Free 01 - The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton Page A

thing, the easier it is to keep it secret.”
    “Lying to a prelate has its own consequences.”
    “I’ll risk it.” Kallista set her plate aside and stood. “We should report in.”
     
    There were funerals to attend. Flames competed with the blaze of the setting sun as Kallista stood with General Uskenda and the honor guard in the plaza west of the Mother Temple. She let the tears flow, blaming them on the sun’s glare, and commended the souls of her entire troop, all five of the naitani and their five bodyguards, into the welcoming arms of the One. Never had she lost so many.
    Never had the Adaran army and its naitani been cast into a battle of such size. They fought bandits. They patrolled remote mountain passes and distant, lawless prinsipalities. They did not fight pitched battles against massive armies. They’d never had to. Until now.
    Kallista fought back her grief. So many bright young lives, so full of promise, ended here. Adara could not afford such losses. She feared that they would be facing many more such funerals if changes were not made. But Blessed One, did she have to be the one to change?
    When the sun had set and the fires burned to embers, there were letters to be written, paperwork to be done. How could she write so many at once? How could she put it off?
    The breeze, not so strong inside the city where it was broken by wall and building, stirred her hair. Kallista tucked it behind her ears yet again as they walked back to quarters.
    “If you will not braid your hair,” Torchay said from his place at her shoulder, “you should cut it.”
    “Oh, that will cover my neck so well.” She pulled her hair back from her face and held it with one gloved hand.
    “Don’t cut the back. Just the front, so it can’t get in your face. Or you could—”
    “This is not a time to be thinking about hair.”
    “True.” He picked up his pace and took her elbow to escort her quickly through a crowd spilling out of a public house. “But it was noticed. Today it was taken as a sign of mourning for the death of your troopers. If you continue to wear it so, it could be taken as a sign of something else. Perhaps that you attempt to hide something.”
    Kallista sighed. She was a soldier. That had been her duty, her destiny for twenty-one years. It kept things simple. She would rather things stayed that way, but the complications kept mounting. “We’ll work out some explanation later.”
    The sun must have hurt her eyes more than she realized. They kept watering during the short walk, even as Torchay ushered her into their too-empty billet. The setting sun must bother his eyes as well, given the way he was blinking them.
    Kallista gave him the courtesy of privacy, looking away even as she briefly touched his shoulder with an ungloved hand. “I have letters to write.”
    She managed three, writing to the accompaniment of steel on stone, before her eyes began to cross with weariness. Torchay tumbled her into her narrow bed and took his place on the pallet in front of the door.
    Once more her dreams were filled with shine and fog. Again the city wall fell and again she shouted a warning that no one heard. But the dream did not end there.
    She dreamed of a man, golden-skinned and golden-haired, his hard body moving over her and in her. As she cried out in passion, he changed. His black hair tumbled around her face, and he changed yet again. His dark skin paled, his hair going bright, and it was Torchay making love to her, Torchay making her cry out.
    She jerked, struggling to wake, but something caught her soul and drew her back. She went spinning across the dreamscape, colors of light and darkness flashing by and through her, until she was released to roll tumbling across a rough stone floor, fetching up against a fat table leg.
    Before she could pick herself up, a blade was pressed against her throat. The woman holding it shone fierce and bright with power. She was not young, perhaps ten or even twenty years