“Please don’t say it’s the last time!” Ellina begged, her voice choked with repressed sobs. “Please, Grandmamma—you haven’t been sick that long. Surely you’ll get better soon.”
“I would if I could, child—if only for your sake.” The old Potentate shook her head. “But when Thufar calls, I must go.”
“But I’m not ready to lose you yet!” Ellina whispered. “Not nearly ready, Grandmamma!”
“We are never ready to lose the ones we love, my dear,” her grandmother said gently. “But lose them we must. Do not fear—we shall meet again on the other side if Thufar wills it.”
Ellina wanted to say she didn’t want to do that—to wait so long to see her grandmother again. But it was clear the old Potentate was slipping away and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“As I said, I’m glad you’re here,” her grandmother said. She frowned in concentration. “There was something I wanted to tell you…something important. Now what was it?”
“I…I don’t know.” Ellina shook her head, thinking that her grandmother’s mind must be wandering.
But suddenly the old woman’s faded blue eyes were blazing brightly.
“I remember now!” she exclaimed, squeezing Ellina’s hand. “You were asking me about your Heat Cycle and I couldn’t talk to you—there were others in the room, you know.”
“None of that matters now,” Ellina protested. Nothing mattered if her grandmother was going to die.
“Yes—yes, it does.” The old Potentate nodded firmly. “You asked me about your cycle—well here is what I have to tell you about that: when your cycle comes on you, you must choose your consort.”
Ellina thought the old woman’s mind must be wandering again.
“Yes, Grandmamma, I know,” she said gently.
“No—no, you don’t understand!” her grandmother exclaimed. “You must choose your consort. Don’t let anyone else choose for you and don’t let yourself be bullied into picking a male you don’t want or love. Because once he breeds you, you’re stuck with him for life!”
“I…I am?” Ellina looked at her, wide-eyed.
Her grandmother nodded. “So you must be certain to get the male you want to spend your life with.”
“But what if I want someone unsuitable?” Ellina dared to ask. “A commoner? Or even…even an off-worlder?”
The old woman looked at her sharply, a little smile playing around the corners of her wrinkled mouth.
“You want that handsome Kindred guard of yours, don’t you my dear?”
“Oh, well…” Ellina looked down at the blanket which covered her grandmother, plucking aimlessly at the fuzzy blue fabric without answering.
“Yes, you do. You want him,” her grandmother declared. “Well, that’s all right my dear—if he is the one you want, then you must have him.”
“What?” Ellina looked up at her, wide-eyed. “But Grandmamma, he’s an off-worlder—not even of our species! And his skin isn’t even blue—let alone Sacred Blue.”
“Doesn’t matter.” The old Potentate shook her head firmly.
Doesn’t matter who he is, my dear. For Sacred Blue always breeds true.”
“Are you sure?” Ellina frowned. “But I’ve always thought that I must have a consort with blue skin—the nearer Sacred Blue the better.”
“That’s what they want you to think,” her grandmother said, shaking one wrinkled finger in Ellina’ face. “Especially the Priests of Thufar. Very tricky, they are,” she went on, still shaking her finger. “Especially that Lord Kikbax—I never liked him, you know. You mustn’t let him choose your consort, whatever you do. He doesn’t want what’s best for Helios Beta—he wants what’s best for himself. And when a trusted official puts his own interests before those of the nation he serves, that is treason—plain and simple.”
“I agree.” Ellina nodded. “But Grandmamma, he’s already tried to choose my consort.” And she was more than a little afraid that the High Priest of Thufar might try again.
The old Potentate narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t you let him, child!” she exclaimed. “Don’t let him pick your consort or run your life. He tried that with your mother, you know, but I told her the same thing I’m telling you—do what feels right for you.”
“Yes, Grandmamma.” Ellina nodded but inside she felt like dying. Too late—she was learning all this too late. For Ty had already gone and she knew he was never coming back. If only her grandmother had told her this information just a few days ago! If only…
“My dear, I fear I am hearing the call of Thufar.”
Her grandmother’s words snapped her back to the here and now. The old Potentate’s face—so animated just a moment before—was now sunken and gray. Her umlu had closed completely and her breath was coming fast and short.
“No, Grandmamma,” Ellina begged, holding onto the frail hand, which was already growing colder in her own. “No, please—please don’t leave me!”
“I must…dear child. But I will…be with you…in spirit…always. Love…you.”
And the old Potentate’s other eyes closed as her breathing stopped completely.
“Grandmamma, no—no, please!”
The anguished cry was wrung from Ellina’s lips though she knew it would bring her grandmother’s nurse running. Indeed, in a moment the door to the old Potentate’s bed chamber was flung open and Lullabella stood there, wide-eyed and frantic.
She took in the old Potentate’s still, gray face and then Ellina’s anguished one and seemed to understand at once what had happened.
“Oh dear!” she cried and rushed to her old mistress’s side. “Oh my dear sweet Potentate! Oh, no!”
“She’s gone.” Ellina could hardly speak for sobbing. “She…she told me she loved me and then…and then she was…was gone.”
She broke down completely then, pressing her forehead to her grandmother’s cold hand as the sobs wracked her entire body.
It was Lullabella’s firm hand on her shoulder that finally brought her back.
“My Potentate,” she said sadly. “You
