The Barbed Rose. Gail Dayton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ What is that? Tell me about the Order.” Kallista needed whatever information he could give her. She’d never known anyone who admitted membership. The Order kept many secrets, not least, who they were.

      “There are nine levels—BARINIRAB—beginning with a ceremony they call ‘Birth.’ Then Apprenticeship, Renunciation, Initiation, Naishar or service, Institution, Rejuvenation, Ascension and Birth again, to a state of unity with the One. The man I met wore the badge of a Rejuvenate on his cloak. I was only at the third level—second, really, for the first is just the ceremony.”

      “When did you join? How?”

      He took a deep breath and let it out. “It was not long after I was promoted to lieutenant. Some of the other officers sounded me out in discussions about West magic. I was curious. I wanted to learn more, and when they offered the chance to join, I took it. What I learned did not seem…evil. And I did not learn much. That was reserved for Initiates. As a Renunciate, I did not—do not know enough to be a danger to them.”

      Joh paused before speaking again, holding Kallista’s gaze. “I wish I did. I would tell you all.”

      She smiled and tucked her hands beneath her thighs to keep from reaching across the gap to pat his knee. “You will. Every single thing you know and some you don’t realize you do.”

      “Brown cloaks with red linings.” Obed spoke, startling Kallista. He fingered the hilt of his dagger. “Are they of this order?”

      Joh frowned. “You saw them? Men—women—wearing cloaks like that?”

      “In the mountains, on our way here,” Kallista said.

      “The middle ranks—Initiate, Naishan, Institute—wear the brown. But I never saw them in public. Why would they be now?”

      “Because they’re no longer hiding their goals? Perhaps they were hunting us as they hunted the other naitani.” Kallista still felt the horror of knowing what they had done.

      “Hunting her,” Torchay said. “The rest of us were just in their way.”

      Joh looked as if hell had opened before him and devils were pouring out. Perhaps they were. A single demon had caused all the trouble from the north last year. Was there another? One causing Adarans to turn on each other? Kallista needed her magic back. Now. Possibly Joh could give it to her, but she wasn’t ready to find out yet.

      “Tell me how you were marked,” she said.

      “How is it that you can sit here calmly and talk with us?” Torchay added. “Why haven’t you lost your wits?”

      Last year, Stone’s magic-driven urgency to reach Kallista had him half-leaping from boats or falling into convulsions. Fox had likely been much the same, for he remembered little of his journey to them.

      “I don’t know.” Joh shifted in his too-soft chair, chains clacking together. “I believe that I did. I don’t remember much of the trip here. And my hands—” He held them up, showing injuries he might have acquired trying to dig through prison walls. Stone’s hands had borne similar marks when he’d been brought to Arikon and Kallista. “It could be I am rational now in her presence because I was marked not so long ago.”

      “When?” Kallista glowered at Torchay to keep him quiet this time. “What happened?”

      “Just over a week ago. The guards put us back in the cells after breakfast instead of herding us out into the courtyard because of some disturbance in the countryside. I was reading the Meditations of Orestes and praying. There was—I can only call it joy, but that isn’t a tenth of what I felt.” His expression glowed, making Kallista shiver with its overflow.

      He shook himself, recovered his thoughts. “And next I knew, I found myself clawing at the walls. It took the prison governor a few days to learn of it, and several more days to bring me here. And a few more for you to arrive.”

      “How long ago did it happen?” Torchay asked. “What day?”

      Joh shook his head. “I lost so much time—”

      “Guess.”

      “It—it might have been—It was a Graceday. Maybe the twenty-sixth or-seventh of Terris?”

      A chill ran down her back as she met Torchay’s gaze. “That disturbance in the countryside. Do you know what it was?”

      “No.” Joh looked from one to the other of them, fear growing in his expression. “Why?”

      “The rebels struck throughout Adara on Terris twenty-seventh, assassinating naitani and military officers. The day the One marked you.” Kallista took a deep breath.

      She could not put it off longer. Likely should not have delayed this much. The interlude given her to enjoy simply being ilias and mother had ended. She could not stretch it longer by wishing. She was who she was and could not be other. The signs that Joh had truly been marked by the One were all there. It only required her touch to know.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Kallista slid from her chair to her knees. “Give me your hand.”

      “Captain, no.” Joh struggled to rise and Torchay clapped a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. “Do not kneel before me.”

      “If I fall, I’d rather be closer to the ground.” She raised an eyebrow. “Surely you remember what could happen when our hands touch.” He’d been there for both Stone’s and Obed’s first touch.

      “I—yes.” He sank back into his velvet prison, his whole body tense with nervous anticipation. “What—”

      “I don’t know what will happen. Perhaps nothing. My magic has not yet returned since the twins were born.”

      “Twins?” Joh whispered in shock while she went on.

      “It could be this will wake it. Or not.” She smiled, shifting to one side, off her knees. “I can promise, whatever happens, it won’t hurt.”

      Joh did not seem to believe her.

      “Torchay, let go of him,” she said.

      He looked at her, expression bland. “I’d rather not. You lost the magic the same day I was marked. I want to know what the others know.”

      “There’s plenty of time for that.”

      “I’m tired of waiting.”

      She didn’t think that was his only, or even his primary, reason for keeping his grip on the chained man, but she let it go. Arguing him down would take time she didn’t think they had. “Joh, give me your hand.”

      With a faint rattle of the chains holding them together, Joh extended both hands and opened one out flat. He turned his head away slightly, nostrils flaring as if he faced something terrifying. Magic could terrify, she supposed, if one were not used to it. Hoping her smile looked reassuring, Kallista took his hand in hers. And nothing happened.

      She wanted to scream in frustration. Her fingers tightened, squeezing his hand. СКАЧАТЬ