03 - The Eternal Rose Read online

  They all talked to her, called her, tried to bring her back from wherever she'd gone. Obed's voice had gone rough, his throat sore from all his calling and talking. But it was Torchay's voice she heard, Torchay's touch that roused her.

  Obed knew he should be glad that someone could get through to her, but damn it, why couldn't he be the one?

  “How did the meeting go?” Joh drifted over to join them.

  Obed resisted the snappish response on the tip of his tongue. “After the children have gone to bed.” He picked up Omri, who promptly laid his head on Obed's shoulder and popped his thumb in his mouth. Obed stroked a hand over his son's curls, breathed in his little-boy scent, taking what comfort he could.

  “Yeah, it's time.” Keldrey signaled to the hovering nursery servants who'd made the journey with them from Adara.

  Obed carried his son to bed himself, needing to hold the child he and Kallista had made for just a little longer. They would bring her back to them.

  * * * *

  Padrey sat on top of the courtyard wall in the shadow of a carefully watered winter oak, watching the royal Adaran ilian assemble below. It had been a job and a half getting here. The place was crawling with guards, alert and conscientious ones. But once he'd reached the tree, hidden himself in shadows made deeper by the torchlight below and stopped moving, he'd been able to watch and remain unnoticed.

  Something was wrong with the Reinine. He couldn't see her well with that little tree shading the bench where she sat, but it wasn't natural, not moving like that. She wasn't a thief. Her life didn't depend on being able to stay still. Her ilian talked to her. The kids talked to her, wanted her to play. And nothing. She didn't answer them, didn't seem to see them.

  Padrey had positioned himself close enough he could hear what they said, and the Reinine hadn't said anything since he'd found his hiding place while the servants cleared away dinner.

  Now, with the children gone and the adults regrouping, Padrey went stiller than still and listened. The Daryathi in the ilian—unbelievable concept that it was—told the others about an upcoming trial while he, Leyja and another woman ate a late meal. They were trying to redeem a slave child from Habadra Line, the son of their murdered ilias. Padrey shivered as memories rose. No kin had come to redeem him.

  “Can't we get him away from the Habadra any sooner than that?” Leyja asked. “Couldn't the justiciars take custody of him as the—the property in dispute?” Her disgust at the word “property” showed clearly. It made Padrey like her more.

  “I worry what this Chani might do to him,” she said. “Bad enough we had to leave Merinda to Habadra justice, but if they blame Sky for his mother's crimes..."

  The existence of the boy-child changed all of Padrey's perceptions. The actions of the Reinine and her ilias had been taken to protect this boy, their son. They were emphatically not Daryathi. They were Adaran.

  “The Habadra can't do anything to Sky with me coming to check on him every day,” the man with the shaved head and bodyguard blacks was saying. “You came with me yourself yesterday. You saw him."

  “Through a gap in the damned barricade.” Leyja folded her arms and slumped sulkily against the fountain's rim.

  “I don't understand why Habadra Chani is so set on keeping him.” That was the brown-haired man with the waist-length queue. “According to embassy personnel, Chani was not close to her mother. Their quarrels tended to be public and of epic proportions. Why would she be so intent on revenge? And if that's not why she wants him, what is the reason?"

  “Guilt?” One of the other women spoke, the one who'd eaten late with Leyja and their Daryathi, her brown hair pulled back in a short queue like the Reinine's. “Maybe she's glad her mother's gone and feels guilty for it, so she needs to prove that she's actually sad and upset by getting revenge?"

  Didn't these people know anything? Padrey's fidgeting made the leaves of his tree rustle. Leyja and the redheaded man—also a bodyguard—looked sharply in his direction. Padrey froze, his mind a dust-devil of whirling thought. Even their Daryathi didn't seem to know the truth of what happened here.

  If he told them, exposed his presence here, they could kill him. But he'd lived almost half his life running that risk. And they might not kill him. They might get him out of this place and back to Adara where he could truly be free.

  He hadn't actually thought it all the way through before he moved, sliding onto a limb of the enormous tree stretching into the Reinine's courtyard, and dropping silently to the ground. Not silently enough.

  The two red-haired bodyguards moved fast as thought toward him. Padrey spoke faster, hoping to keep from being run through. “I can tell you why Habadra wants the boy, and it isn't for revenge."

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Leyja's knife quivered against his throat, close enough to shave those hairs he always missed on the occasions he bothered to shave.

  Empty hands held carefully away from his body, Padrey answered, “You invited me."

  "You lie." The knife shaved a bit closer, taking a thin layer of skin.

  Padrey needed to swallow, but didn't dare. He might cut his own throat if he did. “Truth. Do you deny offering to ransom a certain shiny red item?"

  “A thief.” Leyja spat onto the paving. Her knife twitched again and Padrey could feel the warm trickle of blood down his neck. At least it was a trickle and not a gush.

  “Leyja.” The red-haired man took her wrist and eased the knife away. “Don't you think we should hear what he has to say before you kill him?"

  “He's a thief. He stole Rozite's necklace."

  “If he's clever enough to get himself all the way in here, don't you think he's clever enough not to bring the necklace with him? If you kill him, you won't get it back now, will you?” The man didn't take his eyes off Padrey, his sword never wavered, the one pointed just under Padrey's ribs where it could slide smooth as silk into his heart any moment it liked.

  The bodyguard called over his shoulder. “Fox."

  The tall blond man walked forward, eyes on Padrey, but eerily without seeing him. It made chills run shivering down Padrey's back.

  “I'm not armed,” he said. “Not even an eating knife."

  “I don't see any sign of demons,” the man called Fox said.

  Demons. The young man without eyes, the one Padrey had guided back to the embassy, had spoken of demonshadow. Padrey had dismissed it as a naitan's poetic exaggeration. But now, here—more chills went shuddering through Padrey.

  “Send for Gweric,” the Daryathi ilias said. He was tattooed, like a champion. Like—Goddess, he had body tattoos, all three of them. He was a dedicat. Not just a dedicat, but one of the very, very best. He'd survived his oath.

  Padrey was so shocked by the sight of all those tattoos in all those places, it took him a moment to realize he recognized the name. “I know Gweric,” he said. “Or I met him. Last week. After the parade. Before—” He trailed off, not sure how to refer to the murders, or whether he should.

  He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry for your loss."

  “My loss?” The Daryathi's scowl on that tattooed face made Padrey more nervous than the sharp things so close to him.

  “All of yours. Your ilias—” Padrey broke off, alarmed by the expressions on nine faces—eight. The Reinine didn't react.

  Padrey was speaking fast again. “I'm Adaran. I had five parents myself. I don't talk about them here, but I am Adaran. I don't—I won't—"

  "Leyja." The shaved-headed bodyguard took Leyja's knife out of her hand before he picked her up and set her a few paces away. “If you can't control your temper any better than that, you got no business being so close to him."

  He handed her back the blade. “Clean it off and put it up. You—” He grabbed Padrey by the back of the neck and marched him to the middle of the courtyard. “Don't give us no trouble and we might let you live. How did you meet Gweric?"

  “I stumbled over him.” Padrey went on to explain their chance enc
ounter.

  “Why did you spy on us?” the dedicat ilias asked.

  “Because of her.” Padrey tipped his head in Leyja's direction. He didn't dare move his hands to point. “She offered to trade for the necklace. I wanted to see what kind of person she was, if I thought she might trade for it fair or just toss me in a hole to rot. I was going to watch a while and come back tomorrow, if I decided it was safe."

  “Why didn't you? Wait?” The red-haired guard hadn't put away his sword but he wasn't pointing it at Padrey any more. He had another one just like it on his back, the downward-facing hilt showing at his left hip.

  “Because of the boy. The one Habadra has."

  “Why?” This time the man Fox asked the question.

  The Daryathi dedicat held up his hand to stop the answer as someone new entered the courtyard.

  “You sent for me, Obed?” Gweric asked, moving unerringly through the courtyard despite his missing eyes.

  “We need you to check for demons.” The tattooed man was Obed, then. Padrey filed the name away.

  Gweric shook his head. “None here. Kallista cleared everything out and warded it. You know that."

  “But someone could bring it in with him, couldn't he?” Leyja said. “If it was riding him?"

  Padrey shuddered. Demons rode people? Goddess.

  Gweric nodded. “Yes, but there's no one here to—Is there?"

  The young man's sightlessness suddenly showed itself as he turned his face in all directions, confused and clumsy.

  A spurt of temper flared through Padrey, burning away his fear. “Here,” he said. “I'm here, Gweric."

  “Padrey?” The naitan smiled and extended his hand, evidently trusting Padrey to come and take it. “What are you doing here? I'm glad to see you again."

  With a glance at the naked sword in the redhead's hand as he walked past it, Padrey clasped Gweric's hand. “At the moment, trying to keep myself from getting skewered. I sort of ... came in over the wall."

  “Why did you do that?” Gweric let Padrey lead him to one of the benches that curved around the fountain. “We'd have let you in at the door."

  “He's a thief,” Leyja said sourly.

  Padrey sighed. “True, I'm afraid."

  “I'm sure you have a good reason for it."

  The red-haired man propped a foot on the bench beside Gweric. “So I take it you know this ... Padrey, is it?"

  In a few sentences, Gweric repeated Padrey's tale of their meeting.

  “Why didn't you tell us?” Obed asked.

  “Because I was afraid if I admitted to getting lost, I wouldn't get back out in the city to search. Not without a whole raft of soldiers and a local guide or two. And that wouldn't help. I have to keep looking. Especially now Kallista can't."

  Padrey cleared his throat again. Gweric called Adara's Reinine by her given name? Heaven's saints help him, Padrey Emtal was in deep over his head.

  “What—um—happened to the Reinine?” He asked it quietly, but he couldn't not ask.

  “Stone was murdered.” Gweric answered before anyone could stop him—Padrey thought some of them had meant to. The naitan looked around the courtyard as if he could actually see the others in it. Or something. He had said he could see magic. “The magic is still there, binding you. But it's dark. Dimmed. The light's gone out of it."

  “Grief,” the brown-haired man said.

  “But it is still there.” The redhead again. He set his hand on Gweric's shoulder as if he wanted to grip hard, but feared holding too tight. “You can see it. Right?"

  Gweric nodded. “Yes, Torchay. I see it."

  “And you don't see demons,” the shaved-bald man said.

  “No, Keldrey. There's not even a trace of demonstink clinging to him. Padrey's clean. I wouldn't have let him lead us anywhere otherwise."

  “He might not be demon-ridden,” Leyja growled. “But he's still a thief."

  “Why?” Gweric turned his face to where Padrey stood. “Why are you a thief?"

  “Because I'm a runaway slave. If I tried to get honest work, I would be caught and killed."

  “There are no slaves in Daryath,” Obed said.

  Good thing they hadn't offered Padrey any drink, or he'd have snorted it up his nose laughing at that statement.

  “There are bondservants, yes,” the dedicat Obed was saying. “But they are freed in the year of the jubilee. Every nine years, they go free. Even if they were bound just a few months before the jubilee year, when that year comes, their debt is forgiven and the bondservants are set free. It is the Law."

  “The law for Daryathi,” Padrey said. “Not Adarans. There are Adaran slaves all over the city, and no Adaran is ever set free, jubilee year or no."

  “That cannot be—"

  The yellow-haired Fox cut off Obed's words. “Stop talking, Obed. Listen. Argue later."

  Fox stared at Padrey, his gaze oddly blank. It disturbed Padrey, until he realized Fox was blind as Gweric, though he still had his eyes in his head. Then it disturbed Padrey more, wondering what this Fox could see.

  “Why?” Fox said. “Why are the Adarans never set free?"

  “Because of the magic,” Padrey said. “Adarans have more magic, more naitani than anywhere else in the world. If the Daryathi have Adarans, then they have magic. Laws in Daryath apply only to the Daryathi."

  “And the Daryathi with magic—” Torchay drew himself straight. “They're locked away in the temple, where their magic does no good to anyone but themselves."

  “So—” the man with the long queue spoke. “So if the rest of the Daryathi want any magic to benefit themselves, they have to steal Adaran magic."

  “How many Adaran slaves are there?” the dedicat Obed asked.

  “I don't know. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.” Padrey shrugged. “I haven't gone round to count."

  “If so many Adarans are slaves,” the bald Keldrey said, “why don't we know about it? If people are being taken, word would have been sent to Adara, to Arikon. We would have heard."

  “How?” Long Queue spoke again. “Daryath is a long way from Adara. Traders are always being lost in storms or eaten by lions or wolves. Villagers go missing in the mountains. This is why our traders have been restricted to the coastal cities. What if those caravans or villagers weren't actually lost?"

  He turned to Padrey. “How did you become a slave?"

  Padrey took a deep breath, not noticing how his hands had clenched into fists until Leyja put her hand on the hilt of her sword, staring at his fists. He couldn't make them unwind, so he clamped them together behind his back.

  “My parents were traders. They brought my sedil and me along on their last trip so we could start learning the business. They're dead now.” He locked his fingers tight. “The three of them who came on the trading journey. They were accused of sacrilege, of adultery, and forced into the court-arena to defend themselves against trained champions."

  “They had no champions to fight for them?” Obed sounded shocked. “There are dedicats who will—"

  “They won't fight for blasphemers,” Padrey interrupted. “No one would. My parents were slaughtered in seconds and Nanda and me were handed off to Penthili Line. Luckily, we were the only two of our sedili old enough to come on the trip. I was eleven. The Penthili was upset my second mother died. She had South magic, a fire-spark. They wanted more Adaran children from her."

  “They're trying to breed naitani?” The small blond woman spoke for the first time, outrage bristling from her.

  “Yes."

  “Then—” Long Queue tapped a forefinger against his lips. “Why would they want to kill you? Wouldn't they want to keep you alive for—pardon, but for stud service?"

  “I don't have any magic. When I was younger, they couldn't know whether I would or not, could they? But by the time—I think I was eighteen or nineteen. It was clear I wouldn't start magically setting fires or something. And I wasn't going to have any child of mine grow up like that. There was a girl..."


  Padrey had to stop, take another deep breath, clear his throat. It had been a long time ago. Seven or eight years, if he counted right. But it still stung. “They gave her to me. She didn't understand why that bothered me. She was a baker, could put magic in the bread so it would keep longer—long as you liked. She'd grown up a slave, had already popped out a couple of kids who would grow up slaves. She wasn't any older than me.

  “Her other kids had Daryathi for fathers. I guess they were hoping an Adaran, even one without magic, might have a better chance of breeding kids with magic. But I couldn't do it. So I ran off.

  “And that's why they'll kill me. Because I ran off. I got away. I'm a bad example for the other slaves.” He shrugged. “And, I'm a thief. Even your Leyja wants to kill me for that."

  She scowled, but she no longer had a hand on her sword hilt.

  “Why didn't you go back to Adara?” Obed asked. “It would have been a difficult journey, but—were you afraid to try?"

  Padrey didn't bother to hide his scorn. “If I were afraid, I wouldn't have run away. I wouldn't have jumped out of your tree. Penthili Line still has my sedil. I won't leave her, and Nanda won't leave her kids, even if they were born of rape."

  Everyone in the courtyard cursed when they heard that, some longer and more colorfully than others, but they all did it.

  “She's the Reinine.” Padrey tipped his head toward the motionless woman. “I saw her in the procession coming back from the Seat, and I saw her outside Habadra House that day, so I know. She's the Ruler of all Adara. She can get me and Nanda and her kids out of Daryath if she wants to."

  The Reinine's mates were too busy exchanging worried looks with each other to meet Padrey's gaze for long, but they didn't avoid him.

  “I'll help get your boy back from Habadra,” Padrey said. “I'll bring back the necklace, no payment asked. Except—please—help me rescue my sedil."

  “How could you help, thief?” Leyja demanded.

  “Sneak in like I did here. Sneak the boy out the same way."

  “He's too small to climb like you did,” Keldrey said, “and too big for someone your size to carry so far."

  “I may not be the biggest man around, but I'm stronger than I look.” Padrey was generally grateful for his modest size—he was taller than all the women here except Leyja, even if he was shorter than all the men—but there were occasions it could rankle.