"That being?"
Vasiht'h glanced at him. "You should know, Ambassador. Or should I say Lord Nase Galare? Your people are falling apart. You're going to need us to keep from going extinct."
"And you... you intend to help."
"Of course." Vasiht'h sighed. "He's my brother. Everything I can give him is his."
Lisinthir considered him for several moments, then said, "So... do I get the story?" When Vasiht'h hesitated, he said, "If you would prefer to wait for your beloved to wake, I can wait. I thought it would be a fine way to pass the time, but if you fear for his privacy, it will keep."
It was hard to read Lisinthir, who was emotionally guarded even when using plain speech. That ability to say devastating things as if they didn't matter at all seemed bred into the species's genes. But something about the way the Eldritch had said the words, the look in his eye... was that solicitude? "Should I be worried about that?" he asked. "Or have the two of you come to an agreement?"
"You could ask me," Jahir said from the door. Vasiht'h half-rose, but his partner waved him down. "Stay, I'll come that way. Cousin, move your feet."
Lisinthir pulled them up, leaving Jahir a space on the couch, and while Jahir sat more neatly than his cousin his body language was far looser than Vasiht'h was used to seeing outside of their own private space. It wasn't anywhere near an exact mimicry of the Ambassador's slouch, but it was the closest Vasiht'h though his friend capable of coming to the same bodyspeech. His brows lifted. /Arii?/
/Well, I promise. Only wishing very much to be done with what lies before us./
/You mean the Ambassador's 'plan'?/ Despite his best intentions, Vasiht'h couldn't help investing the word with his fears and skepticism.
/I do, yes. You heard?/
/From Hea Borden./
Jahir nodded. "Then you know."
Vasiht'h sighed.
"It really is fascinating, you know, watching the two of you talk. And..." Lisinthir eyed Jahir, "I can now hear that you're doing it."
On the other hand, it was amazing how quickly the old body language asserted itself when Jahir snapped back into therapist mode. He sat up, spine straight. "I beg your pardon?"
"Not the words, mind you," Lisinthir said. "More as if there are murmurs a few rooms away. You hear the noise but not the meaning."
Vasiht'h glanced at his partner. /Did you go back into his head?/
/I had to. He offered a true memory as corroboration of his story of what befell him in the Empire..../ Jahir paused, then shook his head. /Not befell. What he enacted, by his own strength of will. And it was unbelievable enough that I needed the proof./
/And what exactly was it that he told you that needed it?/ Vasiht'h asked, feeling as if he was falling forward and unable to get his feet on firm ground.
/That he had been the victim of serial rape, and then fallen in love with his abuser. And coerced his rapist into falling in love with him, and through that love forced him to see the errors in his culture./ A lopsided smile that bit in the mindline like ginger. /And that abuser was no less than the Chatcaavan Emperor./
Vasiht'h stared at him, then glared at Lisinthir. "Is that true?"
Lisinthir held up his hands, the one coiling smoke around his fingers. "I throw myself at your mercy for whatever crime you are discussing. Alas, that is all I can offer unless you explain what exactly you're asking."
"Are you always this unflappable?" Vasiht'h asked, exasperated.
Lisinthir reached past him to tap the cigarette, said quietly, "I spent a good month in the Empire falling apart into the lap of the Slave Queen while struggling to keep from succumbing to despair and terror and horror. So, no. Not always." A wry smile. "But it takes rather more than an irate Glaseah to turn the trick."
"Arii," Jahir said, dragging his attention back. "I believe him."
The whole idea was so insane it couldn't possibly be true. And yet if it was... if Lisinthir had made it possible for the Empire to become a friend....
"Really?" he said to the Ambassador now, ears sagging. "Because if you're lying—"
"I'm not." Lisinthir met his eyes. "I will give you the memories myself if it will convince you."
That gave him pause. "You would?"
"Your opinion matters to your beloved," Lisinthir said. "So, yes. If that's what it takes." He sat up, rested an arm on the back of the couch, eyes closed. Nauseated, Vasiht'h thought. "I don't think you will enjoy it, but that's meet. I didn't enjoy it either, in the beginning."
No, maybe that was his own nausea. He didn't want to live through someone else's torture. Brushing through it in dreams wasn't the same; neither was talking about it in therapy. Sharing it mentally would force him to experience it, to feel it as if it was happening to him, and he didn't want any of that in him. Vasiht'h looked at Jahir. /You're satisfied. Truly satisfied? If he's lying, the consequences for the Alliance if they try to act on his fantasies of what actually happened..../
The shadows of vultures flew over the mindline, dappling it with Jahir's dread. /I know, arii./
/So then?/
/So then.../ Jahir glanced at Lisinthir, then said, /Corroborate it in your own way. We are trapped here, and he with us. Evaluate him. You are an excellent judge of character. Tell me if you think he shows signs of delusion./
/You mean other than him trying to break your arm over a cigarette?/
Jahir took his hand, startling him. /We are both making an error that we should know better than to make. We are evaluating him by the standards of our own cultural context. I try to fit him into an Eldritch mold, you a Pelted one. He's no longer either of those things entirely. He's also.../
/Chatcaavan?/ Vasiht'h said, incredulous. And then he ducked his head and said, "Goddess bless it."
Lisinthir lifted a brow.
"You're right." Vasiht'h sighed. He eyed Lisinthir. "What you need is an evaluation from a Harat-Shariin therapist."
"Sounds fun. Is there one available?"
Jahir touched his hand to his brow, then pressed his knuckles to his mouth... but his lips were twitching. Vasiht'h could feel it through the mindline, the champagne bubbles of mirth.
"The baiting is annoying," Vasiht'h said.
Lisinthir leaned forward, set the hekkret on the discarded wrapper. He planted both feet on the ground and hung his joined hands between his knees, meeting the Glaseah's eyes, and the shift from insouciance to gravity was so sudden it caught Vasiht'h off balance. He leaned back, fur bristling.
But the Eldritch waited until his hackles smoothed away, until his spine stopped aching from the unnatural tightness in it... until he relaxed and could meet those eyes without bridling. Then Lisinthir offered his hands, and when Vasiht'h glanced at them, said, "You are beloved of my House cousin, who is another Galare heir, like me. We are family of sorts. Eldritch family do touch."
"I've seen," Vasiht'h said, remembering Jahir and his mother. He rested his palms on Lisinthir's, let the other man cradle his shorter fingers. Through the touch, he felt a sense of purpose, one that had snapped all the uncertain edges into focus. Surprised, he said, "What... what happened? The last time we talked, you weren't this together."
"This is how I am when I have the bit between my teeth," Lisinthir said with a touch of a smile. "How I am when I'm well."
"What changed?" Vasiht'h asked.
"I realized...." Lisinthir flexed his fingers around Vasiht'h's, eyes going distant a moment. He shook himself and said, "I have work to do here, if I want to support the Emperor in his aims. I have changed him, alet, as surely as he has changed me. And my change will make me uncomfortable here where there is peace and everything is genteel, but it won't get me killed... not the way his change will him and the Queen, and there is every chance that his enemies will do just that before he can finish evolving the Empire into something we can embrace. So my duty is not done."
"And this is comforting."
Lisinthir sighed out. "Cousin. Tell your partner what it is like for one of us to
be useless."
The surge in melancholy that flooded the mindline was edged with blades and unexpected blood. Shocked, Vasiht'h looked toward Jahir, who said, "That would be one of the fundamental contradictions of our society, wouldn't it. We are committed to our duties to our families, our tenants, our Houses, our Queen... and we are barred from helping them when they die to waste, to hunger, to diseases that could easily be cured if we were less proud."
"And we, the noble heirs to great families," Lisinthir continued, "we are even more impotent, particularly if our families have titles without wealth and without people to ward." He leaned toward Vasiht'h, and all his intensity came through their touching hands, making the skin tingle. "I was born to a dying House, alet. All my life, my father tried to use me to rekindle it. He threw me at a court that was quite aware of my laughable estate and he left me to fend for myself there. But defending the honor of Imthereli will not bring it back. What was I to do, then? With my anger, and my ambition, and my need to be useful?"
"Oh," Vasiht'h said softly.
Jahir huffed a soft laugh. "I left the homeworld and went to school. You left the homeworld... and upended an empire."
How casually Lisinthir moved, for his motions to also be so quick. He freed one of his hands from Vasiht'h's and curled it around the back of Jahir's neck, pulling him close enough to kiss on the brow. "Don't belittle your accomplishments, cousin. You have your role, and the play has not yet ended."
And this... this Jahir accepted, and through the mindline Vasiht'h felt his partner's indulgence, warm as sunlight on his shoulders. There was affection there, entirely unfeigned, and it was so true and so sweet he could taste it like honey in tea. It made him feel like home and family, and he glanced at Lisinthir, seeing him, briefly and very clearly. Their client—their cousin—wasn't falling apart. He was coming together, finally, after the long and ugly trauma of a young adulthood spent in rebellion against a culture that had no use for his vitality and aggression. The Queen had seen it; Providence had given her a use for that tool before the Eldritch society broke it past mending. She'd sent a man to provoke a war, and he wasn't done yet.
No wonder Lisinthir had been so angry when they'd rescued him on the Chatcaavan vessel. They were bearing him away from the life that had given him purpose, a life suited to his talents. And if that wasn't enough, the mission he'd been in the midst of had been sanctioned by three different governments, all of whom needed him in play.
"What a mess," was what escaped him, and that won him Lisinthir's laugh and Jahir's rueful agreement in the mindline. Through that, the Glaseah added, /He's touching you./
/It's fine. He needs it. And maybe I do too, at times./
Vasiht'h's brows lifted. "Maybe a useful mess, though."
"Useful," Lisinthir said, amused. "There you are, alet. All that anyone ever needs to be."
"I don't know," Vasiht'h said. "I think everyone needs to be loved too. And I think 'alet' by now is a little over-formal."
"Arii, then. It wouldn't do to confuse titles."
"So is this what you did with Triona?" Vasiht'h asked, taking his hands back and folding his arms. "Charmed your way into her confidences?"
"Not intentional, I assure you." Lisinthir leaned back, rested the back of one hand against his brow. "But I like my wards."
"And all the Alliance is your ward," Jahir said, the mindline coloring with his fond resignation.
"For now."
"And when it's not?" Vasiht'h asked, suddenly curious. "When you and the Emperor manage this revolution? Then what?"
"Then—" Lisinthir looked at the ceiling, and his smile then was poignant. "I will live among dragons for two centuries, which is what they have left." He glanced at Jahir, lifted his brows. "Perhaps you will have advice for me by then."
Sorrow, gentle but familiar, came tinged with an ache Vasiht'h hadn't felt from his partner before… empathy, for someone following him on the road he'd chosen.
"Perhaps," Jahir said. "For now, though, I think you need another feeding. And an analgesic?"
"I wouldn't say no," Lisinthir murmured, eyes closed.
"And we have work of our own to do, and it'll be time soon," Vasiht'h said. "What are we going to do with him while we're gone?"
"Leave someone with him, I imagine," Jahir said. "It's either that or put him under the halo-arch for the duration, and I suspect Hea Borden will tell us that we shouldn't waste the power unless we're absolutely certain we need it."
"He could come with us?"
"I'm fine staying on this short but otherwise acceptable couch," Lisinthir said.
They glanced at him, then Jahir said, /He's worse off than he is willing to admit./
Vasiht'h grimaced. /I'd ask what it was about Eldritch and admitting to weakness, but we both know how you all pick up that habit./
/Imagine then, being both Eldritch and Chatcaavan and admitting to weakness./
/Ugnhn, no wonder he's so impossible./ Vasiht'h shook his head. /You can't help respecting him, though. He survived torture in the Empire and came out like this?/
/You and I both know, arii, that it hardly matters how dire one's estate. We all feel pain, but we create our reasons for suffering, or for transcending it./
/'Saving the known galaxy from the predations of dragons' does seem like a narrative that would redeem anything./ Vasiht'h sighed. /How do we get involved in these things?/
Merriment then, tripping like fingers off a piano keyboard, a visceral memory spangled in sunlight and the perfume of wood polish and rosin. /We volunteer./
Vasiht'h chuckled, and if there was rue in it at least he was laughing. /Okay. I can't argue that./
"I'll get the fluids," Jahir said, rising. "You tell Hea Borden we're coming, and that we need a volunteer to oversee our patient."
CHAPTER 9
The work then was good. Better than that, for after the brief but interminable period when he and Vasiht'h were having trouble feeling connected, this return to normalcy felt bright, vivid, like spring's first breeze after too raw a winter. And he went to that work knowing that they people they were aiding would be helping the Ambassador and the ship's Captain carry out their plan, and their plan was so brazen and so preposterous that it had to have every chance of success. The nightmares, the anxieties, the griefs and fears they found slipping through the minds of their clients seemed to melt away beneath the sunlight of his relief… and he was not so involved with the feeling to fail to find it curious. Was this all his trust in Lisinthir's ability? Was it that he had found some hope for his own future, perhaps even with Sediryl? Was it some part of his own pattern sense, whispering that there was more to their destinies than this?
No, that was wishing, he thought as he followed Vasiht'h to the third client of the night. Perhaps it was as simple as a physical release after too long in denial that he might benefit from it. His mind drifted toward his cousin's offer, wondering if on the other side of it there might be freedom.
Oh, it would be good, to be free. If he could find the courage to make the attempt.
First, though, they had to win themselves clear of this. And then they could all move forward, into whatever roles they needed to play to help secure the future of the Empire… because Jahir didn't need the Queen's ability to know that the fate of the Eldritch was woven into that future, sure as warp and weft.
"Everyone so far's seemed a little better," Vasiht'h was saying to Hea Borden.
The Seersa nodded. "I think knowing that we're going to make a decision soon one way or the other helps. And the Ambassador gave us the hope that we could do something active about our problems, rather than wait for rescue." She grinned, one ear sagging. "We're not very good at passivity around here."
"I imagine not," Vasiht'h said. "Do you know when?"
"Another day. Two at the latest. If we move soon, we might be able to use some of the ship's remaining power for assaulting the enemy, if we do some creative re-routing of the secondary generator's protocols." Her t
one became almost smug. "Will probably suck up all the reserves at once, but if the plan works we won't need them."
His partner, in contrast with the Seersa's satisfaction, was littering the mindline with agitated caltrops. "You really think we can figure out how to make a Chatcaavan vessel go?"
"It's a ship," the Seersa said. "Two of us can speak Chatcaavan—three if you count the Ambassador—plus we have one specialist with experience in their tech systems… no, don't ask, I can't tell you how. And if that doesn’t work, we could probably take a prisoner and ask for his cooperation."
"And you really think a Chatcaavan would cooperate?" Vasiht'h asked, ears flattening.
"They can't all be sociopathic lunatics."
They could if their cultural rewarded them for that orientation, Jahir thought. But even if it did, he had no doubt that Lisinthir could pry the information out of any prisoner they detained; he wondered if he should be worried that this thought didn't disturb him as much as it should, given what that persuasion would probably require.
"What would happen to us?" Vasiht'h asked. "While you were taking over the other ship. Where would we be?"
"That's a good question." Borden glanced over her shoulder and up at him. "Your friend seems able to keep himself in one piece in a fight. You didn't do too badly either."
"You're not suggesting we go over there with you!"
"It might be safer than staying behind." The Seersa shrugged. "Anyway, not my decision. The Captain will talk to you about it when it's closer to time." She stopped in front of a door. "Patient Number Three. Then it's my turn. You ready?"
/I am./
"Yes," Vasiht'h said. /You're so calm./
/Let tomorrow take care of itself, arii. Right now is all we can move through./
The Glaseah sighed, smiled. /You're right. Let's do this./
Borden was their last client; they tucked her in and Jahir let Vasiht'h blow the breath of the Goddess through her sleeping mind, wind chimes in a night wind, the low whisper of it through leaves, the smell of them, spicy with sap, ripe, a call to the living. It raised the hair on the back of his neck, warmed his blood until he flushed, but it was a strangely peaceful feeling, less like need and more as if he was finally open to the world.
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