The Fall

by Christie Meierz

  She snuggled back in. “So… I can go?”

  “If you wish,” he sighed. “In truth, I have no right to constrain you.”

  “But you don’t like the idea.”

  “You are my bond-partner, and the child you carry is my heir—of course I do not like the idea. I do not wish to part from you, even for a short time.”

  “Hm.” She grinned into his shoulder. “I won’t be gone long. And I’ll make it up to you when I return.”

  A slow smile grew on his face. “Will you begin to make it up to me before you leave?”

  “Ma-a-a-aybe.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sharana eyed the exotic odalli who stood in the doorway, with not one but two guards provided by Monralar behind her, though her state of increase rendered her safe from deliberate harm.

  Under normal circumstances.

  Sharana shoved that dark thought aside and extended her senses. She read… a confusion of disparate emotion, in which she could identify only curiosity and the exhilaration of one who enjoys travel, and contentment from the child within her. Then the woman’s focus shifted to the edges of Sharana’s empathic awareness. Interest perked.

  “You are Sharana?” the woman asked in lightly-accented Paranian.

  From long habit of courtesy, she replied in the same language. “Indeed, yes.” She gestured toward the circle of divans in the sitting room of her daughter’s home in the avenues of the scholars. “And you are Laura Howard. Come, sit. Our servant prepares tea. Will you share it with me?”

  “I would enjoy that.” The beloved of Parania smiled, her presence aglow with genuine pleasure. “Call me Laura.” She crossed the room to the indicated divans but waited to take a seat until Sharana joined her—perhaps a human custom. The guards camouflaged and remained near the door, watchful but at ease. She suspected they preferred her presence to that of their Monral.

  “The Paran’s messages said you need the assistance of a sensitive,” Sharana said. “How may I help?”

  Laura relaxed a little, less adept—far less adept—at controlling the physical expression of her emotions than were the human diplomats Sharana had met, five years past. “The Jorann’s gift made me more sensitive to others’ feelings than I thought possible. I need more basic control, as much as you can teach me in… a hand of days? Storaas would have taught me during my visit to Suralia, but circumstances did not permit. We only had time for barriers, so he taught me that.”

  “He taught you well.” She let the corners of her mouth twitch upward. “But why does your Paran’s tutor not teach you further?”

  “He has no experience with sensitives.”

  Sharana nodded. “I see. Will you allow me to probe you? It will help if I know—”

  “No!” Laura exclaimed, bursting with alarm.

  “Have no fear, I will probe but lightly.”

  “Forgive me, but no. I cannot yet reliably control the reflex to push an intruder away, and where I am from, we are very private about our own thoughts and feelings. I am afraid I might hurt you, as I have done to others without meaning it.”

  A servant entered the room, carrying a tray. The unmistakable aroma of Suralian tea flower wafted around them as he poured from a carafe into a pair of mugs. Laura’s mouth twitched, her alarm subsiding.

  “If Monralar does not trade with Suralia, how did you come to acquire Suralian tea?” she asked.

  “Perhaps you should not ask.” Sharana allowed herself a grin, then grew serious. “All sensitives react strongly to unwanted probing. I can help you with that, but you must do the exercises I give you every day without fail. Because you are already adult… it may require several seasons before you have full conscious control of the reflex. But while you are here we can also work on how to defend yourself against the unwanted feelings of others.”

  “That would be wonderful!”

  “Excellent. Stay then—you can learn what you need in three or four days. If you are not too fatigued, accompany me to a lesson with my student when we finish our tea. You may find it helpful to watch as she performs the exercises I will teach you.”

  Laura considered. “I do not speak Monrali.”

  “She speaks Paranian.”

  The green-and-brown eyes glinted. “Then I would enjoy that very much.”

  * * *

  The student, it turned out, lived on a farm outside the city. Laura breathed in the earthy-but-different air as they hiked past stubbly, harvested fields. The two lavender-robed guards who’d met her at the city’s transport hub trailed behind them. The Monrali scholar ignored them entirely, as if their presence offended her.

  Laura sighed her relief as the intense glow of the city fell beyond range.

  “The city is bright,” Sharana said. “I must teach Jery away from it, or I cannot teach her at all. The child becomes overwhelmed.”

  “I can understand why.” She heaved another sigh, and let go of the hevalra’s net, raising her natural barriers and extending her senses past her own skin.

  She almost gasped. Something awful wracked Sharana.

  Then she did draw a sharp breath and stumbled. Years of habit clicked into place, and she glared like a cat at the spot on the road where she’d tripped, rather than behind them where she wanted to look. Another guard followed them, camouflaged and barriers shut tight—one of the rare individuals who could make himself undetectable to other Tolari.

  I will need to watch that one.

  “We will not pass through the stronghold,” her companion said, chuckling.

  Laura looked ahead. The corner of a massive building peeked around the curve of a hill, gleaming in the sunlight, built from rock perhaps a shade darker than the nearly white stone of the Parania stronghold. She forced a nervous laugh.

  “I am a little afraid of your Monral.”

  Sharana started. “Why?”

  “I was here, in orbit, eleven… eleven human years ago. Five Tolari years? When Ambassador Russell came with his…” She searched for the word; none came. “Here you might call her his bond-partner, although we do not have bonding like you do. The leader of the human ship was my—” she swallowed “—bond-partner.”

  “My heart grieves for your pain,” the other woman murmured.

  “I saw your Monral then, when he communicated with my… with John. He seemed a difficult man to please.”

  “A ruler must sometimes be hard for the good of his province. It sets the ruling caste apart from the rest of us.”

  They walked on in silence. “How much farther to your student’s home?” Laura asked, looking ahead.

  “Not far. Do you fatigue?”

  “No, but my peds ache.” Actually, her toes ached—and itched—but Paranian didn’t have a word for human toes. “They are changing.”

  Sharana slowed almost to a stop, glancing at the stronghold. “Do you require rest?”

  Laura shook her head and slowed with her companion. Sharana didn’t show any of it on her face, but a hidden anger burned inside her, and she clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near the stronghold.

  The camouflaged presence behind them veered toward the massive keep at a run.

  “No,” Laura said, drawing in a deep breath through her nose and letting it out. “I am fine.”

  Sharana smiled—and then froze. A different presence left the stronghold, heading their way, with five more fanning out around it. Laura whirled to face it. Him. A man in lavender walked in plain sight, the upper half of his robe covered with white embroidery, crossing the distance between them, eyes fixed on Sharana. The other five presences remained camouflaged. Guards.

  The back of her neck prickling, Laura looked sidelong at the woman beside her. Sharana stood so still as the Monral approached that she might just have turned to stone. Then hunger erupted from both of them, Sharana more than the Monral. The Tolari woman went even more rigid, if that were possible, and a guard accompanying them moved forward to step in front of her. The Monral stopped short.

&n
bsp; He tore his eyes away from his bond-partner and gave Laura a nod. “Artist,” he said in Paranian, his voice deep and smooth and far more pleasant than his blunt-featured, almost ugly face. “Be welcome in Monralar.”

  Laura returned the nod with a deep bow. Bond-partner of a provincial ruler or not, she was still unsure of her rank and status in a society where manners counted.

  “You honor me, high one,” she murmured as she straightened. “I am Laura Johnson Howard, beloved of Parania.”

  “Indeed,” he said, with a broad smile. “Come, share tea with me and tell me how you find my province.”

  “I—”

  Sharana broke in, her voice brittle and icy. “She accompanies me to a lesson with my student, high one.”

  High one? Laura blinked at the formality in her voice, and the Monral’s internal flinch didn’t show. Other than the hunger that tinted his presence and nigh to consumed Sharana, he was impassive. And certainly more charming than she remembered from seeing him on the comms.

  What had Sharana done?

  “Come to the stronghold afterward,” he said to Laura.

  She looked from one to the other. The Monral’s presence yearned toward Sharana, but the scholar looked ready to crawl out of her skin to get away from him. Something is very wrong. As much as she wanted Sharana’s help, however, this man was the reason she’d come to Monralar in the first place.

  “You honor me,” she said. “I will come.”

  The Monral peered at Sharana. “And you, beloved? Will you accompany her?”

  Sharana’s breathing hitched. Without a word, she turned her back on him and continued on her way at a brisk walk.

  * * *

  The Monral sipped his tea and drank in the sight of Sharana, sitting in a chair across a low table in the guest wing common room. His beloved needed him far more than he needed her, in large part due to the apothecary’s drug, but she had been away from him long enough to create a deep need in both of them. That she had accepted his invitation and accompanied the odalli woman back to the stronghold demonstrated the depth of her need.

  He had not expected the Paran’s bond-partner to come to his own for tutelage, but the opportunity was delightful. The drug prevented him from reading her, but even in his blunted state, he could read physical language well enough to know he had the Paran’s bond-partner deceived. Over the course of the evening’s conversation, she began to respond to him with more warmth than she did to Sharana. When the evening grew old, he gave the odalli a friendly smile.

  “You grow fatigued,” he said.

  She heaved a sigh. “Forgive me. The day has been long.”

  “Take quarters in my stronghold tonight. To do otherwise would invite danger.”

  “Why would anyone harm me?” the woman scoffed.

  Sharana glared at him.

  “Anything can happen to the unwary.” He took another sip of tea. “I do not want an ally’s beloved to come to harm when she could take shelter under my protection.”

  The odalli’s face flushed red, giving her a strangely attractive glow. “My gratitude,” she said, an odd note of relief in her voice.

  “Excellent!” He gestured for a servant. “Then enjoy the hospitality of Monralar. A servant will show you to guest quarters.”

  She stood and stretched, the action drawing attention to the gentle curve of increase swelling her form. “My gratitude, high one,” she said again, and bowed before following the servant out.

  Sharana turned on him the moment the door closed. “What are you doing?” Her voice was a hiss.

  “Ensuring the safety of a guest.” He set his tea on the low table. “Tell me your impressions of her.”

  She started. “You think to use me?”

  “Are you not a daughter of Monralar?”

  Sharana quit her chair and went to stand at the windows.

  “I have no violent intent toward her, beloved.”

  She whirled. “Do not presume to call me that!”

  “Forgive me. You have fled my presence, but my heart is still yours.”

  “Then cease this hopeless scheme against the Sural before you destroy us all!”

  He rose and took a few steps toward her. The guards did not interfere. “Will that bring you back to my side?”

  She squinted at him. He suppressed a smile.

  “You know I have sent Farric off-world,” he said. “That part of my scheme walks without me.”

  “You can call him back.”

  “I could.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Be—Sharana. Think about our world taking its place among the space-faring races of this galactic arm. For that reason alone, I will not call him back.”

  She turned and leaned a shoulder against a window. Her voice softened. “You know why I cannot live with you.”

  “We can neither of us survive if you do not.”

  A sigh gusted out of her. “Laura is… indeed a sensitive,” she said. “With some instruction, she did succeed in blocking out the city. It spent her to do it, and she appeared to be terrified should her barriers fail.”

  He lifted his eyebrows and leaned against the back of a chair.

  “More, she is difficult to read, even for me. Perhaps it is her human upbringing, but her mind is a whirl of movement and confusion.”

  “A perfect spy.”

  “No. She tells too much with her face, and she seems unaware of the delicacy of her situation. And her Paran, whom you know to be a clever man, would be a fool to send her here to commit the crime of espionage while she increases with his heir.”

  “What, then?”

  She shook her head. “I believe she is merely what she says she is—the holder of an empathic gift, looking for instruction.”

  He rubbed his chin. Not a spy, then. With such sensitivity, he might find a use for her in the unlikely case that she survived the Paran’s eventual assassination.

  “Come back to the stronghold,” he said, the words out before he could stop them.

  “I cannot live with your continual summons and attempts at contact.”

  “Then they will cease.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “We need to bond,” he whispered.

  “No.”

  “Give us one night. You need it. I need it. Then we can go on without it, if you remain here, in contact with me.”

  He touched her with his senses. Bond-hunger raged in her. She swiveled her head to look at him, her eyes hot and hungry.

  “Give me one night.” He reached for her hand.

  She hesitated—not at all.

  * * *

  Laura stretched and yawned and opened her eyes on the familiar-yet-unfamiliar sleeping room of her guest quarters. Every province built its stronghold to a similar plan all across Tolar, or so Marianne had told her, differing only in details and in the local stone used to build them. Unfamiliar calls drifted in along with cool air from the door she’d left open. The birds—the flutters—sounded different in Monralar.

  She scrambled off the sleeping mat to bathe and start the day. When she arrived in the refectory, few people remained from the morning meal. Among them was the Monral.

  “Good morning,” he called from his heavy, throne-like chair.

  She halted. “You speak English?”

  “Of course,” he said, chuckling. “It has been some years since first I heard it spoken, and I made it a point to learn. Come. Sit at my table.” He swept a hand toward the chair at his right.

  She hesitated. “Isn’t that your heir’s place?”

  “It is, but he is away, as you know.” He smiled with genuine friendliness. “Come, sit where we may speak in comfort, beloved of my ally.”

  Laura flushed as she took the chair to the Monral’s right and snagged a roll from one of the platters on the table. The Monrali ruler appeared more relaxed than he had the day before. Much more relaxed. Carefully, she pondered the layers of self-satisfaction and sexual satiety radiating from his presence
. He hid something beneath them, but then, so did the Paran. Rulers couldn’t avoid keeping secrets.

  This one smiled, though his face seemed unused to the expression. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Um, yes I did, thank you. I apologize for oversleeping—I forgot the sun rises later in Parania than it does here.”

  “Has it been difficult to accustom yourself to living on a planet after so many years in space?”

  In the middle of raising a piece of fruit to her lips, she went still. No one on Tolar had asked that question before. The unexpected thoughtfulness brought an answering smile to her face.

  “Why, yes, actually,” she replied. “I spent forty-one years living on Earth Fleet ships after only nineteen years in my family’s estates on Earth. And then there were so few foods here that I could eat, before I took the blessing. It was a little trying.”

  “And now you increase with a provincial heir.” The Monral’s smile turned warm. “How fortunate that our law does not forbid this of odalli.”

  Laura blinked. “Odalli? An outsider? But I’m—”

  “Of course, no ally will think less of you. Or of your Paran.”

  “Of my Paran? Why would…” Her throat tightened. She dropped her gaze to the food in her hands, appetite gone. “Oh.”

  “Have no concern, artist,” he said, rising from his chair. “You are among friends here, and it is my honor to ensure your safety.” He inclined his head to her before continuing. “So tell me about your life in Earth Fleet.”

  The man was so difficult to read—his feelings were not so much guarded as muted. As she prattled on about shipboard life, she could sense his interest in the subject, and in her, along with his disdain for any mention of Central Command. He was endlessly curious about Earth’s five major colonies, and it was only with difficulty that she steered the topic around to her other major concern, having realized too late that the Monral already knew about the circumstances under which she had come to Tolar.

  “So,” she said, “Your son will not even discuss Marianne or me while he is in human space?”

  “Certainly not,” the Monral replied, looking her in the eye. “Odalli you may be, but Marianne Woolsey is under the Jorann’s protection, and you are the bond-partner of my ally. I would never see either of you directly harmed.” Again the feeling of mutedness came over his presence, and she closed her eyes as she probed as lightly as she dared.