B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (8 page)

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.

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 activities.”

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?”