“And the ninth circles his navel,” she said as he pulled the tunic up and over his head to show the last tattoos exactly where she said they were. Where she had dreamed them.
The red-haired man stared at Obed’s tattoos, then turned to stare at the Chosen. “What else have you dreamed that you have no’ told me about?”
Again her cheeks pinkened. “I’ll tell you later.”
Would he still be here? Obed sat in his chair again. What would he do now? What should he do? He cursed his ignorance of the outside world. He had come to be the mate, the helpmeet of the Chosen One, but it seemed she already had one.
“When I came here,” he found himself saying, “I had intended to offer—I had hoped to find the Chosen One free to—that is…” He stumbled to a halt, feeling seven kinds of a fool. He couldn’t propose marriage to a woman already married.
“Oh, heaven.” She called his attention from his self-castigation. “We haven’t told you our names, have we? I am Kallista. My iliasti—Aisse, Torchay, Stone.”
He’d heard the woman’s name, and the yellow-haired man’s. Now he knew the others. He wondered what iliasti were, but tucked the word away to ask about later. He watched the Chosen—Kallista—and she watched him in return. He couldn’t bear not knowing, had never been patient.
“If you do not intend to send me away, what
will
you do with me?” Obed suppressed a shiver. The room was cool for a man half-unclothed. Especially one from a Southron clime, used to far warmer air. But he saw the way her eyes strayed down over his body and considered himself content. “I offer myself for whatever service you might require.”
Kallista gave a sigh, looking briefly at the others for a moment before she again captured his gaze. “Will you marry me, Obed? Marry us?”
“But—” His mind had difficulty comprehending the question. “Are you not already married?”
“Yes, the four of us are an ilian. We want you to join us.” She looked again at the other three, more slowly this time, waiting for a reaction. Stone shrugged and nodded. Torchay scowled and nodded. Aisse just shrugged.
Obed struggled to get his mind around the concept. “They are all married to you?”
“We are married to each other, each of us to the other three.” She gave him a gentle smile and his heart turned over.
He wanted to belong to her, desperately needed to belong to something or someone, but…
this?
His heart’s desire was there for the taking—love, a life with true purpose, everything he’d ever dreamed of—but only if he could share. Though, as she went on to explain the institution of ilian and their particular practice of it, it seemed there was no sharing of any sort occurring at the moment.
Could he do it?
The One had brought him to this place, this person, this point. Obed had followed where he was led, out of his Southron homeland, through plain and desert, over high mountains, mile upon mile into a new land. How could he balk when the One proposed to lead him into a new territory of the heart and mind? But could he marry four at once?
He eyed the two men, uncomfortable with the thought of marriage to them. But as she explained it, their relationship would be like that of sworn brothers, since none of them was apparently inclined to…more. That bit of information eased his mind. Then he cast all his thoughts aside.
Obed had been called to serve the Chosen One. Nothing else mattered. Not the numbers bound with him in that service. Certainly not his own comfort level. He would get used to it. He would make no other choice. It was his own will to do this.
“When?” he said.
Kallista looked at the others. “Tomorrow? Will that give us enough time?”
The red-haired man, Torchay, sighed. “Should we be stocking up on anklets? How many
more
will the One be bringing us?”
“Do you think I know? Even Belandra doesn’t.” She tipped her head onto his shoulder. Obed wanted that closeness for himself. She went on. “It might not be a bad idea to get more than one. He’ll need anklets and bracelets for us as well.”
Jewelry? At last, something Obed could understand. And offer. “I have gifts. I am not a poor man.”
“No?” Her smile twisted. “Good. It’s a good thing one of us isn’t. Torchay and I are overdue on our pay and the other two came to us very nearly in their skins. But we’re marrying you for your mark, not your gifts.”
“And I give them from my heart, not in hope of return.” Obed left his chair, going down to one knee, one eye on her protector in case he thought to object. He took her hand and curled down to press his forehead against it, shivering again at the stirring deep inside him. “I am yours,” he said. “I gave myself to the One years ago, and now the One has given me to you. Everything that I own, everything that I am is yours to do with as you will.”
“Oh,” she said. “My.”
Aisse stood in the vast worship chamber on the edge of the red stone rose set into the floor, her ilian spaced evenly around it. The concept was taking some getting used to. The
men
were taking even more. And now the captain—it was still hard to remember to call her Kallista—now she was adding yet another man.
Although so far, it hadn’t been so bad. Aisse had never thought it possible to even
like
a man, much less trust one. But she did. Torchay would never strike her, never force her to do anything she didn’t want. Like sex. He taught her ways to defend herself, to strike back. He could even make her laugh. She liked him. Stone was another matter.
She couldn’t trust him, knowing his Tibran nature. Mostly she ignored him, and since he ignored her in return, things seemed to be working out.
This new man threw something different into the mix and it worried her. How would the dynamics change? What would he expect? What sort of man was he?
Aisse took the anklet from the witness—a priestess of the temple this time, since Kallista’s sisters had gone home—and fastened it around the dark man’s ankle, repeating the words she had spoken three times already. Could she truly put his welfare and that of all those bound to her above everything? Aisse glanced at Kallista and at Torchay. They expected it of her. They had brought her safely out of the hell of her previous existence and made her equal with themselves. How could she not live up to their expectations?
Kallista could feel the magic stir as Obed began his part of the ceremony that would bind her to yet another stranger. She couldn’t stop the whisper in the back of her mind, saying, “I didn’t want this, not this way,” any more than she could stop the one that murmured, “Just
look
at him, and he’s
mine
.”
Magnificent, beautiful as he was, Obed was still a stranger. Marked by the One, yes. Kallista trusted that judgment. She needed his magic. But she didn’t know him. She wanted an ilian of her own choosing, not one thrust at her. And yet—could she choose any better?
She shook her left wrist slightly, so that the new bangle chimed faintly against the other two. Their new ilias seemed to be wealthy indeed, if the quality of the bands he’d produced was any indication. Obed fastened the last anklet on Stone, stood and spoke the words, then was led to his place in the circle. Kallista tensed. Would the magic rise again with the addition of this new magic bearer, the way it had before?
The Reinine, taking time out from her busy day to perform this ritual as well, spoke her blessing and joined Kallista’s hand to Obed’s. The magic woke, shooting between the three marked ones, touching the other two, binding them tight together. Five now, rather than four.
Gradually, the magic subsided, leaving Kallista shivering alone inside her own skin. She wanted. Needed. The last time, she’d found herself in Stone’s bed, almost driven there. She could not let it happen again. But could she prevent it, or would the magic drive her where it was best she did not go?
Smiling, accepting the well-wishes of the temple attendants, Kallista searched inside herself, checking her contraceptive spell in case she once more proved too weak. It was gone.
Sometime in the past month, it had expired without her noticing. Thank the One that she had been holding apart from her iliasti or the complications could be unfathomable. Tomorrow, she would have the spell restored.
No, today. It had to be done today. She couldn’t take the risk that the magic would be stronger than she. Again.
“How may I help you, naitan?” The healer, a tall, voluptuous woman of about Kallista’s age who had introduced herself as Merinda, closed the door on the gaggle of men beyond and turned to smile at Kallista. “What could be so important that you must come see me immediately after your wedding?”
Torchay had asked the same question when she had announced her intention to visit a healer. Kallista told this woman what she had told him. “I need my contraception spell renewed.”
Merinda’s eyes twinkled and her amusement—obvious from the moment Kallista appeared with her train of iliasti—expanded. “Ah. I can see where that would have some urgency.”
She gestured toward the couch set across the room. “Come then. Let’s have a look at you.”
Kallista measured the distance and shook her head. “Look at me here.”
The healer raised a curious eyebrow but Kallista returned her gaze without changing expression. Enough people knew their secrets. Finally Merinda shrugged.
She raised her hands, holding them a few inches to either side of Kallista’s face. Kallista felt the stir when Merinda called magic—she’d never been able to feel it before. She waited without much patience while the other woman moved her hands slowly down Kallista’s body, stopping to hover just over her lower abdomen. Several moments later, Merinda pulled her hands back and stepped away.
“Is it done?” Kallista remembered it taking longer before.
“No.” The healer rubbed her hands along the textured green fabric of her overtunic. “You hum with magic.”
“Is that a problem? You can still do the spell, can’t you?” Kallista kept herself from tumbling over the edge of panic, but barely.
Merinda looked up into her eyes. “No, I cannot. But not because of your magic.”
“Then why?” She clung to that edge with mental fingernails.
“Because you are already with child.”
The words hit Kallista like one of the Tibrans’ cannonballs. She stared at the healer, trying to take it in, then her head went fuzzy and she found herself held upright as Merinda helped her across the room to the backless couch.
“No.” Kallista pulled away, or tried to. When had she become so feeble? “No. My men—the magic—I can’t be so far from them.”
“You need to sit before you fall.”
“Then I’ll sit here.” She let herself down to the floor in the center of the chamber, leaving Merinda looking down at her in…exasperation? Amusement? Something of the kind. Didn’t matter. What mattered was—“How can I be pregnant?”
Merinda merely lifted that mobile eyebrow as she sat on the floor in front of her.
Kallista hated to blush. “All right, yes. I know
how
. But—my spell was intact. I checked it. And—I haven’t been sick. Not once. I haven’t even missed my courses.”
“No?” That blasted eyebrow stayed up.
“They’re a little late, but that’s nothing new. All this magic rumbling around would interfere with anyone’s system.” Kallista groaned. “Heaven help me—you think that’s what happened? The magic negated the spell? Are you
sure
I’m pregnant?”
Merinda nodded, her face solemn. “I am sure. About three weeks along.”
Kallista scrubbed her hands over her face, then smoothed them back over her bound hair. “Three weeks plus a day—twenty-eight days, exactly.” She knew when it had happened. Could probably name the chime of the clock.
“Is it such unwelcome news?” The healer’s voice was gentle, soothing.
Was it?
“I have a task before me. A quest, set by the One. How can I fulfill it if I am waddling like a sow?”
And yet—
a child
. She had given up hope of a child of her own when she had given up hope of an ilian, telling herself she would make a terrible mother. Likely she would, but her arms ached to hold a child—
this
child. Her own. She loved it already, her heart burning, stretching, overflowing with seconds-old emotion.
“It will be some while before you waddle.” Merinda smiled.
Kallista smiled back, her vision blurred with sudden tears, sudden worry. “What about the magic? There is so much of it, and—”
She hesitated to tell everything. But healers swore an oath to keep to the grave all that was told in confidence. “And I cannot control it. The magic escapes my grasp and goes blasting around doing whatever it likes. And now I have
two
marked companions filled with magic I cannot command. Could it…harm the baby? Cause some deformity?”
Now the healer frowned and Kallista’s stomach twisted. “I don’t know,” Merinda said. “Pregnant naitani gradually lose their magic-calling abilities over the course of the pregnancy, until birth, when it is completely gone. And it does not recover for some time afterward. It is possible that this happens because the magic is somehow harmful to the child. But it is also possible that calling magic is not good for the mother. That added to the stress of childbearing, it would be too much strain. That is the more likely reason, I believe.”
Kallista dropped her face in her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she said quietly. Could she condemn her baby to the half life of a cripple? Would the magic do anything at all to it? What about this task before her? And what about her vow to give the others their freedom when it was done? A child would change that.
“You still have time to decide.” Merinda stood and held both hands out to Kallista. “You might want to consider this, though. You have been chosen and marked by the One for Her purposes. Couldn’t it be possible this child is part of that purpose?”
Those few words were all she needed to become a great, pulsing mass of guilt and confusion. She wanted a child, but not like this. Just as she’d wanted an ilian, but not this way. She felt hunted. Trapped. Kallista took Merinda’s hands and let her haul her to her feet.