/All right,/ he whispered. /I trust you./
He turned his attention to his cousin and pulled from memory one of the oldest lullabies he knew and began weaving it into their joined minds. His nurse had inevitably sung him songs of duty, when she wasn't singing the nonsense and sweetness commonly cooed to children. It was from his mother had he'd heard the rare songs of melancholy and mystery, and they had lingered long after those simpler songs had receded.
Maiden goes down to the silken shore
to answer the sea's sweet distant roar
leaves her prints on the glistening scree
as she pirouettes there for the hissing sea.
...there, the heartrate. Slow, slow to the rhythm.
The mist-gray air of the clouded sky
breathes wind through her hair as she draws nigh
and the foam makes shoes for her bare white feet
as she walks where land and ocean meet.
...now the breathing. Gentle, gently now. Jahir sang, and something listened.
In the in-between spaces the spirit can travel,
the soul finds its ease and dreams can unravel
And a Maiden might know what it is to be free
in the silvery dusk between strand and the sea.
Truth, something whispered back to him, and calmed.
Maiden goes down to the damp, soft shore
to answer the sea's sweet distant roar
leaves no prints on the glistening scree,
nothing but laughter by the hissing sea.
Jahir rested over Lisinthir, covered his cousin, sank with him into the tranquil dark.
First there was anger. Always, he started with anger. It had formed his life, for as long as he could remember: anger at his parents for quarreling. Anger at his father for giving in, and then for trying to shape him into a weapon to be used against his mother, and then for wanting to use him to redeem his father's balked ambitions. Anger at the court, for its uselessness. Anger at Imthereli, for failing its duties so often it had opened the way for other Houses to take its territory. Anger at other Eldritch, for their mockery, for their easy lives. And then, a brief respite in the Alliance before anger again became the fuel that drove him: anger on behalf of the slaves, anger on the behalf of the Slave Queen. Anger at Second, at Third, at the Emperor. Anger at an entirely different court, again for its uselessness. Anger at being drawn from his duty; anger at being separated from his lovers; anger at his unwanted therapists.
But then, love drifted in, sweet as the perfume of blossoms in late spring. Love, the redeemer, with her attendants, Compassion and Empathy, and her lover and tutor and guard, Duty.
That was him, Lisinthir thought. He was Duty, blessed to be warden and lover of Love.
He breathed in, tried to breathe in, found he couldn't. What was happening? All around him, he caught the fragments of thoughts.
...come so far, please, don't let it end like this.
Can't remember last time I was this tired. Need a bath....
...his hair feels nice, where it's not matted. Never thought I'd ever touch an Eldritch!
If we don't get there... if he doesn't tell them what he knows... if he can't....
If he couldn't—what?—report? He would, absolutely. He couldn't conceive of not living to do so. Was there so much fear that he might die? Why? He strove for more data, heard the whispered chimes of one of the diagnostic wands, caught hints about bleeding: too many wounds, too much internal damage from the hekkret and the alcohol, too much everything. He was not yet dying, but he stood on a precipice. Knowing it, he could feel it everywhere, the creeping dark stealing up his limbs, toward his heart.
Lisinthir refused it entrance, but it wanted to fight him and he had no strength. It backed him into a corner. He felt it against his spine: nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. This now, or nothing else again. No more touch. No more love. Never to see his lovers again—
He howled defiance and leaped for the fight—
—and it fell away, so abruptly he felt staggered.
He stood on a featureless plain of gray earth, extending as far as the eye could see. The sky was a similar blank, a darker gray. Strangely, he could hear the sea at some distance, but it was all suggestion. He himself wore Imthereli's white: not the torn and sullied coat he remembered last, but immaculate, unmarred save for the brief black embroidery at the breast that pricked the striking dragon from the fabric. There was lace at his throat, even, and a cravat pin with Imthereli's drake. He wore the swords and black pearls in long chains in his hair. In every way, he looked a prince—the prince you are, something whispered—and because of that, he looked for and found his counterpart. The Emperor stood some distance from him, watching him, dressed in black to match his white, dark wings spread and cupping the air like hands open to receive.
How long did they look at one another? Lisinthir didn't know. How fast did time go here? He thought the distant roar of the surf coincided with the beat of his heart, but perhaps that was romance and poetry speaking.
"And why not?" the Emperor asked, indulgent. "Are we not that?"
"A grand romance?" Lisinthir laughed. "By some standard. The trouble is that I'm not sure which."
The Chatcaavan snorted, a puff of breath through long nostrils. "We make our own standards, Perfection. Out of your sense of honor and mine, we make them."
Lisinthir paused. "I suppose we have, at that." And added, "It is good to see you. I am dreaming, am I? I must be, and yet you seem so real to me."
"And here I thought I was dreaming you." The Emperor stepped closer, and again, until he could raise a hand and caress Lisinthir's cheek with the back of one curved talon. "It is a welcome dream. You have been missed, Perfection, by us both."
Lisinthir touched that hand with his, looked past his lover for the Queen, saw her not. "Is she—"
"She's well, yes. But she will come to us later, after we two are done." The Emperor touched a finger to his lips. "Listen now, Ambassador, and carry this with you when you wake—for you will wake, because you must. Don't come for me until I send for you. You will want to. But if you return to the board before time, we may lose the game entirely."
Lisinthir's breath caught, and his heart raced. "Exalted—"
"Emperor, yes," the dragon said, gentle but implacable. "Promise me, Perfection. It won't be long, but you'll have to wait."
"You will leave me out of the fight!"
"No. You will have enough to do with your pretty Alliance people to stay busy," the Emperor said. "And when the time comes, you will wield your swords... for me this time, not for your Queen." The passion in him when he said it, the relish... Lisinthir shuddered with longing. "But you must promise me, or you may die, and I may die, and she may die, and all of it will be for nothing. Do you?"
"I must," Lisinthir whispered. "But oh, Exalted...."
The drake drew closer, until Lisinthir could feel their chests brushing. "Call me by title. Call me by your title, now."
So he breathed it, as he hadn't dared before leaving. "Beloved."
The Emperor sighed, closed glowing eyes, rested a hand on the side of Lisinthir's neck. "Again."
"Beloved...." Lisinthir framed that narrow head in his hands and kissed the edge of the mouth where it curved near the eye. "Oh, my Beloved."
"We have a little time," the Emperor said, and then the Queen was there too, behind him, sliding the coat off him. "Stay a little longer."
"Yes," Lisinthir answered. "Yes, always yes."
Kisses, the embrace, hotter than fever, rousing him from the torpor that had been trying to claim him. Whispered confidences in his ears, making his heart leap, confusing and tugging him into grappling with mystery, with life. And ecstasy, oh, such ecstasy, and such love. Love without shame, love with promises of a future.
"But how will I know?" he asked, beneath the Emperor. "How will I know?"
"You'll know. I'll send a message you'll understand." A caress that brought him upright to
seek more, more of the touch, of kisses, of their embrace. "Not long, Perfection. It will feel like forever, but not long."
"Every moment from your sides has already lasted forever," he said, sliding his hand beneath the Queen's mane. "Every moment I breathe without you never ends."
"Ahhhh...." The Emperor sighed, face hidden against Lisinthir's neck. "No, Perfection. This is only a pause. Only a pause for us all." He swiped the sweat off the curve of pale shoulder, cool tongue, so slick.
"Live here now," the Queen whispered, pulling him down, and he consented, and when he rose again, he was renewed, all strength beneath his wings.
Jahir had expected his work to be effort, and it was—he was dimly aware of the physicality of it, of mounting hunger and exhaustion, of muscles grown stiff from tension, as if he was fighting with a sword rather than his mind. But having sunk down into his role, what he felt instead was a looseness, as if he might continue spreading out, past his cousin's boundaries, into the world, every world. It cost him to dig deep and abide, but he did, and soaked in memories and impressions, fragments of words and their meanings, shocking moments of clarity: the Slave Queen's hand on his when she took his pattern, the fruity scent of the liquor poured for him by the Emperor, the shocking pleasure of denuding Third's head of horns. He caught snatches of conversations happening over his head, of Triona's concern and Vasiht'h's steadfast vigilance, of a rotating set of minds accompanying the laps that ended up under Lisinthir's head. So many minds, all so tired and so focused.
And over, and over, he felt the surge of a jangled nervous system, striving for disorder, and the frenetic complaints of a body trying to fall apart. He denied them, covered them, forced them to obedience. Over and over, he refused entropy.
He sang songs: every song he could remember in their tongue, and all the ones he could recall in Universal. The music enforced the stable pattern, kept him present.
He abided, and slowly lost his sense of time, lost even the rhythm of the music, lost the notes, lost language, lost everything. He felt it all slipping from him as fatigue loosened his grip, and he panicked and lurched for it, and missed—
—and exploded outward, this time unable to stop himself, skating as if on the leading edge of the expanding universe. The stars glittered as if seen through tears: so many, so many colors, seen now, yesterday, tomorrow. The tranquility of it staggered him; he couldn't fight it.
Here was the Pattern, and it was Divine. Here was the Pattern, and so long as he dwelt in it, he needed no food, no sleep. All he needed to be nourished was in him, around him, through him. Jahir tucked himself close against his cousin and feared no longer, and the net of stars cradled them with innumerable points of light.
"…siht'h, Vasiht'h, wake up—you with me?"
Where was he? He was spinning out on the Goddess's outbreath—no, he was on a Chatcaavan vessel, and Triona had his arm in one hand. She looked somewhat worse for the wear. Had something happened? "Yes? What's wrong? Did something…."
"No, no. It's good. Actually it's all good. I need you to help me get the Ambassador transferred to the Starsight."
Vasiht'h rubbed his eyes and glanced at the two Eldritch. He knew Jahir was fine, but Lisinthir—
"He's fine," Triona said. "All right, well, fine might be overstating the matter. But he turned a corner a day ago—"
"A day ago!"
Triona held up her hands. "Let me finish. Or start, better yet. We've been crawling home for three days, during which I've been keeping you all alive on intravenous solutions. Half a day ago, the Starsight—that's a scout class vessel, and about twice a courier's size—showed up at the same time as another Chatcaavan ship. They had it out. We won. Now we need to send you and your partner and the Ambassador over there, where there's an actual Medplex, a healer, and two assists waiting for you, plus a ride all the way to Sector Alpha."
Startled, Vasiht'h said, "We slept through a fight?"
"Not much of one," Triona said. "We were bystanders for the most part. Took a few shots, but really it was the Starsight's show." She managed a smile. "Pretty impressive show. Maybe a little bit too much suspense in it for the rest of us."
It was just sinking in: the ease of the woman's shoulders, the quieter, slower conversations on the alien bridge. They were safe. They were going home. "It's over?" he asked, daring to hope.
"It's over," Triona agreed. "But you've got to wake up your partner for me. I need both of you conscious and ambulatory, if possible. You'll need to explain what's going on to the C-Med over there."
"You're not coming with us?"
Triona shook her head. "The Starsight's towing us over the border. Once they set us loose, they'll be free to go deepest Well to Fleet Central; they'll get there much faster than they would pulling us behind them. Once we make the border station we should be fine… we can debrief while they take apart this ship." She met his eyes. "We paid for it, alet. We paid with blood. We want to see it to the end."
"I understand," Vasiht'h said. And strangely, he did. Something lingered in him that felt like a knowledge of the connections between things, their proper beginnings and endings, and their never-endings. He shook himself then reached for Jahir's shoulder. /Ariihir./ No response, but it didn't concern him. He knew how deep into himself—or out of himself—his partner had gone this time. Patiently, he repeated himself until he received a faint query, no more than a hint of something: salt on the tongue, sparking flavor. /Ariihir,/ he said. /It's time to come back./
Wistfulness, regret. Must he? Had Vasiht'h seen what he had seen?
/Yes,/ Vasiht'h said, sharing the regret. He'd only brushed the edges of Jahir's communion with the thoughts of the Goddess, and that alone had made him long to remain. /But our escort home's arrived. We need to get Lisinthir somewhere safe, where they can take care of him./
Very distantly: /Yes./ And then, closer, more distinctly, /So soon?/
/It's been three days./
/Three days!/ A jangle of color, spilling through the mindline as it narrowed once again into the link Vasiht'h recognized. Jahir sighed out, ribcage lifting, and then opened his eyes.
"Welcome back," Triona said.
Jahir began to sit up and almost fell; Vasiht'h caught him under the arm, took the swell of concern and disorientation with it. The whispered thoughts brushed against him, fur and spirit: why do I feel so weak?
/You've been working very hard for three days on nothing but nutrient solution,/ Vasiht'h answered. /We both have. But you in particular./
/It doesn't feel like much!/
"It was," Vasiht'h said firmly, out loud. "Can you coordinate your limbs?"
"I think," Jahir said. "My tongue seems clumsy, though." He touched his mouth, hesitant. "Am I slurring?"
"No," Triona said. "But you're exhausted, and the sooner we get you under a halo-arch the happier we'll all be." She pointed at Vasiht'h. "You too. You've got hollows under your eyes. It's like you've both been running marathons uphill nonstop."
/So it feels./
Vasiht'h chuckled a little in the privacy of the mindline. /We'll feel better when we cross over to the new ship. Just think: a genie means…./
/Oh, a real meal!/ Jahir steadied himself on Vasiht'h's shoulder. "For a real meal and a cup of coffee—or tea—or chocolate—I will go anywhere."
"Ice cream," Vasiht'h suggested.
The mindline exploded with confetti. "Ice cream!"
"I think we've earned it several times over," Vasiht'h said.
"You like ice cream?" Triona asked, one ear sagging.
"He loves ice cream," Vasiht'h said, and surprised himself by laughing. A little, and not much. But it was something. And the Seersa… she smiled too.
Jahir paused, touched Lisinthir's shoulder. "Does he look better, or is it my imagining?"
"No, he's better," Triona said. "I wouldn't go so far to say that he's well, but at some point he just… sprang back. No idea why or how. It happens that way sometimes, though."
"Tr
iona?" Kordreigh called from the fore. "The healers-assist have Padded over. They're bringing the stretcher."
"That's your cue, aletsen," Triona said. "Can I say, from all of us… thank you. You were dropped in a bad situation and you came through for us."
"We didn't fight—"
"The hell you didn't," Cory said from behind them. "Maybe you didn't rack up the Ambassador's kill count, but you put yourselves in harm's way. You did the jobs you could. And you kept him alive at the end, and I have no idea how but I couldn't have done it. That part…" She shook her head. "That part was magic, as far as I'm concerned. Don't demean your accomplishments."
"We'll put in a good word for you," Triona added. "I'd be surprised if you didn't end up with medals, but even if you don't Fleet is generous with its civilian volunteers."
/To say we would have done our best without expectation of reward will not be kind, even if it's true,/ Jahir offered, still leaning on him. /It is a compliment./
/So we say…/ "Thank you," Vasiht'h finished aloud. "We're glad we could help."
Jahir's smile felt like sunlight in the mindline.
CHAPTER 15
The urgency with which they were ushered into the new ship's Medplex was almost humorous, given the languor of the past few days. Even now it clung to Jahir, a mantle that made everything seem diffuse, as if the world's edges were laced with webs leading into some infinite net he could no longer grasp. And yet it was still there, and he could dimly sense it, and wondered if it was reflected in his eyes. Was there something fey about him? The crew of the Starsight kept glancing his way.
/You look a little more stereotypically Eldritch than usual,/ Vasiht'h offered. When Jahir looked down at him, the Glaseah's amusement trickled into the mindline. /The way people expect you to be. Sort of fairy-prince-ish./
Jahir considered as he watched the healer direct his assistants in Lisinthir's disposition beneath a halo-arch. /I think I may have a trifle too many aches and pains to pass for an elf out of legend./
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