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Marion Zimmer Bradley introduced the consequences of awakening laran in the unborn in Stormqueen. In that novel, as in the previous story, this is portrayed as hazardous to the baby and even more so to the mother and those around her. In this next tale, also set in the Ages of Chaos, Gabrielle Harbowy approaches the concept from a different angle. Robin Wayne Bailey’s catalyst telepath was ruthless and vindictive, unlike the protagonist here, who reflects, “There was an art to speaking with the unborn.”
Gabrielle Harbowy is an editor for such SF publishers as Pyr, Circlet, and Dragon Moon Press, as well as co-editor of the award-nominated When the Hero Comes Home anthology series with Ed Greenwood. Her short fiction has been a finalist for the Parsec award, and has appeared in such anthologies as Beast Within: 2, Metastasis, Cthulhurotica, and others. Her shared-world story “Inheritance,” for Pathfinder Tales, is now free to read at paizo.com.
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The women clustered tightly around Dorian’s sister, cooing praise and admiring her new catenas—the wedding bracelet that had just been fastened about her wrist. After so many months of Tower training in relative isolation, it almost hurt to look at the flurry of women, bright in their silks and satins like a bouquet of wildflowers. Dorian knew he shouldn’t stare, anyway, but he couldn’t quite make himself look away.
“Serra looks happy,” a voice said at his shoulder. He turned, finding he had to dip his head to meet Larisa’s eyes. When he’d left for the Tower, he’d been eye to eye with his distant cousin. Now he was a full head taller. “As do you, Dorian Ardais,” she added with a shy smile.
His palms were suddenly wet, and his mouth dry. “You’re looking happy, as well,” he managed to stammer out. Looking down to meet her eyes meant looking down the length of her body. He’d dreamed about those eyes, that body, for years. Except... “And...and round!”
He winced as soon as he said it, grateful for once that Larisa had no laran and could not compound his guilt with her hurt emotions.
But she merely laughed. “Indeed, I am both,” she agreed, and even as relief washed over him, his heart sank. Beautiful, brilliant Larisa had wed in his absence, and no one had told him?
“Don’t look so shocked!” she said, eyes bright with mischief. “Don’t you know it’s the natural order of things?”
“The natural order in which I live is a bit different,” he reminded her. It came out more harshly than he meant it to; again he winced, and again she took no offense.
Quite the contrary: “Oh, Dorian—I’m so sorry! I don’t mean to flaunt at you. I’d forgotten the celibacy requirements of Tower work.”
As had he, until just then. But his smile was as charitable as hers. “No, no, cousin. I didn’t mean it like that. Just that...” Just that, if only things could be different, that I might be your child’s proud father and not a gawkish fool saying all the wrong words. “Just that I’m surprised! Happy for you, and surprised!”
Though Larisa had no laran, Dorian could sense the golden spark of the life growing within her. It was unusual for laran to be present in a child and not the parent, but not unheard of. There was much that was not yet known about the telepathic gifts. A center at Hali was dedicated to the study of laran and its assorted abilities, along with a breeding program whose purpose was to come to a scientific understanding of the genetics of the phenomenon. They were trying to breed for the talent...which was the main reason Dorian had always known he had no chance with Larisa. He would be bred with a woman with laran, likely with more than one, once he left Tower service. He had always known it would be so. If she had married a man with laran, he thought with a hollow ache, after that path had been closed to him...
“Where have you drifted off to, kinsman?” Larisa was looking up at him with patient amusement. For a moment, he considered answering truthfully, but only for a moment.
“I’m not used to such noise and festivity. I think I should like some air. Will you join me for a walk?”
It would have been unseemly for the two of them to slip off alone together, but that they were kin. Plenty of others had also abandoned the ballroom for the gardens. Just enough moisture hung in the air to make silvery halos around the lanterns. It was slightly cool, but there was no breeze to stir ice into the air. Dorian breathed deeply.
“You haven’t asked after my husband,” Larisa said. There was an edge under her playful scorn that suggested it wasn’t entirely in jest.
“And you’ve not asked after my life at the Tower,” he returned, more smoothly than he felt. He could see it wasn’t enough to soothe her, and added, “Besides, I can’t think of a way to ask whose child you carry without sounding unspeakably rude.” Or jealous, he added silently.
She pursed her lips. “For that, I should make you guess.”
Dorian made a study of her, silent until he could see her twitch with impatience. “Is it someone I know?” he asked.
She seemed surprised at his willingness to play the game of questions. Perhaps she knew he was holding off the inevitable. “No,” she answered.
Dorian threw his hands skyward with an exaggerated sigh. “Then how am I meant to guess, my lady? You’ve won this game already.”
Her quiet laugh pleased him. “His name is Lewis Alarin, third son of Lord MacAran’s sister.”
“And why isn’t he with you tonight?”
“His father is ill and he’s journeyed home, leaving me in your sister’s care.”
“Because you’re too far progressed to travel?” he asked, slowing his pace. She strolled along by his side, not seeming to notice the protectiveness that the reminder of her pregnancy had spurred in him. Perhaps she was used to it.
She nodded. “Quite so. But it’s just as well. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss Serra’s wedding, or a chance to see you again.” She blushed, but he told himself it was his hopeful imagination and refused to let himself acknowledge the flutter that stirred within him. “How long will you stay?”
“Just a tenday,” he answered. “I must get back.”
Larisa frowned. “Then you won’t be here when the baby comes. The midwife says I’ve only a month or so to go.” Her hands smoothed absently over her belly.
Dorian guided Larisa to a nearby bench and removed his formal cloak, spreading it over the seat to keep the stone’s chill from her. She sat with a grateful smile, and he sat beside her.
“I am sorry,” he said quietly, and brushed her swollen belly with his fingertips. “Larisa, I do dearly wish I could stay until the birth, and know your child.” He quested outward as he said the words, guided by feelings rather than thoughts. And there was that glowing spark, just a tiny point of golden light. He caressed it with his laran, as if to convey those same sentiments to the unborn babe.
And the spark flared to brightness.
~o0o~
If it had been Dorian’s imagination alone, he would have apologized to his kinswoman and withdrawn. But it was not. Every laran-bearer in the gardens and the ballroom felt the bloom of awareness from the unborn mind—a rush of wordless wonder and curiosity. Dorian could feel the surprise and confusion from all of them, solid but everchanging like the buzz of bees.
“Are you all right, cousin?” he asked Larisa, while silently providing her child a calm, soothing presence under which to shelter from all the minds suddenly seeking its own. He was not a monitor at the Tower, practiced at easing the discomforts of the technicians so that they could work their laran uninterrupted, but he understood how a monitor’s work was done.
“He...he kicked, I think,” Larisa said weakly. She looked no worse for it. “Did you feel him?”
She has no laran, he thought. She does not know.
“He did more than that, I think,” Dorian answered lightly, not wishing to worry her. Before he had a chance to explain, Magda, the house leronis, arrived at Larisa’s side, flushed and quite out of breath. She looked from Dorian to his kinswoman.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
He was still trying to determine that, himself. “I...I think I awakened him.”
Magda shook her head—not quickly in disbelief, but slowly. In wonder. She was a tiny, wizened woman—the same who had tutored Dorian in his own youth. “Tower monitors can examine the unborn and detect whether they are healthy, or if they have laran, but they cannot activate it. Such a thing has never been seen before.”
Her gaze turned blank and distant, and Dorian knew she was conversing with someone not immediately present.
“Domna Larisa,” she said then, “are you well?”
Larisa’s hands still rested protectively, though lightly, over her belly. “I...well, yes. He kicked, but that is all.” Dorian could not feel her confusion, but apparently it bled through to the babe, for the unborn boy’s projecting thoughts turned to worry and doubt. Had he done something wrong?
Magda and Dorian exchanged a sharp glance. Then he could feel Magda soothing the child wordlessly, with feelings and images. Dorian was glad of her presence; he would not have done the same with nearly the skill. He supposed it might be a mothering instinct.
It freed his attention for Larisa, and he smiled gently. “Congratulations, my dearest cousin. Your child has laran.”
It was more a cause for surprise than celebration, and by the next day the news of Larisa’s fortune had already paled under the news of Dorian’s newfound ability. Dorian performed like a trained falcon under the gaze of Lord and Lady Ardais, and Magda, the leronis, using his keen sense to coax latent laran to life in several kinsmen and women who had not been thought to have it. In Larisa, as Dorian already suspected, there was none.
“You must go to Hali,” Magda said to Dorian. “Your laran is quite a significant and unique talent, and it must be studied.”
Dorian thought of the friends he’d left behind at Corandolis Tower—his circle, to whom he had expected to return. Magda read his unshielded concerns. “We will contact Corandolis on the relays and inform them of this change, just as we shall contact Hali to expect your arrival.”
It was not enough, but it was all he could expect for the moment. Corandolis was a large enough Tower to be able to replace him permanently with another matrix technician.
Dorian bowed his head to Magda. “I will prepare at once.”
~o0o~
Dorian had grown up hearing the phrase “sent off to Hali,” but though he had communicated with Hali through the relays, he had never been there himself. He forced himself to focus on the pleasant anticipation of being able to put faces to the minds he had spoken with in the relays, rather than the anxious uncertainty of not knowing what might be in store for him.
The Tower rose narrow and tall, made of some pale, translucent stone. Despite all Dorian had been taught of crystal matrices and energons and science, the sight of the ethereal Tower half-embraced by morning fog and limned by dawn’s red glow made his breath catch somewhere deep in him. For just a moment, magic was the driving force in the world. It tugged at Dorian’s heart and brought his eyes to tears.
Then a cloud occluded the rising sun, casting the world and the Tower in gray, and rationality returned. There being nothing for it, he shrugged his disappointment off his shoulders, lifted his chin, and went forward to meet his fate.
The tests, at first, were not so bad. Dorian was deeply examined twice, by two different monitors. This was not as uncomfortable as he had anticipated—he had expected it to feel like another mind was rifling through his, upturning his library of thoughts and sifting his blood to peer beneath and within. It was his own uncertainty that had given him that fear, however. He had worked with monitors at Corandolis Tower and knew their touch to be subtle. A monitor sat outside the matrix circle and kept watch over the linked minds, soothing discomforts and removing distractions. As a result, Dorian experienced these examinations as merely the comfort of not being alone, with a drowsy sort of contentment. When he surfaced each time, he was aware only that some measure of time had passed.
They brought to him a number of teens whose laran had not yet surfaced, and watched from without and within as he coaxed their fledgling talents to life.
“This talent of yours has never before been documented,” said Carys, the leronis who seemed to be in charge of studying the phenomenon that was Dorian. “We have named your talent catalyst telepathy, since you are able to draw forth the latent laran in others.”
This Dorian had already realized, but the choice of title for his talent was an intriguing one. Catalyst made him think of chemical reactions, and it therefore seemed to imply science rather than sorcery. Deliberately so, Dorian guessed.
His was certainly a valuable talent for the breeding program to have at its disposal. The leroni studied him to determine with which bloodlines he should mate, but they intended to put him to work, as well.
“Until now, we have had to rely on monitoring germ plasm to detect laran potential in the unborn, but potential is not ability. Now, with you, we can activate that potential. We must experiment to see how early an unborn you can affect. Imagine knowing immediately if a particular sought-after gene has manifested. Just think how much we can refine and learn, with you to help us!”
~o0o~
There was an art to speaking with the unborn. Even their emotional vocabulary was limited. Comfort and discomfort, they understood. Safe and not-safe. Though they hadn’t the frame of reference to articulate what forms not-safe might take, they knew when all was not as it should be.
Dorian gradually learned how to project comfort and safety into the awakening minds he touched, and how to teach the mothers and fathers the limited but powerful language of unborn emotions.
All children were special in the breeding program, but once Dorian had proven his competence, he was brought to an unborn who was important.
“Domna Francesca.” He greeted the young mother-to-be with a formal bow. Francesca was wispy and slight, barely more than a spectre with a belly not yet swollen. Dorian could see, now, why this girl’s family had a history of losing women to childbirth. All the more reason why this heir needed to be the successful culmination of the breeding program’s efforts. Francesca herself was the result of careful planning, and if she could bear only one, it must have the traits the breeders desired.
Dorian had not yet awakened so new an unborn, but he had learned in his month at Hali that women with laran could detect the sex of their growing children quite early. If a babe were advanced enough in its growth to have the necessary organs, then it should also be advanced enough to have a mind—the most necessary organ of all.
Dorian had been privately skeptical that something so new might have consciousness, but now as he quested with his laran, he found it—that same golden spark he had felt in Larisa, and in all the expectant mothers since.
He reached for it, coaxing and caressing with messages of safety. When the spark flared, he implored young Francesca to do the same.
“There, now, my lady,” he said. “Just as we practiced...”
She was too stunned to respond at first, but then instinct took over and she soothed the tiny child within her. Dorian withdrew from their minds, and then he and Carys withdrew from the room.
“Well done, indeed,” Carys said once the door to her study was closed behind them. “The child was gently catalyzed, and is everything we hoped he would be.”
Dorian could not entirely share her elation. Instead, he gave voice to what he had been wondering since his introduction to Francesca. “Forgive me, but...what if the child had not met your standards?”
Carys gave him a questioning look. “Why, we would have terminated him and tried again, of course.”
Dorian spread his hands on the desk, focusing on his fingertips and shielding his thoughts. “So, you would use me to kill innocents?”
It had not been explicitly laid out this way to Dorian, but some part of him had suspected that the utility of his talents was in making a child’s ability known early enough that it could potentially be removed without damage to the mother, who could then be prepared for another try.
Carys stared at him, then suddenly laughed. “Oh, you are such an innocent yourself. Sometimes I forget! Dear Dorian, that is nothing women have not been doing themselves for ages.”
It was Dorian’s turn to stare. “I—”
“Really, now. What better way to provide your lord with sons than to quash his daughters unhatched? Come, I won’t get into this debate with you, child. Today you have validated years of our work for us. You should be celebrating, not considering the gloomy side of morality.”
Dorian’s head spun nonetheless. “I hesitate to think about what the removal of an unborn with active laran would be like.”
“If the child had laran, removal would probably not be necessary,” Carys countered.
“Probably” was small comfort.
“Here,” the leronis continued. “I was going to tell you later, but you seem to need some cheering. A mate has been chosen for you, to try to breed your gift true. A kinswoman, and a kind and lovely one.” She winked, as though this was somehow good news. “She’s of sturdy stock and should be able to bear you many children.”
Dorian thought only of Larisa and the children they might have had. He knew that whoever this lovely noblewoman was, she would be bearing children for Hali, not for him.
“I will do my duty,” he said, because it seemed a response was expected.
Carys smiled, a genuinely pleased smile that lit her face and gave hint to the beauty she must have been in her own youth. “To your rooms, then. I’ll send her along presently to...make your acquaintance.”
~o0o~
Dorian paced his bedchamber. He’d never done anything like this before—not any kind of tryst with any kind of woman, sanctioned by his elders or no; not meeting someone explicitly for the purpose of putting a child in her; not anything more than a tongue-tied attempt to be charming to Larisa, where there’d been absolutely nothing at stake and nothing that could have come of it anyway, and he’d still felt like an inarticulate fool.
How was one supposed to dress for this sort of encounter? He changed into his formal suede suit. Then into his nightclothes. Then considered stripping completely and crawling under the sheets. Then back to the formal suit again. When she finally made her presence felt—a light and questioning touch of her mind, gentler than any knock on any door—he was just slipping on his indoor boots. Before he’d even seen her, they had the rapport of shared nervousness binding them. And then his sweaty palm was upon the door latch and he caught a glimpse of soft gray gown and a cascade of dark curls, and the brightest eyes he’d ever seen.
“D-domna,” he greeted her, stepping back and opening the door wider.
Her smile was shy but sincere, eyes wide to take in the sight of him. He wondered if she found him handsome, or just refreshingly non-horrid.
He wondered too loudly, apparently, for the gentle touch of her mind brushed his through their tentative rapport. “Quite handsome,” she answered quietly, and smiled.
“Quite beautiful,” he answered, in the same hush. They brushed fingertips, the customary greeting of telepaths, and then her palms slid across his. His fingertips rested at her wrist, and he felt her pulse, fluttering as wildly as his own was.
“Please, you must call me Alanna,” she said. “It’s the least of the intimacies we’re to share.” She looked about his age, perhaps a year or two older. Taller than Larisa—they could nearly look eye to eye. He imagined how it would be to dance with a girl his same height, and she smiled. “I should like that.”
He drew her hands up and kissed them, one and then the other, and then both together.
“Have you ever...?” he asked. She hesitated, then shyly nodded her head, as if she expected his disappointment. Dorian gave her a lopsided smile. “Good. So at least one of us will know what we’re doing.”
~o0o~
The next afternoon, when Dorian finally wandered out of his room, Carys was waiting for him in the common room where they took their meals. “So,” she said, taking in his relaxed stance and dreamy gaze, but she said no more.
He sat; stretched. “So,” he answered. “So, in spite of my cynicism about being flagrantly taken advantage of as a stud pony, I can’t seem to stop smiling.”
Carys chuckled, and brushed her fingertips near the back of his hand in a gesture that carried with it no contact, but a maternal warmth all the same. “I must be the bearer of unfortunate news,” she said, while holding him in the cushion of that warmth.
Suddenly, Dorian felt quite sober.
“We’ve had a relay from your parents. The child you awakened...it was lost at birth.”
Dorian was half out of his seat before his mind realized he had moved. “Larisa...”
“The mother is fine. Your house leronis suggested it was her lack of laran that spared her; apparently, the babe took quite a fright at the sudden changes that herald the birthing process, and could not be soothed.”
“May I have leave to go to her?” he asked, though mentally he was already working through the logistics and packing his few belongings. “I’m the one who gave it awareness. This is my fault.”
Carys canted her head like a curious hawk. “And how would your Alanna take your sudden absence?”
Dorian landed firmly in his chair, wishing it were sturdy enough to keep the world from spinning madly around him. “I...Oh.” For a moment, concern for Larisa had blotted out even the momentous occasion of his first time. And second. And third...
“It is important that Alanna’s feelings be considered,” he agreed, speaking slowly. Then, inspiration struck. “Perhaps she could come with me.”
Now Carys’s expression was something else altogether. It was as if he had suggested the rain might try rising instead of falling, for a change. “I understand your feelings for your kinswoman, but I assure you, she is well attended. It is for her husband to rush home to her side, not for you. Go back to your rooms, Dorian. I will have a meal sent to you. You will feel more yourself once you’ve regained some energy.”
Dorian felt full of energy—it was zinging along his nerves, prodding his muscles and pushing him to act, to do something, to go to Larisa. But, no...perhaps Carys was right. It would appear most unseemly if he rushed to her side like a concerned lover. And he would not be able to hide his feelings for her if he saw her despair.
Anger and fear and frustration had burned brightly in him, but now they were burning themselves out like the guttering last moments of a candlewick. As he ascended the stairs, he could feel it all draining out of him. By the time he reached his room, there was nothing left but the momentum to fall into bed.
Alanna herself came up to bring him a tray from the kitchens, with hearty stew and dense black honey bread for two. Watching her lift spoon to mouth, he mirrored the action without thought. Then appetite flared in him and he outpaced her, until only the last droplets remained to be soaked up with his bread.
Alanna sat and ate with him silently. When he was done, he watched her finish the meal. There was such grace in her movements, such beauty in her gentle face. Looking at her reminded him of the passions of the previous night, and he felt a pang of guilt for having been so ready to leave her behind without a thought. It occurred to him that she could already be carrying his child.
For now, keeping his own emotions tightly contained was more important than extending his laran to find out.
“Thank you,” he said finally.
“For?” Alanna asked.
“The meal. And the company. And the silence.”
She rose from the table and came around behind him, her fingers brushing the air above his shoulders. “You can’t take it onto yourself. Children die in the birthing all the time. There’s not an expectant mother in the world who doesn’t know that.”
It was scant comfort, after Carys had told him that the babe’s laran had indeed been a factor, but he could see that Alanna was trying to soothe him. For the sake of their continuing relationship, he chose not to argue. But something else nagged at his mind...
“How widespread is the news of my kinswoman?” he asked.
Alanna leaned around to look at him with a pointed gaze and an arched eyebrow. “In a building full of telepaths, you ask how far news has spread?”
He gave her a rueful grin, then reached back for her hands and covered them, on his shoulders. “There is that. I only thought that they might have kept it secret for worry that it might panic any expecting mothers here at Hali.”
Alanna gave his shoulders a squeeze. “You can relax on that account. We women are made of stronger stuff than you credit us.”
~o0o~
Women were, but barely sentient fledgling telepaths were not. In the dark hours before dawn, not long after sleep had finally found Dorian and given him respite from his churning thoughts, a searing scream of pain tore through his mind and jolted him awake, panicked and confused.
Instantly, he recognized the feel of the mind—it was that very new unborn child he had awakened a few days before. The one with the weight of prominent genetics resting upon its yet-unformed shoulders.
Alanna awoke beside him, her ashen pallor mirroring his own anguish, water already filling her eyes. “Oh,” she whispered, and reached for him. Dorian clung to her, both of them drowning in the babe’s pain and Dorian’s own despair. He knew he could not reach mother and child in time to be of any help; he could only feel the scene unfold from afar.
Now he felt the touch of the mother’s mind wrap around the child’s—awakened and bleary, trying to find her bearings and remember how to be a calming presence as she’d been taught.
But the unborn life within her, having been successfully bred for powerful laran, was stronger than she. Her spark went out first. Then, moments later, the little life followed. Dorian clung to Alanna, too aggrieved for tears. Once, he felt the questing brush of Carys’s mind. When he confirmed that he was all right, she withdrew and let him be.
~o0o~
Sleep eluded Dorian and Alanna both. For a while, she shut her eyes and tried to find slumber, and he contented himself with emptying his mind of anything but the way the thin sheet clung to her soft curves. When his thoughts woke her, they found many ways to drown their sorrows—none of them restful.
Giving up on sleep altogether, they stood together on his balcony, leaning on each other and watching the red sun peek over the horizon. “What do you suppose this means for you?” she asked aloud. His mind had been churning around that question and others like it all night, but being asked to give voice to his thoughts helped him to distill the essence of them.
“I hope it means I’m of no use to their breeding program. If catalyzing has such a risk of killing the very high-talent subjects they meant it to identify, then it can’t be risked. How many generations before they can breed another Francesca?” He allowed bitterness to leak into his voice; he could have contained it, but knew he was safe with Alanna and chose not to.
“I should like,” she said after a long and pensive silence, “to seek out Carys and see if they’ve managed to isolate a cause. There’s no use stirring this pot over the fire til it burns. If there are answers to be known, we should seek them.”
Dorian found himself smiling. He kissed Alanna gently, and let her lead him back into the room to dress.
Carys was waiting for them. Her eyes were sunken and red, and it seemed she had not slept either. She refused to discuss the matter until they were all seated with cups of jaco.
While Dorian knew that going through the ritual of proper courtesies was crucial at times when the world was in disorder, he finally could wait no longer. “Please tell me...about domna Francesca—was the news of Larisa’s loss in any way at fault?” he asked. Steam rose gently from his untouched cup, and he searched it for patterns and answers.
“No, Dom Dorian,” Carys said at once. “You mustn’t think such a thing.”
“But if she thought of it, or dreamed it, and the babe felt worry or fear from her...”
Carys touched the back of his hand lightly. “No. I swear it.” She looked away, toward a safe spot between Dorian and Alanna. “In truth, the reason is both better, and worse.”
Dorian exchanged a glance with Alanna. Under the table, she rested her hand on his thigh for comfort.
Carys took a slow breath, as if bracing herself for the words that followed. “It was threshold sickness, Dorian. It came upon the babe quite suddenly, and there was no way to reach it, to soothe it.” She lifted a hand to forestall his protest. “Usually, threshold sickness comes on at adolescence, it is true...but usually laran comes on at adolescence, too. It seems it is linked more with the onset of laran than with a person’s stage of growth.”
There was silence for a few moments while the three of them each considered that. Dorian finally remembered his cup and took a careful sip. “Then,” he said slowly, “is that what happened to Larisa’s child, as well? Only because she had no laran, her child didn’t kill her in its panic?”
Carys nodded. “We believe so. It is also possible that the prospect of birth frightened the child, and without the mother’s ability to soothe it through telepathy, it may have brought an episode of threshold sickness upon itself through its anxiety and fear.”
“It’s a lot to digest, but the solution seems clear,” Alanna said. “Dorian cannot use his catalyst telepathy on the unborn. The risks are too great.”
“Indeed,” Carys answered. “We have been debating this all night. If this talent kills those whose value it detects, it is a certain danger to our telepaths and our breeding program.”
Dorian let out a breath of relief he had not realized he’d been holding. His cup was steadier this time when he lifted it to his lips.
“However,” Carys added, “we do still have much to study about the catalyst talent and how it works, so you will not be returning to Coriandolis Tower in the immediate future.”
Alanna’s touch tightened on Dorian’s leg, and he covered it with his fingers and gave her hand a fond return squeeze. “I think I can accept that decision.” They shared a brief smile. Her eyes glowed with such happiness and potential as to melt his heart.
“I have arranged for you to have some time at the relays, Dorian,” Carys said, “to speak to your family and your circle, and inform them yourself.”
It was a generous gesture, and he bowed his head in sincere gratitude. “Thank you. I will go at once.”
~o0o~
Dorian did not see Alanna for the rest of the day, and when evening came, she did not come to his room. He extended his laran, but couldn’t find her. Confused, he set out in search of her, but found a maid in Alanna’s room, stripping the linens from the bed. The wardrobe was open and bare.
Feet racing down the stone hallway, Dorian came to Carys’s rooms and made to pound on the door, but it was already cracked ajar so he merely pushed his way inside. The older woman sat alone in front of the fire, ignoring the needlework in her lap. “Congratulations, Dorian,” she said without turning. “You’re to be a father!”
It was not what he’d expected to hear, certainly, and it stopped his feet in their tracks. “I...what? Please, where is Alanna?”
“Already gone, dear boy. She took a carriage back to her family this morning, right after we all broke fast. Sit with me.”
He focused on putting one foot in front of the other; at least, the act of walking still made sense. Finding himself in front of the second chair and at a loss for else to do, he sat. “But...”
Carys’s eyes held sympathy, but her voice was steady. “It wouldn’t do to have you ruin your own son. I saw it in her this morning, but I couldn’t tell you, lest you use your catalyst talent accidentally. We’ve sent her away from you for her own safety. You want her and the baby to be healthy, don’t you? You do seem to have gotten quite attached to her in a very short time. But then, there have been tragedies, and we telepaths are more prone to form deep emotional connections when we’re intimate.”
Dorian’s mind had already skipped forward, fitting together scattered shards of thought, too numb to feel their painful edges. “So...letting me use the relay...”
It wasn’t sympathy in her eyes. It was pity. “Was calculated, yes. I’m very sorry, but I’m sure you understand that it has to be this way. You’ve proven your power isn’t safe to use on the unborn—and especially not on your own issue. Imagine him reaching out and catalyzing the entire women’s wing, without realizing that he’s doing so. Why, we’d lose all the children, and probably many of the mothers, too.”
Dorian rubbed at his eyes, trying to contain the burn of angry tears. “But you made me use my power that way. It wasn’t my choice, and now you punish me for it?”
She reached out to him, but he flinched away. “I did make you,” she agreed softly. “We did. You are correct that it was our mistake, not yours. We did not realize how dangerous the catalyst power could be. It is not your fault and the consequences are not your punishment, they are for your safety. You already have three innocent deaths on your hands. You are a kind boy; I know you don’t want to wear the blood of your own child, as well. Better that Alanna takes him away, and you remain and learn how to harness your talent, and perhaps even how to ease the catalyzed through threshold sickness, in time. Your talent could hold the cure, Dorian. Would you deny all your people that possibility?”
He regained control of his breathing, counted to ten, and then met Carys’s gaze. “I won’t participate in your experiments any longer. My blood and seed may be your toys, but my mind is not. I will depart for home in the morning, and use my talent not upon command, but where and when I deem it safe. I will contact Alanna only by letter until my son is born, out of concern for her safety. After that, you will allow me my judgment and not restrict my movement or actions. Whether or not you have the boy to study will be Alanna’s choice. I will train him, if she wishes it.”
Dorian stood, inclined his head in less of a bow than Carys’s station deserved, and left the room without another word.
~o0o~
The moment Dorian slid off his horse, Larisa flew into his arms. He held her tightly, breathing in the lilac scent of her hair. “I am so very sorry, my dearest kinswoman,” he murmured. His heart felt as if it were filled with lead, its cold melancholy replacing the anger that had fueled his journey.
She pulled back just far enough to seek his gaze. “Hali has aged you, cousin,” she said. “You left here a boy, but now you speak as a man.”
She was still beautiful, even as pale as she was from her ordeal. “Come. Let’s get you inside before Magda runs out here to scold me.” He shifted so that his arm was around her shoulders and led her indoors. “Most important, how is your health?” he asked.
Her lips drew tight. “The birthing did too much damage. The healers say I will likely not be able to bear again. On hearing this, Lewis left me. It—I understand. I do. He needs a woman who can give him an heir.”
Dorian turned to her and brushed her cheek gently with his thumb as if brushing away a tear, though Larisa had not shed any. The gesture contained all his love for her, more safely than any attempt at words might. It softened her, and suddenly her exhaustion was plain upon her face and body, her regal pretense shed.
“If only I could wed someone like you, Dorian,” she sighed, stepping up into the circle of his arms again. Her cheek rested on his chest and, heart overflowing, he lifted a hand to stroke her hair. “But I know you must be given to someone with laran.”
“At Hali, I catalyzed laran in others, but Hali was a catalyst for me as well. I am done with them. I am no longer anyone else’s to give,” he said, schooling his voice to remain even. “And nor are you.”
She was silent a moment too long. He felt himself about to apologize for his boldness, but then she spoke.
“No,” she said slowly. She seemed conflicted, but with a growing resolve and awareness, testing the idea as she spoke it. “I am no longer anyone else’s to give.” She looked up at him. “But I would share myself with you, if it would please you to blend your fate with mine.”
The careful choice of her words struck him most deeply. Not giving herself to him, but blending and sharing. It seemed the most precious way to live—not as property or tool of another, or as a vehicle toward sons, or power. But to own one’s self, and to joyfully share. He thought briefly of Alanna, who would always have a place in his life, but with whom Hali would never let him have such a union.
He would tell her of his time at Hali, but now was not the time to think of it. If he was meant to be a catalyst, let it be a catalyst of happiness and autonomy.
“Domna Larisa,” he said, and paused to kiss her forehead, “there is nothing I have ever wanted more.”
