The Seer (Tellaran Series) (7 page)

Understanding lit his face. “Okay.”

“And this,” she said, lightly drumming the pads of her fingers on his palm. “Is a lot like curiosity.”

  She tapped her fingers quickly against his skin. “This is impatience.” She used her nails, rubbing rapidly but not hard enough to scratch. “Annoyance.” She stopped, considering. “Fear is jagged, sharp, fast and—It
feels
sour.”

“What about other emotions? What do good ones feel like?”

She leaned down to flick a lock of her hair against his skin. “Shy but friendly.” She stroked his hand to soothe and comfort. “Friendship.” She thought of her parents and tenderly cradled his hand in hers. “This is what love feels like.”

“Gods, it sounds amazing,” he breathed. 

“Desire is tingly, hot waves rolling around you.” Her face warmed as she realized what she’d just said, how she still cradled his hand, how close they stood. She let go. “Good laughter is like tiny warm bubbles bursting against your skin.” 

His eyes were alight, his mind blooming with interest. “And that’s all around you? All the time?”

She nodded. “But not usually one by itself, usually they’re mixed or—I guess
layered
is probably the best word for it and they often shift quickly.”

“From the same person?” His brow creased. “Doesn’t that get confusing? What if there’s more than one person in the room? How can you tell who’s feeling what?”

“How can you tell who’s saying what?”

His mouth curved. “Fair enough. What about crowds then?”

“Crowds are hard. If I’m scared or tired or upset I have even less tolerance. Sometimes it’s too much.” She tucked a curl behind her ear. “But you saw some of that on the shuttle.”

“What was—” His shoulders tensed. “What was Tellar like for you?”

Arissa gave a short humorless laugh. “
Really
hard. People, at least where I lived in Xan-Tellar, were usually miserable. Hopeless. Angry. Lonely. Some of the men were even—”

A stab of—

He wouldn’t meet her eyes now.

Anger and . . . what? Pain? No, something sharp like pain. “Jolar?”

He handed her the datapad, his gaze steady, cooler. “Here’s the information you’ll need to memorize. This is who you need to be.”

She glanced at the screen. “Grew up on Apovia? That’s convenient.”

“Your accent.”

“Right,” she murmured. “No children. No family.”

“Easier to keep straight.”

She scrolled through the information and frowned. “This house, the one we’re supposed to live in, was purchased only a month ago. Isn’t that a little odd?”

“If anyone contacts the neighbors they’ll hear that the house was purchased by someone from the southern continent. Furniture is being moved in now. Anyone contracted to go in or out will be told it’s been bought by a young couple who’ll move in shortly. It explains why none of the neighbors know us.”

“I hope I’m a good decorator.” Arissa gave a wry grin at the emotion she caught. “I’m kidding.”

He gave a faint smile.

She scrolled through the rest of the information and offered the datapad back to him. “Okay.”

Jolar made no move to take it, sending out little spikes of annoyance. “Arissa, I need you to memorize this.”

“I did.”

“You couldn’t have. You looked at it once.”

She extended it a little further toward him. “Test me.”

“I don’t—Fine.” He took the datapad. “Where you were born?”

“Nethara Province, Apovia.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Ikkat Academy. I received Distinguished Distinction there before attending the First University on Aylor.”

He shifted his weight. “Where did we meet?”

“At a Fleet dance on Aylor, you were a sub-lieutenant then. I was on my final field studies for my university degree.”

He scrolled through the information, asking her tiny details, the address of their first home, his mother’s second name, the date he’d resigned from the Fleet.

“Gods,” he muttered, passing his hand over his eyes.

“It wasn’t Ponga?” she asked, frowning. “The pet sercat you had growing up? I was sure it said Ponga.”

“No, you got it right. How did you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you read this
once
and you had it memorized. Can you always do that?”

“No, but this was easy. It took me a week to memorize the comparative biostructures of the Plantae genus.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, lowering the datapad. “I just . . . I didn’t know you could do that.”

Arissa’s frown deepened. “Is it a problem?”

“Not at all.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s great, especially for—it’s
amazing
.”

“Then why are you looking at me as if you’re worried I’m going to sprout wings and fly around the room?”

He gave a short, unsteady laugh. “Because right now I’m not sure you can’t.”

“It’s nothing special,” she insisted. “My parents gave me schoolwork to get through and I couldn’t watch any holodramas or read for entertainment ‘til I was finished. I learned how to connect things to other things I already knew to get through it all faster.”

“Handy skill to have.”

“Well, how do you memorize things?”

“Festering slowly, I guess.” He nodded at the datapad. “It took me a week of drilling to learn my new history. I still don’t know all of yours yet, I’m going to have to study to get it down by the time we get to Sertar.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe how fast you learn.”

“That’s not learning,” she objected. “That’s memorization. Learning is when you can apply knowledge in a useful way.” She gave a half-shrug. “That’s what my father used to say, anyway.”

“Smart man.” He gaze flicked to the datapad in his hand, then around the room.

“All right, well—” His glance went over her. “Since you got through everything I had planned for this morning in about five minutes, let’s go get you some clothes.”

Seven

Arissa let her breath out slowly as the saleswoman made a tiny adjustment to the skirt.

“What do you think, my dear?”

I think I feel ridiculous. I think the price of this thing could pay six months rent in a much better neighborhood than the one I had in Xan-Tellar.

I think I am
not
going out there to stand in front of him with my breasts half uncovered like this.

“I don’t know,” Arissa hedged, pretending to consider the deeply plunging, nearly backless, silver dress precariously held up by the tiniest of straps at her shoulders.

“Oh,” the saleswoman cooed, gathering Arissa’s hair and twisting it in her fingers. “With your hair up to show your neck. Oh, isn’t that lovely?”

“I’m not sure this is . . . it’s a little much for me to carry off.”

“You know, there are excellent salons onboard,” the woman said smoothing Arissa’s hair back down and pretending to be absorbed with the beaded detail on the skirt. “Maybe a haircut, perhaps some new cosmetics? A little eyebrow shaping to bring your eyes out?”

Arissa’s face went hot. Her mother had always cut her hair but it had been nearly nine months since the last time and her curls had gone shaggy. She didn’t even own cosmetics and had never worn anything besides a little tinted lip balm.

Her whole life had been about hiding. Enhancing her appearance and trying to be attractive would have just made it harder to stay invisible.

Arissa’s mind went to all those holodramas she’d watched, the clothes, the make-up, how she’d longed to be like other girls while she was growing up.

Tears stung her eyes. “I’d
like
to. I mean, I always wanted to be pretty.”

The woman met her eyes in the reflection, a tiny frown touching her brow. “You are pretty and with just a little effort, you could be beautiful.”

Jolar’s blue eyes flashed in her mind and Arissa blinked the tears away. She reached out to find him growing ever more impatient in the little sitting area outside the boutique’s dressing room. 

Arissa swallowed. “Would you—I mean, I don’t even know what to ask for—”

The woman gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “I’ll make an appointment for you, shall I? I know one of the ladies just adores this sort of thing, she’ll take you in hand.”

She didn’t have any money of her own so she’d have to ask Jolar but—

“Okay. Yes, please.”

“I’ll take care of everything. Your husband asked especially to see this one. Are you ready?”

Arissa took one more look at her reflection. She regarded her skinny, pale arms, the bones of her chest showing, her now tiny breasts half revealed by the plunging gown and tried not to groan.

Jolar had to be nearly ready to quit. They’d been here for almost two hours now working their way through dresses and tunics and pants for casual day things and now eveningwear.

And it might have even been fun if Jolar didn’t insist on seeing everything on her. The saleswoman selected clothes and Arissa put them on to show Jolar who would glance up from his datapad and gave her a quick once over. Usually he gave a short nod of approval but a handful of times his eyes widened and she caught a sense of—not admiration, exactly, but appreciation?—before he tamped it down. Sometimes he would frown and demand to know if she liked what she were wearing—which even a non-telepath would be able to tell plainly meant that
he
did not like it at all.

Still, considering how high the pile of ones he liked was growing, and the prices, Arissa was beginning to feel very much they were now wasting the saleswoman’s time. They couldn’t possibly buy all the ones he’d picked already.

The saleswoman led the way and Arissa dragged her feet.

Jolar’s head came up.

“What do you think?” the woman asked brightly. “The silver color is absolutely lovely against her dark hair.”

Arissa felt the blush go across her chest and up her neck under his hot stare.

“It’s too long,” Arissa mumbled, more than ready to escape back into the dressing room and away from those piercing blue eyes.

“Well, you’ll need heels to wear with it, my dear.” The woman laughed lightly. “And proper underthings of course.”

Jolar’s looked back at his datapad. “No.”

The dismissal was so abrupt, so sharp that Arissa blinked.

“Oh,” the woman said. “Is it the color? There’s one more of this design in the black but it would need to be altered to fit—”

“I said no,” Jolar snapped, not looking up.

Arissa frowned. She could barely parse the jumble of generosity and tenderness, irritation and eagerness—the mix of emotions came off Jolar in waves.

Arissa felt the saleswoman bite back her anger. “Of course,” she murmured.

Jolar seemed to be growing more agitated by the minute. Of the next six evening dresses she modeled for him, he only liked two.

He sent her to put the tan clothes back on and she threw a discouraged look at her reflection. After seeing herself in the other outfits, what she was wearing now seemed doubly unflattering.

“Well,” the saleswoman asked smiling. “What will you be taking?”

Jolar gestured toward the tall stack of things he’d approved. “Those.”

“You mean everything?” Arissa wet her lips. “Jolar, really, I don’t need all this.”

“Don’t you like them?” he asked. “If you don’t—”

“No, I like them.” How could he even ask? Everything was beautiful.

He held her gaze for a moment. “Give us a minute,” he said to the saleswoman.

“Of course,” the woman murmured, gathering a few of the things from the rejected pile and moving to the back of the store.

“What’s the matter?” he asked when the woman was out of earshot.

“Did you see the prices on those things? Jolar, it’s too much.”

He frowned. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Jolar,” she whispered. “One of those dresses costs
eleven hundred
credits.”             

He folded his arms. “I’m confused. You want the clothes but you’re worried about how much they
cost
?”

“That dress costs more than twice as much as you agreed to pay me for five nights,” she hissed. “And it’s just a festering dress!”

She sensed his inner flinch and he took a quick step back. “Purchase whatever you want with an ID scan, there’s plenty of funds available to you. Go ahead and buy those,” he said with a nod at the clothes. “And buy anything else you want, shoes, nightgowns—whatever you like. Just meet me back at the suite at nineteen hundred hours for dinner. I’ve got to focus on work.”

It was clear there was no point in arguing with him and he was striding away before she could even try.

The saleswoman edged closer, reverberating anxiety at the possibility of losing such a huge commission.

“I guess I’m taking all of it,” Arissa murmured, her stomach tightening as she did a quick mental calculation of the total.

“Wonderful.” The woman beamed. “We’ll get you all set here and then I’ll make that appointment for you.”

Arissa eyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror of their suite and tried to calm the flutters in her stomach. Even with no limit to her spending she’d swallowed hard at the salon bill. Still, she couldn’t complain about the results.

She scarcely recognized herself.

The facial took the dull look from her skin and left it glowing. Her hair had been trimmed and shaped, the mad curls layered into pretty, glossy black ringlets that framed her face and cascaded over her shoulders and upper back. The woman at the salon was both dismayed that Arissa didn’t know anything about cosmetics and delighted at the opportunity to effect such a transformation. She oversaw the whole process as Arissa’s eyebrows were shaped, her lash line darkened, her naturally thick black but stick straight lashes permanently curled.

Arissa’s inexperience made the woman press for lasting enhancements. The cheek and lip color as well as the dark lining around her eyes would stay perfectly in place and vibrant for several months then gradually fade. The semi-permanent color that reddened her lips, naturally such a pale color, made her mouth look twice as full. Over it she wore a plain balm to keep her lips soft.

The full, red mouth made her eyes look more balanced in her face. Now they looked okay instead of big as a frightened sercat’s.

The wash-away eyelid colors Arissa would change for day or night looks and the woman wrote out detailed directions for her on how to use the shadows. Arissa applied the evening shadow palette with painstaking care, though it still didn’t look perfect. She finally decided on a gown she had chosen herself at another store after Jolar left. It was a deep green with an over layer of semi-transparent material. Sleeves of that same semi-transparent material were slashed from shoulder to wrist but four pieces of horizontal trim held the pieces together – at the bicep, at the elbow, mid-forearm and wrist.

The effect left her looking like she was showing more skin than she was. The semi-transparent layer over the solid one had the added benefit of filling her body out and made her look a whole lot more like she used to.

And not scrawny like she was now.

I’m going to have to leave this bathroom sooner or later.

Jolar, while not back yet, would soon collect her for dinner.

The woman at the salon had been delighted with the result of her work. Even the tan clothes that had so washed her out before the cosmetics looked better and Arissa had drawn the eyes of a number of men on her way back here.

This is ridiculous. I certainly look better than I did. I’ll just open the door and go wait in the living area.

She squared her shoulders.

I look okay. I look nice.

Blue eyes flashed in her mind.

Jolar was back.

She anxiously smoothed down a curl and with one final nervous glance at the mirror went out into the living area to meet him.

His back was to her when she came in, his emotions heavy and troubled. He tossed the datapad onto the couch and ran his hand through his hair.

“Are you ready for dinner?” he asked absently.

“I think so.”

Jolar turned toward her and went very still.

His sense was as stunned as if she had actually grown those wings after all.

Arissa felt the blush creeping up her neck as his gaze ran over her. She expected him to say something, a complement maybe or a terse order for her to change, but he didn’t.

Her cheeks were burning now. She had a sudden fearful thought that with the combination of demi permanent make-up and her own reddening face she must look like she’d come down with a raging case of vermillion fever.

Maybe I should have worn one of the ones he picked out instead . . .

She cleared her throat, nervously fingering the skirt of her green gown. “Is it all right?”

He looked away. “Give me a minute to get ready.”

“Sure,” Arissa mumbled.

He was careful not to come close enough to touch her, his emotions like a maelstrom and instinctively she drew inward telepathically. The distance he kept and the speed at which he fled the room actually formed a lump in her throat.