The Seer (Tellaran Series) (19 page)

His arm shot out and he took her by the elbow. “I need to speak with you outside.”

Bruscan’s sense went grim and Arissa’s heart picked up speed. “Jolar?”

He froze but didn’t look at her.

“Hello,” the blonde said leaning around Jolar to regard her with crystal blue eyes and a polite smile. “Jolar, who is this?”

“Jolar?” Arissa said again.

The sound of her trembling voice seemed to snap him out of his paralysis but he avoided her gaze. “Jasa, come outside with me
now
.”

“Jolar,” the woman chided but the dimple that appeared at the corner of her mouth tempered her scold.

She gave Arissa an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with him when he gets like this. I suppose we shall have to introduce ourselves. I am Lady Jasa d'Akan.” She linked her arm with his. “Jolar’s betrothed.”

Nineteen

Jasa’s betrothal bracelet caught the light as she shifted closer to Jolar; it was of a heavier, more traditional and wider setting than Arissa’s. The metalwork bore the look of an antique, the Zartani firestar at its center absolutely brilliant . . .

Jasa tilted her head. “And you are?”

Arissa’s lips parted but she couldn’t speak. She was vaguely aware of a couple coming up behind them from the courtyard, moving past into the embassy, murmuring apologies as they slipped by, of people inside the building, the slow drifting of guests as the evening wound down.

Jolar stood unmoving at the blonde beauty’s side, his face colorless, his eyes blazing as he met her gaze. 

Arissa felt the stones of the courtyard pavement tilt away from her feet. . .

Bruscan’s hand closed around her upper arm.

“This young lady is one of my customers,” Bruscan said. “A pleasure to meet you both but if you’ll excuse us, Arissa and I were just leaving.”

“Of course,” Jasa said, blinking. “Well, it was lovely to meet you.” Jasa's mind as she'd looked up at Jolar was elated as if she had just been given the most precious of gifts. And now, she pressed herself to his side with a confident sense of ownership. “And it’s
very
good to see you, darling. With the wedding so close, there are still some small details I would like to discuss with you.”

Only Bruscan’s hand gripping Arissa’s arm got her moving and kept her upright. He pulled her past Jolar and Jasa smiling up at him and through the doorway. The inside of the embassy was too bright now, the Niman flutes discordant.

Arissa felt dizzy and suddenly realized she had forgotten to breathe.

He couldn’t have lied about how he felt about me. He couldn’t have. I would know!

But that woman—Jasa—was she really his betrothed? She reached out to touch Jolar’s mind then stopped short, desperately frightened of what she would find.

Bruscan was grim and determined. She could hardly feel his tight grip on her arm but knew he was the only thing holding her upright.

He never asked me to marry him.

“Please,” she croaked. “Bruscan, that woman . . . Is—is she—”

She’s so very beautiful. He must love her.

Bruscan’s mouth narrowed to a tight line. “Just a little farther. The groundcar will be right outside the door.”

He must have always loved her . . .

Her breath caught with a sob. Bruscan responded by walking faster.

The ambassador was ahead, standing with what could only be his wife, shaking hands, wishing everyone a good evening.

Was it all a lie? But how could I not have sensed that?

The ambassador’s brow creased in alarm as he turned toward them. “Mistress Legan! Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Bruscan said jovially, his voice too loud. Several startled guests at the door followed their progress with raised eyebrows. “A simple matter of too much sparkle wine. Lovely reception!”

Arissa pressed her hand against her mouth.

How could he?

The ambassador hurried behind them. “Can I get you—”

“No, no!” Bruscan was already waving the ambassador’s offer away. “My groundcar should be just pulling up—ah, there it is! Good evening! Good evening!”

“These young women…” the ambassador’s wife sniffed behind them as Bruscan shoved her toward the groundcar, “They drink like trollops.”

The driver who had come round to open the door threw a questioning look at Bruscan.

Bruscan shook his head. “Just get us out of here. He’ll find his own way back.”

Bruscan shut the door of the groundcar behind him himself and took a seat across from her. Arissa gripped the edge of the velvet and silk seat as the groundcar started forward.

“You knew,” she whispered. “You knew all along.”

He didn’t deny it. “I’m sorry.”

He said he loved me!

“How could—? But
why?
” Arissa’s vision blurred. “Please! I don’t understand!”

Bruscan’s brown eyes reflected his pity. “I know.”

He said we could talk about life together.

But only after Sertar . . .

“He wanted—he was worried I wouldn’t do my part here.” She looked at Bruscan, tears overflowing. “Is that why he led me on? He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t betray him?”

Bruscan seemed to collapse into himself. “I’m afraid the only one who can answer your questions is Jolar.”             

I really thought he loved me and all along he was going to marry—

Arissa shook her head, her hand covering her mouth, sobs shaking her body. Bruscan turned his face away as the streets and buildings of Tano sped by, the sympathy coming off him in waves.

How could I not have known he’s been lying to me all along?

How could he? Oh, gods, why?

It took everything Jolar had not to run after her.

His movements stiff, he disentangled his arm from Jasa’s and nodded her toward the courtyard.

Jolar followed Jasa numbly. His heart was thumping so hard he felt sick.

The hurt in her eyes . . .

“So do I get to know why you’re here?” Jasa asked as soon as they reached the privacy of a quiet grove.

“This is work,” Jolar said hoarsely. “This is important. And I’m Jolar Legan.”

“Something for the Fleet again, I suppose.” Jasa said, sighing. Then with a resentful tone creeping into her voice, “Or another favor for Dacel.”

“He’s the elected Senior Councilor from Zartan.”

She raised delicate blonde eyebrows. “He’s a commoner and he treats you like an errand boy.”

Jolar turned his face away.

Arissa was a Seer. She would read the truth in his heart.

She
had
to.

After a time, Jasa said: “So, are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“I can’t.”

“We have been betrothed for five years, Jolar,” she reminded. “I will be your wife in a few weeks. Surely I have earned your trust, your respect, by now?”

“This has nothing to do with you,” he said roughly. “What are you doing on Sertar anyway?”

She gave him a hurt look. “I came for the trade conference. You want a political career after we’re married. It was
your
idea that I start making connections, showing interest in commerce. I’ve spent the last few months attending such things.”

“How soon can you leave?” he asked bluntly.

Her posture stiffened. “Well, I had planned to stay for the whole conference. But if my presence is going to impede whatever it is
you’re
doing here, I suppose I can return to Zartan at the earliest convenient time.”

He gave a nod. “Thank you.”

“Shouldn’t you admire my new gown?” she asked, holding out the skirt of her red dress.

“All your gowns are new,” he replied flatly.

She let go of the skirt edges, the shimmersilk catching the light of the lanterns as the folds fell back into place. She stepped closer. “I am happy to see you, darling. It’s been too long since my last visit to Tellar. I couldn’t possibly arrange to leave Sertar for another few days. Perhaps you could visit me? Tonight?” Her full mouth curved into a smile. “Or slip away to see me for a few hours tomorrow afternoon?”

He looked away. “Not this time.”

“Ah,” she said then continued, her voice growing cooler: “I hope can expect you will at least do me the courtesy of appearing for our wedding.”

“If my work here is completed by then.” He felt his mouth tighten. “But yes.”

She was silent for a few moments. “Of course, if you need me to change the timing
again
—I shall.”

He passed his hand over his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Well,” she said, straightening her back. “Send word to me as soon as you know. Five years is quite long enough to wait, Jolar.”

“I’ve told you before.” He gave a bitter half-smile. “We can end our betrothal whenever you wish, Jasa.”

She lifted her chin. “Our heritage demands certain obligations. Arranged or not, we are both bound to this marriage contract. People such as we do not have the option of disregarding tradition, Jolar.”

“I’m well aware of that,” he bit out, his eyes narrowing. “I know who I am. I know what’s expected of me.”

She gave a nod. “As do I.” Then she softened a bit and touched his arm again. “I am glad to see you looking so well, darling.”

“I never bore you any ill will, Jasa,” he said heavily. “I wouldn’t have wanted this for you either.”

She was quiet for a time. “Well, I should go. I suppose it wouldn’t do to have anyone see us talking if you’re supposed to be this Legan person. You can be assured of my discretion. I wouldn’t want to ruin anything for you.” She tilted her head. “Will you kiss me goodbye?”

He regarded her silently.

He’d tried, years ago, to create something between them, make some peace with what was to come. Although the sex was more than satisfactory it had never evolved into anything else.

Despite her beauty, the similarities in their background and the heat of her bed, her single-minded focus, her absolute confidence in her—in
their
—inherent superiority chilled him. Jasa possessed charm but no joy, had wit yet lacked humor, she was gracious but not kind.

He couldn’t honestly say he even liked her.

She knew that, of course. And made no difference to her. When he understood it did not, any hope of happiness in his coming marriage collapsed.

But now, with Arissa . . .

Suddenly his betrothal seemed so much more like a trap than it ever had.

She narrowed her blue eyes up at him then gave a half-smile. “I look forward to seeing you at our wedding on Zartan.”

“I will be there.” His eyes closed briefly. “As promised.”

Twenty

Jolar’s heart was hammering when he finally found her, sitting alone outside on the low wall in the courtyard of Bruscan’s house. She was still in the evening gown she’d worn to the reception, her shoulders hunched against the chill night air. Sertar’s moons had risen and by their light he could see she had been crying. Perhaps had been since Bruscan had whisked her out of his sight an hour ago.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Arissa didn’t even look at him. “Who are you?”

The illumination from Sertar’s moons made her face paler, tinted the dark ringlets of her hair with their cool, blue light. Like the goddess Seleni, she seemed a being fashioned entirely of moonlight—a beautiful specter, delicate, unreachable . . .

Jolar came closer, drawn like Seleni’s many ill-fated suitors toward a resplendence that threatened to remain forever just beyond his grasp. “You know who I am.”

She shook her head, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. “You told me your name, but I didn’t even think about it then. Tell me who you are.”

“Jolar d’Tural.”

“You’re a Zartani aristocrat, aren’t you?”

He passed his hand over his eyes. “Yes.”

“You’re Lord d’Tural then.”

“Yes.”

She put her hand over her mouth. “How could you do that to me?” she whispered and the pain of it slashed his heart. “How could you not tell me?”

“I never expected this to happen, none of this,” he said hoarsely. “What’s between us, how I feel about you—Gods, I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I didn’t even think I
could
. I love you, Arissa.”

“You’re
betrothed
.” Her voice rose, her eyes flashed with Seleni’s light. A goddess wronged, a power not to be affronted. “You should have
told
me. You should have told me everything.”             

“I don’t love her. I never did.”

Arissa turned her face away.

“It’s the truth,” he insisted.

Her eyes squeezed shut as if she were in pain. “I know,” she murmured.

His shoulders slumped in relief. Of course she would. Perhaps he could make her understand, somehow still make this right . . .

“When I realized I loved you I knew I had to tell you but I thought—I thought once we were finished here, once you had the ID, then together we could decide what to do.”

She regarded him with wide, shocked eyes. “You’re really going to marry her, aren’t you?”

A lump formed in his throat. “I have to.”

She shook her head. “Have to? You
have
to? You’re wealthy. You’re a Zartani lord. You can do anything you want!”

He gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “That’s what you think? That my life is my own? It’s not. It never has been. I have to live out my heritage, there’s no other honorable way. I’m bound by family name, Arissa, by a thousand years of Zartani tradition. That I ever even joined the military despite that heritage was only the result of years of battle between my father and I. Gods, it’s the only thing in my whole fucking life that’s my own, that I earned for myself. I was contracted to marry Jasa years ago. Once I made that vow, signed that contract, there was no going back.”

“People break betrothal contracts all the time,” she retorted and he realized she thought it only an excuse.

“Arissa, I can’t break the contract. If Jasa wanted . . . but that’s not going to happen. I gave my word as a Zartani nobleman to marry her. I have to do what’s right.”

Her shoulders fell. “And marrying Jasa is what’s right.”

“After my mother died, Father insisted that I make a ‘suitable’ match. He chose Jasa just as his parents chose my mother for him. He said she’d settle me, help me focus myself—whatever the hell that means. I didn’t want to be promised to her. I didn’t love her. I knew I never would. My father and I fought about it bitterly.” His throat tightened. “Then my father became ill, weaker with every passing day and finally, five years ago, when the healers said there wasn’t much time left . . . He said it would make it easier for him to go if he knew that I was promised. So, Jasa came to the house and we stood beside my father’s bedside . . . He pressed my mother’s betrothal bracelet into my hand and—” He swallowed. “And he died the next morning.”

“I know you loved him, that you still grieve for him.” Arissa said, her voice soft.

Hesitantly, Jolar sat beside her on the low wall.

“I meant what I said.” He touched the betrothal bracelet she wore; his finger traced the curves of metal warmed by her skin. “I want to marry you.”

Tears filled her eyes. “But you can’t ever do that, can you?”

“It shouldn’t be like this.” His hand wrapped around hers, her fingers were cold. “I can’t marry you, as much as I want to, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend our lives together.”

Her face twitched with hurt. “Be your shadow consort, you mean?”

“It wouldn’t be like that,” he promised. “You are my heart, Arissa. You’ll be my life.”

“While you’re married to Jasa.”

“I love
you
.”

She didn’t say it back this time. She knew every feeling he had, every heartache and joy and at that moment he wished so much that he too were a Seer—that he could know if she still loved him, if there were any hope at all—that he felt sick with it.

She turned away. “How would you feel if I were going to marry someone else?”

“How can you even ask that? You know how I’d feel. Arissa, there’s nothing I can do. I’m promised to her. I didn’t want to be. Not ever. My father wanted this, not me.”

“Did you ever join with her?”

His rush of shame must have given her the answer.

“Looks like you wanted it at least a little,” she said, her voice choked.

“I haven’t been intimate with Jasa for a long time and what we did was never more than—” He closed his eyes briefly. “It was never like it is between us. I can’t undo what happened before we met but I can give you everything from now on. I promised to take those vows but I won’t have a life with her. I won’t live with her.”

She stared at him. “So you’ll marry her and then what? You’ll kneel in Arrena’s temple, take vows you don’t mean at the Goddess of Love’s altar and just never consummate the marriage? You’ll put Jasa in a big house and me in a smaller one, stand beside her at official functions and spend your nights with me?”

“I gave my vow to my father. I made my promise to Jasa as a Zartani nobleman,” he said roughly. “Tell me how to make this right and I’ll do it!”

“There’s only one way to make this right, Jolar,” Arissa said, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I let you go.”

“No.” A jolt of sickened horror ran through his belly and his fingers clenched reflexively around hers. “No, there has to be a way. We’ll find a way.”

“I can’t live that like that. Being hidden away again. Not anymore.”

“You
won’t
be. You’ll have your ID. Everyone who matters to me will know who my true wife is. People have done it for centuries.”

“Your people—Zartani aristocrats—you mean.”

His voice rose. “People who had duty and wanted happiness too!”

“What about Jasa?”

“I won’t make any secret of what she can expect from this. She’ll know about you—about
us
—before I marry her. Honestly, I can’t believe she’ll care.”

“Could you really do that?” she asked, shaking her head. “Make vows you don’t mean? Live a lie like that?”

“Yes,” he said sharply. “If it means I can be with you.”

“What about children?”

He wet his lips. “We could have—”

She shook her head. “I can’t risk having a child like me. That leaves Jasa.”

“Then I won’t have children,” he said flatly.

“But you want them, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to have everything I want. If I did, you and I would be at Arrena’s temple right now getting married.”

“So, you’ll marry Jasa but not share her bed, not give her a child and she’ll live out her life alone while you spend yours with me?” She searched his face. “You can’t do that, Jolar.”

“If Jasa agrees, then what difference does it make?”

“Would you have kept your marriage vows if you hadn’t met me?”

Jolar stomach twisted.  He remembered going to the door of that tidy house in Kev-Zartan a month before he joined the Fleet. The puzzled, polite look on the attractive woman—about his mother’s age—who answered his knock, how his father had blanched upon seeing him there. How right then, swaying with the soft, spring rain dampening his face, he’d sworn never to betray his own wife the way his father had . . .

Jolar closed his eyes briefly.  “Things are different now.”

Arissa shook her head. “I can’t let you do this.”

“I don’t love her. She
knows
that. Neither one of us has been faithful.”

“But you were going to be after you took your marriage vows, weren’t you?”

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “We can have a lifetime—a whole lifetime—together Arissa!”

“Jolar, you wouldn’t—you
couldn’t
—respect yourself if you did this.”

“Because I’m a good man,” he said and the words tasted like ash. “An honorable one.”

“It will eat at you,” she said softly. “It’s eating at you now and I can feel it. I can’t live with that, feeling this, feeling what this will do to you.”

“Of course you can feel it,” he said, his voice bitter. “Anyone else I could hide it from. Anyone else I could have.”

Arissa shakily unfastened the cuff from her wrist. She held it out to him, the Zartani firestar of the betrothal bracelet blanched of its color by the moonlight. “Here.”

Tears burned his eyes. “Keep it.”

“No.” She extended it a little further. “That’s not right. And I just—I can’t wear again.”

“Please,” he begged hoarsely. “Even if it’s all you’ll ever have of me, gods, at least it’s something.”