“His description is not accurate,” the Sural told her. They sat across from each other at a table in the family wing library. “It is a common belief, but it is not accurate.”
“And you know this—how, exactly?” she asked.
“I have experienced it.”
Marianne lifted her face from the manuscript to gape at him. “What?”
“I have walked into the dark.”
“But—but—”
“I am not dead?”
She nodded.
He smiled at her. “We call it the great trial. Suralia’s heirs must choose to walk into the dark to save their honor and their province, before they are considered worthy to rule. Only Suralia knows how to bring someone back from it. Other provinces—their people cannot have quite the same faith in their rulers the children of Suralia can have, because other rulers are not tested to the death as we are. My people know I will walk into the dark for them, because I have already done so.”
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say and just stared at him. He’s been dead?
He chuckled. “When our heirs reach a certain point in their training, they must be subjected to the great trial,” he continued. “They are never told they are being given the great trial until they have passed it. If they pass it.”
“If they pass it?” Prickles went up her spine. “What happens if they fail?”
“They die.”
Her eyes popped, and his lips twitched before he assumed a more serious expression.
“They can also fail if they are strong enough to return from the dark but not strong enough to recover from the shock without permanent damage to their empathic abilities. The shock is painful.” He stared past her, his eyes growing distant. “Extremely painful.”
“And you’ve done this?” she asked.
“My father would not have declared me his heir if I had not, nor would I rule now.”
“How old were you?”
“Younger than is Kyza.”
Marianne rocked back in her chair.
“I was unusually young,” he added.
“So it will be soon, for Kyza?”
“Indeed, most likely in the coming year. She is pressing Storaas for challenges and passing them. I would have her slow her pace and be closer to five than to four when she faces the great trial, but she is strong-willed.”
Marianne stifled a snort. The Sural eyed her, eyebrow raised. “You were even younger than she is now, and you call her strong-willed?”
He smiled with deliberate mystery. “I admit I was a challenge for my father.”
“I just bet.”
“Regardless of comparisons, my daughter is still headstrong.”
“Your daughter has you in her thrall.”
He laughed. “Yes,” he said, smiling. “Even so.”
Marianne sobered. “She’ll pass the great trial, won’t she?”
“She is strong,” he answered, “but no one can say with any certainty.”
Marianne bit her lip and gazed at the manuscript on the table.
“Tell me about this story,” she said, changing the subject. “Why does the protagonist follow his friend into the dark?”
Chapter Nine
The mid-spring thaws brought green life back to Suralia, and buds appeared on the cora trees in the Sural’s gardens, swelling as the days lengthened. Kyza made her way along one of the sparkling brooks dividing the garden. Storaas had given her leave from her studies to play in the gardens until the midday meal. She chose a rock and sat, splashing her peds in the water, basking in the spring sunlight. Tiny water creatures nibbled at her heels. She giggled and splashed at them.
Flutters winged past, alarmed and calling, shedding brilliant feathers in panic. Kyza camouflaged and dove into a hollow under a nearby cora tree’s thick basal branches. The flutters knew her father and every member of the stronghold staff and would never have fled from them. If it were a guest, a guard would have flicked a signal that she was safe.
Where are the guards? She concentrated, opening her senses without extending them, and found the nearby guards gone. If this were a test, she thought, would they not be in their places? Test or not, she must not be found. An intruder—one of her father’s enemies—would try to capture her, and if it were a test, the proctors would give her a heavy load of extra work for letting them find her. Careful, silent, she molded herself into a hollow under the branches and made herself one with the dead vegetation.
Time crawled past. Her hiding place lay too far into the gardens to hear the activity in the keep, but several times she heard the sounds of a search. Someone crept along the path—someone she did not recognize with her senses. Kyza slowed her breathing and her heart rate as Storaas had taught her. Whoever tried to find her, proctor or enemy, would track her by many different methods: the smell of her breath drifting from her hiding place, the thud of a heartbeat, an oh-so-slight ripple in the air, a stray emotion. She breathed into the soft moss lining the hollow and concentrated, absorbed with becoming undetectable to any Tolari, even—especially—her own tutors. She could not hide from her father, or from Storaas, but if they sought her, she was in no danger.
She let her mind settle. She melted into the winter-killed vegetation under the cora tree, scattered with dead twigs and peaking with faint bits of spring green life. Her thoughts lengthened, feeling the life in the soil as it woke from the long winter, becoming one with the flow of it. The searcher went past her hiding place without a pause.
Time passed, and still no signal came from a proctor or a guard. Running feet pounded by. Kyza concentrated on controlling her heart and breathing. The proctors had given her tests this long before, and she knew she could endure it. She had not eaten since the morning meal, and it began to occupy more of her attention to keep her stomach from complaining. The proctors must have timed the beginning of the trial to make hunger a part of the test. She would never admit it to any of her teachers, but she knew she did not have an adult’s endurance. The stronghold guards could remain camouflaged and motionless all day, but she had only four years of life—her body would betray her, sooner or later.
More time crept by. The sounds of searching had ceased. She could feel the sun setting and the darkness flowing across the garden. She had remained hidden and motionless since before the midday meal, through the long afternoon. Now she focused all her concentration on the one imperative task of keeping her body from betraying her position under the tree. Her body cried for food, water, and the need to move. A rock pressed into one leg. Her left shoulder was at an awkward angle. Her side ached.
She did not move. The vital need to remain still and undetectable absorbed every thought, every bit of her awareness. Desperate, she sent her mind roving back to Storaas and his most recent lessons. She could hear his gentle voice in her memory.
“It is always possible—however unlikely it may be—that one of your father’s enemies will find a way to defeat his defenses and take the stronghold. If that happens, you cannot let them capture you. Kyza, dear child, cherished daughter of the Sural—if the stronghold is taken, then you must walk into the dark. We must all go into the dark. You must find the strength and courage to go bravely.”
There. She smelled it. Smoke. She sorted through the smell as it grew stronger. The smoke cloyed in her nostrils, sweet, as if fire feasted on incense and seasoned wood. Shock flooded her, almost breaking her concentration. This is not a test. The stronghold is burning.
Father! She did not dare reach out her senses to search for him. It would lead his enemies to her. If the stronghold burned, then he was dead or dishonored. No! she thought, he was not dishonored, her father would never allow himself to be captured. He must be dead. She felt along the bond she shared with him and found… nothing. Her struggle to remain concealed had absorbed so much of her attention she had failed to notice she was alone.
Her heart drowning in grief, her body screaming for release, she turned her mind into the dark, the quie
t dark that, it surprised her to discover, dulled her body’s discomfort. She almost cried out in relief as her pain and hunger and thirst faded into the welcoming night. I will be strong for you, Father, she thought. You would have been proud of me. She would not be taken alive.
<<>>
“Kyza. Tell me.” The Sural’s voice was flat, emotionless.
Quiet filled the private study as the agitated ruler paced. Ancient effigies of even more ancient ancestors looked down from the ancient, fragrant paneling lining the walls. He stopped pacing the mat-covered floor before the desk and faced Storaas.
“She went into the dark, high one.” He twitched his deep indigo robe, betraying his mixed feelings. He was proud of Kyza. Apprehensive of the Sural.
The Sural waved a hand. He was unreadable, his empathic barriers closed, but Storaas knew the man was in an agony of apprehension. “Will she live?”
Storaas bowed, arms spread, palms forward. He could not discern if the Sural was pleased or displeased with how advanced Kyza’s training had been at such a young age, and the news was uncertain. He had had to deliver worse news when the apothecaries were not able to bring a potential heir back from the dark. It had become more difficult each time, and each successive death had devastated the Sural the more.
With Kyza, it would be much, much worse. It was not only that the Sural cherished her more than her predecessors. If she could not make a complete recovery, the Sural would have to command his daughter to walk back into the dark, because a weakened heir could not legally rule Suralia. Though the Sural had ordered him to administer the great trial, she should have had another year of life before facing it. For good or ill, her level of proficiency demanded it at this time. Kyza had been so delightful he could not resist teaching her everything she wanted to know, and he could not suppress pride that she was almost the youngest child of Suralia ever to come back from the dark.
The only one who had been younger, he thought, was her father, but he was a special case. Kyza, though brilliant, was not in the same category with the Sural. He was a grandchild of the Jorann.
The Sural’s voice cracked through the air like a glacier calving. “Speak,” he commanded, tearing apart the net of Storaas’ thought.
“She lives, high one. Barely.” Storaas twitched his robe again, a nervous habit he had never, in all his long years, succeeded in breaking.
“Will she recover?” The question was flat, toneless.
A hesitation. “That is not yet clear, high one. She is still near the edge of the dark, deep in shock. Your apothecaries need more time to determine if she has sustained permanent damage.”
The Sural let out a breath. “I wish to see her,” he said and strode from the room, slamming his already-closed barriers even tighter before entering the keep’s main corridor.
Three other times, Storaas had come to him after administering the great trial to one of his potential heirs. His children. His sons. Each child had failed the test—dying from it, not strong enough to return from the descent into the dark. The Sural pushed away the memories. Kyza was the fourth to endure it and the first to survive. If she could not recover her full strength—he rejected the thought, refusing to dwell on the possibility that he would have to command her to go back into the dark. He clamped down on his feelings, but he could not control a stray hope that sent his heart soaring. She survived! He exulted in the knowledge as he made his way to his apothecary’s quarters. She must recover. She will recover.
<<>>
Smithton Russell dropped into his chair and rubbed his temples with large hands. “She’s near death? What kind of monster is that Sural?”
The adjutant standing on the other side of Smithton’s desk, a fresh, clean-cut young man, shrugged. “They’re an unemotional culture.”
The Ambassador scowled. “Don’t pretend to teach me my job, pup,” he snapped. “Learn to recognize a rhetorical question when you hear one.”
Aurelio Johnson—odd name, he thought—paled under his dark skin. “Yes sir.” The young man straightened his already straight posture and glued his eyes to a spot on the bulkhead behind the Ambassador’s head.
Smithton scowled again. “Don’t go all military on me either.”
“Yes sir. I mean, no sir. I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Out.”
“Yes sir.” He turned on his heel and left the room, relief clear on his face.
Smithton sighed as the door closed behind the young man. He leaned back in the chair, gazing out the viewport at the beautiful world below. He uncorked a bottle of brandy and poured himself a drink. “Harsh world, my foot,” he muttered as he settled into the seat’s cushions and sipped. “That planet is greener than Ireland.”
“Are you sure about that?” came a woman’s voice from behind him. “It looks a little too blue to me.”
Smithton started and put down the drink. “Adeline!”
His wife moved around the chair and sat on the desk with an impudent grin. “If you don’t want a conversation, don’t think out loud.”
“Stop sneaking around!”
“Oh Smitty, you know I can’t help it,” she chided. Her voice was bland.
Smithton grunted. His wife made barely a sound on stone floors with hard shoes. On a carpeted floor in slippers, she made as much noise as a cat. He’d always thought her a natural for an intelligence operative, but she had maintained she had no interest in even learning self-defense, much less how to kill. She put a delicate hand on his large, blocky one. For the hundred thousandth time, he wondered what she saw in him.
“Tell me what’s got you grunting and scowling.” She peered into his face, scrunching her own into a parody of his expression.
“It’s that adjutant of mine.”
“No it’s not,” she said. Smithton started to speak but she shushed him with a finger. “Oh no, don’t tell me. Yes, I’m sure you grumped at him for something he did. No, I’m not interested in what it was. He behaved like the Earth Fleet lieutenant he is, I’m sure, but it’s not fair to fault him for behaving the way he’s been trained to behave. You’re scowling because something else has you lathered. What is it?”
Smithton glared up at his wife, then softened and took a sip of his brandy. “It’s that damned Sural of theirs,” he said, gesturing at the planet in the viewport.
“What’s he done this time?”
“Damned near killed his daughter in one of their damnable tests. She might not live.”
Adeline rocked back a little. “Ouch.”
“Eight years we’ve been waiting since she was born, another eighteen years before she’s old enough to be their ambassador, and they risk it all in one of their damned trials!” He cursed the Tolari custom that a ruler’s ambassador must be his heir and quit the chair to take up a brooding stance at the viewport, staring out at the planet below.
Adeline picked up his drink and handed it to him, then slipped her arms about his waist. “Too bad we can’t offer to send down a medical team.”
He glared at her. “’Course not,” he grated. “Sometimes I forget these people aren’t human. They look so much like us—unless that’s camouflage too.”
“Oh Smitty,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ll put her on my prayer list.”
“Damned girl should already be on your damned prayer list. Or maybe the damned little alien shouldn’t be on any proper prayer list.”
“Smithton!”
He turned and gave her an unrepentant smirk.
“You’re impossible!” Adeline accused.
“No, just highly improbable,” he retorted.
He couldn’t resist her silver laughter.
<<>>
A purple dawn filtered through the dark, wooden blinds in the head apothecary’s quarters. The Sural, sitting on the edge of the examination bed on which Kyza lay, studied his daughter, looking for signs of returning consciousness. He had not left her side for two days, rejecting the head apothecary’s suggestions to get some sleep. She had
given up trying to convince him to rest and instead had joined him, monitoring his daughter’s condition.
During the night, he sensed Kyza begin to approach consciousness and refused to leave for any reason. Now the dawn rewarded his long vigil. When the sun’s first rays reached through the windows, Kyza stirred.
She almost could not stifle a cry and arched her back as agony slammed into her awareness, every nerve in her body on fire. She clamped her jaw and convulsed, a scream trying to escape her throat. Her eyes fluttered open, unseeing, as she fought to remain silent. She could not, would not, draw the enemy to her.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard her father’s voice. “I am here, daughter.” A gentle hand touched her forehead. He took one of her hands in his. “You are not alone. Take strength from me.”
Father! She dug her nails into his hand and threw her head back so far the bones in her neck popped, gritting her teeth to stifle a cry as the pain increased. Desperate, she threw her senses at her father, beating against him. He caught her with practiced care and wrapped his own senses around hers, letting her cling to him and draw strength from him. His love surrounded and supported her. Her rebellious body began to relax. As she regained control, the pain receded enough for her surroundings to come into focus. The hard comfort of an examination bed, the smell of the apothecaries’ potions biting her nostrils, and—her eyes slitted open.
“Father.” Her voice was almost inaudible, even to her own ear. She sensed more than saw him sitting on the bed beside her. How am I alive? Memory sparked. “A test?”
“Yes, daughter.”
The Marann Page 12
