Only the Open

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  I’m here, yes. It’s safe. Hail them formally, please.

  The comm panel lit again, and was answered, and there was Uuvek: a wiser choice than the Alliance personnel, though they could speak the language fluently.

  “Sword?”

  “Here, Uuvek. The mission was successful; its object is standing with me as we speak. We are returning with more people than we left, however.”

  “More people?” Uuvek said dryly.

  “I make friends wherever I go,” Lisinthir said with a faint smile. “Was your mission likewise successful?”

  “Yes. We have someone here who is deeply concerned over the object of your investigation—”

  A voice interrupted him, a tenor higher-pitched than Uuvek’s bass rumble but cultured, confident, and accustomed to command. “Let me. I have to know if he survived or all this will have been for nothing.”

  The Emperor froze, one hand clutching the furs at his collarbones.

  “Is that…” Deputy-East asked, slowly.

  “Exalted!” the voice said. “It is your Admiral-Offense. Are you there?”

  The Emperor looked at Lisinthir with wide eyes.

  “Tell him,” Lisinthir said. “He deserves to know.”

  The Emperor stepped to the comm panel amid the shock the exchange had generated and cleared his throat. “Huntbrother. I regret you find me wearing a different shape or you would recognize my voice. You told me when last we stood together that huntkin survive to avenge their brothers. I am glad to find that unnecessary.” Quieter. “I am so glad you lived.”

  “Exalted,” the answer came over the comm, hushed with gratitude. “Oh, Exalted…!”

  “I’ll be aboard soon,” the Emperor promised, still quiet.

  “Yes. Yes! We must do this immediately. Uuvek…” A shuffle then Uuvek’s voice. “Is there a Pad on that vessel, or must we mate hatches?”

  Deputy-East did not answer. Chatcaava could not go pale the way humanoids did, but the contraction of his pupils, the way the eyes trembled in their sockets, the quivering of the wings and the shocky breathing… Lisinthir had never seen a Chatcaavan male seem so close to vomiting, and wondered if they could.

  “Severance?”

  “We have a Pad,” one of the other males said hastily, and his voice was quaking. “We… we will come alongside. Ten minutes.”

  “Fifteen. Line up all your passengers for transfer now. We won’t drop shields for long.”

  “Fifteen, then,” Lisinthir said. “Severance out.” Looking at the horrified males on the bridge, he said for Deputy-East, “Go help the aliens prepare for the transfer, now.”

  That they obeyed him without question said a great deal for their mental state… but theirs was nothing to Deputy-East’s. In the silence that fell after their departure, that male could not stop staring at the Emperor and trembling, until even his wings began to tap nervously as their tips bounced against one another.

  “I…” Deputy-East said, hoarse. “I…” His voice tightened almost painfully, to the point where the words barely escaped his throat. “I used you. As a slave.”

  The Emperor did not immediately answer. How still he stood! “Yes.”

  “I named you. I named you… Dainty,” Deputy-East was beginning to panic now, breath coming in sharp pants. “And I… and Manufactory-East… we…”

  The Emperor watched him. Lisinthir expected to see something in his eyes. Anger. Hatred. Cold. Something. Instead there was this… patience he could not understand, and yet how it awed him.

  Deputy-East slid to the ground, hugging himself, and a thin keen issued from him. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know, Dying Air, oh Air, I didn’t… I didn’t…”

  “But you did,” Lisinthir said, quiet.

  Deputy-East covered his face, then pressed it and hands to his knees, leaving the length of his neck and back exposed. For a long moment he did nothing but shudder there, prostrate. Then, almost inaudibly, “Please, Exalted. Make it quick.”

  “I will not kill you.”

  Deputy-East looked up at him sharply, stunned.

  “To blame you for what you have done…” The Emperor trailed off, eyes rising to the starfield. “I would have to condemn myself as well, for I have done as much, and worse, to slaves and females and other males.”

  “Exalted,” Deputy-East whispered.

  “You will not do it again, I think,” the Emperor finished, considering the prostrate male. “Not with this memory to carry.”

  “No,” Deputy-East exclaimed, horrified. And then rueful, “No. The Sword had already mostly convinced me to treat with aliens as if they were Chatcaava anyway.”

  “He has that effect on us,” the Emperor said. No smile, though; Lisinthir wished he would. “Rise, Deputy-East. Once we have left your vessel, your duty to us is done.”

  “No,” Deputy-East said, voice still shaking. “No, it’s not. Not if you are… of course you are who you say you are. The male who is now at the throneworld. He will rip our people apart.”

  The Emperor considered him with somber eyes before turning that too solemn gaze to Lisinthir. “Have you touched him?”

  “I have.”

  “Is he ours?”

  Lisinthir looked at Deputy-East. “Yes.” He smiled wryly. “He might not realize it yet. Or might not have until this moment. Ah, huntbrother?”

  “No,” Deputy-East. “But after this… I said we would have to pick sides.” He looked at the Emperor, haunted now. “I’ve picked mine. If… if you’d ever let me stand at your side after all I’ve done… done to you.”

  The Emperor studied him further, then said, low. “I think you belong to me now, Deputy-East, in a way more profound than you ever could have, having never tortured me. Am I right?”

  The other male dropped his head, shuddered.

  The Emperor nodded. “Then I will send for you again. Until then, keep my secrets, Deputy-East.”

  “Yes, Exalted,” Deputy-East whispered. “Always!”

  Gathering the furs closer around his thin shoulders, the Emperor turned and made his way aft to where the other Alliance personnel were gathering. Lisinthir looked over his shoulder, then went to a knee alongside Deputy-East, resting a hand on his shoulder. Meeting the male’s eyes, he said, “Do you understand now?”

  “Yes,” Deputy-East said, voice cracking. “But Sword, how will he ever forgive me?”

  Try as he could, Lisinthir could think of nothing to say. He had expected the Emperor, the male he’d known, to want justice. The stranger who had simply regarded the attacker who’d broken him without reacting…

  “I will be back,” Lisinthir said. “Too much is happening in this system for it to be otherwise.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Deputy-East said. “And the Worldlord too. We will stay alive to abet you, whatever it takes.”

  Lisinthir nodded and rose.

  The Pelted were proceeding over the Pad one by one, directed by Laniis and overseen by a grim member of the Severance’s crew. The Emperor, swaddled in his furs, was at the end of the line. As Lisinthir joined him, he said, hushed, “I can’t... I can’t meet with them until I know....”

  “You are going to the clinic, first thing,” Lisinthir promised.

  But the Emperor was not the first person to come into the care of the wild-haired Seersa medic on the Silhouette. Simone needed attention urgently, and Andrea rushed her there and was already speaking to Dellen before Lisinthir had so much as an opportunity to introduce the two to one another. Manufactory-East’s slaves were also poorly off. Glancing from them to the two biobeds, the Emperor said, “Let them be seen first.”

  “You need help,” Lisinthir said firmly.

  “He does?” Dellen interrupted. Behind him, Andrea was hovering over Simone’s bed, staring at the read-outs as test results began scrolling up them. “What ails you, alet?”

  “He has a concussion,” Lisinthir said.

  “We’ll fix it. Give me an hour. You can wait here?”


  “My room might be better,” Lisinthir said. “Your clinic grows rather crowded, alet. Call for us?”

  Dellen nodded and dove back into his work.

  After the days spent in the Worldlord’s guest suite, his cabin looked both too small and very welcome. As the Emperor entered behind him, Lisinthir called Meryl. “We’re dealing with medical issues. I assume a briefing can wait?”

  “A briefing will have to, since we’re busy sneaking out of here without being caught. It took us over a day and a half to get in. I’m guessing it’ll be more like two to get out.”

  “I will let you concentrate on the matter then.”

  A chuckle. “We’ll arrange a time once everything’s settled. Though if the Emperor’s with you, the Admiral-Offense would really like to meet with him.”

  “After he’s seen the healer. He needs one.”

  “I’ll tell him. Call us if you need anything. But only if it’s urgent.”

  Lisinthir found a crooked smile. “Naturally. Ambassador out.”

  The channel closed with a chime, leaving him with the waiting silence, one he could sense even without turning. Deactivating the roquelaure was a relief so intense he shuddered. To see his own hands again when he looked down, rather than an alien’s… he twisted them, palm up, was glad to once again see the calluses and Imthereli’s ring—now the only hint of dragon left. And a hint, he decided, was all he ever wanted to claim in the future. There was more unicorn in him than he’d thought. Not enough to conquer the drake, but enough to make him aware that he had needed this interlude too: to set aside, finally, all his worries that he had become unfit for a moral life.

  With a reluctance he found painful, Lisinthir turned to face the Emperor, wondering if the man he’d loved in the imperial court would be waiting, or if the stranger would be there, the unbearable, broken one who could accept no comfort. He lifted his eyes and waited to be shown which it would be.

  The Emperor took a step forward, holding the furs at his throat with a hand. The other he used to hesitantly reach toward Lisinthir’s face, and when the Eldritch didn’t move… to touch. Light as the brush of a petal, that fingertip tracing the line of his cheekbone.

  “As I promised,” Lisinthir said, soft. “Your Perfection.”

  The Emperor managed a smile, though it trembled. “You are too thin, Ambassador.”

  “The technology required a great deal of food to maintain my illusion.”

  “It was… convincing. But I am… glad… you are not what you looked like.”

  Lisinthir took a chance, stepping forward. He paused to ensure his welcome before cupping the Emperor’s human face in his hands: also too thin. Those eyes, already a touch too large for normalcy, looked enormous in the hollows pain had carved around them. “Not long now,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Simone needs the care more,” the Emperor answered, husky. “And the others.”

  “You suffered no less than they….”

  “They deserve the care more.” The Emperor closed his eyes. “Don’t… don’t argue with me. You know it.”

  “I will not hear you deny your own trauma…!”

  “Would you have put yourself first?” the Emperor asked suddenly. At Lisinthir’s sharp inhalation, he managed a smile. “No?”

  “Do you blame me for fearing for you?” Lisinthir asked finally, brushing his thumbs along the Emperor’s cheeks. “For wanting to see you well again?”

  “Oh, beloved,” the Emperor sighed. He let his head fall forward until his brow met Lisinthir’s, and there he left it, eyes closed and entire body sagging. “I only hope I can be.”

  “You will,” Lisinthir said fiercely. Sensing the resignation through their touch, he repeated it. “You will.” And brought that face up for a kiss. How familiar the taste of that mouth! For they had kissed often enough when the Emperor had worn a borrowed Eldritch shape. But the metal ring through the lower lip was unfamiliar, distracting. He hated it, longed for the uninterrupted softness of his lover’s Eldritch mouth. Longed for the confidence and hunger and lazy affection he recalled from those kisses, even as the poignancy of this one’s need and despair and vulnerability pierced him to the quick.

  When the Emperor’s chest hitched, he stopped immediately, was swift enough to wrap his lover in his arms before the tears became sobs. The Emperor wept into Lisinthir’s shoulder, pressing his fingertips into the Eldritch’s back. Little flexes of the hand, never hard enough to bruise… more as if to reassure himself that the flesh under them was real.

  “I’m here,” Lisinthir whispered in Chatcaavan. “I will always be here.” Stroking the Emperor’s spine, he said, “Let us lie down while we wait for Dellen to call us back.”

  They made it to the couch, not the bed, and twined together there. Until the Emperor said, almost inaudible, “Call me back.”

  Lisinthir wanted to argue… but if he had been in the Emperor’s position, he would not have wanted an audience while waiting for such devastating news. So he pressed his nose against his lover’s dark hair and said nothing.

  That he was safe—the Emperor did not quite believe it. Being the Worldlord’s slave had been visceral, true, pounded into his flesh or striped off his back or jerked into muscle and joint. There had been no arguing with the reality of tile under his cheek and blood running down his flanks. Human skin was so much thinner; the temperature of the liquid seeping from his wounds had been tangible, hot at the cut, cold the longer it sat on him.

  Everything from the moment the new Chatcaavan male had confessed to being the Ambassador had felt… surreal. Particularly since he’d been left alone and unmolested. Andrea had told him to sleep as much as he could, and he’d welcomed the opportunity to flee the world that waited for him when he opened his eyes. In all his life he had never felt his life was something to escape, but the gratitude when no one forced him awake had been staggering, and incontrovertible evidence of how that life had changed.

  He’d slept through a storm—or storms, he couldn’t remember the days passing—and then there had been the fight in the hall. That was when he’d begun to wake again: when the prospect of his old life and the new colliding had begun to feel possible. He’d borne silent witness to the Ambassador’s dispatch of Manufactory-East and the reactions of the Worldlord and Deputy-East to that male’s treachery and his death. He’d taken in the Worldlord’s and Deputy-East’s separate decisions to aid the Ambassador and to voluntarily hand over their slaves. From what he’d gathered, listening to Andrea’s conversations in the air van, the impetus for their abrupt departure had been the Worldlord’s fear that Simone would die without Alliance aid.

  It was not until the Ambassador had stripped his disguise in this cabin that it had slammed into him: that this was real, that he was once again the Emperor and not Dainty, the newest piece of meat in a Chatcaavan system lord’s kennel. That the task of reconciling his old role and who he’d become, briefly but indelibly, was now unavoidable.

  So much horror, unforgettable. And yet, he had learned other things as well. Lying against the Ambassador’s body with his cheek now pillowed on smooth, warm skin, not on stone… feeling smaller than someone else, and enveloped by them. He no longer recalled clearly how his wings would have fit into an embrace like this, so that Lisinthir’s hand could lie on his hip that way.

  He had learned about that, too. About names. About digging under the shifting truth of claimed titles for the irrevocable and inescapable. Kauvauc. The Emperor. The Survivor. Dainty. Beloved. Greatness. You-my-lesser. He pressed his nose into his lover’s chest and closed his eyes tightly. Everything still hurt. Even the memory of Deputy-East’s panic had hurt. It was too similar to what the Emperor had felt when he’d confronted the sight of the Ambassador half-mad on the rack: that sudden cold, as if the wind had emptied his wings and left him to plummet. What have I done, and who am I to have allowed this, and can it be fixed, can there ever be a redemption.

  The chime made him lift his head. The Ambassador t
oo, alert with the abruptness of a soldier too long on duty. The Emperor rested a soft, thin-skinned hand on him and adjured him to stay in silence, hoping it would sink through that knowing Eldritch flesh. When the Ambassador met his eyes… yes. He had communicated his message.

  He went alone, then, to the clinic.

  Entering, his eyes went immediately to the beds. Simone was still on one of them, Andrea asleep on a fold-down cot alongside. The remaining bed was empty and the other slaves were absent. It was the medic who came to greet him. In horrendous Chatcaavan, even, intelligible but accented to the point of incredulity.

  “Andrea tells me you’re Chatcaavan, trapped in this shape by your head injury?”

  What could he say to that? He could only hope it was true and that something else hadn’t gone wrong somehow. “Yes. As far as I know. And I would prefer to speak Universal.”

  “Would you? Interesting. Lie down please. On your back.” The Seersa’s voice was absent now. “This may take a while… it would be best if you closed your eyes and tried to rest.”

  “Do you think…?”

  “You’ll be fine,” the male said firmly. His tone became casual. “Would you like the piercings removed?”

  He did not quell the shiver of revulsion. “Yes.” And then: “But don’t dispose of them.” Remembering, “And there is… there is a chip in me. Behind the ear in the neck. That can be destroyed.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Now please relax.”

  The Emperor closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know what was happening, anyway. Either he would rise from this bed able to resume his true shape, or… he wouldn’t. Dwelling on his fears would not change the outcome.

  Enough time passed that he slept, aware of it because of the dryness of his mouth and the discomfort in his back from having lain so long in a single position. But the force field that had been holding him in place had dissipated, and when he turned his head to one side the Seersa said from beside Simone’s bed, “Yes, you can get up.”

  He licked his mouth. “How… how long?”

  “Long enough.” The Seersa glanced at the monitor. “About seventeen hours.”