“If it was only twelve worlds, perhaps.” Oviin put the tray on a table, out of the way. “But the title is a relic from the Empire’s first expansions toward your space. The north and the east, the parts of the Empire facing your nation, they are the densest in population and the most industrialized, because they are the leading edge of the conquerors who wish to claim more territory. The military is strongest in the north and east because the system lords are the most powerful as well. And of them all, the lord of the Twelveworld is the greatest, because those twelve worlds were the first claimed in the north, and they have been built for centuries into a great redoubt. Together they comprise an ancient charge, one with a history that stretches back, some say, to the first spacefaring days. They are rich systems, and strong. Their control gives the Twelvelord a great deal of power, and that he holds them, a great deal of respect.”
Jahir frowned, sliding down to lie on his side. The chiming in his head had ceased, but he was tired, so tired. “Then it is believable that the Usurper might want to placate him.”
“This one begs pardon?”
“He was here today, telling of a fleet he’s brought. Other lords like him, who have joined with him to form a single unit. A large one. Second said it was as large as the northern military fleet.”
Oviin’s hands paused. Then he resumed setting out the larger towels for the bath. “That would not surprise me.”
“Really?” Jahir considered him. “You know a great deal about the political situation of the Empire, Oviin-alet.”
“It is unavoidable, if one listens.” Oviin sat across from him in his usual position, hands folded in his lap. “These males… when they come to the court, it is males such as this one who serve them, who bring their meals, who clean their suites, who see to their requests. We procure them females, if the Emperor does not permit them his. We answer their questions about where to find entertainment in the capital, if they wish to leave the palace. We… we are bound as statues and left as decorations in their alcoves, if that pleases them.”
“You are?” Jahir asked, startled. “I would have thought that a duty of the harem.”
“The harem is composed of females, Ambassador,” Oviin murmured. “If wings are needed in a decoration, it is to the palace staff that the artisans turn.”
“And you are beautiful,” Jahir murmured.
Oviin’s head jerked up.
“You think I would fail to notice?” Jahir sighed and pushed himself into the water. “I have been the object of similar desires, though I have more defense against them. I know how it goes, alet.”
“I… I can imagine,” Oviin stammered. Recovering himself, he finished, “This one has spent many hours listening to discourse, unable to move. To think about what one hears… it passes the time.”
“And you know the Twelveworld Lord because of this.”
Oviin hung his head. “He is a perverse male who finds wings on females fascinating. Such females are rare—this one is considered a substitute. A poor one, but sufficient.”
Jahir reached across the steaming water to rest his hand on the drake’s foot, and through it sensed Oviin’s shame. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not as females are hurt,” Oviin murmured. “But it is…”
“Degrading.”
Oviin grimaced, lips pulling back from his teeth. “Such words are not for castrates to use. We do not have honor to be abused.”
“I say you do. I say you have more honor than the males who have misused you, Oviin, because you have twice their courage.”
Had Jahir not had his hand on Oviin’s foot he would not have known to look for physical evidence of the Chatcaavan’s pleased embarrassment. The Chatcaava did flush, though it showed only at the delicate skin near their eyes and nostrils. Oviin looked away. “The Ambassador is too generous.”
“The Ambassador is an alien, is what you mean.” Jahir sank into the bath to his chin and sighed. “This is good. Thank you. My arms and back ache.”
“This one can imagine. Being bound was not comfortable either.” Oviin flexed his wings, a little tremor running along their vanes. “What should go out next?”
Jahir thought of the map. “If only I could show them the fleet positions. Do you have access to the Usurper’s study?”
“No, Ambassador. Not in the sense you mean. I walk past it to reach you here, but by the time I do so all the displays are shut down, and to tamper with them would be impossible without his access codes. Perhaps you could describe them? I would remember everything you describe.”
Having heard evidence of the Chatcaavan’s eidetic memory the first time Oviin repeated his message back to him exactly, Jahir didn’t doubt it. What concerned him was his own ability to paint an accurate depiction. It was unavoidable that an alien would gloss over elements of the map that a Chatcaavan might find pertinent: he didn’t have the context necessary to understand the significance of the information he was gathering. He was a good observer; had become, he thought, an excellent one after moving to the Alliance and practicing his profession while navigating an environment that rewarded the ability to predict the actions of others. With enough time, he could glean the necessary information by watching the Usurper’s reaction to it, or Second’s. But that would take time, and require him to be expert in Chatcaavan body language. He had Lisinthir’s borrowed memories, but they were only enough to give him a subconscious understanding; his mind would attempt to fill in any gaps in that knowledge with its own probably incorrect assumptions.
But Oviin… Oviin might know. If Oviin could be made to see the map.
“May I ask you a personal question?” Jahir asked. “You may decline to hear it, or on hearing it, you may decline to answer.”
Oviin’s mouth dropped open. Composing himself, he said, “So many alien notions.”
“Yes,” Jahir answered.
“Then… the question?”
Jahir asked, “Can you Change?”
The words arrested Oviin’s every motion, even his breathing. Then he flinched, lowering his head. “I have never tried.”
“Would you like to?”
“Because?” Oviin asked, low. “I do not assume you ask this out of generosity. What is your purpose, Ambassador?”
Had this been Lisinthir’s path in the Empire? Expedience? Was it becoming his as well? Was that what survival demanded? “I’m afraid it did occur to me as the solution to a problem.”
The male’s wings relaxed, mantled; some of the stiffness left Oviin’s face. “That being?”
“I can see the map but not interpret it. You could interpret it, but can’t see it. If you could draw the picture from my mind…” He trailed off, frowned. The meals he had in the bathing chamber chased the fog from his head, but he was aware of still being impaired, of thinking more slowly than his wont. It was hard not to find it frustrating… frightening. “Perhaps it isn’t my purpose, really. I could put the thought in your head myself, with your permission. But giving you my shape so that you can learn to take it from me feels fairer.”
Oviin stared at him, nose wrinkled. “I don’t understand, Ambassador. You are speaking of… reading minds? As your kind are said to do.”
“Yes.”
“And you wished me to learn your shape so I could read yours, and see the map.”
“Yes,” Jahir said.
“But you also say I don’t need to learn that shape in order to do so?”
“Yes,” Jahir said. Apologetically, “This is a new ability for me, so I don’t often think of it. I could push it into your head. In the past, I would have found it difficult to do so unless you were also able to send and receive thoughts.”
“So you could place the image in my mind,” Oviin said slowly. “You need not teach me your pattern.”
“No,” Jahir said. “But if you’d like to learn it, the offer stands.”
Oviin said, “I should not be surprised that you make this offer, though it no longer grants you any advantage.”
/> “No.” Jahir smiled. “Are you? Surprised?”
“Yes,” Oviin said. He swallowed. “This placing of an image in my mind. Is it painful?”
“It can be unnerving,” Jahir answered. “We are born believing our minds are unassailable, and the evidence that we’re wrong can be uncomfortable. But it isn’t physically painful, no.” He thought of Vasiht’h and smiled. “Some people find the communion pleasant.”
“How does it work?”
“I touch you,” Jahir said. “And then… you see what I show you.”
“So easy,” Oviin murmured. “And this ability I would have if I learned your shape.”
“Yes.”
The Chatcaavan looked away, jaw tense. Jahir left him to that silence, cupping the water and washing his face. He missed showers; while the bath helped with the aches incurred by his constrained posture, it also made him too aware of his uncomfortable fullness. He’d found eating a pleasure in the past, despite both his partner and his lover deciding he neglected himself too much. He no longer found eating pleasurable; did not even, he realized, remember what the Chatcaavan food tasted like. How would he ever tell Vasiht’h about the cuisine of dragons if he didn’t linger long enough on it to recall its flavors? Its spices? Was he even getting quality food, or was this the equivalent of slop fed to an animal?
It wouldn’t matter if it was, since that was how he was eating it. The thought that he was, and that this wasn’t enough to silence the roquelaure, was ominous. His skin prickled, cold despite the steam.
“I would like to think about this.”
“Take your time.” Jahir held his hair out of the way so he could sluice the back of his neck. “I’ll be here.”
“Just… that?” Oviin frowned. “You do not wish to influence my choice further?”
“If I could influence it less, I would,” Jahir said. “As it is, I will offer what little control I can give you and protect your ability to exercise it. I need your help, Oviin-alet—this you already know, and I will not lie about it. My nation, my people, the Alliance, even the deposed Emperor and his partisans—all of them must have the information I can send them, and the only way I can accomplish that is through you.” He smiled a wintry smile. “I find that sufficient coercion for my taste. I would prefer you at liberty to make any other choices my existence presents you on your own.”
“This is your pattern of behavior, then,” Oviin said. “You make suggestions and then leave me alone with them, or wait without insisting on payment, knowing that it will motivate me to help you.”
“Will it?” Jahir asked, bemused.
Oviin scowled at him. “You are many things, Ambassador, but it has never been observed of you that you are witless.”
“I suppose not. But I’m not trying to manipulate you into doing what I ask.”
“You are making me want to do what you ask! By making me like you!”
Jahir couldn’t help it: he laughed, a little bubble of mirth that he tried and failed to choke down. “Oviin-alet… that is common with people who respect one another. If they like one another, they help one another.”
“Chatcaava and aliens cannot like one another.”
“I love the Queen,” Jahir murmured, Lisinthir’s memories of her bright in his mind, like banners. “Tell me that again.”
Oviin dug his fingertips into his knees and did not answer.
That night, alone in the gloom of his silent chamber, Jahir curled around his empty, aching middle and listened to the roquelaure’s whispered warnings, forcing himself to hold still. He had never been more aware of how much energy it cost to twitch from an unwanted stimulus. Being Eldritch had required him to learn a level of bodily self-control the Pelted found suspicious—brief flashes to arrogant professors and their accusations—but the roquelaure required a discipline so beyond that mastery he wasn’t sure he could do it.
Fleet couldn’t possibly be using such flawed technology. Jahir could barely move without triggering some warning message; the activity level a Fleet operative would be sustaining while masked did not seem possible. He could only conclude that something was wrong... that he had injected it incorrectly, or more probably, the algorithm that ruled it was reacting to his not-quite-expected biology. The roquelaure had been keyed for Lisinthir; perhaps it was only a matter of time before it failed. Probably by starving him to death.
Staring at the moonlight falling through the bathing chamber arch, Jahir thought of killing the Usurper. Perhaps absent their Emperor, Second and the Twelveworld Lord would fight for the throne? But Second was gone. And the Twelveworld Lord seemed a traditional enough Chatcaavan male that Jahir doubted he would call off the war. All he could do was watch, and tell the others what he knew, and hope they would come in time. Or perhaps ask through Oviin what could be done about the roquelaure?
He might have to, if its demands keep mounting. But he was not dead yet.
Jahir sighed, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Khaska was pitiless.
It was hard not to think of her by her Chatcaavan name when he spent most of his time drenched in her memories of the harem. Khaska, the Queen had called her, after the bell-ringers of the temple to which they now journeyed. A hard collection of syllables that suited the strict lines of her face when she sat across from him. How strange that aliens might also have multiple names and titles that defined who they were. Laniis Baker was a lieutenant in the Pelted navy, a soldier in a stern uniform with unyielding eyes; it was she who walked into his cabin every morning to subject him to his punishment. Though they shared the same body, Khaska was the writhing victim of the depredations of not just the Emperor, but the Chatcaava he’d handed her to, the slave who clung to her identity and saw it erode, day by day, blow by blow.
Neither of them pretended what they were doing was anything but punishment now. The only thing the Emperor failed to understand was whether it was him alone she was punishing.
Several days out of the Apex system, she joined him for their morning session, waiting with hooded eyes as he shifted shape. He didn’t dread their meetings, but he found his skin shrinking from her touch when she reached for him: how did it do that, when he was careful to hold so still? To reject her was unthinkable. She had earned the right to his suffering.
This memory should have been easier than the others, which had been more sadistic. He remembered the evening: he had come to the Queen’s chamber at the top of the tower and used them both, first Khaska, then the Queen. One of the larger fiefs in the east had successfully resisted the naval force sent to keep it in check; the naval ships dispatched to the task had suffered a disastrous defeat. He’d just come from a conference with Second, then Command-East, about re-establishing control. It had been his frustration that he could not go himself and choke the life out of the lords in question that had prompted him to use the two females, and he’d been distracted and angry, and beaten the Seersa severely before moving to the Queen.
Had he even seen her? Or had she been a substitute for the males who’d deserved his anger? One he had to hand?
But such beatings had come and gone before, and the rapes, and this one had been less savage than other memories Laniis had shared. He could compare it to the abuse he’d suffered in the Worldlord’s harem, in fact, and know that he’d bled more.
It was not the pain that destroyed him this time.
Khaska had been lying on the floor, unable to move. The cold of the stone floor under her broken cheek—one of her foremost sensory impressions—and the sough of her labored breathing in her throat, and the stink of her own blood and sweat… all of that paled against the sight of the Queen of the Chatcaava, whom Khaska had begun to care for. The Queen had been kind to her. Had subtly kept her out of sight on more than one occasion. Tried to ask her opinions rather than command her obedience.
The Queen was only a few feet away from her, and Khaska couldn’t rise to defend her. She had to watch, helpless, as the Empe
ror savaged the one good person in the hell to which she’d been consigned, and she—a soldier, who’d dedicated her life to the protection of the vulnerable—had been unable to lift her hand to stop it.
The Emperor shoved Laniis away so quickly they both fell off the couch. Laniis landed on her tail and hissed an imprecation, grabbing for one of the cushions. He would have helped her but he was incapable, completely frozen in the horror of that impotence, in the echoes it had raised in himself, in his life.
He had been able to protect himself.
Had failed to protect the Queen.
Had allowed the court to poison and nearly kill the Ambassador.
Had made Second’s suicidal challenge necessary.
And as a final blow, had been unable to preserve the Empire from itself.
In his mind, it was he who bled, watching the Queen’s misery… and he who assaulted her.
With a moan, he covered his eyes and pressed his face into his knees, nails digging into skin.
The Ambassador was never present for these meetings; Laniis had no idea where he went while she was visiting. Should she call him now? She didn’t know what to do, confronted with the Emperor’s sudden withdrawal. Was he going into shock? He was going to cry—no, he was already crying, shuddery, wracking sounds that sounded more like gasps than sobs. She’d heard such noises from her own mouth and knew the anguish that drove them. There was a blanket folded on the couch, so she took it and draped it around the shoulders of her rapist and torturer, and ‘awkward’ didn’t begin to describe the situation.
She wanted him to understand his own depravity. Presumably she wanted him to regret it. Why was she so confused by his remorse, then? And why did his tears disturb her, rather than satisfy her? Maybe she believed he was faking it?
She knew better.
The blanket didn’t seem to be helping so she caught his wrists. “Why?” When he didn’t answer, she shook him. “Answer me. Why this?”
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