Chapter Sixteen

 

Ysaulte tipped her head back to inspect the sky, counting her constellations while the brief weariness within her passed.  There came to her an odd resignation from her Terran Zaltan’ohr that somehow reflected in the glitter of stars.  Za’rai, Yrenda, Orsidr, palShasar, and James… all waiting with the space black night to see if she would do the right thing.

 

Ysaulte rather wondered herself.

 

“Anthe.”

 

“Ysaulte.  The third wall, so soon?”

 

“Please.  Leave us now.”

 

Holding her silence, Anthe turned the other Sisters away with a single nod.  She left, taking Eyra’s hand when the old Lady would have balked, and walked them inside a’d’Kef.  When they were gone, Ysaulte, who had thought never again to fear mortal doings, forced herself to look at James.  He almost flinched.

 

“Ysaulte,” McCoy said quickly, also understanding more than he wanted about what would happen when that third wall went up.  “Spock and I can go with them.”

 

“Stay, Leonard.  James and I have little else to say.  The decisions made.”

 

“Decisions can be unmade, Ysaulte,” Jim murmured low, keeping her gaze locked on his.  “What if I asked you to wait one more night.  Raise olokon’s wall with the dawn.”

 

Dying inside with her wish to obey, Ysaulte took refuge in formality.

 

“My King, shall I refuse thee one night?”

 

“When you propose to refuse me a lifetime of them?”  A bitterness Jim had not admitted slashed at them both, and he bit his tongue too late.  “I don’t mean that.  Exactly.  Ysaulte__”

 

“Ah, beloved.”  Ysaulte went to him then, but didn’t touch him.  It already hurt too much.  She had always known it would.  “What else can we do?”

 

“Can’t we be honest, at least?”  Jim whispered hoarsely, shaken by her darkening irises into the only challenge he could make.  He saw it rock Ysaulte like a blow  __felt it__   and had to look away.  He found Spock practicing that intentional disregard humans perceived as insulting, and the doctor was shaking his head.  Neither was hiding his concern.

 

“Do you gentlemen realize what it means to be Zaltan’ohr?  For want of a better term, the king of this world… as if I’d been born to it… and I’m being exiled.  Banished for the rest of my days, because Ysaulte won’t let me stay.”

 

“No, James__”

 

“That is the truth, whether you like it or not, Ysaulte.”

 

“Jim.”

 

“Imagine it, Spock.  Whatever I want, when ever, where ever.  All I have to do is wish, because as long as Ysaulte is mine, so is ZaworthIa… but Ysaulte won’t let me stay.”  Jim laughed, short and hard, easing his aching throat before it closed up completely.  “I don’t blame Ysaulte.  She knows what I need, what I could give up, how much it would cost me.  I don’t believe she knows how willing part of me is to do just that… give everything up for her.”  Watching her chin lift with his words, Jim smiled for the sheer relief of telling the truth.

 

“Ysaulte’h of ZaworthIa calls me her Zaltan’ohr.  Do you wonder that I’m tempted?”  His mood shifted with the mercurial swirl of her eyes.  Jim bowed to Ysaulte in a fashion even McCoy’s ancestors would have approved, catching one of her hands to his lips while willing Radomil to life, sweeping it elegantly at his side.

 

“Your sword, ‘la belle dame sans merci’,” he said smoothly, offering it to her hilt first.  “I envy your strength.”

 

The color faded from Ysaulte’s face, then from her eyes, leaving the ZaworthIan pale as death in the moonlight.  She jerked her fingers out of Jim’s and stood alone, iron-spined arrogance holding her up; betraying her shocked hurt that he condemned her.  Remorse for his own cruelty prompted Jim to flinch and mentally apologize, but Ysaulte reacted faster.

 

“An thou think me so wrong, James du’Zaltan’ohr, thou wilt convince me of it,” she ordered, raising her hands high.  The Daysword blazed and leaped to her grasp.  Ysaulte threw it into the air, where it suspended itself overhead to brighten their view, spinning on some unseen axis and showering Asar with sparks that did not burn.

 

As if she thought the exhibition would deter him, when she appealed to him in any disposition.

 

“How certain are you that you’re right?”  Jim asked, his tone gently demanding, yet so wistful uncounted listeners caught back sobs.  His Zaltana let her temper defuse instantly, turning away to look across the battlefield.  Inner debate bent her shoulders, making her almost vulnerable, then her attention was aroused by something in the darkness.  Jim followed her gaze, not surprised at the eyes glowing around the fringes of Radomil’s illumination.  Hundreds of pairs of eyes reflecting sword, stars, and moon.

 

“Must be every haidar on the planet,” McCoy remarked into the tiny hush.  It was a measure of his faith in Ysaulte that his tone was unconcerned, plus, Bones was too near discovering what lay behind her superficial calm to care.  “It is our fault, Ysaulte?  Are we selfish to believe no one could need Jim like we do?”

 

“Leonard, never selfish, for that is no more than the truth,” she told him in a voice audible only by mind.  It was the only voice that felt right.

 

As if it was also some awaited cue, the haidar melted into the night.  The Daysword likewise disappeared (wished for, perhaps, by another Zaltana snared in a knot of Time?).  Shan ai Shuah shone impossibly fuller, silvering the dark, and even the breezes fell still… bidden quiet before an arriving peace.  They all recognized what it meant.  Za Herself had been drawn to such truth.

 

Figuring he had enough of an audience. Bones got to the point.

 

"As your friend, I want to ask you both a question I think you’ve been too scared to ask each other, and yourselves.  Are you making a mistake by separating?  Making a sacrifice only because you think it’s the right thing to do?”

 

Hearing her own earlier questions so similarly worded made Ysaulte tremble.

 

“Can I afford to answer?”  She prevaricated, hating herself for doing it.  Especially when Leonard stared her down with his cool eyes.

 

“Don’t lie to us, Ysaulte, and don’t lie to yourself.  How much is it going to hurt you to lose Jim?”  The doctor pressed, watching the thunderstorms rise in her irises.  “Did you presume to think we wouldn’t care?”

 

Ysaulte went even paler.

 

“If I did?”

 

“Then I forgive you.  I can see why you might have believed that, since we’ve been so worried about Jim.”  McCoy spared the Vulcan a sideways glare, but Spock didn’t protest.  “What about you, Ysaulte?”  He asked again.

 

The Zaltana sighed, the crystal in her eyes falling to tears.

 

“I remind you, there is no pain on this world without ease… yet this pain wilt be with me all of my days.”

 

The starkness of her statement echoed, and once more Jim put out his hand to Ysaulte.  She laid her palm against his without hesitation, and didn’t stop there, walking into his arms as if blinded.  Jim knew how true that was, burned by every tear on her face, and held her too tightly for speech.  It didn’t matter.  Ysaulte didn’t need air to speak.

 

“Wouldst thou have me beg?  Convince me I cannot trust my judgment?”

 

“No, Ysaulte,” the Vulcan interjected evenly.  “Do not allow your emotion to cloud your reason.”

 

“Damn it, Spock, are you__”

 

“No, Leonard.  Let him speak,” she demanded a bit unsteadily, turning to watch Spock with unguarded apprehension.  “Clarify it for me, please, Spock.”

 

Wondering why Ysaulte was so certain he would add to her hurt, the Vulcan lifted an eyebrow.

 

“Perhaps I might tell you a story,” Spock offered, his mouth slanting at an angle to match that eyebrow.  McCoy groaned, but Jim waved him silent, knowing he could depend on Spock to tell Ysaulte what she needed to hear.  Whether he liked it or not.

 

It occurred to Jim he wasn’t sure how long he’d known of his friend’s devotion to the Lady… caught between their emotional reflections, Spock almost had to share them, he thought.  What surprised him was the comfort he found in the notion.

 

He watched Ysaulte’s irises clear as her interest caught, and waited for her cautious inquiry.

 

“A story from where?”

 

“In fact, it is Terran,” Spock told her without missing a beat, supernaturally aware of Jim’s thoughts.  Ysaulte fixed her eyes on his and reminded Spock of their first meeting.  At some level it was true she feared him still.

 

Spock determined he’d change that.

 

“In the tenth century of recorded Terran history, a king named Solomon ruled.  His kingdom was prosperous, his people content, and his health was good.  Solomon counted his blessings and wanted only one thing.  It was his wish to honor his Creator.

 

“His Creator, who adored him, said, ‘Ask what I shall give thee’.

 

“Solomon, knowing how promises endured, admitted such a gift beyond his ability to decide, and wished for wisdom, saying, ‘O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king; and I am but a little child; I know not how to go out or come in.  And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered or counted.

 

“’Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this so great a people?’

 

“Well pleased, the Creator said unto him, ‘Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked for riches for thyself, nor hast asked for the lives of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold.  I have done according to thy wishes; lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee’.”

 

The Vulcan allowed his rare and beautiful smile, winning Ysaulte’s while he quoted the last verse to her.

 

“’And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honor; so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days’.”  Lowering his head to Ysaulte, Spock paid his subtle tribute in words.

 

“You need not fear your judgment, Ysaulte.  Do you understand me?”

 

“The legend sings to me, a’he’Ra.  Thank you,” she said, closing her eyes.  Serenity, the gift of his faultless composure, settled across her shoulders like a cloak.  When she uncovered them, those ZaworthIan irises shone blue and pure, gaze steady.  “Well chosen.”

 

“Spock, wasn’t that from the Book of Kings?”  Bones wondered.

 

“Required reading,” Spock noted, doing Ysaulte the privilege of ignoring her earlier imbalance.

 

“By whom?”  McCoy inquired with mock amazement.  “Not the Vulcan Science Academy.”

 

“By my mother, Doctor McCoy,” Spock replied, his lack of expression plainly daring the doctor to say something negative.  Bones wasn’t about to.

 

“One of the smartest women I’ve ever met… and Ysaulte, so are you,” he added.

 

She rewarded these efforts with another smile, eyes brightening.

 

“I keep underestimating thee and thine, James,” she murmured, knowing it was the absolute truth… and they trusted her in spite of this, estimating her very well.  “You see me too clearly.”

 

“Do we?  You’ve seen something in our future that you haven’t told me.  Some reason why I can’t stay,” he realized, allowing her to leave his arms.  She put her back to him, staring out over the field of Asar.

 

“The Talent of foreseeing futures rare, my Zaltan’ohr.”

 

“And yet you possess it, my Lady Zaltana.”

 

“There is nothing I can tell you, even so.”  Ysaulte turned to face him, her expression solemn as she opened her hands.  “Shall ought be told and subsequently change?  I never told you, because events overtook us, but when I farsent my will from your bridge it was because I saw something, as you say, and by the grace of my Mother Za I have seen even more.  Much lies ahead of you, James, and having nothing to do with me nor Za.  Thou art fair Terra’s son, and serving her.  How then can I allow thee to forsake thy duty, when it has so long been thy rule?”  Ysaulte’s voice softened, taking Jim’s breath.  “’Do what your heart tells you to do, and millions will die who did not die before’,” she paraphrased gently, catching Spock’s wince.  “The situation is not so very different.  The days of thy life a gift beyond thy reckoning, and neither thine to give.”

 

Jim, who knew when her mind was made up past all changing, scrubbed at his face with his hands.  Even now, he couldn’t say whether he was relieved or disappointed.  He suspected he would never be sure.

 

“Who’s going to take care of you, Ysaulte?”  He gestured at Spock and McCoy.  “I’ll have them.  They’ll bully me into reality, and I… won’t look back.”

 

“I shall have ZaworthIa, James.”

 

“While we have the stars?  They might have been yours, too,” he had to tell her, thinking of the life that might have been.

 

“While I was with you, they were mine, my Zaltan’ohr… and thou wilt concede, then, staying less a sacrifice for me than thee,” she pointed out with a faint smile.

 

“And I’m arrogant to think of it as a sacrifice, I know.  I just wish__” Jim cut himself off, voice and mind, knowing what danger there was here in the stated whim.

 

“I still hear your wishes, beloved.  Truly, I might share them, as we shared others, yet the time for that is not now.  Have you no patience?”  Those irises glowed.  “We must ‘fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen’.”

 

“’For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal’,” he finished for her, almost smiling.  “Even the Devil quotes Scripture, Ysaulte.”

 

“Huh.”  Amused, she grinned.  “Wouldst thou never doubt I shall someday be coming for thy soul, then.”

 

“I won’t,” Jim assured her, loving her quick mind.  Another question came to him.  “Do you think there will ever be an alliance between our peoples?”  He asked her seriously.

 

Ysaulte sucked in her breath, stricken when his mood changed with that peculiar, quicksilver human speed.  She touched her fingers to his lips, as if to catch his fading smile.  She had never fully appreciated how much Jim wanted ZaworthIa within the Federation; for all the right reasons, and few of those having anything to do with her.

 

“How answered, when it seems this decision equally underestimated.  I wonder if history will defend it, and me?”  Ysaulte questioned slowly, her hand dropping to his shoulder.

 

Jim was surprised.

 

“Are you having doubts about staying out of the Federation?”

 

“Shouldn’t I?  This ‘thing of ours’ aside, I stand here as Zaltana and it falls to me to refuse the Federation’s offer.  Never think we refused thee, as I my Mother’s voice must refuse, for any imagined insufficiency.  This is not so.  Thou children of Earth choose free will, which we of Za elect to preserve by remaining absent from thee.  So sworn, we do no harm, and if I am learned of nothing else in my time with thee, I am learned of the virtue in the sworn word… as Za so learned.

 

“This being said, know this world stands before thee fascinated.  Awesome art thou, O humanity, born as no other race to the duality of existence.  Good.  Evil.  Creation.  Destruction.  Peace.  War.  Love.  Hate.  Life, and death.  Exceeding in thy reach thy grasp, thou beautiful, terrible angels… wilt fall to some other Zaltana’s time ere this world suits Herself strong enough for thee.”

 

Jim’s heart seized, missing its rhythm in the instant of Ysaulte’s grief as it carried through their bond.  She put her hand on his throat, and her fingers were unnaturally cold… as chilled as her suddenly Romulan eyes.

 

He laid one hand over hers, although her touch burned space-zero.

 

“On behalf of the United Federation of Planets, I accept your government’s regretful refusal of membership,” Jim said formally, which didn’t hide his own pain.  His Lady’s irises stormed over winter gray, equally unable to deny the ache of impending loss. 

 

He pulled Ysaulte to him for one last kiss, the infinite sweetness in the gesture brightening her eyes with a sheen of tears.

 

“Not goodbye,” he whispered, falling into that rainbow gaze.  “Not the end.”

 

“It will be as you wish, a’shas,” she promised, turning to look at McCoy.  “Leonard, be well.  Blessed thou art,” Ysaulte said, smiling, because she wanted them both to remember her that way.

 

“Ysaulte.  Thank you,” Bones said, and she did not pretend to misunderstand what he was thanking her for.  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

 

“I will be fine, I swear it.  All ZaworthIa my sword and my shield, now.”

 

“Mother Za, let it be so,” Jim ordered, one final command as Zaltan’ohr, for Ysaulte’s sake, before his mind slipped its grasp on consciousness…

 

“Walk far, beloved.”

 

***

 

Spock observed dispassionately while the fieldgrasses reached up and cushioned the boneless crumpling of his human friends.  Recognizing how displeased the Vulcan was by these developments, Ysaulte delayed his own participation.

 

“You think some explanation due, Spock?”

 

“You owe me nothing, Ysaulte, although you… disconcert me.  Is it your intention to break your bonding while he sleeps?”

 

Ysaulte knelt beside Jim, pushing the hair off his forehead and laying her palm against his warm face.

 

“I could not do it otherwise, for to see James awake is to want him, and wanting him too much to release him,” she confessed frankly, smoothing a trembling hand over Jim’s hair.  “I am stronger than he knows, Spock… but not so strong that I can look into his eyes and break this bond.”

 

“I understand, Ysaulte… but I do not have to like it,” Spock admitted with his own brand of open confession.  “What will it be like for him?”

 

“Za will grant him distance and perspective.  He will know only that this planet elected to forego Federation membership, and what we had will be hidden from him.”

 

“And the doctor?  The rest of the crew?”

 

“The same.  And do not worry after Alexei Zeitsev.  I will convey ZaworthIa’s regrets to him by subspace radio…  we do have one,” Ysaulte said to his faint surprise.  “If I must, I can reach out to Alexei by the voice unspoken.  I will make certain there is no blame attached to the Enterprise and her crew.”

 

“I was not worried,” Spock told her, willing her to accept where his concerns lay.  “And what of me, Ysaulte?  Shall I expect the same for myself?”

 

“No.  The whole of it with you, Spock, because you love him as I do.  I have always known this.”

 

She placed her fingertips on Jim’s temple and the Vulcan felt that peculiar flux of energy that heralded Ysaulte’s active force of will as she rewrote the passage of time in her Zaltan’ohr’s mind.  He watched her do the same for McCoy, watched while olokon’s wall shuddered up from the soil… watched while Ysaulte funneled those energies into a wave of thought that shifted reality for everyone on board the Enterprise that had ever met her… ever known her…  and even saw with no surprise the instantaneous appearance of her little ship parked outside the wall.   He waited until she had finished, rocking back on her heels to stare at Jim with unconscionable pain.

 

“It is done,” she finally announced.

 

“So you will wait, Ysaulte?”

 

“Whatever the days of his life.”

 

“It may be years.  It is also very likely he will… predecease you,” Spock warned.

 

“What of it?  I shall only be glad to lay down this life when that day comes.”

 

“Do you condemn yourself to so much unhappiness that you can find no more joy in living?  You, Ysaulte, who taught so much of joy?”

 

“Spock.”

 

Her eyes closed, not fast enough to catch a pair of crystal tears.  He moved involuntarily, kneeling before her with Jim’s unconscious body between them.  Spock moved, to catch those tears on his fingertips and join their minds in meld.

 

“What of your obligations?”  He challenged silently.

 

“I shall see them met, fear not.”

 

“Including the raising of his child?”  Spock felt her stomach turn over and her eyes became impossibly bright.

 

“Za willing, twin daughters, a’he’Ra.  They do run in the family, remember?  His children’s children will rule this world, for this too a promise I made him.  His place in the history of our world secure for the next ten thousand years… his generations to sing of him.  And thee, Spock.”

 

“Ysaulte.  You know I will watch over him to the best of my abilities.”

 

“I do know.  It is all that gives me the courage to see him go,” she admitted huskily.  She had once foreseen how far Spock would go for his t’hy’la… it was a memory she still concealed.  When that time came, she would do what she could to make it turn out all right.

 

Submitting to a long deferred urge, Ysaulte leaned over Jim to kiss Spock full on the mouth.

 

“Live long and prosper, my beloved friend.”

 

“And you, Ysaulte,” he said past his flushed pleasure.  “Peace and long life,” and the ta’al made with a hand that trembled… the last thing Spock knew as his surroundings faded from view; the light from her eyes mindblinding…

 

Epilogue

 

Ten Terran lunar months came to pass, and the city of R’naiu, on the world of ch’Rihan, was seized by a bizarre series of seismic tremors…  Bizarre, because the only actual damage occurred on that property owned by the former Senator, tr’Ahkennsai.  There, every structure was instantly leveled.

 

As for the Senator himself, he was found untouched but quite dead, alone in his bed with his own hands wrapped around his throat.  The one required his most staunch retainers to remove his corpse, and everyone who saw him felt their livers pinch at his expression… an open-mouthed scream of raw terror.

 

***

 

Jim awakened from an uneasy sleep, hearing the sound of his given name in his dreams…

 

End Chapter Sixteen