by Cari Z.
“Time to rejoin the madding crowd, lads,” Dori called out. “If it were me, I’d let you sleep—I know you two must need the rest after all that vigorous exercise—but duty calls! You have fifteen minutes.”
“Mmf.” Jason buried his face in Ferran’s shoulder, hiding his sudden blush.
Ferran grinned and kissed his ear. “We can at least shower together.”
“Only if we can get my legs to work.” Jason sighed.
“I will carry you if they don’t,” Ferran said, and his expression was so sweetly earnest that Jason was almost tempted to take him up on the offer, but his sense of dignity resurfaced.
“No need,” he said, brushing a final kiss to Ferran’s lips before he sat up. The world swam for a moment, but it straightened itself out pretty quickly. “Come on. Let’s go clean up.”
Chapter Eighteen
NATURALLY, THEY were pulled in separate directions as soon as they stepped foot outside of the room. Ferran was directed to his mother, and Dori swooped in and pulled Jason off to his makeshift infirmary, which was only one door over down the hallway.
Grenn had allocated part of her den to Giselle and her entourage, Dori explained as he sat Jason down. “The ambassador’s house is still closed off while more evidence is collected, and the Council House itself isn’t nearly secure enough to be considered a safe place for recuperation,” Dori said with a disapproving frown as he took a blood sample. “We could have gone to the ship, but Ferran refused to be apart from you, and he’s been ordered to stay within Berenze while the legality of all his actions is argued over, so Matriarch Grenn’s home ended up being the best option.”
“What do you mean, ‘the legality of his actions’?” Jason asked.
“Well, he took over his House in his mother’s absence. The Solitarians are trying to make it a retroactively punishable offense, as well as illegal in the future, but that contingent… well, they’ve got other problems right now, so don’t look so worried. Ferran will be fine.”
“I’m not worried,” Jason lied with a perfectly straight face.
“Sure you aren’t.” Dori pressed a hand against Jason’s back, along his spine and his kidneys. “Any pain here?”
“No.”
“Bloody incredible,” Dori sighed. “It’s amazing you lived, son, it really is. You were in very rough shape by the time I got to you. The damage to your soft tissue alone…. Most humans wouldn’t have lasted for three days without the environmental prophylactics—not with any ability to move or function. You’re something else.” He looked at the results of the blood sample analysis and smiled slightly. “Elevated levels of endorphins, but I chock that up to a happy and rather energetic reunion. You’re in excellent health now, Jason. Try not to get your fool self kidnapped and dropped in the middle of the damn jungle again.”
“Dori.” Jason stopped the doctor from moving away with a gentle hand on his arm. “Are you… all right?” This kind of questioning had always felt invasive to Jason, but he wanted to know, and he figured that between friends it was allowable, even if Dori didn’t say anything.
To Jason’s surprise, Dori turned back and sat down next to him on the bed, his shoulders hunched even more than usual. “Mostly,” he said. His voice sounded a little rough, and his expression was dejected. “I was hardly touched, you know. The Shamed saw me as unimportant, a low-level male. The things they did to the women, though… I mean, don’t get me wrong, Giselle’s a tough one, and she’s got a good handle on stoic, but they had us for four days. Didn’t let her sleep, didn’t feed her or give her water, and they kept cutting her, little by little, making her bleed until they finally finished off her hands. They got a start in on her feet too, just before we were rescued.”
Dori huffed a tired chuckle. “Least she didn’t suffer the environment like you did. Giselle’s been here so long that her body is better adapted. It still hurt her, but not as bad. And the whole time, she was being strong, not backing down, but I knew she was afraid. I’ve been her personal physician for decades—I know that woman. Not afraid just for herself, but for me. For Grenn. For you too, boy. She kept demanding to know what had happened to you, wanted to bargain for you. Those jungle freaks wouldn’t tell her anything, and I thought it was because you were already dead.”
“Oh.” That must have been a hard thing to live with.
Dori smiled crookedly. “Little more honesty than you were looking for, Jason?”
“Not at all. I’m glad you told me.” He was, it just made him feel sick inside to hear it.
“Well, I’m kind of glad you asked. As soon as things have calmed down here, we’re being ordered back to the nearest Federation medical station for evaluation, but that could be a while, and a trouble shared is a trouble halved. You won’t be coming with us, by the way,” he added. “You’re considered a citizen of Perelan, and as such have to do your coping here, but I have the feeling that won’t be so hard as long as Ferran’s with you.”
He had that right. “I’ll be fine,” Jason promised.
“I know.” Dori shook his head and stood up. “Come on, you’ve got to get to Giselle. Your escort’s probably waiting outside the door. He’s been hovering for days now.”
“What escort?” Jason asked. Dori just threw him a wry grin and opened the door. Corran was standing there, wearing green and black and looking worried.
His worry seemed to evaporate on seeing Jason. “You’re awake!” He bounded over and caught Jason in a tight hug. “We were so worried for you!”
Jason’s arms closed reflexively around Corran. He glanced over at Dori, who mouthed Get used to it before shooing both of them out into the hall. Corran’s grip was tight, and it took some gentle prying for Jason to finally convince him to let go. Jason took in the wide, shiny eyes and awed expression and sighed. Hero worship. It was a phase he had hoped to avoid.
“I’m all right now,” he assured Corran.
Corran didn’t look convinced. “Will you come and see the family? Everyone has missed you.”
“I need to see my mother first,” he said, and Corran’s ears twitched in sudden embarrassment.
“Of course. Ambassador Howards is this way.” He took Jason’s hand and led him down the hall, going slowly just in case Jason had lied to him about the state of his health. Jason internally rolled his eyes but followed Corran to one of the rooms next to Grenn’s own bedroom. The door was closed. Corran let go of him and stepped back, and Jason knocked.
“Come in.”
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he opened the door, but it certainly wasn’t Giselle, on her feet and looking as calm and collected as ever, agilely shuffling papers on a table with her robotic prostheses. The mechanical hands seemed almost real, if you didn’t look past the wrist and see the bulge in her forearm where the adjustment panel for the nerve tissue grafts poked through her skin.
“Jason.” She swept over to him and took his face in her oddly cold hands and then kissed his cheek. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
“Right,” he deadpanned, “because it was all my fault.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. Sit down, please.” She indicated the table, and they sat together. It felt so normal that Jason almost had a moment of déjà-vu before he realized what was missing. Penelope. She wasn’t there, hovering over Giselle’s shoulder like she always did. Giselle caught his roving eyes.
“I’m not used to it either,” she confessed. “She’s always been there, ever since I was a child. It’s hard to imagine life without her.” Her tone was soft and subdued.
“Then she was an android.”
“Yes. One of the last to be built, intended solely for family service. My grandfather managed to convince the regulators not to have her decommissioned as long as she remained in our family’s care. No loaning her out, no selling her, no reprogramming her. No advertising her status either, although of course, Dori knew. He’s been with me almost as long as she has, and he never said a thing. Fo
rtunately for me, Penelope came equipped to act as a bodyguard, among other things.” Giselle’s false fingers drew random lines across the tabletop. “She killed over ten of the Shamed before they finally pulled her to pieces. I didn’t see it all, but… I’m proud of her. I really do miss her.”
Jason reached out and took Giselle’s wandering hand into his own. “You’re scratching the table,” he said quietly. The fact that she hadn’t realized it showed him just how hard she was taking Penelope’s loss. Giselle didn’t like to show weakness, and Jason wasn’t going to force her to. He didn’t say anything else, just held her hand silently.
Giselle looked down at the swirling gouges she’d left on the tabletop and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she was fully in control of herself, and she took her hand back.
“There’s an investigation going on over the attack, of course. Everything points to Srell, but lower members of her family are sacrificing themselves to protect her. I don’t know whether we’ll be able to hold her accountable in the end or not. On the bright side, her House is going to be weakened for generations thanks to this, and the families that were siding with her are doing their best to create some distance now, to keep it from seeming like they were colluding. Which,” Giselle said, rolling her eyes, “in all likelihood, they absolutely were. But that’s neither here nor there right now. With a firm majority of support on the Council of Matriarchs, Grenn should be able to enact some real progressive change in this society. More education and employment options for males, better medical care, more scientific research, more avenues for trade…. We’re coming up on a tremendously important step for Perelan, and you caused much of that progress.”
“By marrying one of their sons?”
“By providing Ferran with the strength he needed to step in and show those archaic idiots that he was just as capable of command as his mother, given the right motivation,” Giselle replied. “By providing the youth of this city with a new type of role model. By treating people with respect, even when they’ve tried to kill you. I’m told that Seronn is going to be acquitted of wrongdoing in the plot due to his part in saving you, by the way.”
Jason considered that for a moment, remembering bits and pieces of their interaction just before he was taken. He had the feeling that Seronn had done everything he’d done for Ferran’s sake, not Jason’s, but the end result was still positive. “Good.”
“It is,” she agreed. “Now, did Dori give you a clean bill of health?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent! You can take a few more days off to recover, but really, there’s no rest for the weary now, Jason. We have to keep the momentum going, and that means you being visible and continuing your classes. Your students have been quite distraught, from what I understand.” She stood up, and he imitated her. “Go and see Grenn, then go home. You still look tired.”
Jason supposed he did. Over a week in Regen produced great results, but it hadn’t done much for his stamina, and he’d already had quite a workout on his first day awake. He wasn’t quite done yet, though. He moved in close, took Giselle’s face in his hands, and kissed her cheeks. “I’m happy you’re well,” he whispered against her cheekbone. “Mother.” When he drew back, his lips were wet with her tears.
“Oh, go on,” she muttered around a clenched jaw. Jason left without another word, because he knew how it felt to hang on to your composure by a thread and how important it could be that your weaknesses were yours alone.
If Jason had been surprised at how well Giselle looked, he was absolutely floored by how unchanged Grenn appeared to be. He found her in the audience chamber, surrounded by her family and eating dinner, but as soon as they saw him, the noise stopped, and every eye turned his way. She said something too rapid for Jason to understand in Perel, and a moment later, his extended family thronged around him, their voices purring and yipping and their hands reaching out to stroke his hair, face, and shoulders.
Grennson, naturally, found his leg and held on to it until Jason reached down and picked him up. The Perels who spoke his language called out their welcomes joyously, and Jason felt himself flush beneath the scrutiny although honestly, all of their genuine affection was pretty nice.
The twins found him a moment later, and he was folded up into a body-crushing hug that made Grennson whine with discomfort. Neyarr and Garrell pulled back and immediately lit in to Jason.
“The moment we leave this family, everything goes wrong,” Garrell declared as he took Grennson out of Jason’s arms.
“It’s clear that you cannot function without us,” Neyarr agreed, taking Jason’s elbow in his hand.
“Our paragon of a wife is allowing us to split our time between our new family and our old,” Garrell continued, ushering Jason toward the platform where Grenn and Ferran were sitting. “So you will be seeing a lot of us in the future.”
“Try to contain your excitement,” Neyarr added, shooing the children back.
Ferran left his mother’s side and came over to meet them. He kissed Jason tenderly on the lips, and both of them ignored the sudden swell of giggles in the room. “My mother wishes to speak with you alone.”
“Naturally,” Jason murmured.
“It will be all right.” Ferran kissed him again, and then, almost faster than he could believe, the audience chamber emptied, leaving just himself and Grenn. She was sipping steaming tea and looked unchanged, except for the cane lying next to her chair.
“Tea?” she asked him as he approached the dais.
“No, thank you.”
“You’ve been sleeping for many days. You should eat,” Grenn chided. “Your doctor told me you should have simple foods to start with. Tea is simple. Come and drink.” She poured him a cup, and Jason sighed and gave in to the fact that he was not in control of this meeting. The tea did taste good, though.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Grenn asked after a moment, tilting her plump head to the side. “Do you have any idea what your actions have accomplished?”
“Giselle gave me an idea of the repercussions of what happened with the House of Srell.”
Grenn shook her head. “Giselle understands politics, but she does not understand this. You, simply by being completely devoted to Ferran, have turned him into a daughter.”
Jason blinked once and then grinned broadly. It was disrespectful, but he couldn’t help it. “I think I can safely say he’s definitely still your son.”
Grenn’s quills ruffled with indignation at the joke. “Physically, he is still a son, but mentally, emotionally, he has taken on the responsibility and presence of a daughter. All the other matriarchs sense it. He forced a divided, warring council to hand him control of tremendous assets for the sake of finding you, and thereby, finding me. To ensure your safety, he acted with decisiveness and leadership and made others recognize these strengths. Ferran has always been more empathic than most sons, but his ability has swelled considerably these past few weeks. He is something new now, and not even I can predict how this development shall play out.”
Grenn took another sip of her tea. “I was quite surprised when I learned that he was able to find you in the forest. I had not thought the pair of you had managed to bond so completely. The last we talked, things were rather rocky between you two.”
“I was a little surprised myself,” Jason admitted. He had figured that getting back to his husband would be all down to him.
“Ferran told me he felt you like a ray of sunlight, drawing him to you. This feeling…. This is what exists between matriarchs and their consorts. This is what the rhezan is supposed to facilitate.”
Jason brightened. “Then we don’t need to have one now.”
“Technically, no,” Grenn said, clearly not thrilled with the idea. “Especially not after my son bullied the Council into helping him find you. Your bond is practically famous at this point, but I want you to consider having the rhezan anyway, for form’s sake.”
“Perhaps a modified ve
rsion,” Jason offered as a peace gesture. One where Ferran doesn’t get mauled.
“Perhaps,” Grenn said. “Perhaps. It’s a drastic change from normal, but I am beginning to expect those where you are concerned, Jason Kim Howards Grenn. Now go on.” She waved one thick hand toward the back door. “Go be with your consort.”
Jason didn’t need to be told twice.
Epilogue
A YEAR after his arrival on Perelan, Jason and Ferran did have their own rhezan. Instead of a small, private ceremony, though, it was made open to the public, included as a part of the larger celebration that was Ferran’s induction as Perelan’s ambassador to the Federation. His position was more about goodwill and education than bargaining, but the fact that he was given the power to negotiate anything at all was significant.
Srell had eventually stepped down as the matriarch of her House, in exchange for escaping exile after her involvement in the plot to kill Grenn and Giselle was revealed, and her daughter was a much weaker opponent.
In the latest deal struck with the Council, part of Jason and Ferran’s work abroad would be evaluating human anthropology students who wanted to study on Perelan. Plus there were a dozen other official mandates and a million things to prepare before they left the planet, but time was still made for the marriage ceremony.
In the end, it was very simple. They stood and faced each other in front of a sea of watching Perels. Despite the force behind those stares, Jason didn’t even feel them, because he was totally absorbed in contemplating his husband. He stared into Ferran’s wide amber eyes, mesmerized by everything he saw there, every facet of love and devotion. He could see himself reflected there, and he knew that Ferran felt him, every piece of him, more deeply than he could comprehend.
Being so open didn’t frighten Jason now. Instead, the connection soothed the fire in his soul, making him feel comforted and safe like he hadn’t since he was a small child. He hadn’t had a nightmare in months—not since his trek to Berenze—and he thought they might be gone for good now.
