At an undisclosed time, Storaas lies musing after his heart
nearly fails him. Click below and find out a little more about the Sural’s
history.

A heart attack, the humans call it. I experienced a heart
attack. The apothecaries say the shock of seeing a man I had thought long gone
into the dark was too much in my declining condition.

He was, in fact, fathered
by the man I thought he was.

His resemblance to the Sural’s father is uncanny. He
possesses the same face, the same slight upward curve of the lips, the same
deadly grace in his walk. But look a little closer and, as the Marann says,
“You can see the steel in him,” steel the Sural’s father lacked. Yes, this
natural son of Suralia is the stronger man. It does not surprise me; he is,
after all, the grandson of the last ruler to lead the ruling caste, a man who
sought to lead during a time of conventional rule and succeeded, not an easy
accomplishment. Because her grandson was a threat to his rule, he assassinated
the Suralia and her heir and sought to assassinate her grandson, the man who is
now the Sural. He failed in that last, and died at the Sural’s hands. The Sural
has ruled the planet since.

And now comes the natural son of the Sural’s father. A
natural son of Suralia, who is heir to another province. How … odd.

It is not unheard of for ruling caste bloodlines to mix.
Provincial heirs travel, after all; they are ambassadors. They meet frequently.
They can become attracted. Occasionally, they become entwined. They produce a
child – rarely, but it happens. I have heard that this man’s own daughter is
entwined with the heir to Brialar. Those two provinces are traditional allies,
so there is perhaps more occasion than most for their heirs to meet. But his
province and Suralia? The hottest and
the coldest. The farthest west and the farthest east. The two oldest ruling
bloodlines on Tolar. Astonishing.

As for me, my condition is no longer declining. I am stable,
even reasonably well, and I have the Sural and his head apothecary to thank for
that: the Sural ordered her to repair my failing body. I grow no younger, but I
am no longer ill. I can only rage against the injustice of postponing my
natural death for … I know not how long. A life already too long and lately too
filled with sorrow. A life that is tedious beyond my ability to express,
without my Suralia and the daughter she carried for me.

Would I had died that day, that I had been a guard, and not
a scholar to be ignored by the ones who killed my beloved Suralia, and with her
my daughter. I lived, cursing my continued existence. From that red day onward,
I have looked forward to nothing but my own demise, kept from walking into the
dark only by my duty to Suralia.

And yet.

The day Cena requested I father her heir is the day my life
began to turn on its shoulder. The woman simply would not hear me say no and extracted
from me an agreement to give it thought. I had hoped she would lose interest if
I delayed my response, and so I did. She was persistent. Stubborn, like the Sural
who fathered her. Insistent.

Did I believe her capable of subterfuge, I would believe she
asked the Marann to intercede on her behalf. But no, Cena is without guile, and
the Marann – Marianne Woolsey to her former people – merely clumsy,
understandably so, to ask before witnesses if I would honor Cena and grant her
request. The Marann could not know it forced me to choose between honoring Cena
or disgracing her.

Humiliate her, I would not do. I am grown fond of her. She
is so very like the Suralia his grandmother, my lost Suralia. Stubborn,
persistent, always thinking. Had Cena been born into the ruling caste, she
would have made an outstanding ruler. Instead, she makes an exceptional
apothecary, the best in Suralia.

I did not anticipate that by agreeing to give her an heir, I
would allow her to capture my heart. She wants me, against all reason – and
against all reason, I am hers. Old and broken as I am, as few years as I have
left, I cannot convince her to forsake me. She will be devastated when I am
gone, more than is necessary. She deserves better, yet I cannot convince myself
to forsake her, and in truth, I do not think she would keep her distance if I
asked. Stubborn and persistent, like my lost Suralia.

For good or ill, my heart is hers.