She caught hold of the faint, echoing link she had with Torchay, created at their first wedding and reinforced at the later ones. It was only a shadow of the links she had with the other men, but it existed. With it, she hauled Torchay back into his body and bound him there with ties of love.
Torchay’s eyelids fluttered and opened. Kallista caught back a sob.
“K’lista?” he mumbled through barely moving lips. “What’s wrong?”
She lifted her bloodstained hands from his wound and saw the raw red of a healing scar. She hurled herself at him. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” She held him tight, her tears soaking his shoulder.
For a moment, he held tight to her. Then his hand slipped between them to probe his stomach. “Wasn’t I gutted again?”
“Not quite.” Kallista swiped at her face, pulling back to let him look. “But nearly.”
He stared at the closed wound, then up at Kallista, eyes wide with wonder. “You did this?”
Not even her mother could do this much, not all at once. Irysta could have stopped the bleeding, kept him alive, and day by day, bit by bit, encouraged the healing to take place. Reality penetrated.
Kallista counted
four
links inside her, four conduits for magic. She turned and stared at Aisse. “I had help. From our godmarked iliasti. Including Aisse.”
“I? But—” Aisse touched the back of her neck. “There was no—nothing happened, like with the men.”
Stone tipped her head forward, turned her toward the firelight. “She’s marked, all right.”
“But it was quiet,” Aisse protested again. “Nothing happened.”
“It doesn’t have to be splashy or spectacular,” Kallista said, fingers combing through Torchay’s hair. He nestled into her, his head propped against her thigh. “You’re already ilias, already bound. When you accepted the mark, the link was already there. You won’t have to worry about moving too far away from me or any of the rest of it.”
“Now I’m the only one of us not marked.” Torchay didn’t move from his spot against Kallista.
“Be glad.” She smoothed his hair back off his high forehead and was caught by a yawn.
“Rest.” Obed stood. “It will be dawn soon. Can we hide here through the day?” He addressed Stone and Fox.
“No one followed us from the city,” Fox said in that quiet, knowing way he had.
“I’ll go back to the road,” Stone said. “Make sure there are no tracks showing where we turned off. The pack trains don’t use the way house. It’s from before the stone roads were built, so we should be left alone here.”
“Perhaps I can veil the entrance,” Kallista offered. “To discourage the curious.”
“You can do that?” Torchay tipped his head back to look at her.
“That’s why I said ‘perhaps.’” Kallista smiled down at him.
They stayed staring at each other a long, long moment. The way they stared, the look on their faces—the same look on both—made Aisse feel all peculiar inside. An odd little ache that didn’t hurt floated somewhere between her chest and stomach.
Obed made a strange sound in the back of his throat and turned to walk out. “I’ll get the horses settled.”
“I’d better get back down the canyon.” Stone stood.
“Wait.” Fox touched Obed’s knee, stopping his exit. “At the prison, Kallista said something. I want to know what you meant.”
Kallista frowned. “I’m sure I said a great many things that made no sense at all. It was only when Aisse was marked that the drugs finally left me. What particular saying of mine are you asking about?”
Aisse backed up. She was too close to Kallista and Torchay and that look between them. Fox drew her away from the fire she almost fell into, toward him.
“You didn’t want me carrying you,” he said, “because it might hurt…the baby?”
Kallista looked away, at Torchay again. He smiled and rose onto an elbow, setting his hand on her stomach, his eyes locked on hers. It made Aisse’s stomach hurt.
“Aye.” He turned to look at the rest of them, the glow of happiness so bright in his eyes that it made Aisse ache more. “We’re going to be parents. All of us.”
“And he’s already scolded me for coming here,” Kallista said. “So I don’t need any more from the rest of you. We just need to finish what we came for and get back home so this baby can be born in Adara.”
Obed cleared his throat. “Who is the child’s father?” His hands made fists over and over, but Aisse didn’t need to see that to sense the tension twisting inside him.
“We all are,” Torchay said. “All of us, as Aisse will be second mother.”
“No, that’s not—”
Kallista cut Obed off, but gently. “If you ask about blood ties, Stone sired my child. Or Torchay. One of them. When it’s born, the bloodline will be read and we will know. But truly, Obed, it’s as he said. You’re all fathers now.”
For a second longer, Obed stood motionless. Then he whirled and vanished out the door. Stone caught Kallista’s glance. Aisse could understand their conversation though no word was spoken. Kallista asked Stone to watch over Obed, and Stone agreed. He ducked from the ancient shelter.
Aisse looked back at Kallista. Torchay had his hand curved over the mound of Kallista’s child, smiling up at her as they conversed in low tones. It hurt her to look at them. Not just because of the baby.
Yes, that brought back sorrow, but it was an old pain. Aisse would be mother as well.
Second
mother was better than nothing at all. It wasn’t Kallista’s baby that made Aisse’s eyes burn. It was that look.
She wanted someone to look at her that way. She didn’t want Torchay to stop looking at Kallista. She already knew that would never happen. She just wanted him—or someone—to look at
her
.
“I’ll get the packs.” Aisse stood, turning her back on the…the new parents. That was a word the Tibran language didn’t have. “We’ll want our blankets. And food.”
“I’ll help.” Fox followed her outside.
Obed had stacked the packs near the building’s door and staked the animals on long lines near the pool where they could graze. He was there, brushing them down. Stone was nowhere to be seen, down the narrow canyon, Aisse assumed. She stood beside the packs and stretched, looking up at the stars, in no hurry to go back inside. Fox lounged against the wall behind her, she saw when she turned.
“Was it hard for you to stay in there too?” Aisse rubbed her arms, bare without the foreigner’s robe and chilled in the crisp fall night air. Her body buzzed with strange feelings. Was this what the men were always talking about, when Kallista pulled magic? “The way he looks at her, it’s…I couldn’t stay.”
Fox shrugged. “I can’t see it.”
Oh. Right. Sometimes she forgot that. Aisse frowned at him. “Then, why did you—”
“To help you. With the packs. Or whatever you need.” He paused and his hand rose toward her face, hovering scant inches away. “Are you looking at me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” It was obvious he wanted to touch her. Why didn’t he?
“Because I don’t understand you. I want to. Why are you here, with me? What do you want?”
His hand fell, his head jerked back and bumped the wall. “Nothing. To help.” Fox turned his face away. “I’ll get the packs.”
Had she—had she hurt him without touching him? The way Kallista hurt Torchay sometimes? And Obed? She hadn’t meant to. “Wait.”
Aisse put out her hand, touched Fox’s shoulder as he bent. Before tonight, she had never touched any of the men, except for Torchay, or in combat practice. Fox went still, still as his namesake hiding from hunters.
“Don’t go.” She curved her hand lightly over the point of his shoulder before pulling it back. “Talk to me, Fox. I want to understand. I—did you follow me out?”
Fox remained frozen, bent before her. “Are you afraid of me, Aisse?”
“No.” It was true, she realized. She didn’t fear him. Could she do it, put her hands on a Tibran male without fear? Had the magic—had
Kallista
given this to her? Aisse touched him again, curious.
He lowered one knee to the ground, holding his position. “I have no caste, Aisse. All I have is this ilian. Just tell me what you want.”
She stroked her hand across his shoulders, tasting the sensations shivering through her, exploring the size and strength of him. Those aspects of a man had always frightened her before. “Would you truly have killed that guard?”
“In a breath.”
“Why?” She untied his queue, let his hair fall loose around his face.
“Because you didn’t want him and he would have stopped for nothing else.” Fox shivered as she traced her fingers along his neck beneath his hair, over his mark. “Because you’re my ilias.”
“What things did you learn when you were a toy in women’s quarters?”
He lifted his head, a smile curving his lips. He captured her hand and brought it to his mouth for a brief kiss. “Would you like me to show you?”
“Maybe.” Aisse reclaimed her hand and picked up one of the packs. She could feel her hips sway as she walked to the door, something she’d never felt the urge to allow before. “I’ll think about it.”
When Stone returned to the hut, Kallista tried to call the veil, to cast it over the canyon. The magic seemed sluggish, reluctant to move, refusing to stretch itself so thin. She had thought the effects of the drugs the Tibrans had given her gone, but maybe they still lingered. Or perhaps the healing had taken more magic than she realized. The healing had been almost complete.
She
reached
for Obed, out with the animals, calling him inside. She could sense the seething jumble of his emotions, but didn’t attempt to pick them apart. He deserved all the privacy she could give him.
A few moments later, he stomped through the door. “What?”
Kallista hid her smile. She’d only seen his anger the once. Usually, he hid his true self behind smooth courtesy and elegant speech. She found the change refreshing. “I can’t hide the whole canyon. I tried. And I can’t hide its entrance from here. But I think I can hide us so that—if the canyon is searched—we won’t be seen. But we must be close together.”
She could almost see Obed physically summoning his mask. He bowed, accepted the dried meat and bread, the cup of tea from Aisse. “As you will it, Chosen.”
Aisse gasped when Kallista drew magic, shivering where she sat next to Fox. Kallista spared a glance and saw Fox murmuring in the younger woman’s ear. He would ease her way.
Kallista braided the magic together, marveling at the new skein’s richness. Aisse’s magic blended perfectly with the others, supporting, strengthening, giving exactly the element needed. The first time, she had needed to see, and she had seen. Now, she needed to obscure vision, and it was obscured.
She whispered to the magic, drawing it close, wrapping herself in its shimmery cloak. When she was sure it understood what she wanted of it, she exhaled, slowly spreading her arms wide to encompass her ilian. A fine, grayish mist floated out and settled gently over the six of them.
“Goddess,” Torchay breathed. “You’re all fading. I can scarcely see you.”
“Truly?” Kallista looked at the others. “You all seem perfectly normal to me. Can you see me?”
“
I
can’t.” Fox grinned and ducked as Stone threw a bread crust at him.
“I see everyone clearly.” Obed filled his cup with more tea.
“So can I.” Stone broke off another chunk of bread, to eat this time.
“And I,” Aisse said. “But isn’t Torchay now—”
“The only one of us not marked.” He sounded a bit sour to Kallista’s ears.
“But you
can
see us.” She pushed him back when he would have sat up.
“Barely.” Torchay looked from one to the other of them. “You’re transparent. Like ghosts. And if you don’t move, you blend in.”
“None of the ghosts I’ve seen were particularly transparent,” Stone muttered.
“So, we know the veil works.” Kallista wanted to jump up and dance in triumph, but refrained.
“I
can
still see you, even if you’re faded.” Torchay leaned into her, as if to be sure she felt more solid than she appeared.
“But you’re ilias. Without the mark, your link to the rest of us isn’t as strong, but you’re still linked. You’re one of us. So you can see us, if not as clearly as we see you.”
“Why can we see him clearly?” Obed asked. “If his link is not so strong.”
Kallista shrugged. “Magic.” She had no other answer.
“We need to set a watch,” Torchay said. “I’ll take last—”
“You’ll take none at all,” Kallista countermanded. “You were nearly gutted again, and while all the holes are mostly closed now, you weren’t given back all the blood you lost. You’ll spend the day resting.”
He scowled at her a moment before he pulled her face down to inspect her eyes. He set his hand over her stomach then, sliding it from place to place until she felt the baby flutter under it. “All right,” he said. “I’ll rest if you will.”
“Agreed.” She could wait until he slept, then take care of what needed doing.
But Torchay looked past her shoulder in Obed’s direction. “Make sure she does it, ilias.”
Obed inclined his head. “It shall be so.”
Kallista made a face, but gave in. She had no other choice. She lay down on the bedroll beside Torchay. “No one leaves the hut. The magic is set, I don’t have to stay awake to control it, but don’t leave the hut.”
“Sleep,” Obed addressed the others. “I will wake you when it is time.”
Stone came to lie beside Kallista, Aisse next to Torchay. But Fox curled up on the other side of Aisse without drawing protest. Kallista, lying close enough to brush Torchay’s nose with her own, met his gaze and raised an eyebrow at Fox’s action—and Aisse’s lack of it. He lifted his shoulder in an infinitesimal shrug.
Kallista snuggled closer, tucking her face into the hollow of his neck. Torchay put his arm around her and they slept.
Sunlight lay over Aisse’s eyes, seeping through her lashes, turning the world red. She shifted, moving forward, away from the sun’s rays, and her nose bumped into warm, male flesh. Fox murmured, backed to give her a fraction more room. Aisse followed.
When did she grow to like the way a man smelled? Fox smelled different from Torchay who smelled different from Obed and from Stone. But she liked it. All of it, of them.