“You cannot deny that commerce with the Trade Alliance would benefit all of Tolar,” Kellandin said. He sat, fingertips pressed together under his chin, in a chair opposite the Paran’s desk, his deep blue robe blending into its fabric.
The Paran half-turned to eye the family tutor and political advisor. “It will begin in a mere eight years, when the Sural’s heir comes of age.”
“Indeed, and waiting for her to mature seems a short time to us. For humans, it will be seventeen of their years, which seems a long time to a short-lived people. Should we not treat with them now, while their interest is keen?”
“With Monralar leading the way, and benefiting most?”
“Ah.” Kellandin cocked his head. “An excellent point. But have you forgotten the Monral’s… guarantees of favor toward those who make his plan succeed? Parania would still prosper.”
The Paran shook his head. “Assuming Monralar’s supporters do not all wake to the scent of Suralian tea flowers in their nostrils, if they wake at all. Have you forgotten how dangerous is the Sural?”
Kellandin’s mouth flattened, but he did not answer.
The Paran moved away from the window and leaned back against the desk. He himself found the prospect of interstellar trade appealing, but he led the largest political bloc on Tolar, a legacy of his grandfather’s time as leader of the ruling caste, and it was aligned with Suralia. His mother had worked hard to achieve unanimity within the coalition, and he saw little reason to disturb it by rushing toward an inevitable membership in the Trade Alliance, as Monralar was wont to do.
Even if the Monral gained the majority he sought, the Sural needed only repeat the exploit that had gained him the Jorann’s favor to remind the caste why he led them. The Monral’s father had been among those who had known the Sural was coming but nevertheless awoke to a tea flower beside his head. Though the Paran had not yet been born at the time, his mother had once spoken of the feat with awe.
“
The young Sural
,” she had said, “
not even of age, spent days traveling to the strongholds of those who doubted his ability to rule, carrying nothing with him but a basket of Suralian tea flowers. He left a single large blossom on each ruler’s mat as they slept. I, too, received one, but on mine he had written the words, ‘My heart grieves for your pain,’ across several petals
.”
The act astounded the rulers of the time, and those who received a flower learned a potent lesson:
he could as easily have sent them into the dark
. His mother had preserved the token the Sural had left her; encased in a stasis field, it still occupied a corner on the desk in what had once been her private study.
Yet it was
true the Sural’s leadership might be coming into question. After a hundred years of peace among the ruling caste, local conflicts had begun to break out, and so far the Sural had done nothing. Instead, he waited for his heir to come of age, that following Tolari custom she might serve as his ambassador to the alien races who now roamed the stars.
“No, Scholar,” he said, “I will stand with my coalition on the matter.”
Giggles echoed in from the audience room, distracting Kellandin from his reply. Moments later, a camouflaged Veryth ran into the room and impacted the desk with a thud and a squawk.
The scholar flinched. The Paran dropped to his knees next to the now-visible child, who lay on his back, mouth gaping and eyes squeezed shut. The desk’s edge had imprinted a thick line across the middle of Veryth’s forehead, the area where his empathic nerves clustered most densely. As he scooped his grandson off the matted floor, sharp pain lanced through the physical contact.
“
Nuu
,” he murmured, getting to his peds with the boy cradled in both arms, his little body stiff and trembling and breathing in tiny gasps. “Notify my grandson’s apothecary,” he said to the guard at the door, and strode into the audience room.
Kellandin followed more slowly, keeping his distance.
A few paces later, Veryth gulped as much air as his tiny lungs could hold and arched his back, uttering a shriek that left the Paran’s ears ringing. A guard flickered, startled, and Vondra, who would have known the instant her son injured himself, rushed through the doorway from the main hall, arms outstretched. With relief, he surrendered the child, who clung to his mother’s neck like a young scurrybrush, sobbing hysterically.
“He ran into my desk,” he said, “very like the way you did at the same age. I notified the apothecaries.”
Vondra nodded, face pinched. “My gratitude, Father.” She spun and hurried off.
A sympathetic chuckle came to his lips and died away. Until the apothecaries soothed the boy’s considerable distress, his grandson would broadcast it to everyone around him. He expelled a breath. In proximity to small children learning what they could and could not do while camouflaged, the ruling bond tended to hinder more than help.
“We will continue this discussion another time,” he said to Kellandin, and headed for the nearest door to the gardens.
Outside, autumn had moderated the early afternoon heat to a pleasant temperature. He chose a path to the far wall of the stronghold grounds, letting the sun’s warmth ease away the tension in his neck and shoulders, and shrank his empathic awareness into himself, to minimize the needle-stab of Veryth’s discomfort, magnified as it was through every pledged adult in contact with him, not least Vondra.
Vondra. His daughter had proved herself an extraordinary asset as his ambassador. If Monralar’s heir ever convinced her to advocate for interstellar trade in the near term, rather than to wait on the Sural’s plan, the years until the Sural’s heir Kyza came of age would become an exercise in patience.
Senses thus pulled in, he strolled into the outer garden and did not notice his Laura before his eyes fell on her. Her dark purple robe blended into the deep shade under a corner of the keep and a tree, as she sat huddled over a sketchbook in creative ecstasy.
He hunched down and looked over her shoulder. The scene coming to life under her hand existed nowhere on Tolar: a house, a very large house, of a style he had seen in archives obtained from human sources—rectangular, made of a vast number of tiny bricks, with a sloping roof. Columns at the entry arch spanned the first two floors. A floor above that, with many windows, reached from a wing on the left to a wing on the right, the whole surrounded by plants sculpted into tall cones and spirals.
Her hand hitched, and stopped, and she looked up at him. Smudges marked her face where she had brushed hair back with sooty fingers, and a dark line smeared outward from one corner of her mouth—she had sucked on the charcoal stylus again. A pleased smile began to curve her lips. Then she frowned.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in English.
“My grandson ran about camouflaged,” he replied in the same language, “and collided with the desk in my open study.”
She winced. “Is he all right?”
“He will not have damaged himself too badly. We almost all of us do something similar as children.” He planted a kiss on her temple. “What have you drawn?”
“The summer house in Boston.” She turned her attention back to it with a sly grin. “It’s not
quite
as large as your stronghold. Papa liked to spend family time in a setting he considered cozy.” She pointed at a window at one end of the top floor. “My rooms were here. Just a bedroom and a bath. And all my stuffies.”
He opened his mouth to ask what those might be, but she went on.
“Toy animals made of stuffed fabric, soft and fuzzy. Papa brought one home every time he returned from a business trip, until I had more than I could keep in my room. I left them all behind when I eloped with John, but then I could just hold on to him instead.” She picked up the stylus and added tiny lines to the curve of a sculpted plant.
“Why do you create images which sadden you, my love?”
“Because memories are all I have left of who I was and what I had.” She laid book and stylus aside.
“One day you might see those places again.” He leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs before him, ankles crossed. “I would like to see Earth.”
She swiveled a startled face. “But you can’t,” she protested. “Wouldn’t it kill a bonded ruler to leave the planet?”
“It would, but I need not always be bonded to my province. One day I will tire of ruling, and the Jorann will remove my ruling bond so that my daughter can succeed me. Perhaps then we might travel, you and I. Even now Tolar prepares to establish diplomatic relations with Earth, soon or late. Other races, including humans, will come here. Tolari will go out among the stars. We could be among them.”
Her eyes glistened. “I can’t leave, not while Central Command wants me dead. If they find out I’m alive, even if I never set foot in human space, no one could protect me from the Chairman. And if Central Command gets wind of the Jorann’s blessing, I would become a prize as well as a target.”
“Do you regret this, then?” He caressed the youthful skin of her face.
He sensed her barriers begin to close, but then she went still, her emotional landscape whirling with indecision. After a long moment, resolution swept away the uncertainty. She took a deep breath and turned fully to face him.
“There have been a few times in these last few weeks that I’ve regretted taking the blessing, because it means I can’t see my children and grandchildren again,” she said. “But being with you—no. I don’t regret that. I can’t
ever
regret that.”
* * *
The hilltop opposite the Monral’s stronghold offered both a spectacular view of the sunset and sufficient distance from the troublesome emotions of others to allow the exercise of a sensitive’s more delicate abilities. Normally. Sharana focused her attention once more on the small crawling creature her student compelled to walk in patterns on a flat rock, and fought the gleeful satisfaction coming to her from her beloved, who had secreted himself since midday deep under the stronghold, in a place where only ruling caste and guards went.
He plots an assassination
. She shuddered. He had always schemed, like every member of his caste, but he had usually listened to her… before the Sural humiliated him. Then he had turned inward, and the confidences he once showered on her diminished and stopped, until she had no clear idea if he remained within the bounds of honor.
Where had her influence gone? Their friendship began in childhood and grew into heart play. He trusted her more than he had his own father—
had
trusted her, a bitter thought whispered.
No longer
. The tens of years they spent as pledge-partners, the ten years of their bonding, had vanished like a mist from the far shores of sleep. Now her Monral directly schemed to send another soul into the dark. Her heart shrank back from it, repelled.
“Scholar? When may I stop?”
Sharana started, inwardly cursing her wandering thoughts, and brought her eyes back to her student. Despite the cool breeze, sweat stained the girl’s dark green robe. This would not do; her student deserved her full attention, not this half-consideration. “Release the creature and return to your mother’s farm,” she said, her tone sharper than she had intended. Irritated with her inability to concentrate, she pushed herself upright and left the girl roiling with confusion. Explanations could wait until the next lesson. For now, she could not trust herself to maintain a tutor’s proper discipline.
She trod down the hill, paying little attention to where she went. Her peds followed habit and took her across the road to the stronghold, where she halted, staring at the great doors in sudden indecision. The Monral was moving, ascending from the hidden places below the keep, and she trusted herself even less with him than she did with her student. Turning aside, she kept to the wall, walking along it until she reached the gate to the outer garden. A huge flat-topped boulder lay embedded in the hillside there, a place to which she often retreated to find momentary peace. She climbed onto the rock and sat with her peds dangling over the edge. The city lay spread before her, and beyond it the glimmering, treacherous sea.
Perhaps she should spend the evening down in the city. The idea held appeal, but no—it would do nothing to interfere with the ugly emotions flowing into the pair-bond she shared with the Monral.
Oh my beloved, what have you become?
Had she made a mistake after all, becoming entwined and entangled with a member of the ruling caste?
With a flash of yellow, the sun tipped below the horizon, and behind her, she sensed the Monral’s heir leave the keep, heading for her. She kept her gaze on the city as Farric lowered himself onto the boulder beside her and swung his legs over the side, kicking at the rock like a restless child despite the fatigue suffusing his presence.
“Scholar,” he said.
“Your father would not approve of such an undignified posture,” she replied, casting him a sidelong glance.
A snort escaped him. “Neither would he appreciate it of his bond-partner.” He scooted back to pull up his legs and set his heels on the edge. With an insolent grin, he rested his elbows on his knees to complete the discourtesy. “Do you prefer this?”
“In that position, at least, you will not lose your slippers.”
His grin tilted at her words, remembering, no doubt, the many he had lost as a child, kicking this very rock.
“Why are you so weary?”
“Father intensified my physical training.”
“Again?”
“He says only that his plans require me to be at the peak of my abilities.” He lowered his arms and dropped his peds over the edge again. “It has not pushed me beyond my capacity. He ordered the same of a hand of his best guards.”
She held in the question—
against whom do they train to fight?
—and instead fixed her gaze on the deepening purples and reds splashed across the western sky. She pivoted to view it more comfortably, which turned her away from Farric.
He would not answer such a question, even if she asked. Possibly, even he did not know the answer—the Monral kept much in his own pockets. Whether Farric
would
not answer, or
could
not, did not matter. The ruling caste of Monralar shared little with those they called upon to advise them.