Stone cheered, grabbing up his nearest ilias—Keldrey—and attempting to dance him around the room. Being next thing to a rock, Keldrey didn't dance far, and his startled, disgruntled expression made Kallista laugh.
“What are you so happy about?” their oldest ilias demanded, sending Stone skidding with a shove.
“If we're going after demons, there's bound to be head-bashing involved. I haven't bashed nearly enough heads lately.” Stone picked himself up off the sofa where he'd landed, grinning happily at them all.
“You go out with the patrols nearly every weekend night to bash heads.” Fox said.
“You're there with me, often as not.” Stone grinned at him.
“How—” Torchay raised his voice to be heard over the others. “How do you mean to do it? What else can you do? You already search for the demon every day."
“I'll search harder. Farther. Pay more attention to the magic as it searches.” Kallista rolled her shoulders, still aching in indefinable places from today's unaccustomed magic use. “And we're going to practice the magic more, push the edges of what we can do. I haven't been using it like I should, like I can. I've been using the easy bits, and all those spellknots—I'm tired. More than I should be. Like I've used a different set of muscles that are out of practice."
In the last years—since Omri's birth—she'd used less strenuous forms of the godmarked magic most often. Truthsaying, almost constantly. She had to know if the courtiers and diplomats were speaking truth—although often
their
truth and her truth were not the same. And she regularly set aside time to preside over court trials and appeals to the Reinine's justice.
She used farseeing magic every time she sent out the seeker-spell after the demon, adding it so she could
see
on the off chance the spell found something. Her fore-seeing magic tended to use her rather than the other way round. Several times in the past six years there had been warning of hurricanes hitting the north and east coasts, and of floods along the Taolind and Tunassa Rivers. When the disasters were particularly bad, she would ride out to join the rescue and rebuilding efforts, often using her healing magic on those who could benefit.
But this other magic, the defensive magic and the demon-destroying magic—she had not used it in too long. Granted, it was difficult to practice destroying demons when she could not
find
one, but there had to be ways of building up those particular “muscles.” It was past time she learned them.
A knock sounded at the door and Keldrey excused himself to answer it. High Steward Edyne stood behind it.
“I know I'm late,” Kallista said. “I'll get there when I do."
“I think you should come now, my Reinine.” Edyne stepped just through the doorway, into the edge of the room. “I think you will want to."
Kallista raised an eyebrow as the high steward handed a small something to Keldrey to be brought to her. Edyne was one of those few who helped protect Kallista's precious private time, not one of those who chipped away at it. If Edyne thought Kallista would want to do something or know something, she was usually right.
Keldrey glanced down at the object in his hand, then up at Kallista as he walked toward her, his face perfectly blank. Her nerves, already unsettled, jumped. It was that important? Keldrey had been a bodyguard so long, he had that expressionless no-face perfected. But he didn't use it among themselves any more unless he wanted to hide some strong emotion. Which was in itself a betrayal of that emotion.
Unable to wait, Kallista moved to meet him, hand out for the thing he carried. He put it in her hand—small, flat, oval—and stepped back, holding her gaze with the flecked amber-green of his own. Disturbed, Kallista looked away, looked down, and saw a small portrait.
The size of her palm, framed in a simple gold ring, the painting showed a child of about five or six years old. A boy, she thought. His hair curled around his face, sunkissed gold over brown. Blue eyes shone from warm golden-ivory skin. Rozite had the same skin tone—not quite Tibran gold, not Adaran pale, but a beautiful blend of the two. Kallista's heart stopped, then began to pound double-time.
“Who is this? Who sent it?” Her eyes flicked up, sought and found Stone, then Fox. They were at her side in an instant, staring down at the portrait.
“It was brought by one who traveled with this afternoon's delegation,” Edyne said from her place near the door. “I am told there are messages."
Obed came to stand with Kallista as Stone took the portrait from her, gazing at it with greedy eyes. The delegation was from Obed's homeland far to the south. It was one reason Kallista hadn't minded putting them off. Southroners, particularly these, tended to be difficult.
“Messages from my cousin?” Obed asked.
Stone handed the portrait to Torchay who studied it with similar care before passing it to Aisse.
“I believe so,” the high steward said, “though they were not specific."
“Could it be possible?” Stone voiced the question Kallista feared to ask.
She took a deep breath and let it out, then closed her hand around his. “Let us go and find out."
“I have put the messenger in your privy chamber.” Edyne Steward held the door as Kallista swept through it, trailed by her entire ilian.
Kallista strode through the palace at a brisk clip, faster than usual, because her discarded robe wasn't tangling her up or weighing her down. Courtiers who tried to catch her in the corridors and slip in a request while she crossed the distance to the waiting messenger found themselves hard put to keep up. Those who managed could scarcely contrive to gasp out two words together.
Which suited Kallista fine. She had to get some control over her whirling thoughts before this meeting. The demon was not the only thing for which she searched every night. In truth, their ilian was not ten-strong, but eleven.
The demon Khoriseth had escaped destruction by riding the body of one of their iliasti. At the end of the battle that had seen the death of Serysta Reinine, the demon had possessed their ilias and driven her out of the palace, out of the city, perhaps out of Adara altogether. They had not seen her since.
Merinda Kyndir was a midwife-healer who had come to them to assist with the birth of Kallista's twins. She had stayed to help with the babies, and to help Aisse when the time came for her first child to be born a few months later. When the Barbs’ rebellion broke open during the wait, Merinda had accepted a temporary bond as ilias under the countrified
durissas
rites. Intended for times of crisis, a
durissas
bond only lasted until the crisis was over, unless everyone agreed to exchange it for temple vows. Or a child came into the equation.
Kallista still didn't know whether Merinda had done it deliberately—Kallista had been afraid of her own reaction if the answer was yes. But during the journey north to take a pregnant Aisse and the infant twins to safety with Torchay's family, Merinda had seduced both Stone and Fox, and become pregnant. The dangers of the journey had changed her mind about wanting to join the ilian, but because of her child, she let Kallista talk her into making temple vows. Merinda had been only three months along when the demon stole her away.
For six years, Kallista and her ilian had been searching for any sign of Merinda or her child. Soldiers and couriers rode the depth and breadth of Adara, inquiring after a pregnant brown-haired healer. And then, as time went on, about a healer with a baby, a toddler, a child.
Obed's merchant traders went nowhere without searching, asking. Diplomats in embassies throughout the world made roundabout investigations. And never had there come any credible news. Not even of bodies found in some lost and lonely place. It was as if Merinda and her child had vanished into nothingness. With the demon.
It had to be more than mere coincidence, this news arriving today at the same time as the murder knot attack—the first assassination attempt in years to penetrate Arikon, much less the palace grounds. Kallista could see the hand of the One working to bring things together.
“My Reinine, my Reinine—” The courtier gasping beside her sounded as if she had been repeating the words for quite some time. “About the mines in the upper Heldring—"
New veins of metal—iron and tin, mostly—had been found not long ago, and the squabbling over who got to exploit them gave Kallista more headaches than the rest of it all put together.
“See the High Steward,” she said as she reached her workroom antechamber. “Make an appointment."
“But, my Reinine, the miners are demandi—” The voice was cut off when the heavy workroom doors swung firmly shut.
The messenger standing in the center of the cluttered chamber was no one Kallista had seen before, a young woman barely into adulthood standing slim and tall and proud. Exotically beautiful with black hair and eyes and an arched nose that resembled Obed's, she seemed startled when so many crowded into the room. She stared, her eyes flicking from one to the other of them, as if she was not sure whom she would address. Then she saw Obed and her upper lip curled in a tiny sneer.
“Cousin.” She inclined her head in such a minuscule bow, she might as well not have bowed at all. She extended a hand in a languid gesture to hover palm down, fingers gracefully curved as if awaiting some obeisance.
Obed eased forward until he stood beside Kallista. “You name me cousin, but I do not know you."
The young woman flushed deep red beneath her dark skin, and her eyes glittered with anger. Her outstretched hand curled into a fist as she drew it back. “I am Thalassa il-Shakiri, daughter to Bekaara who is daughter to Shakiri Shathina, Head of our Line."
Obed inclined his head scarcely more than she had. “I greet you, Thalassa, granddaughter to my aunt. You speak our language well."
The flush remained as words poured from her mouth in a liquid flow, the language of Daryath, apparently assuming the others didn't speak it. She was wrong. Mostly. They didn't speak it well. But she didn't need to know that.
“Cousin.” Obed refused to follow her into Daryathi. “You should have learned sometime in your education that it is rude to speak in a language the others present might not understand. However, I can see you were overcome with delight at meeting a new kinsman for the first time. Or the first time in a very long time. I seem to recall an infant in Bekaara's arms when I came from the skola for the visit."
Thalassa's pretty face was marred by her scowl. Kallista thought about intervening—they did not need to make her their enemy, not with her news untold—but this was Obed's kin, Obed's culture. He would know best how to deal with her.
“Besides, Daryath is no longer my home.” He went on in the same gentle voice. “You know that when a man is chosen as mate, he joins the Line of his wife. Her home becomes his. Let me make you known to my mate."
This was the tricky part. Most of the nations south of the Mountains of the Wind did not have iliani. In Adara, any family based on fewer than four individuals bound in temple vows was considered crippled, half-formed. Up to twelve persons in any combination could make up an ilian, though outside the temple families, iliani tended to be smaller, usually four to six.
But in the Southron countries, any marriage of more than two persons, one male and one female, was considered an immoral abomination. It was the chief thing that made dealing with them difficult. Primarily because Southroners—
these
Southroners especially—saw themselves as the center of civilization and therefore
right
while everyone else was
wrong.
Kallista generally handled it by introducing only one of her iliasti as her mate, just to keep from ruffling the waters. She didn't deny any of her others, but she didn't push the truth in any faces. Though she did have trouble keeping track of just who she'd introduced as mate to which diplomat. That was what she had a High Steward for.
Obed turned to her and Kallista took his hand, let him draw her closer. “This is Kallista Varyl, Chosen and Marked of the One, Reinine and Ruler of all Adara. My mate."
Thalassa's eyes went wide. She bent low in one of the straight-legged bows of Obed's people and stayed there. “Your Majesty.” Her voice shook, just a little.
Finally.
The preliminaries were done and they could get down to business.
“Rise please, little cousin.” Kallista had learned long ago that politeness would get one further toward what one wanted than other methods. If it didn't work, then the stick could be brought out, but honey first. “I am told you have messages?"
The girl's eyes slid to the small crowd of people behind Kallista and Obed. “They are private messages, Your Majesty. Concerning a matter your husband communicated to my mother several years ago."
Kallista's heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. Could it be real news, after so long? “These are my Godmarked, bound to me in service to the One. The child we seek belongs to one of them."
“Oh?” Suspicion floated across Thalassa's face. She would have to learn to school her expression better if she hoped to succeed in diplomacy. Or trade, for that matter. Her mother Bekaara was a trader, the one who'd set Obed up in his business. “I thought the child was yours."
Kallista let herself smile. “How could it be, if I am searching for both the mother and the child? But, bound as we are by the marking of the One, the child of any is the child of all.” Nothing but the truth and nothing to disturb strange Southron sensibilities. She hoped.
“Then whose child is it?"
What did it matter whose child it was?
Ready to bring out the stick, Kallista startled when Stone pushed forward.
“The boy is mine.” Stone's eyes held a silent plea when he looked at Kallista.
“His eyes are blue.” He quieted his voice, but Kallista feared not enough to keep the Southron woman from hearing. “All three of Fox's get have brown eyes, but this boy's eyes are blue. Like Rozite's. Like mine. And he looks like Rozite.” He turned the portrait up in Kallista's hand so she could see it, as if she had not already burned the image into her memory. “See? Around the eyes and the jaw. His mouth is softer and his nose isn't so thin or straight as hers, but you can see it."