03 - The Eternal Rose by Gail Dayton Read Free Book Online Page A

smelled of sand. Once inside, the troops kept marching, following their Daryathi escort to the embassy. Leyja and Jondi stopped just inside the gate to watch for threats as the Reinine and her family came through.
    The three oldest girls—Kallista's twins and Aisse's Niona, born during the rebellion—perked up as they entered the city. The younger children were waking with the noise, save for year-old Lissta, sleeping in Aisse's arms. Nothing short of a gunpowder explosion would wake her once she slept, and sometimes Leyja wondered if that would. Sired by Keldrey, Lissta felt more truly Leyja's than any of Aisse's four.
    Leyja was smiling, her gaze moving on to the massed bureaucrats coming through the gate behind the family, when an anomaly registered in her mind. Something was different about the children. Was it something wrong ?
    She scanned back over them, urging her horse forward, alongside. There. Rozite had a necklace dangling halfway down her sturdy child's body, a large, faceted red globe pendant on a heavy gold chain. It might have been glass, but it wasn't.
    Leyja had been present when the infant Rozite had latched onto the walnut-sized ruby as a toy. Serysta Reinine had insisted she keep it. Lorynda had a matching sapphire and Niona an emerald. Serysta had always been fair. But the other girls weren't wearing their necklaces.
    With a sigh, Leyja pushed her horse though the troop escort. “Rozite Varyl Reinelle."
    The girl jumped at the sound of her full name and title. Guilt flashed across her face before it vanished under false innocence. “What, Mami Leyja?"
    “What have you been told about wearing that necklace anywhere but in quarters?"
    Rozite hid her face behind a too-long fringe of sun-bleached hair. “I don't know,” she tried, before giving up the attempt under her Fifth Mother's stern gaze. “Not to wear it."
    “So where should it be?"
    “In the luggage.” Rozite's shoulders moved dramatically up and down as she drew breath. “But Mami Leyja, the luggage is all packed up on the mules. I can't put it there."
    Leyja held her hand out to Rozite. Who looked at it, then looked up at Leyja as if asking why she was doing such a thing and what she expected Rozite to do with her hand.
    Leyja crooked her fingers, beckoning. “Give it to me, Rozite. You knew you weren't supposed to wear it, and you did it anyway. Now it's mine."
    Rozite clutched the big stone to her. “Not forever. "
    “For now. We'll decide how long some other time.” Leyja beckoned again. “Give it here, Rozite. Now."
    “I don't want to. I'm the Reinelle. I should wear necklaces."
    “ Now, Rozite.” Leyja reached to take it off her and finally, reluctantly, the child pulled the chain over her head and laid it in Leyja's hand.
    “You're a Reinelle, not the Reinelle,” Leyja said as she tucked the necklace into a thigh pocket. “You have eight sedili who are all Reinelles just like you. You're special because you're Rozite Varyl. Not because of who your birth mother is. You don't need a necklace to make people notice you."
    Rozite didn't look particularly comforted by Leyja's lecture. “But I like it. It's pretty."
    “It is. And you can wear it again in quarters when you can remember that that is the place to wear it."
    “When we get there?"
    Leyja hid her smile at Rozite's attempt to avoid penalty. “I don't think so. Your parents will discuss it and we will let you know."
    “Why do we have to have ten parents to be mean to us?” Rozite's lower lip shoved forward in a pout.
    “You think just four would be any nicer?” Leyja made a mock-fierce face and got a smile from the girl. “We'll get there soon. Try to act like a Reinelle until we do."
    “Yes, Mami Leyja.” The agreement came out on a heavy, put-upon sigh, but it was agreement.
    Leyja eased her way back out to the edges of the caravan, wondering just how far they were going to have to travel through the city to get to the expanded Adaran embassy. A long way,