The Marann (17 page)

“And you’ve done this?” she
asked.

“My father would not have declared me
his heir if I had not, nor would I rule now.”

“How old were you?”

“Younger than is Kyza.”

Marianne rocked back in her
chair.

“I was unusually young,” he
added.

“So it will be soon, for
Kyza?”

“Indeed, most likely in the coming
year. She is pressing Storaas for challenges and passing them. I
would have her slow her pace and be closer to five than to four
when she faces the great trial, but she is
strong-willed.”

Marianne stifled a snort. The Sural
eyed her, eyebrow raised. “You were even younger than she is now,
and you call
her
strong-willed?”

He smiled with deliberate mystery. “I
admit I was a challenge for my father.”

“I just bet.”

“Regardless of comparisons, my
daughter is still headstrong.”

“Your daughter has you in her
thrall.”

He laughed. “Yes,” he said, smiling.
“Even so.”

Marianne sobered. “She’ll pass the
great trial, won’t she?”

“She is strong,” he answered, “but no
one can say with any certainty.”

Marianne bit her lip and gazed at the
manuscript on the table.

“Tell me about this story,” she said,
changing the subject. “Why
does
the protagonist follow his
friend into the dark?”

Chapter Nine

The mid-spring thaws brought green life back to
Suralia, and buds appeared on the cora trees in the Sural’s
gardens, swelling as the days lengthened. Kyza made her way along
one of the sparkling brooks dividing the garden. Storaas had given
her leave from her studies to play in the gardens until the midday
meal. She chose a rock and sat, splashing her peds in the water,
basking in the spring sunlight. Tiny water creatures nibbled at her
heels. She giggled and splashed at them.

Flutters winged past, alarmed and
calling, shedding brilliant feathers in panic. Kyza camouflaged and
dove into a hollow under a nearby cora tree’s thick basal branches.
The flutters knew her father and every member of the stronghold
staff and would never have fled from them. If it were a guest, a
guard would have flicked a signal that she was safe.

Where are the guards?
She
concentrated, opening her senses without extending them, and found
the nearby guards gone. If this were a test, she thought, would
they not be in their places? Test or not, she must not be found. An
intruder—one of her father’s enemies—would try to capture her, and
if it were a test, the proctors would give her a heavy load of
extra work for letting them find her. Careful, silent, she molded
herself into a hollow under the branches and made herself one with
the dead vegetation.

Time crawled past. Her hiding place
lay too far into the gardens to hear the activity in the keep, but
several times she heard the sounds of a search. Someone crept along
the path—someone she did not recognize with her senses. Kyza slowed
her breathing and her heart rate as Storaas had taught her. Whoever
tried to find her, proctor or enemy, would track her by many
different methods: the smell of her breath drifting from her hiding
place, the thud of a heartbeat, an oh-so-slight ripple in the air,
a stray emotion. She breathed into the soft moss lining the hollow
and concentrated, absorbed with becoming undetectable to any
Tolari, even—especially—her own tutors. She could not hide from her
father, or from Storaas, but if
they
sought her, she was in
no danger.

She let her mind settle. She melted
into the winter-killed vegetation under the cora tree, scattered
with dead twigs and peaking with faint bits of spring green life.
Her thoughts lengthened, feeling the life in the soil as it woke
from the long winter, becoming one with the flow of it. The
searcher went past her hiding place without a pause.

Time passed, and still no signal came
from a proctor or a guard. Running feet pounded by. Kyza
concentrated on controlling her heart and breathing. The proctors
had given her tests this long before, and she knew she could endure
it. She had not eaten since the morning meal, and it began to
occupy more of her attention to keep her stomach from complaining.
The proctors must have timed the beginning of the trial to make
hunger a part of the test. She would never admit it to any of her
teachers, but she knew she did not have an adult’s endurance. The
stronghold guards could remain camouflaged and motionless all day,
but she had only four years of life—her body would betray her,
sooner or later.

More time crept by. The sounds of
searching had ceased. She could feel the sun setting and the
darkness flowing across the garden. She had remained hidden and
motionless since before the midday meal, through the long
afternoon. Now she focused all her concentration on the one
imperative task of keeping her body from betraying her position
under the tree. Her body cried for food, water, and the need to
move
. A rock pressed into one leg. Her left shoulder was at
an awkward angle. Her side ached.

She did not move. The vital need to
remain still and undetectable absorbed every thought, every bit of
her awareness. Desperate, she sent her mind roving back to Storaas
and his most recent lessons. She could hear his gentle voice in her
memory.

“It is always
possible—however unlikely it may be—that one of your father’s
enemies will find a way to defeat his defenses and take the
stronghold. If that happens, you cannot let them capture you. Kyza,
dear child, cherished daughter of the Sural—if the stronghold is
taken, then you must walk into the dark. We must all go into the
dark. You must find the strength and courage to go
bravely.”

There. She smelled it.
Smoke.
She sorted through the smell as it grew stronger. The smoke cloyed
in her nostrils, sweet, as if fire feasted on incense and seasoned
wood. Shock flooded her, almost breaking her concentration.
This
is not a test. The stronghold is burning.

Father!
She did not dare reach
out her senses to search for him. It would lead his enemies to her.
If the stronghold burned, then he was dead or dishonored.
No!
she thought, he was
not
dishonored, her father
would never allow himself to be captured.
He must be dead.
She felt along the bond she shared with him and found… nothing. Her
struggle to remain concealed had absorbed so much of her attention
she had failed to notice she was alone.

Her heart drowning in grief, her body
screaming for release, she turned her mind into the dark, the quiet
dark that, it surprised her to discover, dulled her body’s
discomfort. She almost cried out in relief as her pain and hunger
and thirst faded into the welcoming night.
I will be strong for
you, Father,
she thought.
You would have been proud of
me.
She would not be taken alive.

<<>>

“Kyza. Tell me.” The Sural’s voice was
flat, emotionless.

Quiet filled the private study as the
agitated ruler paced. Ancient effigies of even more ancient
ancestors looked down from the ancient, fragrant paneling lining
the walls. He stopped pacing the mat-covered floor before the desk
and faced Storaas.

“She went into the dark, high one.” He
twitched his deep indigo robe, betraying his mixed feelings. He was
proud of Kyza. Apprehensive of the Sural.

The Sural waved a hand. He was
unreadable, his empathic barriers closed, but Storaas knew the man
was in an agony of apprehension. “Will she live?”

Storaas bowed, arms spread, palms
forward. He could not discern if the Sural was pleased or
displeased with how advanced Kyza’s training had been at such a
young age, and the news was uncertain. He had had to deliver worse
news when the apothecaries were not able to bring a potential heir
back from the dark. It had become more difficult each time, and
each successive death had devastated the Sural the more.

With Kyza, it would be much, much
worse. It was not only that the Sural cherished her more than her
predecessors. If she could not make a complete recovery, the Sural
would have to command his daughter to walk back into the dark,
because a weakened heir could not legally rule Suralia. Though the
Sural had ordered him to administer the great trial, she should
have had another year of life before facing it. For good or ill,
her level of proficiency demanded it at this time. Kyza had been so
delightful he could not resist teaching her everything she wanted
to know, and he could not suppress pride that she was almost the
youngest child of Suralia ever to come back from the
dark.

The only one who had been younger, he
thought, was her father, but he was a special case. Kyza, though
brilliant, was not in the same category with the Sural.
He
was a grandchild of the Jorann.

The Sural’s voice cracked through the
air like a glacier calving. “Speak,” he commanded, tearing apart
the net of Storaas’ thought.

“She lives, high one. Barely.” Storaas
twitched his robe again, a nervous habit he had never, in all his
long years, succeeded in breaking.

“Will she recover?” The question was
flat, toneless.

A hesitation. “That is not yet clear,
high one. She is still near the edge of the dark, deep in shock.
Your apothecaries need more time to determine if she has sustained
permanent damage.”

The Sural let out a breath. “I wish to
see her,” he said and strode from the room, slamming his
already-closed barriers even tighter before entering the keep’s
main corridor.

Three other times, Storaas had come to
him after administering the great trial to one of his potential
heirs. His children.
His sons.
Each child had failed the
test—dying from it, not strong enough to return from the descent
into the dark. The Sural pushed away the memories. Kyza was the
fourth to endure it and the first to survive. If she could not
recover her full strength—he rejected the thought, refusing to
dwell on the possibility that he would have to command her to go
back into the dark. He clamped down on his feelings, but he could
not control a stray hope that sent his heart soaring.
She
survived!
He exulted in the knowledge as he made his way to his
apothecary’s quarters.
She must recover. She
will
recover.

<<>>

Smithton Russell dropped into his
chair and rubbed his temples with large hands. “She’s near death?
What kind of monster is that Sural?”

The adjutant standing on the other
side of Smithton’s desk, a fresh, clean-cut young man, shrugged.
“They’re an unemotional culture.”

The Ambassador scowled. “Don’t pretend
to teach me my job, pup,” he snapped. “Learn to recognize a
rhetorical question when you hear one.”

Aurelio Johnson—odd name, he
thought—paled under his dark skin. “Yes sir.” The young man
straightened his already straight posture and glued his eyes to a
spot on the bulkhead behind the Ambassador’s head.

Smithton scowled again. “Don’t go all
military on me either.”

“Yes sir. I mean, no sir. I
mean—”

“I know what you mean.
Out.”

“Yes sir.” He turned on his heel and
left the room, relief clear on his face.

Smithton sighed as the door closed
behind the young man. He leaned back in the chair, gazing out the
viewport at the beautiful world below. He uncorked a bottle of
brandy and poured himself a drink. “Harsh world, my foot,” he
muttered as he settled into the seat’s cushions and sipped. “That
planet is greener than Ireland.”

“Are you sure about that?” came a
woman’s voice from behind him. “It looks a little too blue to
me.”

Smithton started and put down the
drink. “Adeline!”

His wife moved around the chair and
sat on the desk with an impudent grin. “If you don’t want a
conversation, don’t think out loud.”

“Stop sneaking around!”

“Oh Smitty, you know I can’t help it,”
she chided. Her voice was bland.

Smithton grunted. His wife made barely
a sound on stone floors with hard shoes. On a carpeted floor in
slippers, she made as much noise as a cat. He’d always thought her
a natural for an intelligence operative, but she had maintained she
had no interest in even learning self-defense, much less how to
kill. She put a delicate hand on his large, blocky one. For the
hundred thousandth time, he wondered what she saw in
him.

“Tell me what’s got you grunting and
scowling.” She peered into his face, scrunching her own into a
parody of his expression.

“It’s that adjutant of
mine.”

“No it’s not,” she said. Smithton
started to speak but she shushed him with a finger. “Oh no, don’t
tell me. Yes, I’m sure you grumped at him for something he did. No,
I’m not interested in what it was. He behaved like the Earth Fleet
lieutenant he is, I’m sure, but it’s not fair to fault him for
behaving the way he’s been trained to behave. You’re scowling
because something else has you lathered. What is it?”

Smithton glared up at his wife, then
softened and took a sip of his brandy. “It’s that damned Sural of
theirs,” he said, gesturing at the planet in the
viewport.