Recognition by Ann Herendeen Page B

heard no more objections, from Lord Singh
or any of the others. The debate seemed to have ended, a conclusion
reached that all could accept. As people began to file out, Lady
Ertegun took charge of me. I was under her protection now, she
explained. I would spend the night in her quarters here in ‘Graven
Fortress, and we would go directly to La Sapienza in the morning.
“We will ride out first thing after an early breakfast,” she said,
a cautionary tone making her voice querulous. “To fly in one of
those helicopters, as I did yesterday, would only alert your
compatriots.”
    She was not asking for my opinion or
agreement, merely stating the facts. I bowed my head in
acquiescence, grateful that she understood my desire to disappear
into another life, another self.
I would not even have to tell
them
, I thought with guilty pleasure of my coworkers and
supervisor. I would not have to argue about what my role should be,
would not have to try to hold back information. I would truly enter
this world, as I had imagined doing when I first had the idea of
coming here, before I learned it would be just another job, in
overheated buildings with stale air and surrounded by the same
oblivious minds.
    Dominic joined us, elation obvious in his
face at this solution he had not allowed himself to hope for. He
took my hand as we walked, our shared consciousness creating a
throbbing between us of incipient communion. “I will visit you,” he
promised.
    Lady Ertegun bristled. “No, Margrave Aranyi,”
she said, “you will not visit her. Nobody visits novices in
training.” Sibyl of a seminary, her word was law. As I had seen
with Lady Ndoko, not even the Viceroy would willingly defy her.
    My new protector confronted Dominic and,
looking into his eyes, forced him to drop my hand. The two of them
squared off like duelists, each one trying to make the other blink,
giving up after a few tense moments. Neither could prevail, neither
would submit. With a shrug of irritation, Lady Ertegun turned her
back on Dominic, directing me to follow.
    I walked off with her, taking one last look
over my shoulder. Dominic was standing very still and straight.
I will come to you
, he thought to me.
    Somehow I didn’t doubt it.
I’ll be
waiting
, I thought back.

 
     
     
CHOICES: Book
Two of
Eclipsis
     
    Can’t wait to find out what happens next?
Here’s a preview of
Choices
,
Book Two in the
Eclipsis
series of Lady Amalie’s memoirs:
     
    The ride to La Sapienza was brutal, although
Edwige, ‘Gravina Eretegun, declared, a mocking smile on her face,
that the weather had “held up nicely, given the season.” It was
early in the first month of autumn, and autumn on Eclipsis, even in
the relatively low-lying plains between the city and the seminary,
features a great deal of wind, freezing rain and sleet. In our
fourteen-hour day of travel, broken up, again according to Edwige,
into two “easy stages,” we had encountered all of these conditions
as we maneuvered our mounts along the narrow, slippery, rocky
trails, Eclipsis’s only roads.
    You wanted this
, I told myself.
You’re the one who gave up a comfortable life in the Terran Sector
to become an Eclipsian. Nobody forced you. But it had happened so
quickly there had been no time to think it through or imagine what
I had chosen.
    Two days ago—
two days ago!
—I had
been a Terran, working as an information manager, living in a
heated apartment, rarely venturing farther than the Protectorate
Headquarters a short walk away on Terran-style paved sidewalks. Now
I was riding on an animal, a sturdy little mountain pony suitable
for a woman traveling in hilly terrain. My clothes were drenched, I
was shivering under my borrowed cloak—I who am never cold—and I was
near the end of my strength. When, late in the evening, we reached
the gate of La Sapienza, only the quick action of a sympathetic
guard prevented me from landing flat on my back in the mud as I
dismounted.
    My one friend was gone