LITMIR.BIZ

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other hand, he and Kallista continued down the street. Around the corner, out of sight of the bakeshop, she jerked her hand free and rounded on her bodyguard.

      “Are you mad? Have you lost the remaining threads of the feeble wits you might once have possessed?” Kallista held her bare hand in front of his face. “I am ungloved.”

      “You hadn’t called magic. I was safe enough. I’d have been safe enough even if you had. You have more control than any naitan in the entire army. Probably in all Adara.”

      Torchay’s calm unconcern infuriated her. “You don’t know that. The sparks don’t always show.”

      “I know when you call magic. I don’t have to see the sparks. And I know you don’t have to unglove to do it. To do anything.”

      Kallista yanked her glove back on in short, sharp motions. “Do not ever do that again. Ever. Do you understand me, Sergeant? If you do, I’ll have that chevron if I have to strip the skin off your arm to do it, and see you flogged.”

      “You don’t approve of flogging.”

      “For this I do. Never touch my bare hands. You know this. You learned it the first day of your guard training.”

      Torchay gazed at her. She could see the words building up inside his head, battering at his lips in their desire to get past them. Other naitani had trouble with their guards getting too close, wanting more from the relationship than was possible, but Torchay had never shown any sign of the failing. Was this how it began?

      She didn’t want to imagine trouble where none existed. She and Torchay worked well together. She didn’t want that to change, didn’t want to offend him by making faulty assumptions. “If you have something to say, say it.”

      He shook his head. “No, I have nothing—” His mouth thinned into a straight line, lips pressed together, stubbornly holding back the words. She would get nothing more out of him, not now.

      Torchay turned his back to her, scanning their surroundings for potential danger, pulling back into his familiar role.

      “Give me the sack.” Kallista held her hand out for it. He needed his hands free for weapons, now that she was safely gloved again. Civilian naitani weren’t required to go about gloved, but military magic was considered too dangerous to risk a naitan’s loss of control.

      Anything covering the bare skin of the hands interfered to some degree with the magic. Leather blocked virtually all magic save for that under the most exquisite control. But Kallista didn’t have to remove her gloves to use her magic. She didn’t know any other naitan who could do what she could.

      Torchay handed over the bread and moved down the street behind her toward the oversize home where the Third Detachment, Military Naitani, was billeted. The house towered three stories above the street, offering a view over the walls from the flat roof garden. The furnishings were elegant, gilded and ornamented to the extreme, what few furnishings there were. The table shared by the troop had curved gilded legs encrusted with more curlicues, and the top had multicolored woods inlaid in a geometric design. The mismatched chairs they used had tapestry-upholstered seats, or inlaid designs, and yet others were gilded within an inch of their lives. But most of the rooms were vacant, echoing with emptiness.

      The ilian that owned it had once been much larger, a full dozen individuals all bound in temple oath to love and support each other and raise the children that resulted from their bonding. The loss of a child and his mother in an accident had fractured the family and a bare quartet of iliasti remained to finish bringing up the few children left to them. They had plenty of room for the entire troop.

      Torchay bowed her into the house, but his eyes held hers as he did, watching her. It unnerved her. What did it mean? Anything?

      Kallista tossed the bread sack to Torchay as he closed the door behind them. “Alert the troop. I want everyone ready to move into position by full dark. The general will be moving the regular troops into position then as well. The Tibrans won’t have far-seers to spot us in the dark.”

      “And we hope they have no machines to do it for them.”

      “Bite your tongue.” Kallista gave an exaggerated shudder, but it was indeed something to worry about.

      Torchay opened the sack and tossed her a bun. “You missed supper.” He was gone to carry out her order before she could throw it back at him.

      He returned moments later, while Kallista still stared at the bread in her hand. “Everyone is ready, save for Beltis and Hamonn. They went to dinner at the public house down the street and should be back shortly.”

      Kallista sighed. Beltis was one of the naitani she worried about. The young South fire thrower was impulsive, romantic, and she was growing far too attached to her bodyguard. Hamonn was older, like most guards assigned to new naitani, and sensible, but—well, time enough to worry about it after the battle. If they all survived, she could talk to Hamonn then about reassignment or retirement.

      “Bread is for eating.” Torchay slid one of his blades into a wrist sheath and drew another to test its edge. “Not staring at. It’s not a work of art. You’ll need the fuel tonight for your magic.”

      “You’re my bodyguard. Not my keeper.” Kallista wanted to set the bun aside, but Torchay was right. She needed to eat. The bread tasted better than she expected for having been baked without magic and set out on display all day.

      The silence caught her attention. No sound of steel on stone as Torchay sharpened one of his numberless blades. She’d tried to count them once, the dirks and daggers and short swords secreted in every place conceivable around Torchay’s body. But just when she thought she had them all, he would produce another from some invisible spot. And whenever he had a spare moment, he would sharpen them. The rasping sound had played accompaniment to every quiet moment of the last nine years. Until now.

      He sat in his usual place beside the street door, a wicked little blade—needle thin and razor sharp—in one hand, his whetstone forgotten in the other as he watched her.

      The skin between her shoulder blades prickled. She did not have time for this now, whatever it was. They had a battle to fight, probably before dawn. She refused to encourage him. But she could not refuse to listen if he chose to speak.

      “Yes, I’m your bodyguard,” he said finally. “I’ve served you for nine years. I’d like to think I’ve done a good job of it.”

      “You have. Exemplary.” Was that what had his hair on too tight? His qualifications record?

      “For nine years, I’ve been no farther from you than a spoken word. I know you better than anyone. Better than your family. Better than your naitani.” He paused and looked at his blade as if wondering why he held it. “The battle tomorrow—it’s not like the bandits we’ve fought before. It doesn’t look good, does it.” He didn’t ask a question.

      “No. It doesn’t.” Kallista still didn’t know where Torchay was going with this, but she had never given him anything less than the truth.

      “This time tomorrow, we’ll most likely be dead.”

      “Very probably.”

      He looked at her then, his clear blue eyes holding her gaze. “If I’m going to die, Kallista, I want to die with friends. The army isn’t a good place for making them. You’re the only person I can think of who I’d consider a friend. You’re my captain, my naitan, and I’m your bodyguard. But—is it possible—could we not also be friends?”

      Friendship. Was that all he wanted? Such a simple, utterly difficult thing. Someone who cared about him not because they had to, not for ties of blood or marriage, but simply because they liked him.

      Did Kallista have friends? Naitani in the army were too valuable, too rare to concentrate them in large numbers, and the regular officers were often what the average citizen thought them: dim and sometimes cruel. She’d met a few fellow naitani she liked, but postings in the far corners of the Adaran continent kept her from

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