when it settled, he would have a terrible headache. The backlash had hit him harder because his magic held so much more power. Like Fox’s magic held order and Obed’s held truth, Torchay’s magic was power, strength. Which apparently had its price.

Kallista fought to control her anger. She had a right to it. Obed’s attitude had put them all in danger. But this was not the time or place to let it out.

Blood trickled from Torchay’s nose and he blotted it with a finger, surprised. Frantic, Kallista dove questing through his veins. If he bled where it could not be seen, it could kill him. But only the small vessel in his nose was broken.

Kallista held back any attempt to heal it. She knew too little of East magic, trusted too little in her control just now, and it was small enough to heal quickly on its own.

“What do you mean, backlash?” Torchay blotted his nose again and looked for something to clean his fingers. Kallista handed him her handkerchief. “What…? Was that magic?” He glared accusingly at Obed. “I thought you said the magic always felt good.”

“Backlash doesn’t.” Kallista pushed Torchay’s head forward. “Pinch your nose till it stops.”

“Bud whad is—” he began.

“Backlash happens when the magic breaks. When it is interrupted for some reason, it snaps back into—usually into the naitan who is attempting to use it. Infirmaries at the academies are full of students suffering backlash. In this case, it snapped back into all of us.”

“So why ab I de odly one wid a bloody dose?” Torchay sounded aggrieved.

“Because your magic is stronger than Joh’s.”

“Whad aboud Obed?” Torchay lifted his head, released his nose and wriggled it, testing for leaks. “He’s just standing there like he wasn’t touched.”

“He wasn’t.” Kallista didn’t look at her dark ilias. Not yet. She was too angry. “Obed and I are going to discuss it as soon as we get back to our chambers.” She got a hand under Torchay’s arm and lifted. “Up you go.”

“Good idea.” He swayed when he reached his feet. “I’ve had enough magic for today.”

“Help Joh.” Kallista snapped the order at Obed as she got her shoulder under Torchay and got him steadied. “And pray the One my temper calms before we get back.”

The crowds they pushed through only made Kallista’s temper worse. Thank the One that the crowds kept Torchay from asking the questions she knew were piling up behind his teeth. And the slow pace they were forced to take gave Torchay and Joh the time to recover most of their strength and equilibrium before they left Winterhold. By the time the door to their suite closed on the stream of people climbing the stairs to the towering heights above them, Kallista was angry enough to chew nails into bits.