The Seer (Tellaran Series) (4 page)

He could almost still feel the soft skin of her cheek under his fingers . . .

Jolar sank into one of the chairs in front of Dacel’s desk, the leather creaking as he sat. “No,” he said quietly. “It’s not.”

“The New Order eradicated the Seers for a reason. The damage they do to a person’s mind is serious, Jolar. It can be irreversible.”

He should be afraid. In the two hundred years since the fall of the Tellaran royal house the Seers had been portrayed as power hungry, ruthless, mind-devastating monsters—

So why can’t I believe that of her?

Jolar suddenly recalled sitting cradled at his father’s side as a boy, the comforting scent of his father’s study, of polished dalsawood and leather, around him, the weight of the ancient book of paper and binding spread across his lap. Zartan’s bright afternoon sun lit dust particles suspended in the air and, to his young eyes, at least, echoed the lost magic of the old Realm. Over and over Jolar would trace the smooth parchment under his chubby, child’s fingers, looking at the gilded illustrations, captivated as his father recounted stories of the princes and honored Seers of the court and a king who ruled over a golden age . . .

Jolar signed inwardly.

Maybe it is just Father and his fanciful tales.

But maybe I just want more than anything to believe that’s she really is just a frightened young woman with hauntingly beautiful eyes, lost and alone, that I need to protect, need to take care of.

Jolar passed his hand over his eyes.
Oh, hell, I really
should
be afraid.

And she’s not the only obligation I have to honor.

“I understand the risks,” he said gravely.

Dacel made one final tap on his desk. “All right. She’ll get the non-telepath ID, a good amount of money and her freedom but
only
if she helps you—truly helps—or she gets nothing. Make sure she understands.” Dacel’s gray eyes went hard. “Make sure you do too, Jolar. If she impedes your mission in any way—”

“She won’t,” Jolar said quickly. “My first duty is, as always, to the Realm.”

And whatever crazy thoughts I’m having about her, whatever this insane attraction is, I can push them aside. I can focus on what I need to do.

She doesn’t get to me.

Not ever.

His comm unit signaled and he pulled it from his pocket. “This is d’Tural.”

“Jolar,” Jensah’s voice was grim. “We’ve got a problem.”

Four

Arissa drew her legs to her chest and rested her cheek on her knees, curled around herself for warmth. Her cell contained the lumpy cot she sat on, a ‘fresher unit and a sink. She’d been locked in here for hours. It was long past midnight now—maybe even the wee hours of the night. Exhaustion was dragging at her but she couldn’t sleep.

Fleet Security had taken the stolen badge, her clothes and her shoes. The FleetSecs gave her too-large coveralls of cheap, itchy material to wear but they wouldn’t give her a blanket against the chill. She was barefoot; the floor was too icy to rest her feet on and the overhead lights were annoyingly bright, but at least the FleetSecs took the wrist restraints off before they locked her in here.

The beige walls were bare and there were no windows to the outside. The cell door had a single thick window and every now and again one of the tan uniformed FleetSecs would appear there and peer at her through the plexisteel, but none entered or spoke to her. They wouldn’t respond to her questions either. She wondered why they bothered to do a visual check at all. Surely she was being watched via security eye.

She wondered bleakly if the reason she was still alive was to give that doctor a chance to study a real live subject.

Execution or a lifetime of rooming with the blood plague? Hard to say which sounded worse, really.

Arissa raised her head.

Someone was coming for her.

TelSec.

She swallowed back tears. She’d done a lot of that in the last eight months.

Her parents had worked so hard, given up so much, just to keep her alive. She hadn’t been able to survive alone for even a year.

She closed her eyes briefly.
I’m sorry. I tried.

The door lock released and the heavy door slid open.

Arissa blinked.

"Surprised a Seer," Jolar said from the doorway. "Guess not many people have ever gotten to say they did that."

He was alone and she couldn’t sense the guards anywhere nearby either now. "What—what are you doing here?"

The anger in his sense glowed in his blue eyes. "You were supposed to wait for me. Did you think I wasn't coming back?"

"I knew you would.” She wet her lips. “I just wasn't sure what you would do when you did."

"Did it occur to you that whatever I was going to do, I might’ve wanted to do it
quietly?
You made a real mess for me tonight.”

“I wasn’t trying to get caught, you know,” she said tightly. “Your doctor friend must have found me gone and called the gate to stop me.”

“I called the gate.” His glance went over her. “Did they hurt you?”

“
You
called them?” she cried, on her feet now despite the frigid duracrete floor. “
Why?
”

“Because tracking you down if you got off the base would take more time than I have. What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded. “Running like that?”

Arissa narrowed her gaze. “I was thinking,
I need to get the fuck out of here!
”

“And then, what? Where you going?”

She threw her arms out. “To the market! Who cares?”

“Why?” he asked sharply. “Is there someone there? I know it’s not your parents. They’re dead, right? Eight months ago.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Yes.”

“So, is there?” His jaw worked for a moment. “Is there someone? Someone you were going back to?”

“Why would I tell you? So you can hurt
them
too?”

“You would have been just fine if you’d waited for me like you were supposed to. Arissa, this is very important. Does anyone else know about . . . about you?”

“My uncle on Apovia knows.” She pushed the wild curls behind her ears. “Feel free to hurt
him
all you want.”

“I take it you aren’t close.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “No, we’re not close! He came to tell me my parents were dead and I had ‘til morning to clear out. No heirs, of course, except him.”

“Because you’re supposed to be dead too. I saw the ID scan the FleetSecs took. Kassar, Arissa. Apovia. Died fifteen years ago, at age five
.
”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why falsify the records to make you deceased?”

“Because I couldn’t go to school. Because I couldn’t have the telepath screen. No
child
, means no
scans
, means no
questions
.”

His expression echoed his appalled sense. “Your parents did that to you?”

“My parents loved me! What were they supposed to do, Fleet? Hand me over to TelSec? Let me be dissected by people like your doctor friend?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “All right. Your uncle, but he won’t be looking for you. Anyone else? Anyone
on Tellar who will miss you? Who will come asking questions?”

“Why do you care?”

His nostrils flared. “I don’t have time for this! Answer the question or I leave you here right now.”

She studied him for a moment then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I owe my landlady back rent on the room,” she said sullenly. “She’s probably already sold everything I left behind and re-rented it.”

“Anyone else? Someone who—” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “A friend, maybe?”

“No,” she admitted, her chest tight. “There’s no one.”

He gave a nod, his tension easing a bit. “The guards have their orders and if there’s no one I have to pay off, no one I have to keep quiet . . . Okay, good.”

Arissa gave a short, bitter laugh. “Glad I could neaten everything up for you, Fleet.”

“You should be. I'm leaving for Sertar in an hour. You're going with me."

She blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“I just told you,” he said shortly. “You're going with me to Sertar. You’re going to help me.”

Arissa stared. “Help you? Help you do
what?
”

“We really don’t have time for this.” He indicated the door with a nod. “Come on.”

“And I’m just supposed to go along with whatever this is? How do I know you’re not going to lock me up with the blood plague—or something worse?"

He pulsed with anger. “Arissa—pretty name by the way, I like it better than Tianna
–
the plain fact is this: you're going with me and you're going to help me because if you
don't
they're going to haul you out of this cell in a few minutes and put a blaster bolt though your brain."

Her mouth parted.

He held her gaze. “So I need your answer right now—are you coming with me or not?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. "Why? You know what I am. Why do anything for me? Why help me?"

“Because I owe you,” he said shortly. “If you were Zartani you would understand but to put it simply: you gave me my life and now I’m going to give you yours.”

He was roiling with inner conflict but he meant what he said.

A lump formed in her throat at how
strongly
he meant it. So strongly that she knew if TelSec burst in right now he’d block their way and fight to the last breath to keep them from taking her.

Jolar reached into his pocket and pulled out an ID scanner. "Come here."

Arissa recoiled instinctively. "What's that for? You already have my scan."

"Here's the first rule if you want to live, Arissa. You do
what
I tell you
when
I tell you,” he bit out. “Come
here
."

She took a few reluctant steps closer, watching him warily.

He held the scanner up near her eye and caught her chin before she could turn away. "Don't flinch. It's a simple ID scan. People do it everyday, several times a day. It doesn't hurt and no one is afraid of them."

Arissa willed herself not to move as he flashed the red light in her eye.

He glanced at the reading. He turned the scanner so she could see the display.

She blinked. It was her face, her as she was now, not as a little girl, and there was no black stripe above her image to mark her deceased.

"
Legan
, Arissa?” she breathed. "What is this?"

"That's your new name. Hope you like it, though doesn't much matter if you don't."

"My new—?” The breath rushed out of her lungs. "I have an ID? Will it—Will that show on all the scanners?"

"Oh, yes. System wide, absolutely authentic and official."

An ID, a real one, a non-telepath one? The possibilities, the safety, the
freedom
of it made her dizzy.

"You did that?" Arissa managed.

"No, I called in every favor and debt owed me to
make
that happen. I just burned through every bit of influence I’ve built up in the last ten years—goodwill that was intended to land me Zartan’s seat on the Tellaran Council after I retire from the Fleet.” Jolar’s eyes were blue ice. “I expect to be well paid in return."

"Oh." She wet her lips and glanced at the cot. A real ID in return for letting him have her? She couldn’t afford to refuse, it didn’t even occur to her to try. "You want—I mean, here or—?"

He burst out laughing and Arissa's face went hot.

"You couldn't fuck me enough to pay for this!" Jolar sobered. "No, that’s not what I want from you. There's something on Sertar I have to do. Something important. Having a woman with me is actually a liability—unless she has a unique talent to bring to the table.
Your
talent."

She searched his face. "You need a telepath."

"Want one,” he corrected. “I don't need one. Which means you do as you're told or your best hope is that Doctor de’Sar gets her longed-for opportunity to study one of you. Are we clear?"

Arissa swallowed. "Yes."

He held up the scanner. "This is a solid ID—unless something happens to me. Make sure
nothing
happens to me. Still clear?"

Her cheeks were burning. "Don't kill you in your sleep. Got it."

His sense was as cold as his eyes now. "Don't misunderstand me. If I think for a moment you've betrayed me, I'll put that blaster bolt in your head myself."

He was such a jumble of emotion she couldn’t sort it all but just the words hurt. She blinked away the sudden sting of tears. "Sorry. I was—I was joking."

He locked gazes with her. "Don't joke like that again."

She dropped her eyes.

"All right," he said finally. "You're going to shower and change. I have clothes for you. They might not fit perfectly or be what you like, but put them on anyway. Fix yourself up as best you can in twenty minutes."

Arissa frowned. "Why?"

"Because that's how much time I'm giving you," he said impatiently, turning away.

She pushed the curls out of her face. "Whatever you say, Commander.”

His sudden anger hit her so hard she gasped.

"Don't
ever
call me that again," he snarled. "Understand?"

"I don't—I thought—” She shook her head. “Well, isn't that what you are?"

He gave her a narrow look. “Are you fucking with me? Or have you forgotten I know you’re a Seer?”

Arissa seethed. “Are you expecting me to read your every thought? Because it doesn’t work like that. I
told
you. And if you want me to help you, you’re going to have to tell
me
what you need me to do.”

He huffed a sigh. "Fine. Part of our cover story is I never rose above Lieutenant. I left the fleet five years ago when we moved to Aylor. Can you remember that? Because it’s time to go."

She frowned. "We? Our cover story?"

"Yes,
we
. I'm Jolar Legan." He nodded toward the open door of the cell. "Your husband."