Even the Wingless

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  He stepped back and assessed her. "Rise."

  She stood and he walked around her, occasionally lifting a wing out of the way or stopping to adjust something. At last he stepped back and said, "Excellent. Your body is prepared." With a grin, he said, "Now you may ask the question."

  "Master? For what?" she said.

  "For the new test of the Ambassador. Ah!" He lifted a clawed finger, one barely visible in the dark. "You will not hate this duty, I think. Your only task is to serve us both together."

  She bowed her head and closed her eyes. "I do not wish to hurt him."

  "Ah, but I'm not sure it will. Not after what he did tonight." The Emperor chuckled, low and deep, and tapped the end of her nose. "That is the reason for the test. All you are to do is to wait for him. He'll come when he wakes. Do whatever it is you normally do, and I will arrive not long after. Through the window, regretfully, but there's no better way for my purposes."

  "Yes, Master," the Slave Queen said.

  "Good. Now back to sleep with you," the Emperor said, and turned from her to head back down the stairs... save that the way was blocked.

  "You're up late," the Emperor said to Second.

  "I was looking for you," Second said. "I've been looking for you since supper ended."

  "And you have found me," the Emperor said. "What do you need?"

  Unlike the Emperor, Second stood within range of the stairwell's otherwise-hidden torches. Red light pulled his side out of shadow. "I will not speak with her here."

  "Then you won't speak," the Emperor said, and moved as if to brush past him.

  Second bristled. "You let him kill Third!"

  Her breath left her. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

  The Emperor had halted. "Let him? Since when has the Emperor "let" there be duels?"

  "Wingless freaks don't honor-kill. Wingless freaks murder." Second lifted his fists, which shook. "He used weapons, Exalted!"

  "Of course he did," the Emperor said with contempt. "He's Alliance. Third should have expected it."

  "You approve of this?" Second asked, eyes round. "How can you possibly approve of this?"

  "And you, Second? You should be the last one complaining. You should have seen this end when you poisoned him. You attempted to kill him and now you plead surprise when he retaliates?"

  "He's a wingless freak!" Second said, shocked. "They don't have rights here, Exalted! They are slaves and aliens, not people! Or have you forgotten?"

  "Of course not," the Emperor said. "The more pressing question in my mind is whether you and Third and everyone else have forgotten you are Chatcaavan. You have been trying to dispose of the Ambassador almost since his arrival and failed. Third has tried the most clumsy ploys possible to ingratiate himself with me by irritating him, and then somehow allowed himself to die the most humiliating death possible at the hands of someone who has to wear weapons to kill. And the court watches with cowardice as an alien takes the second pillow." The Emperor bared his teeth, glinting in the low light. "Tell me, Second... is the problem with the wingless freak? Or is it with you?"

  "What are we supposed to do?" Second asked. "You are our example, but you are barely visible anymore."

  The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "If you have all become such a pack of children that you need me to remind you how to act like males, then you should watch your steps. When I decide to dispose of people, I don't fail."

  "Exalted!"

  "Go before me," the Emperor said. "Tonight I watch my own back."

  Second's pupils had contracted to slits. He closed his eyes and shook his head as if denying everything in it, then turned, grasping for the banister to keep from falling. One slow step at a time, he walked down the stairs... and on his heels, like the predator he was, the Emperor followed.

  Leaving her alone with her astonishment, holding herself while the amber drops off her wings trembled. How could so much have changed?

  Lisinthir woke to an immediate disorientation. The light in the room had been confined to narrow slits that fell on a diagonal he didn't recognize. The smell of the room, heavy with hekkret, candle wax and musk, was completely wrong. And the bed was too large.

  The physical reality of waking up in someone else's bed didn't begin to touch the emotional reality of having killed someone. Without remorse. Without hesitation. And now, in the morning, without regret. He rolled onto his side, gathering the rumpled blankets to his body and closing his eyes, imagining what the diplomatic corps would say when he returned and listed the many things he'd done. "Why yes," he'd say. "I freed twenty slaves personally from the Emperor's harem, found you a list of pirates selling people to the Empire, lowered the import taxes and even managed to get the border moved. I've also slept with the Emperor, killed one of his officials and become a drug addict."

  He waited for the shame he should have felt at the litany... and felt none. He would do it all again. And acknowledging that, at last, he began to shake.

  "Go to the Empire with my name," the Queen had said. "It may protect you better than your father's." And so he'd had himself announced, Lisinthir Nase Galare. Galare, the royal House of the Eldritch and his mother's family, distant from the throne but close enough. But his father had been right. He was more Imthereli than ever Galare. More drake, treacherous and cold, than pure unicorn.

  His attempt at self-flagellation didn't work. He couldn't feel the shame. He was too distant from the Alliance, from home, from the life he'd led before. With more calm than he thought appropriate, Lisinthir rose from the Emperor's bed and dressed in last night's robes. He took a hekkret roll with him and headed for the Slave Queen's tower, since he could think of no reason to return to his own quarters.

  It was a long walk. He took it slowly and appreciated anew the mosaics on the wall and the discipline of the guards, whom he'd never known to speak or even move outside their patrol patterns. When he arrived, dawn had pushed some of the clouds aside and found strength for a wan illumination, one that made the Slave Queen's state of dress a subtle thing. He wondered if it should bother him that he found the jewelry beautiful.

  She took a step toward him, then stopped and clasped her hands together.

  "You are alive," she said at last, her throat round with a reverence that nauseated him far more than the hekkret. "Somehow."

  "And you expected otherwise?" he asked her gently.

  "Yes!" She tucked her hands beneath her arms and ducked her head. "You... you killed Third!"

  "Third earned that death," Lisinthir said. "No one else seemed willing to serve it to him, so I did."

  She eyed him. "It is more than that."

  "Maybe," he said. Then relented and said, "No, you're right. He had offended me. I wanted him dead at my hands, not anyone else's."

  She took his hands, touching him with her respect and something darker, and drew him to the couch. He let her arrange him there and offer him a glass of tea-wine and a lit roll. The Surgeon would probably not approve; luckily the Surgeon was not here.

  The Slave Queen kneeled beside him, and now the darkness in her gaze became worry. "Everything is changing now," she said. "And I fear for you. If you can challenge Third, then others can challenge you."

  "Let them," Lisinthir said, closing his eyes and blowing a plume of smoke toward the distant ceiling.

  Her cool hand on his ribcage made him look at her. "Master," she said, tense, "There is nothing to stop them from doing so at the same time."

  That thought gave him pause, but only a little. He wondered how many duels he could win before he lost his edge and made a mistake.

  He should have felt fear, and didn't. "That's the only way they'll manage to take me down."

  "Master!" the Slave Queen exclaimed, and the depth of her sudden anguish jerked him out of his reverie. "Please. The thought of you dead is intolerable. I don't care how far away you are, but I can't bear the thought of you dead."

  "Dear Beauty," he said, touching her face. "Have I become so much to you?"
/>
  "Yes!" she said. "Have you become so little to yourself?"

  "I don't know," Lisinthir said softly, hooking a finger under her collar and guiding her toward his face. "All I do know is that I'm tired and I no longer quite care what happens to me. It is evident that I can get what the Alliance wants by acting this way, and so I do. If I die in the process, I will be released. If I live, then I will continue to be useful. Which one comes to me is fate, and there is little use in fearing fate."

  "I can't believe you mean that," the Slave Queen said, eyes wide. Through her skin, Lisinthir felt the sizzle of her concern, her fear. "Ambassador, you still have an alien heart. You slew Third and almost killed the Emperor over a double-handful of slaves. How can you care about their fate and not your own?"

  The ring on his finger seemed warm. "I am not fully myself anymore, Beauty," Lisinthir said, cupping her cheek. His voice grew hoarse. "I'm so far gone that I find your body enticing, not just for who you are... but because it reminds me of his."

  She touched his wrist lightly with her fingertips, then turned her face. Her tongue flicked against the base of his palm. He drew her toward him, lapped at her mouth until she opened it. Her mane tumbled through his hands as he kissed her, the peculiar kiss that was more a licking than anything he'd known as an Eldritch.

  The arms that encircled his waist from behind did not surprise him. Lisinthir turned his head just enough to feel the Emperor's breath on his face.

  "I came to find you for your new test," the Emperor said, "and I find you already engaged in it."

  "How is that, Exalted?" Lisinthir breathed.

  The Emperor reached passed him, plucked the Slave Queen up by the collar and pulled her to them. "Soft-hearted, hard-clawed Beauty. Let us see how well you like adding an innocent to our play." And then he grabbed Lisinthir fiercely with the other hand for the joyous attack. The violence of their embrace was muted by the presence of the Slave Queen; between them, beneath them, she existed only to accentuate the spaces that separated them from one another. That she seemed drawn to these positions, glorifying them, seemed only reasonable.

  The tower was too high for frequent rain, but the highest clouds obscured the light which suited Lisinthir when later he rested on several scattered pillows, panting and thinking of nothing more than the sleep he'd barely had before this. The Slave Queen was slumped over his waist, her wing a blanket over his hips. Alone of them the Emperor remained upright, sitting near Lisinthir's head and smoking. One clawed hand lightly tugged his pale hair, then began to twirl it.

  "What? No words?"

  He had breath still. "What should I say with them?"

  "I had expected anger. Sorrow. Something."

  "For involving her?" Lisinthir asked. He felt the Slave Queen's drowsy interest all along his side... beneath it, the faint contentment that had punctuated the entire experience. "Skin doesn't lie, Exalted."

  "And what does skin tell you?" the Emperor asked, tracing beneath his jaw with a talon.

  "That we didn't hurt her," Lisinthir said.

  The Emperor laughed. "Be honest, Beauty. Say rather that she enjoyed it."

  He twitched and didn't speak. Surprisingly, the Slave Queen filled the void. "This one was glad to serve."

  Lisinthir said nothing. One dragon caressing his jaw, another warming his side. His thoughts felt besieged.

  "You are strange," the Emperor said. "You feel more guilt when there is pleasure than when there's not?"

  "It is not so simple," Lisinthir said.

  "Then explain it to me," the Emperor said.

  "He seeks consent," the Slave Queen said, "and believes me incapable of giving it."

  The Emperor laughed. "Is that it? Does she understand you correctly?"

  Lisinthir glanced at her. "I don't know. Do you?"

  "Yes," the Slave Queen said. "But you are conflicted. You believe in service, but not in slavery. What is the difference, save willingness and pleasure in duty?"

  "You are not willing in everything," Lisinthir said.

  "No," she said. "But in this... " He felt her embarrassment, hot against his side.

  "I knew you were a pervert," the Emperor said, amused. "How fascinating to discover that my Slave Queen is as well."

  "And you?" Lisinthir asked. "You find my ambivalence over the Slave Queen entertaining. But do you find her willingness distasteful?"

  "You are under the impression that I am only aroused by lack of consent," the Emperor said, curling his hand beneath Lisinthir's jaw. "When in fact, I am aroused by exerting my dominance over others. Whether they accept it and are glad to accept it or whether they fight me to their dying is immaterial."

  "Save that in a male it's despicable to lose and in a female it's acceptable."

  "Just so," the Emperor said with a laugh. "Tell me, wingless freak, why were the others not like you?"

  "Exalted?" Lisinthir asked, mindful of the hand near his throat but not worried. He should have been, but couldn't bring himself to it.

  "The slaves," the Emperor said. "The other ambassadors. How they disappointed. Are you so unique?"

  "Tell me, Emperor," Lisinthir said. "Why are there no others like you? Second, Third, the court... are you so unique?"

  He laughed and shook Lisinthir's head. "Clever. But answer."

  "When we first met, you asked me how it could be that people with such promise could disappoint you," Lisinthir said. "If there is such a wide variation between Chatcaava, why not among those in the Alliance?"

  "I also seem to recall you saying that we were too different for you to give me advice on such a matter," the Emperor said.

  "I was lying," Lisinthir said.

  The Slave Queen's sleepy drifting against him tightened into surprise. "You can say that?" she asked muzzily. "Knowing all that we are?"

  "I just did," Lisinthir said.

  The Emperor laughed.

  The Slave Queen had expected them to part ways and do whatever it was they did while they were outside her company... but for several days they remained in her chamber, leaving only for dinner on the Field. They bathed in her pools—an activity that took them far longer since it inevitably led to exercise that begged another bath—they slept on her floor. They fed one another, and her! from dishes brought to her suite. She had time to herself only while they slept, and they never slept long.

  She used that time well to learn what it was to be content. And at times to be surprised at that contentment, and at the realization that were her life to consist of nothing but this, the exertion might shorten it considerably but she would die with peace in her heart.

  The fourth day the violence crept into their encounters. They were male... it was an inevitability. She could only be glad that she was never the focus of it... what pain she suffered was unexpected and always a side effect of what they did to one another. And how they fought. It took her breath away, the way they casually attacked one another, thinking only to involve her if she was within easy reach. She placed herself outside it when she could just so she could watch and marvel. This was what females had been saved from by the contempt of males.

  There came a time, however, when she found herself beneath them both with her head bowed so deeply backward that she could not help her cries, nor bleach them clean of the pain and supplication that colored them. The Slave Queen thought little enough of it afterwards, save that she longed for a soak to ease the cramp along her shoulders and spine. But when the Emperor fell asleep, the Ambassador did not follow, but instead groped his way to the window and clasped it so hard his bones notched the skin along his knuckles. She just barely heard him weeping and approached him with tentative steps. When she touched his arm he spun around, chest heaving, and the nakedness of his horror claimed dangerous kinship with insanity.

  "Master," she whispered.

  "Don't. Call me. That," he said, biting off each word.

  She stroked the hair away from his side, tried to soothe him, but he seemed beyond comfort. "Do not b
e troubled."

  "You touch me and then you tell me this?" he asked. "When I so clearly felt your pain and it affected my pleasure not at all?"

  "I'm fine," she said. "I was made to withstand such things, I am used to them. You did me no true damage."

  "But it didn't stop me," he whispered, slowly bending until he had slumped against the wall.

  "No," she said. "You are male."

  His body began to shake and she pulled him away from the window and into her arms. "Peace," she said, cupping the air around them with her wings and hoping the Emperor did not wake. She licked her teeth in nervousness and said, "You are not the only one with confessions."

  He looked up at her, his eyes rimmed in red.

  "I do not mind the pain so much," she whispered. "So long as it is you or he who deals it, and you or he who benefits. It is... a relief, almost. To be empty of nothing but pain and pleasure. To not fight so hard between them. To let them roll over you. Like the waves of the ocean. Our thoughts are sometimes rocks, disturbing us. To be smooth inside... " She looked away from his stare. "I was never one to enjoy such things. To be an object and to suffer... the suffering has no meaning. To be a person and to choose suffering... that is different. That cleanses."

  He turned her face back to his. "Don't," he said, voice hoarse. "Don't make this into a spiritual experience."

  "Even if it is?" she asked. His fingers trembled as they traced the lines of her face, down the length of her nose to its tip, back down along her jaw.

  "To mean someone harm is evil," he said.

  "Even if they desire it?" she asked. "Even if it is not harm at all?"

  "Oh Beauty," he said, all the tension in his body suddenly leaving it. He shook his head. "Please, please. Don't confuse me any more than I'm already confused. Don't make it harder."

  She said nothing and held him, savoring the silk and heat and scent of him, thinking of the ocean.