That was why she had made the vow. Because he had no choice. She feared that she had coerced Torchay into consenting to marry as well. She had been so hysterical that night, after the dream. How could he have done anything else, being who he was? He would not mind having sex with her. But that wasn’t the same as wanting it, was it? She would not use these men as playthings, either of them.
The men took their places between the compass points, the four of them spaced evenly around the rose with the Reinine in the center, their witnesses a few paces back. The Reinine had Kallista remove her gloves, and began to speak.
Kallista made her vows first as the oldest female in the ilian. She was more than ten years older than Stone, and Aisse was even younger. It made Kallista feel ancient. Protective. She took the bracelet from her blood sister and crossed the rose to Aisse, fastening it about her wrist, repeating the promises, and exchanged a brief kiss.
She went back across the rose to Karyl and took the gold anklet. Kneeling before Torchay as she fastened the band around his right ankle, she repeated the promises to him, looking up into his eyes. She stood and kissed him, her eyes filling with unwanted tears. Why should she weep? This was what she wanted.
Once more she made the trip across the tile rose to collect the final anklet from her attendant. This one was gold like the others, but it had a fine silver chain hanging from it in loops. A
di pentivas
anklet. The chain was not mere decoration. It had been spelled long ago by a North magic metalworker to be stronger—much stronger—than it looked. The anklet and its chains had last been used centuries ago, when Tamonda Reinine had married four sedili from Korbin prinsipality—Torchay’s home—and brought Korbin into the unity of Adara.
Kallista fastened the band around Stone’s ankle, once more repeating the vows. She stood and leaned toward him for the kiss and he flinched away. Kallista cupped his head with her hand, murmuring under her breath, “It is part of the ceremony.”
He swallowed, his nervousness screaming at her. “I know. I just—could you—would you mind closing your eyes?”
“Why?”
“They’re blue.”
What did that have to do with anything? This Tibran—this man made no sense to her. “Your eyes are blue.”
“But I don’t have to look at my own. I—brown eyes are normal. Blue—any light color is…uncanny. Disturbing. I—it would be—please?”
Kallista sighed. She could feel the others watching, wondering what the delay was. If closing her eyes would help him get through this, she would close her eyes. Still cupping his face, she kissed him, fumbling a moment before finding his lips. They were dry, a bit chapped, and the instant she kissed him, the magic inside him stirred, responding to her touch.
Stone gasped, his quiver matching hers. Kallista
reached
, soothing the magic, laying it back down, and it obeyed. She could sense its eagerness, how it strained at the leash. Quickly, she ended the kiss, her body shaking in reaction, and she strode back to her place on the rose.
Aisse went next, moving from one to the other, repeating the vows, fastening on bracelet and anklets. Again, there was a moment of hesitation before she exchanged the kiss with Stone, on her side this time. But in the end, it was done, and it was Torchay’s turn.
He held Kallista’s gaze as he spoke the vows that completed their joining, fastening a silver bracelet around her left wrist. Silver rather than gold was used in the mountains of his home because the strength of pure silver represented the strength and purity of their vows. He explained it to her as he bound them together. As their lips touched in this second kiss, she felt tears gather again at its pure sweetness. He was hers as she was his. But she would let him go in the end.
Finally it was Stone’s turn to take the bands from his attendant. Rather than crossing the rose to the others, he waited in place and they came to him one by one, first Kallista, then Aisse, then Torchay. Afterward, Kallista attached the chains to his anklets, turning his ilian bands into shackles, and fastened the bracelets around his wrists. The
di pentivas
bracelets weren’t like hers. They could be hooked together in an instant to immobilize him. He had no choice. Neither did she.
As soon as the last kiss between Stone and Torchay was exchanged—very quickly—Kallista relaxed. It was done. The ilian was complete.
The Reinine looked around at them as she spoke. “Prelates are often asked by young priests why black robes are worn for weddings. Why not green for beginnings and a fertile union? Or yellow for hearth and home? Why the color of the West? Of endings and death?”
Kallista had wondered that herself. At the few weddings she’d attended, the priests had never said why.
“And the answer is always the same. A wedding is an ending as well as a beginning, just as death is both beginning and ending. The old life has ended. You are no longer four solitary souls, but an ilian. And that is the deeper reason for the color of the West, because the bonds of ilian are a mystery. Who in this world can understand how four souls, or six or twelve, can be many, and at the same time one? Yet we know it is so. It is the mystery of the One.”
The Reinine beckoned, calling them into the center for the final moments of the ceremony. As they joined hands, Kallista to Torchay, Torchay to Aisse, Aisse to Stone, Serysta Reinine moved out of the center of their circle, taking Kallista’s hand and Stone’s in hers.
“As you have each vowed today in truth,” she said, “giving and receiving these bands in pledge and in symbol of the vows you have made, as the High Prelate of all Adara, I recognize this ilian. May the One bless you with love, with loyalty, with grace, hope and peace.”
“May it be so,” everyone said in unison.
The Reinine stepped back and placed Stone’s hand in Kallista’s. The magic didn’t wait for her call. It leaped across their clasped hands, slamming into her with as much force as the first time. She barely had time to gasp before the magic jumped again, into Torchay, beyond him into Aisse and back home again to Stone. It bound the four of them with threads of magic that felt like nothing so much as sweet hot passion.
Kallista could feel the threads spinning out from her, sensed Torchay and Aisse beyond a veil, felt Stone swimming through her skin. The magic flowed, thrummed, crested, and she cried out as it broke over her, Stone’s cry echoing with hers.
She staggered and would have fallen had Torchay not caught her as the magic drained back into Stone, teasing them with a last quiver. Stone swayed and Torchay caught him too, Aisse finally lending support to keep them all upright.
“Is that going to happen every time we touch?” Stone gasped, leaning hard against the other three.
“What was that?” Torchay shuddered. “Is that what happened when you—”
“I think—” Kallista took a deep breath, reaching for control. “I think you felt only an echo of what we did. You’re iliasti, you and Aisse. But you’re not marked.”
“If it does happen every time—” Stone pulled back, stood on his own wobbly legs “—I don’t think I will mind overmuch if I don’t get sex.”
“That was not like sex,” Aisse protested. “It felt good. Nice.”
“Sex done right feels a lot like that.” Kallista found her own feet.
“Are you all right?” Karyl rushed in, her twin close behind her. “What happened?”
“I think,” the Reinine said, her voice carrying in the perfect acoustics of the room, “that we have all just witnessed something very special. The creation of the bonds of ilian as they were meant to be.”
“I sensed magic,” Karyl said, looking puzzled.
“West magic?” Joh Suteny drew attention his way, looking uncomfortable with it.
“Perhaps.” The Reinine ignored Kallista’s wince. She didn’t want her peculiarities gossiped about the palace. “Whatever sort of magic, it was a sign of the One’s blessing on this ilian.” She smiled, spreading her arms wide in her own blessing. “Come. This is cause for celebration indeed.”
The wedding party was swept along in the Reinine’s wake. Kallista had managed to persuade her not to show any special favors. She was a soldier, not a courtier, and did not want to deal with the jealousy such favoritism would inevitably cause. She didn’t want any functionary worried about her job when there was no threat. Whatever the task before her, Kallista knew it was not at court. She had the uneasy feeling it had to do with that thing she had seen in her vision.
However, the Reinine would not hear of a quiet celebration in their quarters. The party was escorted to the great hall to mingle with the courtiers while the Reinine retired to change from prelate’s robes into ruler’s finery before dinner. Fortunately, the Reinine hosted a state dinner every Hopeday, so no particular notice would be drawn to the new ilian. Now Kallista’s only worry was negotiating the evening without getting separated from Stone or tripping over palace politics.
By remaining in the background, refusing to jostle for table position and avoiding conversation with anyone who hadn’t been present at the ceremony, Kallista and her ilian made it through the meal without problems. Trouble arose when the tables were cleared away for dancing.
Before Kallista could herd her family out the doors, a courtier approached. The young woman wore the shortened tunic and cropped hair of a brava, the omnipresent sword of that swarm of reckless aristocrats at her side. A sense of doom settled over Kallista as the courtier bowed low before Stone. “Your beauty has dazzled me. Grant me the gift of a dance.”
Stone backed away, his eyes rolling side to side as he looked for rescue. “I don’t—I can’t…dance.”
Kallista could not push through to his side quickly enough.
The woman trailed a finger down his sleeve. “I cannot believe such a sweet morsel as yourself would not—”
“He is claimed.” Kallista shoved one of the brava’s crowd aside and stepped in beside Stone, taking his arm. “And he speaks truth. My ilias does not dance.”
The courtier’s eyes sparkled with mischief and her lips twitched in a mocking smile as she bowed again, this time to Kallista. “My pardon, aila, if I have made too free with what is not mine. May I present myself? I am Prinsipella Viyelle Torvyl of Shaluine.”
Wonderful
. The spoiled offspring of a prinsep. Kallista returned the bow without all the hand flourishes. “Kallista Varyl, captain naitan of the Third Detachment, Reinine’s Own.”
“A military person, eh?” The prinsipella smirked. “I wonder that you have wed, given all the perquisites of military life. Do introduce me to your ilias.”
Kallista’s smile went tight, but the brat hadn’t yet been overly insulting. Just subtly so, implying that Stone was her only ilias. Kallista would mind her own manners. “My iliasti.” She gestured to them behind her, and started with Aisse because the prinsipella wasn’t interested in her. “Aisse vo’Haav, Torchay Omvir and Stone, Warrior vo’Tsekrish”
“Vo’Haav, vo’Tsekrish—unusual names.”
“Yes.” Kallista didn’t respond to the woman’s hint for more information. “They are.”
Viyelle ignored the nonresponse as if it were never spoken. “Surely you would not begrudge me a dance, just one dance with your lovely war prize?”
The prinsipella already knew Stone’s origin? But why wouldn’t she? Their meeting had been spectacular enough to have all of Adara gossiping, not just all of Arikon. Without waiting for Kallista to consent to the request, Viyelle swept Stone off into the rollicking, stomping country dance.
Kallista hesitated. Should she go after him? Stone’s seizure could discourage other flirtations. But a seizure would draw unwanted attention, especially since they were already subjects of gossip. And the seizures were painful.
She got Torchay’s attention with a touch and a look, asking silently what he saw from his greater height. He pointed and Kallista pushed her way through the dancers in that direction, but a hoarse cry told her she’d left it too late.
Quickly, Kallista motioned Torchay ahead of her. She didn’t want anyone connecting Stone’s sudden, miraculous recovery with her approach. She moved forward at a slightly more deliberate pace, forcing her way through the collected crowd to find a woozy but upright Stone leaning on Torchay. Lieutenant Suteny hovered nearby.
“My ilias is not well,” she said to the alarmed prinsipella, and to the crowd at large. “Too much excitement is not good for him.”
Kallista took Stone’s other arm, though with his usual rapid recovery, he didn’t need the support. He pretended to, however, as they left the hall. Kallista’s sedili met them at the great double doors, filled with concern for Stone.
“Stay.” Kallista waved them back. “This is your chance to mingle at court. Enjoy it. Stone will be fine once we reach the quiet of our rooms.”
“And it is your wedding night after all,” Kami teased. “I think you can be forgiven for cutting your evening short.”
Her smile crooked, Kallista bid her sisters a good evening. Sweet heaven, it was her wedding night. How would they get through it? What would happen next?
Each ilian handled sex in its own way. In some, the iliasti paired up two and two. In others, everyone crawled into the same oversize bed and participated in whatever seemed most enjoyable at the moment. Yet others—Kallista didn’t know, but she assumed there were as many patterns as there were iliani.
Aisse didn’t want sex. She’d made that clear. Stone obviously had hopes but no expectations. Torchay, though…Torchay would have expectations. Even if he were more resigned than eager, he would expect more than a kiss and a cuddle, and his fragile male esteem would suffer if he didn’t get it. But her own esteem would suffer if she felt only duty from him in their coming together. She had intended to avoid sex altogether, but could she?
At the door to their suite, Joh made as if to follow them inside. Kallista blocked his way, sending the others in ahead of her. “You’re quartered out here now, Lieutenant. You and your quarto. Stone is ilias now, and as such, we will care for him.”
Joh’s face was blank as he saluted, fist over heart. Kallista sensed undercurrents beneath his bland exterior. Something was going on in that curious, watchful head of his, but she didn’t have time to work it out now. Joh was under her command, not in her ilian, and at this moment, her new-wed mates came first. She returned his salute and retreated inside.