Dark Passions: Book One by Susan Wright

Author:Susan Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Chapter 11

THE PUNGENT SCENT of bateret leaves filled the courtyard in the sprawling government complex of the Chamber of Ministers, the legislative body of Bajor. First Minister Winn Adami was seated in her receiving room, a blank scroll unrolled on the desk in front of her.

The Bajoran Gratitude Festival was taking place, and Winn was supposed to write her problems on the Renewal Scroll. Then she would lead the procession of ministers into the courtyard, where their witnesses were gathered. One by one they would place their scrolls on a burning brazier so their troubles would symbolically turn to ashes.

If only the annual celebration could so easily banish her troubles.

Winn paced to the window, where the blue smoke curled as it drifted up the inner walls of the complex. Chanting echoed outside as her people partook in the ancient ceremony, practiced for nearly twenty thousand years, some historians said. The families of the other ministers were gathering in the courtyard to witness the burning of the Renewal Scrolls, but Winn had no family. Her aunt and two cousins had died at the Romulan front before she became a Bajoran minister, and she had never found time away from governing to start her own family. But over to one side were the nine children Winn was currently fostering, watched by the child-care professionals she employed. Winn could never turn a needy child away from her home.

Her enveloping robes, embroidered with the symbols of her D’jarra, protected Winn from the chill air. This day officially marked the new season, heralded by the tiny stalks of baylets poking through the soil, yet it still felt like midwinter.

There were some who protested the symbols on her robes, preferring to forget the old days when Bajoran society was ruled by a system of castes. A family’s D’jarra used to dictate social status as well as the occupation its members could hold. But the Terran Empire had destroyed the ancient Bajoran caste system, and the Alliance had imposed a surface equality that reconciled many to the fact that they were no longer free.

Most Bajorans would protest that they had been freed when the Terran Empire was destroyed, but Winn knew better. That was why she had covertly joined the Circle in fighting the Alliance.

“Are you ready, First Minister?”

Winn turned to see Tora Ziyal, one of her administrators, standing in the doorway. Though Ziyal was barely past her second decade, she had faithfully served Winn since being fostered in her home as a child. Ziyal’s heritage was written on her face, where Cardassian eye ridges and forehead depression met a wrinkled Bajoran nose. But Ziyal had grown up on Bajor and was Bajoran to her core. Like most Bajorans, Winn was not one to discriminate. They had learned their lesson about xenophobia from the Terrans who had once enslaved them.

“Is something wrong?” Ziyal asked, approaching Winn.

Winn gestured to the empty scroll. “I cannot choose among my problems.”

Ziyal smiled sympathetically. “You are not limited to one, First Minister.”

Winn sighed and seated herself at the desk.

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