Seen (Heartstone Book 2)

by Frances Pauli

  She smiled however, and came to Haftan’s aide. “Surely you can understand why a people might choose to remain separate. Galactic involvement is not without its price.”

  “A fair price,” the trader argued, but his voice lowered in volume. He was outnumbered now, and coveted their business enough to play contrite. “For the opportunities offered.”

  “Perhaps,” Haftan said. He smiled at Omira over the reptilian head, however. He was well aware of his true task on this trip, and apparently well on his way to wooing the Choma-uraru’s goodwill. “If opportunity is what is sought, then I can agree with you that it is provided.”

  “Hmm.” The trader chewed on the answer, which intentionally dodged around the topic, proving once again that Haftan would serve them better as a diplomat than he ever could sulking around Peryl’s throne room.

  “What is the price of membership now?” Omira asked. “Taxes? Trade routes?”

  “More like favors,” Mofitan said.

  “Allegiance perhaps?” Omira nodded. “A much higher price in the end.”

  “Very astute.” Haftan laughed, but it had a tension to it. He also stood and moved back to the panel beside the door. “I’ll have our meal brought. I fear it’s not quite as elegant as your company, but we hope it will do.”

  “Of course.” Omira beamed at him.

  Just like that. They’d come to some understanding that escaped Shayd, but then he’d paid more attention to the girl than the conversation. She sat quietly beside her Senior, hands in lap and eyes on the table except when they sneaked tiny, covert glances in his direction.

  She wore a white robe, gauzy and in high contrast to her smoky skin. Her eyes, when he managed to catch them, held blue fire, and there was a wildness to her, a feral edge to the way she sat and moved that her demure silence could not mask.

  He smiled each time their eyes met, and willed her to understand, to feel him and the Heart that joined them no matter what the purpose of their meeting. Perhaps it was the distance from Shroud, or something of her own ferocity that bled into him, but he didn’t care about their mission, the Galactic Summit, or anything else that occupied their dining companions. He felt free of it somehow, lifted above, and by the time the workers brought the trays of food he had a pulse of excitement racing through his veins and only the unflinching surety of their perfection occupying his thoughts.

  Someone deposited a plate in front of him. The aromas wafted around him, savory, spiced with Shrouded herbs but overdone to hide the blandness of food prepared in space. He tore his gaze from Rowri long enough to register the meal, to spear a slender, rose-colored tuber and mechanically place it in his mouth.

  The conversation grew spotty as the meal intervened. Shayd let the topic elude him and focused instead on the girl across the tabletop. Delicate hands, and yet she ate with a fierce purpose, chewed with an intensity that the poor fare did little justice. Every few bites, she would close her eyes and inhale a long slow breath. Meditative, if he’d venture a guess, and enough to remind him that these were spiritual people. The Choma-uraru had a deep connection to their own planet and, if the Summit were to be believed, a faith so significant it constituted the entire government.

  He could like them. That was his official purpose here, to make a connection, to woo them into compliance with the Galactic Summit. If he succeeded, he’d be delivering the girl into another man’s hands. He could like the Choma-uraru a lot, understand them, but not the way he was supposed to. Not as a means for completing his mission. He couldn’t do it.

  If that meant he would refuse his own people, his own king, then Shayd would refuse them. The Heart had sent him her, and he still trusted it. It had sent him here, and now it was the Heart’s purpose that mattered, not the Galactic Summit’s nor any others’.

  “But as I understand it,”—Omira was speaking, and he’d lost the thread of the conversation while musing—“the Shrouded believe in their own obedience to fate.”

  “We do, certainly,” Haftan purred at her, and he cast Shayd a look that had a plan behind it. It was too late, however, to wonder what that was. If it was for his benefit, he’d missed his cue. “When we carved our home beneath the Shroud, we were male only. It was the Heart that brought the first alien bride, called to her across the vastness of space. Without the brides, we would be unable to continue. Shrouded offspring are inevitably male. Without the Heart, our race would die.”

  “You refer to the sacred crystal of your people?”

  “Yes.” Haftan nodded and plucked a piece of fruit from his plate with two fingers. “The stone saved our bloodlines, and it is the stone still that continues them.”

  “The Heart is never wrong,” Shayd found the words on his lips without meaning to vocalize them. His voice echoed through a sudden silence, and all eyes swiveled in his direction—all eyes except Rowri’s. Hers dropped away to gaze pointedly at her plate.

  “Very interesting,” Omira replied with something besides interest. “As I understand it, you bring candidates to the stone for selection?”

  “Yes.” Haftan dove in, either perceiving Shayd’s discomfort or envious of the attention. He made his tone grand and swept his arms in wide gestures to punctuate his description of the bonding ceremony. “We have crystal chambers around the heartstones, and the ceremony is held at each one. The candidates line up on either side of the room and the Seer…”

  “But that must cause trouble for you off-planet?” Omira’s prim tone did not match the razor sheen in her eyes. She spoke to Haftan, but that gaze landed on Shayd and stayed there.

  “How do you mean?” Haftan didn’t catch the mood. The Senior priestess had reserved it for Shayd alone. He read the warning in her eyes, the clear unspoken message.

  “It seems,”—She made each word a note, singing to him—“that if you are away from your planet, from your Heart, that it would make things difficult. How would you know the difference between this true bonding you revere and a simple, ordinary attraction?”

  “We haven’t had much experience off of Shroud,” Haftan purred again, and Omira’s head swiveled toward him whether she meant it to or not. “But I suppose in that situation the girl in question would be brought home for a bonding ceremony.”

  “What if she didn’t want to?” Omira ran her fingers along the rim of her plate. “What if she refused?”

  “The heartmate would not refuse.” Shayd found his lips moving again. He watched the girl now, and the fact that her eyes remained glued to her plate, that she kept them down and away from his pushed more force into the words than he’d intended. He inhaled and tried to hear the Heart singing, assuring him that it would not abandon them.

  “I see.” Omira smiled like a shadow cat.

  “The Heart is never wrong.” Shayd bit off the last syllable. This is why he hated conversation. It was far too easy for one’s emotions to overcome their senses, to force out the words one meant to keep, and to display emotions better held in check. He heard his own frustration in the assertion, and his own doom in Mofitan’s growl from the head of the table.

  “Well,” he snarled it, and Shayd knew his memory had drifted back to and Dolfan and his heartmate. “It was wrong that one time.”

  The awkward feeling that echoed in that statement's wake was heavy enough to shut even the Shevran up. They continued to eat, but the conversation had died as surely as his faith in his Shrouded brothers. To bring that up now, here? Did they want him to ignore his heart bond?

  He chewed on that, turned his thoughts inward and watched the girl across the table shift in place, sneak concerned glances in his direction. There would be a way for them, and yet, tonight, the Shrouded Seer was having trouble seeing it.

  When the Chomans departed, they all stood. Even the Shevran, though the man lagged behind and still held his fork in one hand as if he meant to continue his meal without pause. Senior Omira ushered the girl out ahead, following in a flurry of robes that seemed to whisper, it was wrong once.


  Shayd remained on his feet when the others sat. He stared at the doorway and tried to find his answers in the echo of steps on metal. Nothing. He heard only the shifting of bodies in seats, the rattle of the Shevran's utensil taking action again.

  “Good evening.” He rounded the table and slipped toward the doorway. The room echoed behind him, a wretched silence that said they knew what he went through, what the conversation had meant to him. He straightened, took a moment to smooth his robes and then marched from the room and across the causeway without pausing.

  The ladder was warm to the touch. He felt her passing in the metal, sensed the power she kept locked behind an iron will. Halfway down he stopped and closed his eyes. The remnant of her aura was enough to trigger a vision. He felt her like a breeze against his skin, and a scene unfolded in his mind’s eye. Fleeing through dense foliage, the still pool of water and a priestess facing him. They stared off while water whispered and dripped. They breathed as one until the tension shattered and dragged them together into the inevitable embrace. Rowri in his arms. Her lips burning against his. Her eyes still like the cat’s.

  He slipped a rung down and banged his knee against the metal. The cat’s eyes. Where had that come from? Shayd shook his head to clear it and then navigated the remainder of the ladder more carefully. He limped slightly as he entered the hallway, and he failed to look up until the girl’s gasp got his attention.

  She stood outside her room, both hands on either side of the frame as if she’d been leaning there. Regaining her control perhaps, or possibly even waiting for him. Now she stared back down the hallway, and her lips flirted with a smile.

  He moved toward her, drawn by the power swirling between them.

  "I was just…I needed…"

  "The facilities are common, I'm afraid." His words rushed out, too mundane for the situation. Still, they eased her tension. Her shoulders relaxed and her smile blossomed. "To the rear of the ship. I can show you?"

  "Please." She drifted from her door, and he moved to intercept her.

  "Our people are very much alike, are they not?" Shayd walked as slowly as possible. Her presence at his side warmed away the sting of his kin's betrayal. Her smile gave him the strength to defy them all.

  "Are they?"

  "We are both cultures that prefer to remain apart, to preserve our difference as opposed to blending in with the rest."

  "Your Shroud is not a member of the Summit?"

  "Not yet." He failed to add that they would be, if they completed this particular mission, a mission he hoped would fail now.

  "We have a limited membership on Choma. The Summit enjoys our taxes."

  "I'm sure it does."

  They laughed together, made music as the doorways passed on either side. Too quickly, even at the crawling pace they'd settled into. He'd run out of time, would have little excuse to linger once they'd reached the lav. Rowri spoke first, hurried, as if she sensed the deadline, the limitations of a small ship, as well.

  "I'm told your people are also very spritual. You are the Seer, a senior priest?"

  "You might call it that. I interpret the Heart and lead our people's rites and ceremonies. But I also advise the king and his Council." Shayd saw his opening here, a chance to introduce the idea of their bond, his assurance that the Heart had chosen them for one another. "I see what is to be done, Rowri. The Heartsong shows me what path we must take."

  "That which is seen must come to pass." She answered him with a cadence to the words like a song, a ritual in its own right. "My people also live by our visioning."

  His hope flared. Shayd felt the ties between them tightening. The girl knew what he did. He could feel it. They only needed a way to evade the immediate situation. He turned to find her bright eyes fixed on his. The bond heated. His breath rushed away.

  "Have you seen me in your visions, Rowri?"

  "Yes." She breathed affirmation, but tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes.

  “Rowri, we can protect you. The Tolfarians can’t force you to go.”

  She shifted her feet, shuffled a step backwards though she hadn't used the lav yet. Then again, they both knew she hadn't really needed to. “We can find a way.” Even as he said it, he saw failure in the darkening of her eyes. Her head drifted from side to side, killing his hopes. “You don’t want—”

  “My people.” Her eyes shimmered, but her spine straightened and her shoulders set into a proud stance. “I am the only hope my people have.”

  “There has to be another, a different priestess.”

  “But only I have seen it.”

  “I don’t understand. The Heart is right, Rowri. It is always right.”

  “I cannot allow my Uraru to guide me against a seeing.” Her words sharpened, admonished now. “Would you let your people suffer, all your people, just to have this Heart?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I am sorry.” Her words crackled, despite the firm set of her jaw. She turned away, but not before he caught the shine of tears against her cheeks.

  “Rowri, please.” Still, he couldn’t bring himself to reach for her. He didn’t understand her people enough, didn’t know what the Uraru was, or why she had to be the sacrificial bride, but he knew devotion when he saw it. This woman’s faith was iron, even more solid than his own. She returned to her door, slipped inside her room, and he let her go.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Where did you go?” Omira’s accusation met her inside the room. The Senior sat on the edge of her cot, watching the door but too terrified to brave using it. She’d seemed smaller here in space, weak and sad compared to the towering leader that had governed on Choma. “What have you done?”

  “I only went to use the lavatory.” Rowri put stress on the only. Let Omira assume what she liked. She'd done nothing wrong, had resisted when her whole soul begged her to give in.

  "We should keep to ourselves until we reach Vade." Then, she would hand Rowri to the Tolfarians and run home to Choma. She would abandon her priestess and flee back to the safety of her Grand Temple. Would she spare a thought for Rowri later? Say a prayer or chime for her during morning rites?

  "Why?"

  "Becasue we cannot trust these Shrouded. We know nothing about them."

  "They seem a great deal like us."

  "Do they?"

  "I-it seemed that way at dinner."

  "Just the same. I think we should avoid them as much as we can."

  "Yes, Senior."

  “You’ve gone quite pale, Rowri. Is there something I should know?”

  Omira regarded her with keen consideration. The Senior’s eyes narrowed, sweeping from Rowri’s long hair to her slippered toes. “You seem rattled, child, and that man…They were all behaving oddly, don’t you think?”

  “Were they?” She held her breath. Would Omira help her, if she confessed everything? How could she even think such a thing? The seeing had put her here, at the Tolfarians’ mercy.

  “It seemed so.” Omira set her pack down on the free bunk and unfastened the closure. She removed her set of chimes and laid them out in order along the mattress. “Perhaps a little Clarity is in order.”

  “Yes, Senior.” Rowri understood. She should have retrieved her own chimes, joined the Senior in a moment’s meditation for their mission’s sake. Instead she watched Omira from her cot, and as much as she wanted to do her duty could not bring her body to move. It still felt like rubber at the edges, and her heart ached with loss and fear. What have I given up?

  The chime sang, vibrating in Omira’s fingers and filling the room from floor to steel ceiling. Clarity filled Rowri’s ears and still, she felt completely muddled. Her breath refused to settle into a smooth flow. Instead, she gasped like the tiny crimson fish that had populated the lake near her parent’s farm.

  “Rowri?” Omira sounded concerned now. “Child, what is it? Have you seen something else?”

  Rowri might have imagined the hope in the Senior’s tone. She wanted to hear it so
badly, but Omira’s face had brightened to match her voice. She did want another option, and Rowri wanted to give it to her. She couldn’t make her tongue say it, though. She couldn’t confess her vision of the Shrouded Seer to the Senior Priestess. That seeing was for her alone, and far too personal to share with Omira or anyone else save Shayd.

  “Nor have I,” Omira mused. Her voice purred alongside Clarity, soothed by the chime into a meditative state. “No matter, then.”

  “What would…pardon.” She cringed from the question without voicing it, squirmed again, itching with things she had no business considering.

  “Go on.” Omira sounded like the chime now, sang her encouragement. “You are free to ask me anything, Rowri. The service you render our people has earned far more of gratitude than that.”

  “I only wondered what would happen—if anyone has ever acted contrary to a seeing.”

  “You are feeling nervous, now that we’ve embarked.”

  “Yes.” The confession rushed out, and Rowri felt the intrusion of it, but it only deepened Omira’s smile. For a moment, the Senior’s mood infected her, allowed Rowri’s spine to relax if only a fraction. Maybe there would be a way.

  “Surely many have resisted the truth of a seeing. Our people’s past is full of strife and periods of confusion, as are most histories.”

  “And what happened to them? Did the seeing change if they chose…”

  “The seeing always happens, Rowri.”

  “I know, but what if it doesn’t happen exactly the way you thought?” She held her breath, waited for Omira to look through her and see the disloyal thoughts she harbored. The Senior only sighed and closed her eyes. She tapped the metal chime softly and Clarity whispered to them again. Rowri tried to hear it, to understand what the note was trying to tell her. She forced her own lids shut and focused on her breath.

  “The seeing always comes to pass,” Omira said. “But many times the seer chooses to ignore it, Rowri. Surely you must have guessed that much? We who live in the temple are not the only Chomans who see.”