Seen (Heartstone Book 2)

by Frances Pauli

  Rowri perked a little. She tasted a faint aura of hope, a tiny light that might be her salvation. Omira snuffed it quickly, however. She let out a long breath and continued with enough scorn in her tone to make the younger priestess cringe.

  “But they pay the price for it in the end, child. To resist the seeing is not to escape it. That is impossible. Fighting one’s future can do nothing to deter it. It only makes more trouble in between.”

  “Trouble?” She clung to it, a last thread of hope that the consequences might outweigh the risk.

  “Trouble, yes. No end of complications, hardships, and tragedy, all in an attempt to dodge the inevitable. And at the end of it, still, the seeing comes to pass.”

  “Always.” She whispered it and felt her thread snap. The glimmer of hope wafted away with the word.

  “Always.” Omira’s hand landed on her knee. The Senior’s reassuring pat came like a blow. The hand landed like lead against Rowri’s skin, beating home her fate. “I completely understand your dilemma, child.”

  “You do?” Rowri doubted it, but she lifted her chin just the same, let the Senior’s words give her the strength to meet her gaze.

  “Yes.” Omira’s calm smile shone in the last echoes of Clarity’s song. “Of course I do. This thing has to be frightening for you. The Tolfarian, leaving our world so suddenly, leaving all you know behind you. I would be worried, Rowri, if you weren’t a little terrified.”

  “Yes, Senior.” Perhaps she could plead her case. If Omira only understood the mistake, perhaps, Rowri could convince her to rearrange the deal, to offer another priestess to the Tolfarian.

  “But we walk the path of our seeing always. It is not for us to question this, and no good can come of it. Our people’s future is in your hands, Rowri. This thing you do will be remembered always. I will see to that.” Omira paused, inhaled a little roughly, as if her own weights bore down upon her. She would have to convince the people that they did right first. The trip to the port had illustrated that much for them both.

  Maybe Rowri should run to Shayd. She should refuse the Tolfarian negotiation, beg the Shrouded for sanctuary and abandon her people to life without their bio-network, without their protection and their source of energy.

  She couldn’t do it, not unless the seeing gave her permission. That thought rose to her mind like a wave cresting. Her first vision had brought her this far, but it hadn’t placed her in the Tolfarians’ hands. Her second had her in the Seer’s arms. Was that enough of a future to betray her people for? She had no choice but to trust it and move forward. That which is seen…

  “I have seen something as well,” said the senior. “The Tolfarians will come home. What is seen must come to pass.”

  “What is seen must come to pass.” Rowri repeated the words while her heart struggled to believe them. Omira had seen the Tolfarians return to Choma? The Senior had seen them come home? Maybe that meant the plan would change. She hadn’t seen herself with the Tolfarians, after all. Her visions had been of Shayd only.

  A thread of hope dangled before her, and the priestess clung to it. Could something so tentative lift her from the mess she was drowning in? The cat inside only curled lower and tensed. Wait, wait, it said. Behind that crouch she felt the constant push forward. To Shayd, to her future, perhaps.

  The Tolfarians would go home, but between their request of her and the Shrouded Seer’s Heart, she couldn’t begin to guess if she’d ever run beneath the Choman skies again. As woman or Uraru, Rowri was adrift, and only the next seeing could tell her where to land.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dielel whispered to the stones, but it was Jarn’s evil taunts that answered him. He didn’t care anymore. The Heart had sung to him. Dielel, it called. He was chosen, special, heartbound. The veins glowed even now when he touched them, even after his bonded had been forced to leave.

  “What are you rambling about?” Jarn’s snarl rose from the hole, and this time Dielel didn’t cringe from it. “You’ve lost your mind at last?”

  “Hush.” Dielel stroked the heartstone. “Idiot. I’m working on something.”

  For the first time in hours, the hole fell silent. The pit where the criminal had been buried ceased its barrage of insults and torment. Only the stone spoke to him, and it sang of fissures and cracks. It pulled him this way and that, as if it were Dielel himself and not the vein that wriggled through the massive Core. It called to him. Together, it sang. The bonded must remain together.

  “What are you doing?” Now Jarn’s voice held no more scorn. It wavered with something else, excitement, curiosity, hope. “I see light. There’s light here now.”

  Had they put him in total darkness? No wonder the man raved. Dielel’s mind cleared, however. He felt more lucid than he had in weeks. The stone showed him the way out. It guided his mind to the chink in the prison’s armor, and that chink would require the lunatic below’s help.

  “Jarn,” he whispered, but the man heard him. He felt the stone amplify his words, aid him in another treason. “I know how to get out of here.”

  It would be difficult, to say the least, and they’d need some basic tools, supplies, and a Core-full of luck once they reached the surface…if they reached the surface. He’d need help, and yet Dielel felt the flutter of success in his stomach. He’d have it, of course. All he needed to do was ask his bonded. When the man returned, as the stones swore to him he would, then all he’d need is to ask.

  The bonded must remain together. He didn’t doubt it, even in the face of treason. Dielel’s faith didn’t falter, even when the demon in his cellar laughed, when Jarn’s slippery cackle rose from the pit to echo against the stone walls of his prison.

  All they had to do was wait for his love to come back.

  *-*-*

  Rowri stood inside a garden, not on the Shrouded ship, but somewhere else, somewhere lush and rich by contrast. She observed as much as she could, took notes in her thoughts while she waited for the Seer to come. She knew he would, and when he did she sensed the urgency of what would happen next.

  She enjoyed the anticipation more than she should have. She hid in the foliage, and knew the Shrouded Seer searched for her. Shayd entered, his face flushed from running after her. But why had she been running from him? He shook his head and mumbled her name, his eyes pleading with her over something she couldn’t remember, something that hadn’t happened yet.

  Still, the pain in her chest squeezed. Her Uraru howled and lunged forward, and Rowri fell into the man’s arms.

  “Rowri, Rowri.” His lips brushed her name across her forehead. They shifted down and pressed her into a kiss that sent the garden spinning.

  The woman that she was clung to him, desperate to touch him, to know as much of him as she could. The beast inside clawed and snarled and purred all at the same time. This was her mate, it insisted. This was the man she must have.

  “Rowri.” He pulled away enough to speak, but she didn’t want to hear his question. The truth, the inevitable answer would destroy the moment.

  She dove against him, lifted her mouth to his and captured him again.

  She let the sensations envelop her, sank into them and held on too tightly. The vision snapped like a thread. She awoke, sat up on a cot that was much too slim and whimpered for the losing of him.

  Rowri sat up. What did this mean? Could she be with him after all? It would be selfish, brutally self-serving to abandon their deal with the Tolfarians, and yet she would. The dreaming proved it. Her body still trembled, still sang of his kiss. She wanted to relive this vision for real. Now…

  Omira slept on the bunk opposite her, and she could hear the woman’s rough breathing. Did the senior dream the harmless, nonsensical dreams of ordinary sleep? Or did she see something tonight as well? Rowri didn’t care.

  She had seen it. As Omira loved to remind her, what is seen will come to pass. Rowri grinned. Her Uraru would not wait a moment longer.

  Her beast rallied her to move, to rebel agains
t tight walls and a floor that never stopped vibrating. She slipped from the cot, landed on the metal grating without making a sound and then padded to the doorway.

  The ship howled, metal rumbled, and the floor shuddered underneath her. Omira woke with a start and clung to the bunk while the ship shook. In the hallway, feet pounded in both directions. Voices boomed, still drowning in the complaints of the ship’s engines.

  “What is happening?” Omira’s fear filled the room. Her cat surfaced, and even Rowri’s cringed from the weakness.

  “I don’t know.” It soothed the other ferocity, distracted her from her excitement over the Shrouded Seer. “I’ll see.”

  “Be careful!” Omira didn’t move. She’d wound her arm through the bunk’s frame and sagged there, barely holding her own weight. “Just look. Don’t go out.”

  “Yes, Senior.” Rowri crawled to the door. It wasn’t far, and she didn’t trust her legs with the floor moving, even though the initial lurching had faded quickly to a low rumble. The vibrations were enough to rattle the bunks, and her bodily control was already being tested. She pulled herself to her feet, however, before triggering the panel open.

  Smoke filled the hallway. She clung to the doorframe and squinted into it. There shouldn’t be smoke on a starship. Something very wrong had happened, and though the smoke didn’t block her vision completely, it made a shadowy shape of the figure trundling forward through the haze.

  “Hello?” She clutched the metal harder. Her knees wobbled. Fear drove her cat toward flight again. “What’s happening?”

  “Engine trouble.” The voice was low and raspy. “No real danger.”

  The Shevran trader waddled close enough for Rowri to make out. He came from the rear of the ship, and his cheeks were brilliant yellow against his green scales.

  “Are you sure?”

  His head bobbed up and down, but he scurried past her fast enough to suggest he was concerned despite his words. His room was a door down on the far side of the hall, and the trader slipped inside it, slid the door closed without further comment.

  The smoke had an artificial taste, a scent to it that spoke of wires and grease and nothing organic at all. It burned her throat when she breathed it, and her eyes watered. She looked back the way the reptile had come and then turned to face the fore end of the hall where a slim ladder led up to the bridge and dining room.

  “Here!” Another voice called from that direction. Two more dark shapes moved in the smoke. “Mof is already back…oh.” The lighter of the Shrouded Princes stopped in the hallway only a pace from their door. He dipped his head in apology and then moved again.

  “What is it?” Shayd came behind him, and even in the smoke, Rowri recognized both his voice and his movement. “Haftan?”

  “I’ll help Mofitan.” Haftan smiled at Rowri and then hurried past her. “Make sure the passengers are fine.”

  Rowri watched him drift toward the rear of the ship. She watched the smoke rolling over the space he’d vacated, and she clenched against the beast’s reaction to the man who’d remained. He didn’t move toward her. She could feel him like a stone there, immobile, and held tight. Her beast snapped and strained to be at him. Rowri felt the cool metal under her fingers, pressed her hands against the frame and stood free of it. She let the panel close behind her, barely heard Omira’s muffled call.

  “Rowri!”

  She closed her eyes and listened, but the ship’s vibration drowned any further sound from inside, and Rowri knew Omira would not budge until it had settled.

  Rowri should have been frightened as well. She’d never been in space, never left her home planet. Something soothed her, however. Her Uraru purred and tugged at her, but not in fear. She realized it in a rush. It was him. He was calm, a still spot in the smoke and the sound, and Rowri sensed it. Her cat sensed it, and it soothed away any fear that might have worried her.

  “Rowri,” he said her name, caught her off-guard.

  The cat reacted where the woman’s reflexes hesitated. It swept forward, took control and steered her into an about face. Shayd waited in the smoke as if he were formed from it. His lips flirted with her name again.

  “Rowri.” He whispered it, sang it, and she heard him over the sound of chaos and malfunction.

  Her cat heard it as a summons. It drove her now, and when the Shrouded prince held open his arms, Rowri rushed forward into them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She came to him in a rush. One second he stood in the smoky hallway, and the next she ran into his arms. Shayd reeled against the swelling of the Heart song. It pounded, as if the stone could speak to him still, even across deep space. Rowri folded against him and he pulled her in and breathed, hearing the perfection of them together like music in his veins.

  The ship’s main engine had malfunctioned. Mofitan had caught it on the sensors before any real damage could occur, but the ship was small and the hallways had filled with smoke before Mof could attend the matter. It sheltered them now, cocooned them in a bubble of privacy, and Shayd doubted such a chance would come along again.

  “Rowri,” he whispered, smelling her hair at the same time and catching the whiff of outdoors, an open-air scent trapped in a smoky hall. She trembled like a leaf, buried her head in his robes and shuddered against his chest. “It’s all right.”

  “The smoke.” Her voice was so soft he nearly missed it.

  “It’s just a little thing. The ship is fine.” The air already began to clear. He could see farther down the hallway. They only had a moment. "Rowri, I'm sorry if I startled you before. It's only that we have so little time."

  "I saw you in a vision just now." Her face turned up to him, and her eyes were wide and sparkling without tears this time. Her cheeks glowed rosy pink against the black. "I saw us."

  "Together?" He held his breath, but he couldn't keep his arms from shaking, couldn't hide the racing in his chest. "Rowri, did you see us together?"

  Her dark head nodded. She bit her lower lip softly and gazed into his eyes. Together. Shayd didn't need any more answer than that. He pulled her into his arms and swept her to his chest, leaning down and bringing their faces close. He inhaled, falling into the scent of her, the mystery of their bond.

  "Shayd." She whispered his name and snaked her slim arms around the back of his neck. Her spine curved, bringing their bodies into contact, igniting the electricity of their attraction, their heartbond, the power of both their cultures.

  When he kissed her, the Heart sang in his mind. Yes! His fears vanished in the heat of Rowri's lips against his, in the curl of her against him. This was right. This could not possibly be denied. The Summit and the Tolfarians and a Galaxy of responsibilities could not add up to this. His heartmate in his arms, exactly where she must stay…forever.

  He leaned back a little, broke the kiss but kept the girl so near their breaths stirred together. Her smile agreed with him. Her eyes echoed the Heart's yes.

  "You won't go with the Tolfarians." Even knowing it was true, he felt the stab of fear.

  She erased it with a shake of her head. "I cannot."

  "I'll keep you safe." He tried to reassure the shadows behind her eyes, the hint of unspoken fears. "We'll find a way to help your people without them."

  "Yes."

  "Rowri, if you choose this, nothing can come between us again." His voice threatened to break. He held it in check, as tightly as he held the priestess in his arms.

  "I choose this, Shayd." She leaned forward, pressed her lips to his again and whispered against his mouth. "I choose you."

  His heart leapt. His lips moved with hers again, making a different sort of bond. He'd hold her forever if he could, here in the hallway, but already the smoke had thinned to wisps, and the echo of steps sounded from the far end of the hallway.

  Rowri stiffened and twisted to see. "I should go. Omira will not…"

  "We can tell her together. Later."

  "Yes."

  The priestess, his heartmate, slipped
from his arms and danced her way back to the door of her room. Shayd stared after her, watched the smoke eddy in her wake and heard the whisper again and again. "Yes."

  Haftan appeared in the haze. He drifted through it, frowning, muttering under his breath. He stopped in front of Shayd and looked around, as if the girl might still be hiding somewhere in the smoke. Shayd tried to mask his grin. He faked a stern demeanor, crossed his arms over his chest and ignored the look Haftan gave him, the raised eyebrow. “Mofitan says the trader was in the engine room,” Haftan said. If he'd seen them, he kept it to himself for now. Shayd had no doubt he'd hear about it later. He'd have to tell them anyway, if he meant to secure their help. “He chased him out, but had to stay and help the engineers recalibrate the drive.”

  “What happened?” He'd nearly forgotten the damaged ship and had to force himself back to a calm state.

  “Maybe we should ask the Shevran? They found a coolant leak. The crew at the base should have scanned it before we left.”

  “Unless it wasn’t there yet.” Sobering. While it couldn't quite sour his mood—nothing could now—it did cause a spike of concern. Rowri was on the ship. If someone meant to sabotage their mission, his heartmate would be in danger as well.

  “Hmm.”

  Haftan’s eyebrow lifted higher, flirting with his hairline. He sidestepped, smiled, and waved an arm toward the hallway behind Shayd. His wraps had come loose somewhere between leaving the cockpit and the engine room, but Haftan managed to look dignified, even with his sleeves dangling free. He swept past Shayd and rounded on the Shevran trader’s door.

  Why the man would tamper with the engine on a ship he rode on, Shayd couldn’t fathom. Unless he had a death wish, an on-board saboteur would have to be precise, more precise than your average Shrouded Prince. Haftan stormed the room, and Shayd hung back. The smoke had thinned enough that only a faint scent of melted plastic remained. Haftan pounded on the panel, and Shayd observed. He watched the door slide open, but his attention was on the one behind him, on Rowri’s room.