* * *
Marianne awoke alone, the sun well above the eastern horizon. She stared up at the ceiling, hurt blossoming in her chest and spreading through her. Had the Sural joined her during the night? The last thing she remembered was crying herself to sleep.
At least she didn’t have the nightmare...
This was all his fault. He manipulated her into becoming Tolari; he manipulated others into pretending to be her friends; he manipulated everyone and everything. For the rest of what promised to be a very long life, she would never know who truly cared.
None of them, possibly. She wasn’t really Tolari. Not really. Everything she thought and believed was different, and she would always look human. She fought back tears as more pain seared through her heart.
And the Sural was staying away. She closed her eyes and sank into misery.
A presence entered her sitting room: Cena, calm and serene. When the guard let her into the sleeping room, the apothecary made no attempt to conceal her alarm. “High one, have you eaten?”
“No,” Marianne answered, her voice toneless.
“Have you had anything at all to drink?”
“No.”
“This is not good, high one.”
“What do you care?”
Cena sat on her heels beside the mat. “Of course I care,” she said. “I am your apothecary.”
Marianne threw her arms over her face. “Oh, is that all,” she whispered.
“I do not understand this change in you. Will you explain to me what has happened?”
More hurt constricted her throat. She swallowed. “You don’t have to pretend to be my friend anymore, apothecary. I know it was just the Sural telling you to be nice to me for my own good.” The tears would no longer be denied and started to leak around her arms.
Cena was silent for a moment, and then said, “I am only an apothecary. You are a member of the ruling caste. I required permission to be familiar with you.”
“Good God,” Marianne muttered in English. “He’s a worse control freak than I thought.”
“High one, it is our way.”
“It’s not my way!” she exclaimed, and burst into sobs. She rolled over to bury her face in the blankets. “I’ll never know,” she gulped hard, “who really likes me.”
“I like you.”
“Sure you do.”
“Read me,” she offered. “I cannot lie to you. Take my hand.”
The words eased the hurt a little. Marianne took shaky breaths, her face buried in the blankets.
“Do you believe I took no pleasure in our talks?” Cena continued. “Do you believe I was only pretending to enjoy your company? For tens of days? Take my hand, high one. Sense my friendship for yourself.”
She lifted her face to look over at the apothecary, who was sitting beside the sleeping mat with one hand extended toward her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m still not very good at all this. I can barely find my daughter to commune with her.”
Cena laid a hand on her shoulder, and Marianne felt the apothecary probing her. “She needs you now. Are you able to calm yourself enough to comfort her?”
Marianne rolled onto her side and took several deep breaths. She gave Cena a sidelong glance, wondering if she would really be a friend, given the choice. She took another breath. Her daughter needed her now.
Still uncertain, she reached into herself. It was easier this time, to her relief. Maybe I’ll get the hang of this yet. She wrapped her senses around her discontented daughter and soothed her, while the soft hum of Cena’s medical scanner filled the air.
“You are dehydrated,” Cena said. “Otherwise, you have not harmed yourself or your daughter.”
When her daughter was content again, Marianne replied, “I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“No, you are not, high one.”
She flipped onto her back and stared fixedly at the ceiling. “How would you know?”
“Because the Sural gave himself to you.”
She scowled. “You have to say that, you’re his—”
“The Sural is the most powerful man on Tolar,” Cena interrupted. “He has ruled us for 130 years – our years – more than 260 Earth years, in terms that are more meaningful to you, but he remained alone until you came. Do you think a man of his experience could be fooled by a woman as young and naive as yourself for any length of time? If he believes you are ‘worth the trouble,’ what qualifies you to say he is mistaken?”
“Well ... but he ... he didn’t even ask—”
“No, he did not ask. He made a decision about your life without consulting you. Do you know so little about men? It is a common failing among them to do what they think is best without consulting anyone. The Sural is accustomed to making decisions, to being the final voice on all matters. He is accustomed to taking what seems to him to be the best course of action. It would never occur to him that he needed to consult you before seeing to your needs.”
Marianne swallowed.
Cena gestured to a servant, who stepped into view. “Bring food and drink for the Marann,” she said. Then she turned back to Marianne.
“When the food arrives, you will eat, high one,” she ordered. “A full meal. You will drink at least two full mugs of tea.”
“Yes, apothecary.” Cena’s imperiousness brought a reluctant smile to her face. “I suppose I’m a little hungry.”
Cena nodded and continued to examine the results of her scan on her tablet. “I am concerned about your mood.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Your mood affects your daughter more than you seem to realize, high one. I would have this be easier for you, but the situation is as it is.”
Marianne sat up, rubbing her face. “How much longer will I have these mood swings, do you think?”
Cena compressed her lips. “Until your body stops producing human hormones. Treating you with the Jorann’s blessing will accelerate your transformation to a small degree, but I cannot give you an answer yet.”
Oh joy. Marianne sighed. Then she sensed the Sural entering her quarters and did her best to wipe all expression from her face. Cena looked around just as he burst into view in the doorway, carrying a trencher of food in one hand and a small carafe of tea in the other. Marianne watched him as he knelt and sat on his heels beside her sleeping mat, placing the trencher down next to her and pouring a mug of tea. Cena camouflaged and left, her serene presence retreating through the sitting room.
Marianne took the mug without comment. Two can play that game. He met her gaze, his eyes calm. She looked away to the trencher of food and grabbed a roll from it, staring back at him as she bit into it, trying to fill her glare with accusation. She ate about half the roll before breaking the silence.
“You are,” she said, “the most manipulative individual it has ever been my misfortune to know.”
He spread his hands and shrugged a shoulder.
“You don’t deny it?”
“I do what I must.”
“You don’t must choose my friends for me,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You chose to confide in my apothecary. I merely approved what you started.”
Her jaw dropped. “You have to approve my friends for me?”
“If they are not members of the ruling caste.”
“But ... but ... that’s almost everyone I’ll ever meet! Why can’t I just approve my own friends? Our status is equal!”
“But not our rank.” His voice was gentle.
She snorted in disgust and rolled away from him onto her stomach, propped on her elbows, chewing on the roll. The Sural stayed where he was. Smart man, she thought. Then she peered at him more closely. He was trying to mask it, but he was enjoying looking at her. Men! She scowled at him.
“What makes you so special, anyway?” She finished the roll and reached for a piece of fruit.
“I rule Suralia,” he said. “I lead the ruling caste. I am a grandchild of the Jorann.”
> “Ugh,” she replied around a mouthful of food. She swallowed. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“It tells you everything.”
“No it doesn’t,” she said. “Boss of the whole world, hereditary ruler, whatever. Why does that give you the right to control every little detail of my life?”
“Beloved, I do not solicit your friendships for you. Cena came to me. It is our way that I must approve any familiarity because of your status, but I have no interest in deciding with whom you associate. That is for you to determine.”
She blinked, his words finally sinking in. “Cena went to you?” That meshed with what the apothecary had said earlier. The Sural had mentioned something similar the night before, but she had been too hurt and angry to hear it. She munched on her fruit, the hard edge of her anger beginning to dissipate.
“Your life is my life,” he said. “I want only to see you smile.”
She stopped in mid-bite. “You have a funny way of going about it.”
He tilted his head. “Your life is more precious to me than my own. Since your first day here, I have controlled everything around you.”
“To see me smile,” she said in a flat voice.
“Yes, beloved. I will first protect you with my life, and second do anything to see you smile.”
“But—”
“I am not a very complicated man,” he said. “Forgive me for upsetting you.”
Marianne looked away, out the windows that overlooked the gardens. “Damn it,” she muttered in English. “Now I feel like a jerk.”
He smiled, his mahogany eyes warm with affection, and held his arms out to her. She let him hold her. “Stop manipulating me,” she said into his shoulder.
He leaned his chin on her head. “I cannot.”
She growled and felt him smile. “Stop that.”
He squeezed her, tilting his head to rest his cheek in her hair. She could tell he was still smiling.
Chapter Six
Tolar’s orange sun glowed the color of blood as it crawled over the horizon, its light filtering into Marianne’s sitting room. The Sural took little notice of the spectacular display as he concentrated on the report now on his tablet. His science advisors had all endorsed this plan to rebuild and repopulate Detralar, the province whose ruler had tried to assassinate Marianne.
Detralar belonged to Suralia now, ceded by the Detral before his execution. The Sural had renamed it Terelia, and it was currently uninhabitable. A coalition of rulers, among them his old enemy the Monral, had reduced the entire province to ash, but he was almost grateful for their act of pettiness. Three hundred thousand Detrali had walked into the dark when their Detral died in dishonor; the cleanup and proper disposition of so many bodies would have been a monumental task.
He winced at the thought of the graceful city lying in ruins, the lives lost, the art and literature and history destroyed, the once-fertile cropland now sterile. Only the nearly indestructible transport tunnels below the surface had survived the devastation.
Petty indeed.
He transmitted an order to begin implementing the plan and set the tablet in his lap, stopping for a moment to close his eyes and give an empathic touch to Marianne, sleeping on her mat in the next room. Sleeping peacefully. Her nightmares had ceased, the anxiety driving them having waned to nothing. He shared her relief.
It had been several tens of days since the Jorann had saved her child – he could find no reason for that uncharacteristic interference of hers, though he was deeply grateful for it. And now, his beloved’s moods had finally settled and smoothed, returning to something only a little more volatile than her pre-increase state. And her abdomen was swelling, much to her delight.
He had not expected it to delight him as well.
She stirred and sighed, beginning to wake. A few moments later, he sensed her communing with her child. He touched them again with his senses, mother and child, giving a gentle caress to the contented little glow within her, but the contact was of necessity brief. His morning was a hectic one. He returned to his reports, hoping to get another out of the way before escorting Marianne to the morning meal. Running a province, ruling a planet, and taking care of a gravid bond-partner during the busiest season of the year left him little time for much else, but he would not have it any other way.
The next report drew an exasperated snort from him: a human ship lurked at the fringes of the cometary belt around Tolar’s star. He wondered what the humans hoped to accomplish. They had already lost some respect from a number of the space-faring races in the sector for their harassment of the Tolari. Certainly no other race would dare attempt the abduction of the bonded partner of Tolar’s ruler, however primitive they believed the Tolari to be, and none faulted the Sural for cutting off diplomatic relations with Earth over it.
He shook his head, and then allowed himself a crooked grin. The more superstitious humans believed the whispers in the Trade Alliance that his people were protected by powerful, advanced beings. He did nothing to disabuse them of the notion, and he occasionally came just short of dishonor by not quite reinforcing it. Still grinning, he sent an order to his head guard to transmit a shrouded signal to the trespassers with an invitation to leave Tolari space and never return.
Marianne appeared in the doorway with a sleepy smile, already bathed and dressed and running a brush through her hair. She crossed the room to drop onto the divan beside him. He put an arm around her and brought up the next report as she nestled into him. Flooding caused by volcanic activity under Vedelar’s glaciers was threatening to create a natural disaster; the Vedelia was requesting aid. He marked it as a priority and transmitted it to the logistician in charge of Suralia’s emergency management.
Marianne murmured something incoherent.
He looked down at her. “Are you ready for your morning meal, beloved?” he asked.
Slow to wake, she murmured again, as she buried her face in his shoulder.
He chuckled and stood, pulling her up with him.
* * *
By the time Marianne reached the refectory, the walk had cleared her head, but it wasn’t until she’d already taken a seat at the high table that she realized her mistake in coming there at all. A large number of science teams were in the stronghold, having some kind of conference on the planetary weather control system, and it looked like all of them were taking their morning meal at once.
Worse, a number of the visiting climatologists were of sufficiently high rank that the Sural invited them to eat at his table, where they regaled him with their theories. It was all very confusing, and she ate in silence while they discussed arcane details of climate management with vocabulary she didn’t recognize even after more than eight standard years on Tolar.
The Sural, annoyingly, was amused to see her out of her element. She gave him a stare, which to her further annoyance only amused him the more, and retreated to the library in the family wing, her omnipresent aide trailing behind her.
Kyza was deep in a discussion with her maths tutor when Marianne arrived in the library. Storaas welcomed her with a lecture delivered in Old Tolari, and gave her a treatise in Middle Suralian to read. She studied the treatise until it was time for her morning visit to her apothecary.
Cena was brisk, a sign that Marianne had come to recognize meant the Sural’s healer had a full schedule for the day. She delayed the busy woman only long enough to get a good look at her baby on the medical tablet. She never tired of gazing at the little face of her tiny daughter, who was entirely human-looking at this stage – or rather, Tolari-looking, she corrected herself – and about the size of an avocado. She was perfect.
“Your dreams have been peaceful for some tens of days,” Cena said.
Marianne looked up and nodded. “It’s a huge relief.”
“And your body is tolerating the increase well now.” The healer gazed at Marianne, tapping her chin with a finger. “I believe your aide is no longer necessary, and you may resume your normal activiti
es.”
She blinked. “All my normal activities?”
Cena’s mouth twitched. “Yes, high one,” she answered, then added, “You and the Sural are free to resume coupling like a pair of digger squid in warm water, but try to be moderate. You need sufficient rest.”
Marianne blushed and laughed. “What is a digger squid, exactly?”
“A small, twelve-armed cephalopod that lives in the southern oceans. In the spring, huge throngs of them migrate to breed in warmer waters. After selecting a partner, they mate continuously from dusk to dawn, when the male dies. We believe it dies in ecstasy.”
Marianne stifled a giggle and wandered out the door to the gardens. Faint music drifted on the breeze. Was there a visiting musician in the stronghold? Curious, she followed the sound.
The music came from a gazebo near one of the streams that divided the garden. She approached softly, not wanting to disturb the player, and was surprised to find a girl of perhaps ten standard years. Absorbed in the music, her eyes closed, she played an oboe-like wind instrument with breathtaking skill for one so young.
The girl seemed to become aware of Marianne and stopped playing, opening her eyes.
“Don’t stop,” Marianne said. She entered the gazebo and sat just inside.
“Yes, high one,” the girl said, beginning again.
“Wait, no—” Marianne interrupted, and the girl stopped. “Not like that. I just didn’t want to interrupt your practice. You play so beautifully.”
“My gratitude,” she said with a bow. “Are you the Marann?”
“Yes, I am. What’s your name? What brings you to the stronghold?”
“I am Thela. My father is a climatologist who came to meet with the Sural.”
Marianne nodded. “Yes, I met a few of those at the morning meal.” She lowered her voice and added in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s all very boring, isn’t it?”
Thela stifled a giggle. Marianne smiled warmly at the girl, who looked like she was pondering something.
“High one—” She hesitated.
“Yes?”
“My father told me the Jorann turned you into a Tolari, that you are no longer truly human.”
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