“But Tolari civilization has existed for thousands of years!” Marianne exclaimed, sitting up. The world spun around her. She groaned and fell back.
“Yes it has, dear one,” said the Sural.
She gasped. This woman is thousands of years old.
“I have a lot to learn,” she said, sitting up with more care.
“Yes, dear one.” The Sural smiled. “You have.”
Her thoughts whirled at the idea that the Tolari possessed a fountain of youth. “The Admiral must never find out!”
The Jorann’s golden laughter filled the cavern. “He will not, child.”
“But what will happen the next time I talk to the ship? I can’t just go audio-only. They’d suspect right away that something was wrong.”
“The humans should not be able to see any visible change in you,” she answered. “Your face has not changed beyond a slight thickening of the skin on your forehead—more to the point, your hair and eye color have not and will not change, though they cannot be passed on to any children you might bear.”
Marianne winced. She covered it by getting to her feet.
“Other physical changes will happen slowly or not be readily visible at all, such as your feet changing to peds. It will take one or two of our years after you become fully Tolari before you will be able to camouflage.”
The Sural added, “You should be able to eat any of our foods by the time we return to my stronghold. That will be the first noticeable change.”
“I encourage you to try all our foods now, child,” said the Jorann. “You will find that even the ones you know will taste different.”
Marianne nodded, the flood of sensation overwhelming. She shoved at it, trying to create a quiet space to breathe.
The Jorann chuckled. “Go now, child. Let my grandson take you back to his stronghold. You need familiar surroundings to settle your mind, and he can tell you what you want and need to know along the way.” She started to turn away, then turned back. “You still do not realize?” She uttered a soft snort. “Receiving the blessing from my hand makes you a member of the ruling caste. My grandson has already realized this. You are his equal in status now, though your rank?” She shrugged a shoulder. “We will decide that after some time has passed. Know this—I do not want you harmed, by anyone, in any way. All Tolari will respect that, even my grandson’s enemies. Go now, daughter of Suralia.” She turned away again.
Dumbfounded, Marianne stared at the Jorann’s retreating figure. Kyza pulled at her hand to follow the Sural as he headed in the opposite direction, toward the stairs.
“H-high one?” she whispered.
“Walk with me,” the Sural called back, inflecting it as a request to an equal.
She hurried after him. Kyza camouflaged and dashed ahead, playing. The Sural gave Marianne a warm smile. She sensed more than saw the warmth. And the humans think him cold, she thought. If only they knew.
His smile became enigmatic.
“Will I always be easy to read?” she asked.
He laughed. “Perhaps not to others, dear one,” he said, taking her hand. “To me? Always.”
She gave him a rueful smile and changed the subject. “I should be angry.”
“For what reason?”
“For not telling me this would change me physically.”
“I did tell you.”
“You knew I didn’t understand!”
“It was necessary.”
“But—”
“Can you say, in truth, you did not wish to be one of us?” he asked.
Marianne brooded. “No,” she answered. “But I wish it had been a more conscious decision. My decision.”
He shrugged an apology.
She sighed, lips pressed together. It was the best she would get from him. Tolari! Dear God, he can be an arrogant bastage. Heaving another sigh, she said, “She called you her grandson.”
“I am many times her grandson,” he replied. “The title as she uses it is symbolic. I am one of few born among us with heightened abilities. No one can see me when I do not want to be seen, touch me when I do not want to be touched, or sense me when I do not want to be sensed. I can be a very dangerous man, and it is not just my training that makes me so. That is why I rule Tolar and not another of the provincial rulers. They could not stop me if I wanted to kill the ruler of every province on Tolar and take their lands and peoples for my own, and they know this. Ones like me are called the Jorann’s grandchildren. Only seven others have been born into the ruling caste since our civilization’s beginning. I am the eighth.”
Marianne’s skin prickled. An invisible assassin.
“Do not fear me, dear one,” he said. “I am dangerous to my enemies, not to those I protect. And I have enemies only because certain of the ruling caste have more ambition than is good for them. Despite the stability the Jorann’s grandchildren bring, they would rid themselves of my rule if they could.”
“So... the Jorann is protecting me?”
His face lit as he nodded. “No one will dare touch you now, not my allies, not my enemies. Any provincial ruler who tried to harm you would earn her wrath.”
“What does that mean?”
He hesitated. “It means... she turns her back on such a one.”
The air gusted out of her, hard. “You are a powerful man, high one.”
“Dear one.”
“Huh?”
“High ones address each other as dear one.”
She flushed, fiddling with the cuffs of her sleeves and wincing. “Oh. Then—you are a powerful man, dear one,” she said, pushing the awkward, far too intimate words through her lips.
“As long as I do not lose your favor,” he said in a low voice, squeezing her fingers. She looked down. He still held her hand. She blushed, and his dark eyes glinted with the delight her blushes seemed to inspire in most Tolari.
She took a shaky breath, but didn’t pull her hand away. The pressure of his fingers increased again, and her breathing hitched. Did he want to hold her hand? “What did she mean, she could see why you are besotted?”
He stopped and raised her hand to his lips. In the Jorann’s ice cave, he had seemed—blank, walled off, unreadable. Now, his presence came alive with emotion, powerful, almost shattering in its intensity. Love and longing flowed from within him and washed over her. She pulled away and put both hands to her face, trying to hide the blood rushing to her cheeks. Oh my God, she thought. Is that him? Was Addie right?
Her stomach sank. If she could sense so much of him, he must have long ago sensed the inappropriate feelings she struggled to keep under control. She stared up at him, eyes wide. Her throat tried to close, but she had to know.
“The Ambassador’s wife told me you—you were trying to court me,” she said.
“I am,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper. “I have been. For quite a long time.”
She couldn’t breathe. “But that can’t be true.”
He pried the hands from her face and held them close to his heart with both of his. The contact brought his feelings into sharp focus again. Love. Tenderness. Longing. Oh my God, she thought again. This can’t be happening.
“Tell me why.”
“I’m just a teacher.” Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “My ancestors are all farmers. I’m a nobody. You’re the sovereign ruler of a planet.”
His face crinkled into a bemused smile. “Such distinctions mean nothing to us,” he said, mirth coloring his voice. He touched her reddened face with his fingertips. “What matters to me is who you are, not what you are.”
Marianne found her mouth dry. A concerned look replaced the delight on his face. Her mind raced, trying to absorb it all. It couldn’t be possible. He—he loves me. How—why—? Fear stabbed her as the implications flashed before her mind’s eye. He sensed it.
“I have never harmed you,” he said, cupping her face with both hands and stroking her cheek with a thumb. “And I never will. Why do you fear me? Why do you fight your
self?”
“I don’t—” she stammered. A voice rose above the confusion in her head. You’re a professional, it said. Act like it. “I don’t love—”
He locked eyes with her. She looked down, the voice silenced and the lie stuck in her throat.
“I can sense your feelings, dear one,” he said. He folded his arms around her.
She trembled. He was so warm, the comfort he offered so… tantalizing. She let her arms slip around him, sighed, and sank into his embrace. Joy, fierce joy, burst from him, and his hold tightened.
Memory intruded of another taut pair of arms. She stiffened.
“Do not panic,” he told her. “I will not hurt you, and I will not allow anyone else to hurt you.”
She buried her face in his robes, her throat constricting, her knees turning to water.
“No one is hurting you,” he said. “No one can hurt you while I live.”
Gulping air, Marianne struggled to calm herself. Breath by breath, the panic diminished. Grief for her came from the Sural, and longing for him pierced her heart, creating a trail of warmth straight down to where she didn’t want to feel it. He lifted her chin to make her meet his eyes. Her stomach quivered.
“I will never harm you,” he said.
Marianne nodded, biting back tears. The Sural stroked her hair. “I will never hurt you,” he repeated.
She took a deep breath. “I—I don’t know why I get so afraid,” she said, her voice trembling.
“You have been hurt.” The hand under her chin shifted to cup her face. His mahogany eyes searched hers, but he didn’t probe. She thought. “Who hurt you? Will you tell me?”
She shook her head and looked down. “I can’t talk about it,” she whispered.
Disappointment flashed through him. He took a step back and offered an arm. “Walk with me,” he said. “We cannot delay our return to my stronghold any longer.”
She hesitated, then took his arm. The Sural touched her with a delicate probe, letting a little comfort flow into her as they walked. The turmoil within her began to ease.
When they came in range of the first guard—close to the top of the long flight of steps to the keep—he closed his empathic barriers with an almost audible snap. An instant later, Kyza stopped playing and became the sober child Marianne had always known.
Marianne did her best to imitate them but failed. Still, she reasoned, she could be expected to be in considerable confusion from her visit with the Jorann, which everyone in the stronghold knew she had just experienced. She hoped she didn’t give away anything she shouldn’t.
At the top of the stairs, her jaws itched and her lungs burned, but she had expected worse so soon after a medical procedure. The strange energy she’d awakened with still buzzed through her body, giving her a new strength, but she knew herself weaker than the Tolari around her. And they were everywhere around her. Guards lined the corridor, guards she always knew had to be there, but she had never known where or how many. Now she could sense them.
The Sural led her to a door in the family wing. “Your quarters have been moved here, dear one,” he said. The reaction to his words rippled through the guards. The news of just how high the Jorann had raised her status would be all over Suralia by nightfall—which was not far off. Through the window at the end of the hall, sunset painted the sky shades of red and purple. “Kyza’s apartments are next to yours. The servants moved your belongings exactly as they were in your old quarters.”
Marianne nodded, giving him a shaky smile, a little surprised. Then she decided she should have expected it. It was no longer appropriate to keep her in guest quarters. He opened the door for her and she peered into her new sitting room. It looked identical. She started to walk in, but he stopped her.
“No time for that now,” he said. “Follow me.”
“Yes, dear one,” she replied, feeling an even stronger ripple of reaction run through the guards. She wondered what they thought.
He led the way to the audience room near the entrance of the keep. Dozens of representatives of the Sural’s allies—provincial heirs, regents, or trusted chief advisors—and numerous representatives of the city and the surrounding regions of Suralia stood scattered through the huge room. As they entered, the guards along the walls flickered into sight.
The Sural left Marianne and Kyza at the door. “Stay here until I call you,” he said, walking ahead into the room with long, ground-eating strides. When he reached the dais, he lowered himself to sit on his heels in its center. The guards disappeared from view, and the guests sat.
The Sural spoke. “Kyza,” he called in a strong voice, “Today you are legal heir to Suralia. Come forward, dear one.”
As Kyza reached the Sural’s dais, one guest stood; a figure in a pale tan robe with embroidery from collar to waist. The color showed he came from Detralar; the embroidery proclaimed him its ruler, the Detral, the Sural’s ally and the second most powerful member of the ruling caste. His province lay on Suralia’s western border, or, bonded ruler that he was, he would not have come. Provincial rulers never strayed far from their provinces without a strong reason, and bonded rulers even more so.
The Detral held out both arms. “Who stands witness that Kyza has passed the great trial of Suralia?” he called.
Storaas stood from among a group of the Sural’s advisors.
“I stand witness,” he said. “I am the Sural’s family tutor. I administered the trial.”
The Sural’s head apothecary rose next to him. “I stand witness,” she said. “I am the Sural’s head apothecary. I witnessed her return from the dark.”
The Sural stood and gazed at his daughter. “Who receives your obedience?” he asked.
“Accept my obedience, Father,” Kyza said. “I pledge my life to your life. I will walk into the dark for your honor.”
He smiled and held out a hand. She climbed the steps onto the dais to take the hand and stand beside him.
“Hear me and stand witness that Kyza pledges her life and her honor to the Sural. Her life belongs to mine. I will defend her with my honor, my life, and my people. She is the legal heir to Suralia.”
Kyza looked up at her father, her eyes shining, then moved to the heir’s place behind and to his right and sat on her heels.
“Marianne, daughter of Suralia,” the Sural called. “Come forward, dear one.”
Marianne felt the Sural’s words hit the guests like cattle prods. That will be all over the planet by nightfall, she thought. She walked forward and stopped at the foot of the dais.
“Who receives your obedience?”
“Accept my obedience, dear one,” she answered, repeating Kyza’s words. “I pledge my life to your life. I will walk into the dark for your honor.”
He looked out over the guests. “Hear me and stand witness that Marianne Woolsey pledges her life and her honor to the Sural. Her life belongs to mine. I will defend her with my honor, my life, and my people. She is a daughter of Suralia.
“Hear me,” he continued. “The Jorann has given Marianne her protection.”
The Sural stepped to the edge of the dais and held out a hand to Marianne. She took it and let him pull her up by his side. Loud conversation broke out as every man, woman, and child in the room crowded around. Music filled the room. Servants appeared carrying trays of food and drink, which emptied before they reached her. Thirsty, Marianne stepped down from the dais and searched for a drink, overwhelmed by the uncharacteristic revelry, wondering how she ever could have thought these people were cold. Her people. My people.
Chapter Thirteen
The audience room emptied late in the night, the guests leaving to return to their own homes or to take guest rooms within the Sural’s keep. The Sural stepped down from the dais, on which he had spent the entire evening, with a satisfied air. Marianne, on the other hand, was tired, giddy, and inebriated. At first, she hadn’t realized the drinks were alcoholic. After the first few, she knew but drank them anyway.
“You coul
d have the decency to be tired, even if you’re too stubborn to let yourself look tired,” she said.
He laughed. “What tells you that I am not fatigued?”
She tittered. “A little birdie told me,” she whispered in English.
He lifted both eyebrows.
“It’s an old saying people on my planet used when they wanted to reveal they knew a secret but didn’t want anyone to know who told it to them. A little birdie told me.”
“Ah,” he said. “A colorful people, those people of old Earth.” He led her from the audience room and into the corridor.
“I am not ashamed of them!” she said, tripping a little. “Oops!” She giggled. “I think I’m drunk.”
The Sural put out an arm to steady her. “Yes, dear one, you are,” he said.
She clung to his arm as he led her down the corridor to the family wing. The hard muscle of his forearm flexed under her hand, and her body, every inch of her skin, ignited with sensation. She wasn’t sure if she should attribute it to the alcohol or her newly-acquired Tolari senses, but whatever the cause, she liked it.
He stopped at her door and gestured the guards out of range. She leaned with her back against the door and faced him. “Are you coming in?” she asked. Her voice came out husky and low.
He took her hands and brought them to his lips, shaking his head with obvious effort, eyes full of regret. “No, dear one.”
Marianne gaped at him, confusion adding to the fog in her head. “But I thought you—”
“I had hoped we would take joy in one another this night,” he said, tracing the line of her jaw with a finger. “Nothing would give me greater happiness, if I knew that you would not regret it in the more... sober... light of morning.” He stopped. “But you would.”
Her new empathic senses registered regret in his voice and pain in his heart. She drew a breath. “No I—”
“Yes, you would, and you know that.”
She pouted a moment, and then had an idea. “Do Tolari know how to kiss?”
The finger stopped tracing. He cupped her face in both hands. “Yes,” he murmured. “But we find that touching the empathic nerves in our foreheads is more—intense.”
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