LITMIR.BIZ

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band, shackling Joh again in bonds forged of silver, magic and sacred vows.

      He shook his head, not sure whether he was trying to deny the captain’s action or the emotions snarling through him. She gave him her kiss and the dark, tattooed man moved in, fastening a gold bangle around his ankle, saying the same words.

      Joh shuddered. He could not do this. He could not possibly be part of any ilian, much less one he’d almost destroyed. “Sergeant.” He tried once more when the red-haired bodyguard took up the iron key, this time to unlock the manacles.

      “Torchay” he corrected. “And now you’re one of us, you’d better be calling her Kallista. She doesn’t like it when we don’t.”

      The first iron cuff dropped away. Torchay spoke matter-of-factly as he took up a wide, gold band. “You might want to wipe your face.”

      Saints and sinners. It was covered in tears. He’d never been good at handling things like this and he had been bombarded with so many conflicting emotions in the last few moments. With his liberated hand, no chains rattling, Joh swiped his face dry. Goddess, he hated this, hated feeling so churned up, so guilty, so grateful, so overwhelmed.

      When Joh went still again, Torchay—the sergeant—fastened the di pentivas band around his wrist, then did the same on the other side.

      “I’ve made no oaths in return,” Joh muttered, resentful that they paid his objections no mind. “I’ve given no bands.”

      “You’re di pentivas. You don’t have to.” Torchay sounded almost cheerful.

      Then the dark one, Obed, slapped his hand down on the table between them. When he pulled it back, two plain slim anklets and a matching bracelet lay there gleaming. “There,” he said. “Give them. Swear the vows. They are written on your heart whether you say them with your mouth.”

      “Where did these come from?” Kallista—no, the captain—asked the question in Joh’s mind.

      The dark man lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “You said we should keep a supply, for instances such as this, when the One adds to our number.”

      This happened often? Joh supposed it must, recalling last year’s events.

      “Have you been carrying them with you all this time?” Kallista reached out as if to touch the bangles, then did not.

      “I had to get more, after Fox. But since then, yes.” Obed turned those strange, dark brown eyes on Joh and fell silent. The other two did the same, just watching him. Waiting.

      Joh let his head fall back against the high softness of the chair and shut his eyes. He should not be here. He had almost killed them, for the One’s sake. And yet—

      He couldn’t deny the mark, couldn’t deny that the magic had swept him along with the others. Nor, much as he might wish to, could he deny wanting what they offered, or the paralyzing fear of taking it.

      He pressed the heels of his hands into his burning eyes. He had been praying for a chance to serve, for a way to make things right, but deep down he had never really thought the One would take him up on his prayers. Now, however, the opportunity was here. He could not turn his back on it, no matter how much it terrified him. He could only take the next step and trust to his newfound practice of faith that he would not fall off a cliff.

      He moved his hands from his eyes, marveling at the silence when no chains rattled, and focused his bleary vision on the bands gleaming softly atop the inlaid wood. Taking up the smallest, the band meant for Kallista, Joh struggled to the edge of the chair and fell off it, onto his knees.

      The sudden motion had the other men startling, touching hands to blades, but nothing more. Kallista shifted, as if she meant to rise, to meet him.

      “No.” Joh shook his head, crossing the small space between them on his knees. “I come to you. I may wear pentivas chains, but I come to swear my own vows.”

      He slid the band over the hand she held out to him, adding it to the other four bangles on her left wrist. “I come pledging myself to you. Heart to heart, my body for yours, in whatever comes our way. We, above all others, joined as one before the One who holds all that is, was and will be. So I swear with all that is in me.”

      The tears were back. This time he let them go, for wonder of wonders, there were tears on Kallista’s face as well. She bent and touched her lips to his before wiping her tears away with a little self-conscious laugh.

      One at a time, Joh took up the ankle bands and repeated the oath, first to Torchay, then Obed. And it was done. The first step was taken. Pray the One the next steps got easier.

      Aisse lay on her pallet in the gloom of the cave, pretending to sleep while she waited for the warriors to return. Two babies slept tucked against their sedil still inside her who never seemed to sleep and even now thumped and turned. Aisse could feel Merinda watching her.

      The healer was worried, she knew. It had to have been alarming to see Aisse come awake screaming, caught in an apparent fit. But the woman wouldn’t leave her alone, endlessly pick, pick, picking, wanting to know what had happened, how she felt, was the baby moving? As if she couldn’t see it moving in great waves and bulges.

      Aisse sighed. Merinda went silent and still in her corner, forcing Aisse to pretend at dreaming, smacking her lips, mumbling wordlessly. Merinda would drive her mad. She might be ilias—of a sort—but she wasn’t marked. She didn’t know what the magic could do, hadn’t been caught up in it when it swept through them. Aisse hadn’t known herself it could reach so far.

      Perhaps it was petty, but Aisse didn’t want Merinda to know. The magic was hers. Hers and the men’s. Merinda didn’t have any part of it, nor did she need to. Not unless Kallista said, and Kallista wasn’t here. Merinda could do sex with the men if she wanted. Aisse didn’t care about that. But the magic was theirs alone.

      “The mighty hunters return.” Stone burst through the low cave entrance. “We come, bearing success before us.”

      “Actually, we come dragging a goat behind us,” Fox amended, ducking inside. “And if Stone hadn’t shouted loud enough to be heard back in Tibre, we’d have a deer as well. If he could have shot straight enough to kill it.”

      Hiding her smile, Aisse heaved herself more or less upright, patting the babies back to sleep when they stirred. Fox hauled on the rope he held, and true enough, a small goat came baa-ing into the cave. Its hooves scrabbled against the stone floor as it fought to free itself of the tether.

      “It came running up to us,” Fox said. “I think it wanted to be milked. Something must have happened to her kid. But it doesn’t seem to like ropes.” The goat kicked at him and he dodged the blow.

      “It heard me shouting and came.” Stone winked at Aisse as he sat beside her near the fire. “Thought I was calling it. See there? If I hadn’t shouted, we wouldn’t have the goat and since we were hunting food for the babies, a she-goat is better than a deer any day. I’m frozen.”

      “Why were you shouting?” Merinda brought him dry trousers from the packs across the fire.

      Stone surprised Aisse by looking her way rather than Merinda’s, question in his eyes. She gave him a subtle shake of her head and he answered with an equally subtle nod. He took the trousers and stood to change, delaying his response further.

      “I fell,” he said. “Tripped over something under the snow, slid down a bank and laid out full length.” He displayed his ice-crusted frontside before stripping off the wet garments. “It was cold.”

      “Come and change, Fox,” Merinda called. “You need to warm up, too.”

      “I didn’t fall. I’m not as wet as Stone. Let me see to the animals.” He paused, apparently observing the goat with his other sense. “Does anyone know how to milk a goat, or is this another thing we have to discover how to do?”

      Merinda sighed. “I can do it. You come dry off. Warm up.” Her green

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