03 - The Eternal Rose Read Online Free PDF

the wait, Merinda had accepted a temporary bond as ilias under the countrified durissas rites. Intended for times of crisis, a durissas bond only lasted until the crisis was over, unless everyone agreed to exchange it for temple vows. Or a child came into the equation.
    Kallista still didn't know whether Merinda had done it deliberately—Kallista had been afraid of her own reaction if the answer was yes. But during the journey north to take a pregnant Aisse and the infant twins to safety with Torchay's family, Merinda had seduced both Stone and Fox, and become pregnant. The dangers of the journey had changed her mind about wanting to join the ilian, but because of her child, she let Kallista talk her into making temple vows. Merinda had been only three months along when the demon stole her away.
    For six years, Kallista and her ilian had been searching for any sign of Merinda or her child. Soldiers and couriers rode the depth and breadth of Adara, inquiring after a pregnant brown-haired healer. And then, as time went on, about a healer with a baby, a toddler, a child.
    Obed's merchant traders went nowhere without searching, asking. Diplomats in embassies throughout the world made roundabout investigations. And never had there come any credible news. Not even of bodies found in some lost and lonely place. It was as if Merinda and her child had vanished into nothingness. With the demon.
    It had to be more than mere coincidence, this news arriving today at the same time as the murder knot attack—the first assassination attempt in years to penetrate Arikon, much less the palace grounds. Kallista could see the hand of the One working to bring things together.
    “My Reinine, my Reinine—” The courtier gasping beside her sounded as if she had been repeating the words for quite some time. “About the mines in the upper Heldring—"
    New veins of metal—iron and tin, mostly—had been found not long ago, and the squabbling over who got to exploit them gave Kallista more headaches than the rest of it all put together.
    “See the High Steward,” she said as she reached her workroom antechamber. “Make an appointment."
    “But, my Reinine, the miners are demandi—” The voice was cut off when the heavy workroom doors swung firmly shut.
    The messenger standing in the center of the cluttered chamber was no one Kallista had seen before, a young woman barely into adulthood standing slim and tall and proud. Exotically beautiful with black hair and eyes and an arched nose that resembled Obed's, she seemed startled when so many crowded into the room. She stared, her eyes flicking from one to the other of them, as if she was not sure whom she would address. Then she saw Obed and her upper lip curled in a tiny sneer.
    “Cousin.” She inclined her head in such a minuscule bow, she might as well not have bowed at all. She extended a hand in a languid gesture to hover palm down, fingers gracefully curved as if awaiting some obeisance.
    Obed eased forward until he stood beside Kallista. “You name me cousin, but I do not know you."
    The young woman flushed deep red beneath her dark skin, and her eyes glittered with anger. Her outstretched hand curled into a fist as she drew it back. “I am Thalassa il-Shakiri, daughter to Bekaara who is daughter to Shakiri Shathina, Head of our Line."
    Obed inclined his head scarcely more than she had. “I greet you, Thalassa, granddaughter to my aunt. You speak our language well."
    The flush remained as words poured from her mouth in a liquid flow, the language of Daryath, apparently assuming the others didn't speak it. She was wrong. Mostly. They didn't speak it well. But she didn't need to know that.
    “Cousin.” Obed refused to follow her into Daryathi. “You should have learned sometime in your education that it is rude to speak in a language the others present might not understand. However, I can see you were overcome with delight at meeting a new kinsman for the first time. Or the first