Peter shook his head. “No. In memory of his mother, I will take Justern’s case for one-quarter of my normal fee.”
Something clicked in the back of Merran’s mind. A story. The Dorvath-Memaxthal fiasco. This man’s surprising awareness of Azellian and the elaborate language of bows. Justern’s hushed-up, tragic history. Justern’s father disowning him immediately upon the death of his mother. “This wouldn’t be because of twenty years ago, would it?”
Peter’s eyes flicked to Tamara, and he looked nervous. Merran could sense the waves of suppressed guilt, worry, fear, and anger that leaked around his up-until-now calm veneer. “Something like that.”
Merran leaned toward Tamara. “Tamara, would you mind stepping outside for a moment? I need to ask your father a question I think he would be more comfortable answering in private.”
She got up, and though he could sense that she was somewhat irritated by the dismissal, she left.
Merran turned back to Peter as soon as Tamara left and spoke more bluntly than was his normal wont with humans. “Are you Justern’s father?”
Peter stared down at his desk. “No.”
“But you were the human that nearly upset the entire Uzorantxl Dorvath-Izorantxl Memaxthal clan plans,” Merran said, not really framing it as a question. “The young man who was banished from Azelle for having fallen in love with an Azellian.”
Peter sighed heavily. “It was a long time ago. When did she die?”
“About ten human years ago.”
Peter closed his eyes, his face pale. “I made her life a misery. I didn’t mean to, but … we didn’t intend on it going as far as it did. We met during Festival.”
Merran raised his eyebrows. “That shouldn’t have caused a problem. We all know what Festival is like.” Although it did surprise him that Peter had been exposed to Festival—most humans were strictly kept away from it—there were a few who could hear the Song that were allowed to participate. A few humans showed up at the embassy doors every year, drawn by the Song and the call to gather, unaware of why they’d been called or what they were doing. They were let in, quietly, and then ushered out, quietly, remaining on the very fringes of the Festival fervor that took all the psi Azellians. Peter had some shielding, and probably some level of psi himself, and from his attitude, obviously knew much more about Festival than Merran would have expected.
“Continuing the relationship after Festival was a problem. For six glorious months we were together. Then her pregnancy started to show and it couldn’t be hidden anymore.”
“Pregnancy?” Merran frowned. Justern was just a little too young for it to have been him, and Peter had said Justern wasn’t his son anyway. “Azellian women don’t get pregnant unless they want to.”
“She did want to.” Peter sighed, opening his eyes. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she said what we had couldn’t last and she wanted something of me to remember. So she got pregnant.”
“Tamara.” Merran rested his fingers on his forehead, everything suddenly becoming clear. “It’s Tamara, isn’t it? She’s half-Azellian.”
Peter stared at his hands. “She doesn’t know. Jasmian didn’t get to keep the baby, although she begged and pleaded. Her family took Tamara away and sent us both back to Earth. Jasmi was married off to a Memaxthal and last I heard was pregnant again within the year. With Justern, I assume.”
“You have to tell Tamara.”
“The woman who raised her is dying and you tell me I have to tell my daughter that her mother is not who she thinks she is?” Peter’s temper flared, overwhelming his shields. “No. I’ve kept the secret this long. I can keep it longer. I don’t care if she finds out that I had a lover before she was born, or that I lived on Azelle, but I will not destroy her view of her mother.”
“You are aware of our abilities, I assume, since you know about Festival and you had an Azellian lover?”
“Of course. But they hit at puberty, and Tamara showed no signs of it when she turned thirteen. Nor did she throughout her teen years. I watched her. I’m not without a little talent myself, you know. Enough to hear the Song and enough to—” He stopped and flushed.
Having had both human and Azellian lovers, Merran knew what he had been about to say. “Then you got lucky. However, your luck has run out. Based on what you’ve just told me, I can assure you that Tamara is Awakening, at twenty, unaware of who she really is or why this is happening to her. She’s showing all the symptoms, and we’ve all been trying to figure out where it’s coming from and how to help her.”
Peter stared at Merran, going pale. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. She’s been having the flashes of talent, aura flashes, the dreams, and especially the migraines. You have to tell her. It may help her make a smoother transition to being psi. As it is right now, we’ve been treating her like an Azellian, mainly because we didn’t know what else to do, but if she really is … she needs to be told, Peter. And soon.”
Peter lifted a shaking hand to his neck. “I don’t—how do you tell your daughter she’s not who she thought she was?”
“It may be a shock to her, but I think she’ll be glad you told her. She’s going to be relieved that she’s not different, or a freak, that the reason for her Awakening is simply because she’s inherited abilities that all Azellians have. She’s pretty sharp, and she’ll probably figure it out eventually on her own … regardless. But you telling Tamara now will help her come to terms with Awakening that much sooner and help us support her.” He paused for a moment, glancing down at his phone. “I’m sorry to have to step out for a moment, but I need to check in with the embassy. We can discuss the battle plan when I get back.” Merran got to his feet.
“Can you send Tamara in?”
“Certainly.” Merran walked to the door and stepped outside. The look Tamara gave him as he came out of the office spoke volumes about her opinion of his rather high-handed dismissal earlier. He came over to her. “Your father has something he’d like to tell you, Tamara.” He left it at that, not at all sure she would be able to listen to an apology. He walked over to the secretary’s empty desk, lifting his cell phone and sliding his finger over the screen. As he passed Tamara, he brushed her shoulder with his hand but did not follow it up with anything more.
Tamara, still quite irritated at having been kicked out of the office—she felt like a child who couldn’t be told some big secret—ignored him. She got up and went into her father’s office.
Her father stood at the window, staring out onto the street. He turned slightly as Tamara came in. “Hi sweetheart. Please, sit.”
He was acting so strangely, Tamara felt her anger evaporate. “Dad, what is it?”
“There’s something you need to know, honey. It’s not easy for me to talk about, so please bear with me. It’s been twenty years, but some memories still cut deep.” Peter turned back to the window. “Twenty-one years ago, as you probably already have figured out by now, I went to Azelle with my father. I was about your age, and I went against the express wishes of my mother.”
Tamara remained silent, sensing that she was about to learn some very big secrets. A tiny part of her exalted in the awareness that Andreya could not possibly break into this conversation. She sat on the chair, watching him intently.
Peter stared out the window as he spoke. “I loved Azelle. The planet, the people, the city. It seemed like nothing could stop me. I refused to listen to my father, who warned me that if I didn’t calm down, the Azellians were going to find a reason to eject me. What did he know? I was a nineteen-year-old carefree human whom nothing could stop.” Peter turned around to look at Tamara. He looked haunted. “Azelle was beautiful and very free in certain ways that I enjoyed. There was—” He cleared his throat and came to sit on the chair beside her. “There was always a … a woman. Or two. Sometimes more, depending on the night or the party.”
Tamara could hardly believe her ears. Her father? Solid, dependable Peter Carrington who she co
uld never imagine being that wild. He had been with her mother so long she couldn’t even imagine him having any other girlfriends or lovers.
“It was … intoxicating. Then came the most incredible experience of my life. I don’t imagine you’ve learned of it in school because Azellians tend to keep it pretty quiet, but I ignored my father’s orders, as always, to be off planet during that time. It’s called Festival, and it’s the yearly mating season for the aarya, Azelle’s other sentient species. That’s a very dry explanation for the actual event.” Peter paused.
“I’ve heard about the yearly aarya mating season,” Tamara put in as he hesitated. “Don’t they sing for mates? It seems pretty normal.”
Peter smiled. “Yes, they do. But that doesn’t even come close to describing what happens.” He took a deep breath. “The aarya project their mating at every other being on the planet. Those lucky enough to have some psi talent, as all adult Azellians do, and a few humans as well … no matter what our scientists say … can hear their song. It absorbs and controls you. Anyone with any psi talent gets pulled into the mating dance.”
Tamara shook her head, her mind balking at the idea. It took a rather dramatic effort to bring her brain back on line to listen to his story without reacting to it.
“It’s the absolute capstone of Azellian freedom. I wasn’t supposed to be on the planet at all, much less participating in Festival. I don’t have much psi myself, but I could hear the incredible song. It had … it had an intense effect on me. I was … lost in it. So lost I forgot about everything. Everything. It was better than the drugs I tried as a college student. So alluring.” Tamara controlled her reaction to that revelation, too, as her father continued, his eyes focused on something far away. She could almost feel the sorrow he had at having lost it too. “A beautiful girl about my age was visiting relatives during that time and we hooked up.” He stopped, got to his feet, and went to the little black fridge in the corner, pulling out bottled water. “Do you want some?”
Tamara extended a hand to take the water from her father. She didn’t say anything, afraid to break the spell.
“After we recovered our senses, we realized that we had quite a bit in common. We spent all of our spare time together, since I was rather footloose at that time of my life. Her name was—” He stopped again and sipped his water. “Jasmian Mennak Dorvath.” He swallowed and Tamara could see the pain etched in his features, a pain she’d seen before but never really understood. “She was supposed to be marrying some man she didn’t know from another town. She wasn’t happy about it, but there wasn’t much she could do to change things. In some ways, Azelle has some archaic remnants.”
Something clicked. “Jasmian? Wasn’t that Justern’s mother’s name?”
Peter didn’t seem to hear her, but she knew he was talking about the same person. It felt true, like an awareness she’d carried around for years without knowing it. “Well, as we got to know each other better and we got closer, we decided that Jasmian couldn’t possibly marry Benaren Memaxthal. We loved each other too much. We were full of plans to run away, to come to Earth. If you think it’s hard now to get a visa, back then, it was virtually impossible for someone not connected to the embassy itself to get a visa to come to Earth or vice versa. My father was the only reason I made it to Azelle at all.” He folded his arms across his chest and frowned. “I tried to get her a visa, but it didn’t work. Short of stowing away, she was not going to get off the planet. I even went to my father, who advised me to stop seeing her. Azellians and humans never succeed, he told me, because our cultures are too radically different and there were far too many pressures from families for it to ever work.” He sighed. “Jasmian knew we couldn’t last. She told me she wanted to get pregnant, so she could have something of mine forever.”
Tamara stared at him, not quite sure she wanted to process what he was saying. Why that would make Justern—it wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be her half-brother. He certainly looked nothing like her father, although he did bear some resemblance to herself, now that she thought about it.
“I loved her too much to argue with her, so I agreed. I don’t know how she did it, but she hid the pregnancy from everyone around us until she started really showing at six months, when it became very obvious. Our relationship came out, and everything we feared would happen, did.” Peter closed his eyes and swallowed again. He continued the story with his eyes closed. “Her family went wild. If abortion had been an option at that point, I think they would have forced her to do it. But, as it was not an option, she was allowed to carry to term. She wanted to keep the baby and begged to be allowed to raise it. I was pretty much confined to the embassy at that point. Guards actually watched the doors to be sure I didn’t leave. Somehow, though, she managed to get messages to me and that’s how I knew what was happening. Her family wouldn’t hear of her keeping the baby; she was to go to Benaren Memaxthal as soon as the baby was born, and it would all be hushed up. I went to my father and told him what had happened. Father went to the families involved and the Azellian Council and managed to get them to agree to send me home as long as I took my daughter with me.”
Tamara was listening so hard to the story that she almost missed the import of his words. “Your daughter?” She grabbed the chair arm so hard she lost the feeling her hands. “I have a sister?”
Peter shook his head. He uncrossed his arms and crouched down in front of her. “No, sweetheart.” His voice was soft and gentle. “The baby was you. If you had been named according to Azellian custom, you would have been called Tamara Dorvath Carrington. Instead of getting something of mine to keep forever, I got something of hers. And that young man in jail is your half-brother.”
Tamara swallowed hard. “You—I—I’m half-Azellian?”
“I would have told you sooner, but … I didn’t know how. I met your mo—stepmother when you were two. We agreed that the fact you weren’t her biological daughter was irrelevant. When you went through puberty without showing any signs of Awakening, I thought I had gotten away with it and my secret would remain an irrelevant piece of information lying around the family history somewhere. But the ambassador just told me that it appears you are Awakening, that you haven’t understood why, and that I needed to tell you the truth.”
Tamara closed her eyes, her breath coming fast and hard. Do not hyperventilate, a little voice said in her head. Do not—need to slow down. Take deep breaths. Justern is my half-brother, just not as I thought. We share a mother, not a father. The thought almost made her giggle. Or cry. The man—boy—who has been accused of rape, who almost died from his treatment by the cops, is my brother. A year younger than I am. Andreya is my half-sister. And Dad, who I thought had only ever loved my moth—stepmother, actually loved someone else enough to agree to get her pregnant so she would have something to remember him by, but only to lose me anyway. She could feel the tears build. One thought dashed across her mind as she wrenched her mind away from the frenzied circling. I am not a freak. I have psi because … I am Azellian. I am Azellian. I am not a freak. I am Azellian.
Her father had not moved as these thoughts bolted across her mind, as she sat there trying not to throw up, or cry, or laugh, trying to assimilate everything she’d been told.
The world settled into an unreal place. “Thank you for telling me, Dad.” She stood up a little unsteadily. “I think I need to go see Mom for a while. Does she … know? Who I am, I mean?”
Peter shook his head. “Only that I had a daughter when we met. Not who your mother was. My mother knew, though. I’m sorry, Tammy. I thought maybe she’d learn in time to forgive and to forget. I’d hoped that maybe with exposure—”
Tamara shook her head, holding her hand up. “I need to think. Let me know what you and the ambassador decide to do with Justern. I need to process … everything.”
Peter stood up, giving her space. “Do you need a ride back to campus?”
“No. I want to walk. It’s not far.” Tamara gave him a smile, almos
t afraid she was going to break somewhere between the door and the street. “I’ll send the ambassador back in.” She looked at her watch. “We only have an hour before Justern is supposed to wake up.” She knew her father watched her as she left, but she pulled the door closed quietly behind her and didn’t look back.
Merran leaned against her father’s secretary’s desk. He studied Tamara as she came out of the room. “You are strong enough for this, akila-ala. If you need someone to talk to, call the embassy. Janille will be able to find me no matter where I am, and I’ll come.”
A ghost of a smile pulled Tamara’s lips up as she headed for the door. “Thank you, Merran.” He straightened and started to walk toward her father’s office door. “Oh, Merran?”
“Hmm?” He turned, his hand on the doorknob.
“What do you keep calling me? Akila? What does akila-ala mean?”
He smiled. “I’ll tell you later when we have more time.”
She had to be content with that. It wasn’t hard, given how many other things she had to think about already.
Tamara wandered around the streets of Denver for an hour, intending to head back toward campus, but not quite getting there. She walked by the embassy and stared up at the beautiful mansion. She was Tamara. Who was that? Not the unwanted, bastard girl who was born before her parents were married—although technically, she was still a bastard, since she didn’t think her father had married her mother before she was born. But there was no question that she had been wanted. Desperately. Her mother—it felt alien to call someone else that, other than the woman who had raised her—had wanted her so badly she was willing to defy everything she knew to have a child. Only her mother didn’t get to have her. What did that make her, Tamara? She was half-Azellian. She was Awakening. She was the sister of an Azellian. She was psi. She was in love with an Azellian. That last thought made her stop in her tracks. Well, maybe that one was jumping the gun a bit. She could be in love with an Azellian. Azelle certainly seemed to dominate her life even though she had never been there—that she could remember, she amended. She had been born there apparently. Tamara shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as she started to walk away from the embassy.
Alawahea Page 25