The Barbed Rose. Gail Dayton

make anyone interested come after us. And for that, we need Obed here.

      “If we’re drawing attention to you, I want our best fighters protecting you, and that’s Obed and me. I won’t risk you, too. We fought through rebels more than once on our way here, and more than once, it was Obed who made the difference. Trust the plan. Trust Stone and Fox and Merinda to keep them safe.”

      “Fox is blind, and Merinda’s a healer, not a fighter.”

      “You know as well as I do that Fox’s blindness doesn’t make any difference in his ability to fight. That extra sense of knowing he has from your magic gives him eyes in the back of his head. You’ve seen it. You know it. And a healer’s exactly what they need right now with Aisse so close to her time. You brought Merinda into the ilian. She’ll watch over the girls and Aisse like they were her own.”

      The durissas rites weren’t used much in the cities any more, but in the countryside, in the mountains and plains, they were still fairly common. During a crisis a person could be temporarily made ilias, or two iliani could bind themselves into one, swearing to guard the others—especially the children—as their own.

      Merinda had come out from the capital, a cheerful, comfortable tabby cat of a woman, to help with the twins’ births and wait for Aisse’s baby, so she had been present and available when Courier Torvyll had brought word of the emergency. Merinda had accepted Kallista’s offer, taken the bracelet from Kallista’s own arm bound together with the band from Torchay’s ankle, and become part of their ilian just before they’d left on their separate journeys.

      Usually a durissas bond lasted only as long as the crisis, though sometimes it became permanent, if a child resulted or the parties agreed. In this instance, Kallista didn’t care much which way it went, as long as Merinda took care of those who needed her. Kallista couldn’t do it, and it was ripping her apart.

      At the gate again, Torchay looped an arm around her neck for a rough hug. “They’ll be all right.”

      “How do you know?” Kallista couldn’t stop the retort, her fears eating holes in her. “You don’t have any idea how they’re faring.”

      “But you do.”

      Did she? She should. At the least, she ought to be able to find out. Kallista took a deep breath, fighting for calm. Could she do it?

      Turning her back on the city, she faced North and opened herself. There, that was the sound of all the people dammed up before the gate, talking, laughing, complaining. She named it and set it aside, letting it fade from her consciousness. And that was the horses, and those noises belonged to the other animals—cows, chickens, dogs, cats. Kallista closed them from her mind as well.

      She shut out the sound of the wind whipping the flags atop the city walls and making the trees whisper to each other. One at a time, she identified and eliminated the sounds falling on her physical ears. With everything that was in her, she listened for more. And she heard nothing.

      No hum from the mountains. No whisper from the sun. No joyous song of magic.

      She wanted to scream with frustration. Once, she had destroyed a demon with the magic she wielded. Today, she could not destroy a gnat.

      Kallista pulled back inside herself and let the physical world back in. Other female naitani gradually lost their magic during pregnancy and gradually got it back after the birth. Kallista’s had vanished all at once, and it had yet to reappear. At least she still had the assurance of the magical links binding her to her iliasti that the magic would return.

      She wouldn’t worry—hadn’t worried about the magic’s absence until Courier Torvyll had arrived at their mountain home, where they had retreated for the birth of their children, with news of the rebellion spreading from the plains westward into the mountains, toward Arikon. Now Kallista wanted it back. The sooner her magic returned, the sooner she could help quash the rebellion and go back home.

      Needing the reassurance, Kallista reached for the place deep inside her where her magic slept, where the links with her iliasti abided, and touched them with incorporeal fingers. There was Torchay and there, Obed. And—stormwaves of panic rolled through her.

      She caught Torchay’s arm to keep from falling. “They’re gone.”

      “What?” He put an arm around her, held her up. “Who’s gone?”

      “The others. Fox and Stone and Aisse. The links are gone. I can’t find them.” She wrapped her hand in his tunic and held on tight, shaking. “Oh Goddess, they’re gone.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Of course I’m sure,” she snapped, again taking refuge from fear in anger. “The links were there. Now they’re not.”

      “Look again.”

      She already was, scarcely aware of Obed dismounting, coming to stand close, at guard. She rummaged through that hidden place. Obed, there. Torchay there. Fox…not there. Nor Stone. Nor Aisse. Frantic, she reached, as high and wide and far as she could. And she could not get outside her own skin.

      “Oh Goddess, oh Goddess,” she whispered over and over in prayer, having no other words, trusting the One to know what she prayed for.

      “Kallista.” Torchay shook her. He caught her face in one hand and turned it up to his. “Captain. Don’t fall apart on us now. We need you. They need you. Don’t assume the worst. Isn’t that what you’ve always told me?”

      “Prepare for the worst,” she mumbled through numb lips.

      “Prepare, yes. But don’t anticipate trouble before it comes.”

      “Yes.” She gathered up all her fear and shoved it into a mental box, sitting on it to get it closed. She stiffened her knees by sheer force of will and made herself stand on her own, away from Torchay’s support. “Yes, you’re right. They are a long way off, after all. A hundred leagues or more. Almost two, if they’ve already reached Sumald.”

      Goddess, if only Torchay or Obed could search on their own—but all the magic was hers to control. Without her at the center to power it, the rest had no connection to each other. Kallista took a deep breath, swallowed, blinked her eyes dry. “We’ve never been so far apart, have we? Not since the links formed. And with my magic the way it is…”

      “Aye. I’m sure that’s the only problem.” Torchay still watched her with haunted eyes.

      Obed took a moment from watching the crowd to look at her. Was that concern in his eyes? Who was it for?

      “Are you all right, then?” Torchay called her attention back from its wandering.

      “Yes.” She wiped her face. She hated tears, most especially her own, but since the babies, she hadn’t been able to control the stupid leaking. “I’m fine.”

      “Good.” He tilted his head toward the gate, a spiral strand of red hair escaping from his queue to slide across one eye.

      Kallista followed his direction and saw an officer striding toward them—a general by the layered fringe of red ribbons sprouting from the shoulders of her dun-brown infantry tunic. A few more paces and Kallista recognized General Huyis Uskenda. She had been in command of the garrison where Kallista was serving last year during the beginning of the Tibran invasion.

      The Tibran king had sent his boats and warriors—and his cannons—to take Adara from those who lived here. He might have done it, but for the magic that struck Kallista on the city walls of Ukiny the morning the Tibran army invasion very nearly succeeded.

      “General.” Kallista drew herself to attention and saluted, relief ringing through her. Uskenda was one of the better commanders in Adara’s army, more concerned with effectiveness than appearance or her own comfort. “Captain Naitan Kallista Varyl reporting for duty. I would like to request a troop escort for my family, General, to—”

      “Wouldn’t we all, Captain. You’re not getting it.” The general’s gaze paused