Shayd closed his eyes and recited the mantra for soothing nerves. He imagined the lines of smoke and the scent of the herbs that would help a Seer remain collected, keep him from rushing to the ladder and shooing the women back up and away from the intruders.
“Are they here?” Omira called out when she reached the bottom, and he had to open his eyes. “Have the Tolfarians arrived?”
The girl hadn’t appeared. The woman had reached the flooring and yet Rowri did not descend. Shayd exhaled a long breath and nodded. “They are, Senior.”
Mofitan turned back to them. Shayd chanted in his mind. Peace, calm, stay above, Rowri, stay. Mof moved forward and to the side. He hugged the wall opposite Shayd, made a narrow opening just as the airlock door creaked closed.
Tchao Rimawdi stood in its place.
Stay there, Rowri. Don’t come down.
The Tolfarian leader could not have been mistaken for one of his men. He stood too straight. His implants glowed just a shade brighter than the rest of his people’s. He had a shoulder set that said he was in charge, and it didn’t falter even in the shadow of Mofitan’s bulk. He strode forward, eased through the gap as though he had plenty of room and drifted past Shayd like a cloud.
“Senior?” The Tolfarian’s voice rolled down the hall ahead of him, like a wave. It reached Omira, and she flinched from it. “First Priestess Omira?”
“Yes.” As if he had reminded her of the title, Omira stood taller. She lifted her chin and did a better job of feigning composure. “I am the Senior.”
Tchao Rimawdi dropped like a stone. He fell so swiftly that Mofitan reached for him, swiping at the air where his shoulders had been. The Tolfarian landed on one knee. He bowed his head low over his arm and placed a hand on the floor in front of his boots to steady his posture—prone, submissive. His voice lowered even more. Still, it carried like a tide through the bowels of the Shrouded transport. The words were simple enough, but the aura of them, the idea of this man on his knees, left Shayd with a slimy, slinking feeling in his bones.
“Senior Priestess Omira of the Choma-uraru,” Tchao Rimawdi purred. “It is my greatest honor to meet you.”
The woman’s fear ebbed. Omira’s lips flirted with a smile, and Shayd felt the chill of it, the ease with which this Tolfarian had wooed her. She bent slightly at the knees, dipped into a respectful curtsey and let her pride and her authority glow down upon her long lost cousin.
Shayd swallowed a protest. He tensed against his own fears and watched the hole where the ladder disappeared. He watched it, but if Rowri spied from that vantage, the only clue was the softest flicker of a shadow across the opening.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jadyek guided the skimmer over the rim of the Palace crater and down past the security platform. He recalled the vehicle’s probes and signaled his flight path to the platform, hovering for only a second before leaping onto the inlaid and stronger magnetic roadway that would take him across the crater to the Palace complex.
He hadn’t gotten far before an incoming message scrolled across the communications display. Return to the Palace at once. His gut clenched against a wave of guilt. They knew. Jadyek shook his head and leveled out his craft. They couldn’t know everything. They might suspect, but he’d bribed young Mantil to leave him alone on the prison’s lowest level. The man couldn’t have overheard Dielel’s plan all the way from the elevator shaft.
He could handle suspicion. They couldn’t lock him up based on it, and he only needed a little time to gather Dielel’s supplies. A few days, his freedom, and one last trip to the prison.
“Incoming flier, identify yourself.” Palace security wasted no time with a digital message. Jadyek didn’t recognize the voice, but the tone said he’d been found out.
“This is Council Member Jadyek, returning as scheduled.”
“Noted, Council Member. You’re clear to land. The Consort awaits your arrival.”
Jaine Rieordan waited for him at the platform. The Consort knew. Of course he did. How could the man have missed the meaning, when the veins of heartstone flared to life, when he’d experienced a bonding of his own not so long ago? What he would do about it was the real question.
As Jadyek settled his transport onto the pad below the plaza, he tried to guess the repercussions that were coming. He might end up in a cell himself, and he doubted they’d let him share Dielel’s. He shook his head and fought for composure. They had nothing concrete enough for that. He might lose his Council seat, perhaps, be sent home in shame. But he’d committed no real crime…yet.
It would make things harder, but it wouldn’t ruin Dielel’s plan.
He inhaled and stuffed his breather into his nostrils. The flags flew red today, perfect for the danger in his future. Jadyek exhaled more slowly, relaxed before triggering the door slide. He unlatched his harness leisurely, as if he had nothing to worry about. By the time he stepped out onto the platform, he could almost believe he didn’t.
The First Consort stood as close as the clashing magnetic fields would have allowed. Now he strode forward, met Jadyek only a few paces from the vehicle. Over their heads, the Shroud boiled and shifted from pale amber to crimson.
“How was your visit?” Rieordan fired the question at him, and Jadyek turned his head away to the Shroud, as if he pondered the colors and not his answer.
“As good as I’d expected,” he said. If the Consort meant to accuse him, then he’d have to do it directly. Jadyek didn’t know what he knew yet, and didn’t care to lend him more information than he might have.
“The Shroud is in a terror today.”
“Looks that way.”
“Dangerous.”
“Good thing I remembered my breather.”
“How is Dielel?”
Watch the Shroud. Don’t flinch from it. He hasn’t any proof or he’d have gotten to it directly. “He’s stuck in a very dark hole, I believe.”
It was neither a confession nor denial, and if the Consort had anything on him, it would have proved the perfect opportunity to say as much. Instead, Rieordan turned his own gaze up. Their atmosphere ruffled overhead, and neither man budged below.
“I know a bonding when I see one.”
“I imagine you do.”
Their eyes met for a flicker, a passing of understanding that wasn’t approval exactly, but felt like kinship just the same. Did Jain Rieordan empathize with his plight? Perhaps that was the reason he hadn’t been arrested, that his transport hadn’t been intercepted. He might not condone the journey Jadyek had just made, and he certainly wouldn’t approve of the plans he and Dielel had made, but the First Consort could, most certainly, imagine how he felt, how he’d do anything to be near to his bonded.
“I will have to report what I suspect to the king.”
Which meant that he hadn’t already.
“Are you going to be all right?”
Surprising. Maybe he had won some sympathy from the man. It wouldn’t last once Jadyek had helped his bonded escape from prison, once he’d stolen weapons, tools, rope and whatever he worked out might bribe his way into Dielel’s cell. He had a generic answer for the Consort. It was honest, but hid his treason as well as possible. “I will be.”
“We…I can imagine what it would be like. If you need to talk…”
“I appreciate that, Consort.” Jadyek relaxed considerably. He let his breath flow and his guard lower just a little. A mistake, it turned out. King Peryl’s bride was not done with him yet.
“But you’ll understand if I monitor your future ‘trips.’ You’ll understand that I’ll do anything and everything required to protect the king.”
“Of course.”
“Good.” The Consort smiled, and there was a hint of warmth there still. “Shall we?”
Jadyek followed him to the long stairway. They climbed the stone steps to the Palace together. He had Rieordan’s sympathy, sure. It didn’t change the fact that the man was on to him. It didn’t change the fact that Jadyek woul
d have to watch his back. He’d be lucky to succeed, to make even one more trip to the Shrouded prison. And one more trip was all he needed. He’d have to find a way, to steal a skimmer, perhaps. Maybe a bike.
One more trip and he’d let Dielel worry about everything after that.
*-*-*
The Galactic Summit allowed them to use the planetary headquarters on Vade for the rendezvous. They landed in the wake of their faster Tolfarian escort, the strange, blue-wired Chomans that Rowri had managed to avoid so far. She'd remained upon the Shrouded vessel, and Tchao had stayed politely on his own. She would not be so lucky now that they were planetside.
Tchao Rimawdi wanted to meet her.
Omira had helped keep them apart during the repairs. The senior had relayed her excuses and blamed her lapse on space sickness and her youth. If the Tolfarian was offended, he hadn’t showed it. He’d been, according to the Senior Priestess, perfectly agreeable, showing her all the respect due her office. In short, he’d wooed Omira to the point that her fears were forgotten.
Rowri’s were not.
She’d hidden in their room, skipped meals or had Omira bring her food, and avoided contact with anyone who might remind her that the Tolfarians were with them, that she was only days away from confronting the latest seeing come to life. It was bad enough, to live it over and over whenever she shut her eyes.
Tchao Rimawdi meant her no good, and if the Senior remembered that she chose not to mention it. Rowri might have complained to her, looked to the older woman for help, rescue, a way to avoid ending up on a Tolfarian table. Instead, she held her tongue. Each glance at Omira was a reminder that the Senior Priestess walked forward to her death.
If she could do that, then what right did Rowri have to avoid her own horrors? Things might still turn out well for her, or at least end. The Senior had no such hope, and yet, she met the Tolfarians with calm poise and acceptance that the seeing must come to pass.
Today, Rowri would meet the man who would become her husband, provided the negotiations went as planned. Rowri held little hope they wouldn’t. She’d seen herself in Tchao’s possession. She’d witnessed his effect on Omira, and any hopes she might have clutched at paled next to that woman’s fierce acceptance that they were on the correct path, that they had to be.
Now they sat silently on their bunks while the staff of the Vade spaceport secured their vessel. Their Shrouded hosts had rapped at their door only moments before. When Omira cracked the thing open, used her body to block any view Rowri might catch of the messenger, she’d given up and let the Senior relay to her that they’d arrived, that they could disembark shortly.
Would Shayd leave immediately? Would he even want to see her, before he was gone for good? Rowri clutched at the linens, dug her fists into the stiff mattress and felt her Uraru’s rebellion. It wanted to run, maybe toward Shayd and maybe only away from the Tolfarians. Either way, it took more of her to hold it back each day. Eventually she would fail, turn beast regardless of her efforts. She needed to run.
“Is the surface on Vade habitable?”
“Your cat stretches you.” Omira sighed and looked at the ceiling.
“It does. I do not have your restraint, Senior. I’m not sure how long I can continue.”
“It takes years of training to fully control the Uraru, child. And even I long for the open now, though my wish to be home again is far more pressing. I will ask Tchao if there’s a place where you might slip away.”
Slip away. Perhaps the planet was covered in jungle. She could slip away, let her Uraru lead her and never return to face the future.
“Maybe the Shrouded know something of Vade?”
“I doubt it,” Omira sniffed. “They are less aware of the galaxy around them than we are, I’m afraid.”
Had that come from the Tolfarians? The disdain when Omira said Shrouded was undeniable, and yet, she’d been civil enough about them before Tchao Rimawdi had won her over. Either the Tolfarians disapproved of their hosts, or Omira had noted Rowri’s attraction to their Seer. Of course she’d noted. Rowri sighed and plucked a loose thread from the bedcovers. Everyone on board had seen it.
Her desire to run swelled into a snarl, a cat’s voice in the back of her throat that made it to her lips even when she tried to bite it back. Shayd would leave now. The Shrouded would go home and she would be left alone to her fate.
“Perhaps I could request access to the port’s computers.”
“Please.” They could discover the state of Vade at least. There might be a map, and there would be data on the planet, the regulations, anything that might get Rowri outside and away so that her Uraru might be freed. “I need to run.”
“I know, child. I know. Let me see what I can do.” Omira rose and stalked to the door. Her words had clipped more than usual, and her stance was defensive too. Maybe the Senior’s cat needed out as well. Maybe all the acceptance and calm was a lie. “I’ll ask them,” she said. “We’ll find a place, a way to get you settled.”
Rowri nodded and watched the Senior leave. Get her settled. What were the odds of that? Nothing in her immediate future could outweigh the terror waiting for her. Not unless she ran forever. Not unless she set the cat free and let the woman fade for good. If she got outside, it would be easy. The Senior swore it would be worse to avoid the seeing, but then, what Choman had ever really tried?
*-*-*
Tchao had bowed more in the last few days than any Tolfarian in history. He smiled at the Senior abomination, and did it again. Nose down, dip, flash her a self-deprecating smile…and back up. Omira beamed at him, playing her part.
The Choma Senior Priestess had seen right through him.
Certainly, the woman had smiled and played along. She’d fooled her escorts even, but Tchao had felt her disapproval from the first word. It hung around his shoulders now like a dark blanket. She knew exactly what he was up to. Omira knew what was in his heart, and yet, she continued forward as if she had nothing to fear.
He swallowed the taste of fear, the metallic, bloody feeling on his tongue and remembered that he didn’t believe in the wretched seeing…exactly. More accurately, he believed that he could beat it, even though he felt the authority of the Senior Priestess under his skin as if he were one of her disciples.
But he hadn’t expected to be transparent.
Why would the stupid woman play along? The thought crept up his spine like chill fingers. What else had she seen with her beastly visioning?
They came down the ramp with a pair of the huge, purple Shrouded at their backs. These Shrouded the Summit had sent confused him. They were weak, unarmed as far as his men could tell, and painfully clueless about their own mission. So obviously over their heads in fact, that he smelled a trap in there somewhere. Tout was no fool.
He’d have sent them specifically and for his own reasons.
Omira led the way, and the girl—the slight, charcoal-colored woman who held the key to everything—hid in the Senior’s shadow. She looked like an animal, like everything he’d expected her to be. He couldn’t wait for her to meet Dovali.
When they reached the ramp’s end, however, only Omira and one of the Shrouded approached him. The girl hung back, guarded by the other man. She watched him though, and her eyes caught the light and flared like a beast’s.
“Senior.” He bowed again, resisted the urge to snarl at the ground. “How was the remainder of your journey?”
“As well as can be expected.” Omira stiffened, tensed, and frowned so that Tchao had to rearrange his posture. They had a game to play, and his role required the pretense of submission. “Our Rowri is not as well as we’d hoped, you see. She needs some air, and a place to get her legs back under her.”
She was running away from him. The Senior would play the game willingly, perhaps, but the girl wanted nothing to do with him. Tchao smiled and nodded as gently as his fury would allow. “Of course. Long journeys are hard even when you are accustomed to them.”
“You unde
rstand?”
“Yes. I only hope that she feels herself again soon.”
“As do I. Thank you for that courtesy. Haftan will take her to the arboretum while we begin.”
He stood back up faster than he’d meant to. Begin? What made this woman so eager to accept his offer? More significantly, could she force her counterpart to play along? The girl obviously didn’t share her enthusiasm for the next steps. “Of course. I thought you might want to wait until you’d settled in.”
“I don’t plan on lingering long enough to settle.”
“I see.” Tchao forced away a frown. Had he overestimated his success? If this Senior rejected him now, what would he do? Take the Shevran’s device to Choma himself and set it off? It wouldn’t end as nicely for him, but it would still do the job.
“I believe we can come to an understanding quickly, Commander Tchao. You are well aware how badly we need this generator. If it works as you’ve suggested, I am obligated to return it to my people as speedily as possible.”
“Of course.” He let out a rush of tension and smiled for real then. The old woman was more desperate than he’d guessed. Perhaps she saw only her planet’s need, and perhaps her own glory in the solving of their energy problem. “I wouldn’t think of delaying you.”
The sooner she left the better, just so long as she left with his generator. Just so long as the Shevran had time to insert his bomb before she took it. Then, she couldn’t depart fast enough for Tchao. He had the tools in his fingers to destroy Omira, no matter how willingly she walked to her slaughter.
Then, the only thing left would be to follow her home, and he’d need the girl for that. The girl, and her seeing, would let him time his move perfectly.
He’d be able to maximize his effectiveness, but only if Dovali could crack her as easily as he’d promised. Tchao smiled and held out one hand. The ruler of all Choma took it freely. Dovali could do anything. He’d break the girl before they reached orbit, and then nothing could keep Choma from Tolfarian hands.
Seen (Heartstone Book 2) Page 16