Seen: Heartstone, #2

By Frances Pauli

Shayd's visions serve the Heart... until it asks him to betray his own future.

When the Shrouded Heart sends him on a mission of diplomacy, Shayd is eager to obey. The treason of his predecessor has stained the rituals and weakened his relationship with the sacred crystal, but when it brings him to Rowri, he is certain the alien priestess is destined to be his heartmate. Despite the fact that their mission is to deliver her to her wedding... to someone else.

Rowri's duty to her people insists Shayd must give her away, even as their heartbond draws them closer and closer together. Though he understands her loyalty, honoring her choice will put her in danger, leave her planet open to attack, and unleash an old enemy dead set on destroying them all.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frances Pauli
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386887102

Frances Pauli

Frances Pauli is a hybrid author of over twenty novels. She favors speculative fiction, romance, and anthropomorphic fiction and is not a fan of genre boxes. Frances lives in Washington state with her family, four dogs, two cats and a variety of tarantulas.

Book preview

Frances Pauli

For my mother.

one

The shuttle docked and Rowri shivered as vibrations trembled through the hull. Her beast snarled from deep in the corner of her mind, from the place where she kept it contained. It didn’t like their method of transportation any more than she did. The cat inside was scared, and the woman’s hands trembled.

Rowri focused on the details, fully aware that she dreamed. The same scene had visited her evening visions for more than a week.

The sounds grew clearer this time, more piercing. The beast, Uraru, bristled and snarled as the crew cabled their vessel to the other hull, as they stretched the umbilical between ships. The clanking and hissing of gases drowned out her thoughts. Calm, Uraru. Be still.

Her escort, Senior Priestess Omira, smiled reassurance. Her voice sounded far off, though she nearly screamed the words, It always sounds like that. This is all normal. Perhaps her beast also rattled its chain.

Each night, the clarity increased, the seeing stretched on a touch longer and she reached further toward the message it held. What she sought was just beyond the ship’s hatch, it had to be. The door cracked, like she'd seen before, and began its descent toward the floor.

Something waited for her on the other side.

She reached for it, couldn’t help herself with the dream’s urgency pushing at her. The effort went too far, however, and her vision slipped. She saw each steel rivet around the door’s frame and the blinding slash of light as the hatch lowered, but Rowri already felt her body waking.

Damn! The covers slipped like water off her shoulders. She sat, growling at the far windows, at thin curtains that let in too much of the golden morning light.

Your dreams are vexing still. Mirau’s soft cadence tickled her fully awake. The girl waited beside her own low bed, peering at Rowri with a thin crease between her eyes. "You haven’t seen it yet?"

No.

It’ll come.

I know! The snap wasn’t planned, and Rowri cringed at it. Mirau’s answer was only a wide smile, her customary affable reply. The girl took her roommate’s abuse as just one more thing that set Rowri above her on the ladder toward priestess class. She took it in stride, which only made Rowri feel worse about it. I’m sorry.

Your Uraru is restless. It feels your pain, Mirau said.

They’d shared space too long to argue the point. The cat grumbled, deep in her thoughts, and Rowri managed a weak smile. It was true, of course. Her Uraru wanted the vision to finish as much as she did, if nothing more than to be done with it. To sleep in peace again.

Get dressed, Rowri. Mirau laughed and danced toward the curtains. Her dark skin made her a shadow in the sun’s rays. Her orange hair flamed to her waist, as free as her spirit. You’ll feel better after the morning rites.

I’ll feel better after a big breakfast. Rowri smiled. Each morning the vision’s after-effect settled more quickly, but the dream itself lingered longer and longer in her thoughts. The beast, however, was hungry.

Mirau giggled and executed a spinning dance in front of the window while Rowri slipped into her sheer undertunic and gray robes.

You look like a solar moth. The second smile was warmer than her first.

Mirau was pretty, young, and still retained the enthusiasm of one who isn’t plagued by visions of her future. Her dark form spun through the coral rays and flickered as she moved across the tiles and in and out of the light.

Rowri hurried at knotting the silk cords that threaded under her arms and up, across her breast, then behind her back and around her waist. They were cobalt blue, the color of a priestess in training, two stages higher in rank than Mirau’s pale pink. I’m ready.

Mirau leaped to join her, caught her at the door, and they exited together. The hallway opened to the temple gardens through a massive row of columns. Rowri inhaled the glorious, warm breeze laced with the scents of jasmine and freesia. Delicious, but not wild enough to placate her Uraru.

Here comes Senior Priestess Omira. Mirau tugged on Rowri’s bare arm, tilting her head toward the group of approaching women.

Rowri and Mirau shuffled their feet to a respectful halt and lowered their gazes to their sandals while the highest-ranking member of their order passed.

Except today, Senior Omira did not pass. She stopped, and her trail of assistant priestesses stumbled to avoid colliding with her. The Senior sniffed, as if only now catching the hint of flowers on the breeze. Her breath came twice, deeply, in and out.

Priestess, Rowri, she spoke just as the distant toll of the first rites called them all to gather.

Senior Omira. Rowri bent her knees and lowered her body in a respectful bob. Good mornings to you.

And are they to you, child?

I'm sorry...I don't... Rowri stuttered. The woman asked her something she was not allowed to answer.

Omira quickly relieved her of obligation to reply. Enjoy the rites, girls. See clearly.

See clearly. They mumbled the official sentiment together, held rapt until Omira and her entourage had passed and enough tiles stood between them that they were free to scurry again. They’d be late otherwise, and the second bell already sang.

Mirau ran beside her, and the girl’s curiosity got the better of her. What was that about?

What? Rowri feigned obliviousness. I didn’t notice anything.

But she asked you...

Oh. Inhale. Exhale. I’m sure it didn’t mean anything.

It wouldn’t satisfy Mirau’s curiosity, but visions were not something you discussed, not to friends or outsiders and never to the persons who featured in them. Still, Omira had singled Rowri out, had noticed a girl who never should have demanded a second of her attention. Did she struggle with the same seeing that Rowri did? Perhaps the Senior Priestess had already seen the door open. Rowri’s visions still took time to solidify. She still struggled too hard to grasp them, but the Senior would have more control. Perhaps Omira knew exactly what waited for them outside, or where they were going.

We need to hurry, Mirau. Come on.

They took the next stairway down to the paved walks that divided the temple gardens into five equal sections and joined the queue of gray, black, or white robes with multi-colored cords flowing toward the sanctuary domes.

The main body of the temple rose above the rest of its wings, gleaming white in the center of lesser domes, apses, and meditation areas. Five spires lifted even taller than the apex of the curving roof, and the chimes tolled from these.

The tide of priesthood drifted on, through gargantuan palms and dripping crimson and lavender blossoms. Rowri concentrated on not tripping or stepping on anyone’s hem.

They flowed through the huge stone arches at the temple entrance. Inside, the bustle fell silent. The bell tables waited and the clergy filed past these, pausing to select one chime each. Rowri examined the gleaming tubes and considered her choices. Perhaps Clarity's high, crisp tone would best express her desire to complete her vision. Her dark hand hovered like smoke above the silver. No, with this dream she needed something else.

Rowri closed her eyes and breathed. She called up the slash of light as the door lowered, the rivets, and the look on the Senior’s face as they waited for the craft to land. Warmth spread through her palm and she held still, hovering over a new chime, the right chime for this particular vision.

Her eyes opened, and her fingers closed around Anticipation.

Mirau picked her bell and they were scooted forward toward their seats under the temple’s enormous dome.

Anticipation sang its pure, clean note when the rites began. It blended with all the other bells, welcoming the Choma clergy to their morning rites, but Rowri heard it distinctly, separate. She heard it sing to her. Something important waited beyond that shuttle door, and maybe even more terrifying, someone important waited as well.

When the bells stilled the dome filled with the soft chanting of many voices. It built like a wave while far ahead, the Senior Priestess stepped up onto her dais below the dome. Choma sunlight set her red hair into a long fire against jet-black skin. Her white robe gleamed beneath its crimson cords.

After the morning rites, Rowri sat alone at the long table in the center of the dining hall and stuffed down the last of three slices of fat pork. Each bite came with a feral pleasure, and her Uraru purred and chewed along with her. Her beast was hungry today, and she tore out her frustration over the night’s vision with the cat’s full approval.

When Omira’s shadow fell across the table, Rowri looked up and swallowed fast enough she choked on the bite and had to snatch up her tankard to force the ham the rest of the way down.

Your Uraru is restless today, child.

Yes, Senior. Her words scratched, and she gulped another mouthful of juice, savoring the cold and the final settling of the piece of ham. That it is.

Take a stroll with me?

The juice threatened to come back up. Stroll with the Senior Priestess? First Omira had singled her out for a greeting, and now the woman spoke to her directly twice in one day. Worse, she wanted to take a walk. Rowri knew why, could no longer doubt their leader shared at least a portion of her personal vision, or one relating to a similar future, a future where the two of them took a trip. Today they might walk, but eventually they would sit in a shuttle together, dock with some foreign vessel. She pushed her bench back and gathered her plate and cup together.

Simal will return your dishes. Omira waved her arm and her nearest attendant rushed in to relieve Rowri of her breakfast dirties. Come.

She followed the Senior out of the hall. Omira took the path that led away from the temple, one that skirted the dormitories and meditation rooms and led directly to the outer gates. Rowri had to focus on maintaining a polite position at the woman’s elbow and half a step behind.

Most of the clergy had abandoned the gardens, either to dine or to begin their daily work, and they strode through the paths without observation. The slick green fronds arched over their heads, and a soft dripping whispered from the irrigation systems. They’d crossed nearly to the gates before Omira spoke.

You selected an unusual chime this morning.

Did I? Rowri trembled. Had the Senior been watching her? I considered choosing Clarity.

But you did not.

No.

The huge gates lifted above the foliage, an arch of smooth ivory through which the bio-electric defenses hummed, but never barred any passing. The Temple walls only served as a warning, as a reminder that the gates could close...if needed. At their apex, the Choma star had been carved centuries before, half dark and half light, the symbol of all that they were.

Omira slowed before they reached the boundary, and Rowri stumbled to maintain position. The humming distracted her, had almost made her tread upon the Senior’s hem.

Your beast needs exercising, Omira said. I’ve had you removed from duties today.

I-I apologize. Rowri’s face warmed at her transparency. I can subdue it. I don’t need to be excused.

Shush, child. Subdue is temporary. You must satisfy both your selves, not let them battle. There’s no shame in needing a run, none at all. She stopped and turned around, facing Rowri with an expression full of unspoken and serious things. I believe you will benefit from the exercise. Perhaps to give you strength and quiet your Uraru. Perhaps...for other reasons.

Then Rowri knew for certain that Omira spoke of a seeing. The Senior’s voice pressed her to be out and moving, to follow the advice and trust that it was given with foreknowledge. She needed to go. Her beast needed to run, and the why of it didn’t matter.

Omira had seen it.

I will go, Senior, as you say it. She dipped low, bent her knees and eyed Omira’s sandals. The woman’s black toes had been painted. The nails flared blue-white, and a steady hand had drawn miniature echoes of the Choma crest there. Half and half. I will run today.

Good. Omira smoothed her robes with leathery hands and waited for Rowri to lift her gaze again before smiling. Enjoy it, child, if you can.

Thank you. Somehow, the invitation sounded like a warning. It gave her a shiver of hesitation, but that quickly drowned in the complaints of her Uraru. It sensed its pending freedom, and it wanted no part of delay. Thank you, Senior.

See clearly, Rowri.

See clearly. She bowed low again and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Her toes curled into her sandals, and a beast’s growl rumbled in the back of her mind. Time to run. She should have known it, should have requested the time off on her own, and the shame of that burned her cheeks now. Omira, the Senior Priestess, had been forced to step in and remedy her error.

Omira’s steps wandered deeper into the garden, and Rowri stood quickly and jogged the last few feet to the main gates. The path doubled in width here, led out through the archway into a swath of cleared land. The sun blazed pink across the flat plain, and the paths that led toward the wilds gleamed ivory under its touch.

She could smell the jungle, the deep musty scent of loam and decay beneath the canopy. The biosphere crackled in her veins just as clearly as it laced the skies overhead with constant, fiery lightning. The planet’s natural defenses burned underneath the skin of each Uraru, inside all the living creatures of Choma. This was what fueled the bio-defenses. Choman blood. Fire in the flesh. Rowri ran out from the walls. She tugged her robes up to her thighs and ran, inhaling the forest, to the very edge of the temple grounds.

There a row of sheds waited, each woven from the Choma grasses and topped with a thick roof of fronds. She ducked into the nearest one long enough to strip, folded her robe, and set it along with her cords on the narrow shelf before turning, bared and with her Uraru raging, to face the jungle.

Rowri breathed in the wild. The beast roared and leapt forward, and she fell into it, dropped and changed into her Uraru—the giant, silvery cat—on the way down. Her paws landed outside the shed, claws exposed and tearing at the soil.

She bounded once to the thick foliage, twice into the cover, and down the long slope away from the Grand Temple. Her silver coat covered bunching muscles, mottled and melding with the shadows of thick growth. Her body twisted through spaces between trunks, brushed aside thinner branches and snapped those that failed to yield.

She ran, down and away, and the morning echoed with her roaring. Birds scattered like flags in all directions—crimson, canary, and emerald green. They fled the silvery cat that slipped like feral mist deeper into the Choma biosphere. Smaller beasts hunkered below rotting logs or scooted deeper into long burrows. Eyes blinked at the Uraru’s passing. Small voices chattered in her wake.

Rowri smelled them, but her belly was full of ham and the freshest Choma fruits. Still, she roared to the darkness and enjoyed the scent of fear all around her. Her long tail thrashed through the brush. She bounded down the ravine, leaped like a missile over the wide creek at its bottom, and climbed up the far side. Weaving through the trees and vines and where they parted enough to allow it, jumping up and over, the cat emerged at the top of the far outcropping ready to run and run and only stop when the beast’s urges had faded to contentment.

The land here leveled out, stretching to the far horizon in a ripple of green foliage. The wind brought flowers and water, mold and the metallic tang of blood. Rowri posed on a spike of rock and gazed out. She meant to bolt, to chase her beast’s urges wherever they might lead and only return to the shed and temple gates when the setting sun drove her home. She meant to, but her cat’s eyes narrowed at the smear of black in the distance.

It didn’t belong there, hanging in the sky. The dark band that rolled over the farthest trees should not have existed. As if in protest, the boulder shook. The forest rippled more definitively, like a wave, like some enormous invisible hand brushed across it. The ground quaked, and Rowri tumbled from the rock into the cushion of fat bushes.

Her legs threshed the air. Her spine twisted and she rolled to the side and staggered up onto all fours. The jungle danced. Her nerves tingled and the fur along her back lifted to attention. Deep in her throat a rumble vibrated, but outside of her the ground howled even louder. Earth danced into the air, leaves drifted down from high limbs, and above them a dense smoke rolled over.

It blocked out the sun. It choked her breathing. The world went dark and thick and everywhere she looked, Rowri saw sparks outlined against black ash.

two

The aroma of incense had burned into Shayd's nasal passages as surely as it had given his lilac skin a permanent ashy tint. It kept the shadows with him, whenever his duties called him out of his temple and the constant sheath of smoke and magic. It kept them close, like a blanket, when he was forced from the shelter of his sanctuary.

This happened, of late, far more often than he might have preferred.

The hover pad whined and their craft lifted onto the mag cushion. It wobbled there, waiting for the electric charge to shove it away from the platforms. Shayd glared out the shuttle view panel and twisted the ring on his finger. The stone set in it was formed from the same mineral as the Heart, grown in the same vein and keyed to the exact matrix as its massive counterpart.

In the palace crater, the giant Shrouded crystal, the Heart, glowed in the presence of a Shrouded and their perfect mate. Many smaller outcroppings of heartstone broke the surface of the core and, like the one in this crater, were used for the rituals that matched the Shrouded with their bride candidates.

Three such pairings had occured at this Heart ceremony, but the four prior choosings had had only one match between them. They rocketed away, down the length of the crater, and he imagined the faces of the couples that had bonded. At least a few had worked. At least the Heart hadn’t completely abandoned them.

I was thinking. Young Jadyek piloted the craft, and he spoke with a tremble to his words that didn’t come from the shuttle’s vibration. He fidgeted with his restraints. The candidate problem.

They’d had more male than female brides here, and that hadn’t gone unnoticed. Ever since the Eclipsan's failed invasion, the galaxy had grown hungry for more access to the riches of Shroud. No longer satisfied by the limited trade allowances, every planet in the sector had attempted to manipulate the bride imporation system in hopes of succeeding where the Eclipsan's direct assault had failed. Many of the candidates were insincere now, interested in politics more than pairing. Shayd had heard the grumbling, but hadn’t expected Jadyek of all people to object. In fact, he’d expected the man to bond, had been genuinely shocked when the ceremony left him unpaired.

They are skewing the candidates, of course, sending agendas instead of genuine seekers, Jadyek continued, and when Shayd didn’t offer comment warmed to the topic and let his nerves fade. Almost no women the last few shipments, and I can’t help but think it will be a problem in the long run, that Brides meant for the Shrouded are not getting through.

The Heart will find a way. He felt compelled to answer there, compelled to defend a faith in the stone, in fate, though his mind had echoed Jadyek’s worry all through the ceremony.

I know.

In his temple, the Heart still cried to him of its mistrust. Its former Seer had betrayed it, had conspired with Jarn and Dielel to control the throne. The traitors had nearly cost them their world, had cost them lives they couldn’t afford to lose. It had cost them Tondil, the prince Jadyek had stepped in to replace.

Now Shayd stepped up to fill the role of Seer. The Heart should have welcomed him, and yet both of them were wounded, betrayed. Both the Shrouded Seer and its Heart were lost to the fear of failure, their vital relationship damaged.

They reached the end of the crater and slowed. A security platform just below the lip signaled for their authorization and destination codes. That was new too. He waited while Jadyek complied, staring up the rock wall to the place where it met the Shroud. Thick today, toxicity high.

Shayd suffered a flare of pity for the younger man, sympathy for their newest Council member. Tondil had been loved by all, while Jadyek...Jadyek tried too hard and usually fell short.

What would he try today?

They received their clearance and the platform’s boost drove their craft up at a sharp angle to meet the natural pathways lacing across the Core. The shuttle settled onto this, and they dove forward, into zero visibility, with two probes blinking the way ahead.

That’s a big crater, Jadyek picked up his topic, ran with it as if it had a specific purpose. Industry is minor there, but their crystal is impressive. He was right. Little ore came from the mines here, but this particular crater housed the second largest protrusion of the