03 - The Eternal Rose by Gail Dayton

what's important."
    “We're all important.” He grinned and winked. “But right now, it's their turn."
    When the younger set were finally quieted—the magic seemed to have energized rather than calmed them—Kallista was as ready for sleep as they were. It had been a long day. But she had yet to send her magic out hunting demons.
    Yawning, she headed back toward the courtyard with Obed and Torchay trailing behind her. At the wide doorway leading out, she paused and caught hold of the gauzy, breeze-blown draperies. Someone already occupied the courtyard.
    “What's wrong?” Torchay stepped up beside her, nostrils flaring as if he sniffed for trouble.
    “Nothing. Stone.” Kallista touched Torchay's hand, caught Obed's eye. “Wait here. Please."
    Torchay nodded, acquiesced. Obed frowned, opened his mouth as if to speak, then nodded without speaking. Kallista smiled and squeezed his hand in apology, though she didn't know what she apologized for, and went out into the flower-scented night.
    Stone stood, one foot propped on the fountain's basin, breaking bits of twig into tinier bits and tossing them into the water. Kallista put her arms around him from behind and leaned her head on his shoulder. He wasn't much taller than she, so it was a comfortable fit.
    “Should you be doing that?” He laid a hand over hers where she'd clasped them at his waist, tossing the rest of his twigs away all at once in a faint patter on the paving.
    “Probably not, but I don't care. It's dark.” She kissed the rose-mark on the nape of his neck beneath the soft gold hair he kept cropped when he remembered to do it. Just now, it curled almost to his collar.
    His laugh was bitter. “We're standing in the light of a full moon. Not so very dark at all, with Daryathi servants around to see us.” Stone peeled himself out of her embrace.
    He kept his hold on her hands, as if afraid of what she might do with them, and turned to face her, gazing solemnly down at her. “I don't want to care either,” he said. “But we have to. I want my son back. We can't give them any excuse."
    “We all want him.” Kallista led him by the hand to a wood-andiron bench that sat beneath a delicate, multi-trunked tree exploding with hot pink flower clusters. They had no scent to mingle with the honeysuckle, their color dimmed in the night. As she sat with him, crinkled petals drifted down to settle in their hair. “Are you so sure he's your son?” She had to say it.
    “Does it matter?” Stone brushed the petals off his head.
    “I don't know. Does it?” She hid their joined hands in the shadows between them, reluctant to let him go.
    “No. Even if he's another one of Fox's, I want him back.” He looked up then, the blue of his eyes somehow visible in the moonlight, and held her gaze. “But he is mine, Kallista. There's some connection, some ... thing. The same connection I feel with Rozite. I don't love her any more or less than the others, but that connection is there. And we have to get him back. Whatever it takes. Whatever we have to do. We have to have our son."
    A shiver traveled down Kallista's spine and she tightened her grip on his hand. This connection he spoke of was what a prelate naitan read to determine a child's sire within the ilian for the temple records. They spoke of reading bloodlines, but it was magic they read. The connection was weak, difficult to detect, and at the same time one of the most powerful magics in the universe because it was virtually impossible to break. A child's cry for his parents, a parent's need to protect. If Stone felt it this strongly, Sky's situation couldn't be good.
    “We will get him back, Stone. I promise you."
    “Whatever it takes.” He stared hard into her eyes, his face more serious than she had ever seen it.
    “Yes,” she said. “Whatever we have to do."
    “No matter what,” he insisted.
    “Yes, Stone.” Goddess, could she reassure him enough? She needed to hold him. “No matter what. I swear