The Eldritch woke slowly, his limbs aching in the pleasurable way that whispered reminders of exertion. Still, something seemed out of place; something had brought him awake earlier than accustomed.
The bed was empty.
Lisinthir sat upright in the tangled sheets. It had been so long since he'd woken alone without a hand guiding his face toward an inquisitive gaze or an arm draped over his hips, so long that alarms rang in his heart. He pulled on a dressing gown and went in search of the Emperor or the Slave Queen.
When had he last truly looked at the chambers he'd come to live in, recognized the shell-deep design with its nestled rooms leading to the heart of the suite? As he spiraled out toward the antechamber and receiving room, he passed anew the rooms through which he'd long since earned passage and felt anew their strangeness: the chairs designed with low or narrow backs for wings, the cups with their broad mouths or spouts, the books, tall and thin, on shallow shelves. And as always, the mosaics, so careful, so beautifully planned, and in this suite full of images of planets, of distant space, maps and ships and males exerting dominion over fallen foes.
He found the Emperor in a room he'd never seen in use, a study without a balcony, dense with books and tablets and viewscreens, a room devoid of any memories they'd made. The male was seated at a desk, dressed in a casual robe and his sleeping pants, frowning at something on a tablet and writing with the other hand.
When he reached the door, the Emperor looked up at him, and Lisinthir paused, uncertain. There was more distance between them than he could have crossed with footsteps, and the hard shine in the Emperor's eyes was more than could be explained by their alien shape. Had he not known to look for the secrets they'd shared the previous night, he would not have seen the softness lurking in the male's gaze.
By reflex alone did Lisinthir catch the data tablet thrown at him.
"Pack," the Emperor said. "You're leaving."
"What?" Lisinthir asked, startled. "Where am I going?"
"Back to the Alliance," the Emperor said. "I'm sending you away."
Lisinthir's body chilled and his heart stumbled. "You can't do that!"
"I can and I have. Your shuttle arrives this afternoon."
The edges of the data tablet dug into Lisinthir's hands as he clutched it. For several minutes he was unable to move, his mouth so dry he could barely swallow as he stared at the dragon, so rigid in his seat.
"Why?" he whispered.
The Emperor clenched one hand on the desk, then slowly opened it again. "When you first began to show your horns, Second warned me that you were the most dangerous threat the Empire had ever faced. That you would claim too much power, would change us, would distract us." He lifted his head, letting a fraction of his anguish rise in his gaze. "I need you. I want you. I think of you every minute I live. You. Not my Empire. No male has broken a horn off me in all my life. But you... you have slowed me down. It is enough. You have changed me as it is, and for that I... yes, I thank you. But I must cast you away, before we go too far."
Lisinthir walked to him, reached out to him. When the Emperor did not lift a hand, he went to a knee.
"Don't send me away," he whispered.
The Emperor touched his jaw and his fingers seared Lisinthir with his hunger, his anger, his regret... his total certainty. He had built a wall in his heart and could hold him distant with it. "Don't beg," he said, and leaned down to lick the Eldritch's lips with a long, cool tongue. He pulled away, eyes closed, then shivered and said, "Go."
"Exalted—"
"Go."
This could not be happening to him. To them. He opened his mouth to use the word, the truth that lay between them.
"NO!" the Emperor said, command so desperate that Lisinthir could not disobey. Beloved, oh beloved. Merely let me say your name—
"No," the Emperor said. "Go now, before it's too late."
Lisinthir stumbled to his feet and out of the chamber. Out of the suite completely, where he stood, shaking, unable to fathom where to go or what to do. He almost turned back... but then he remembered the depth of the Emperor's agony, the effort it had cost to build himself enough of a fortress to say the words. To tear that down—he did not have it in him.
He stood outside the suite and shuddered, struggling for composure and feeling only raw and numb. His feet began walking, though he could not remember deciding where to go; eventually they led him down the tower's stairs, over the arcade, past the halls that seemed to echo, magnifying his footsteps. The walk seemed longer than he remembered, and even as he climbed the harem's steps he knew it would be the last time, and he denied it, body and soul, and the denial shortened the walk.
The Slave Queen sat at her window, watching the heart-rending dawn. She heard him and turned, reaching toward him with gladness... and then the gladness faded. When he did not advance, she did for them both and took his hands, pressing them against her cheek. Her realization spilled through her skin like blood.
"He has sent you away," she whispered.
"I have made him too slow," Lisinthir whispered back. "He casts me away before it is too late."
The Slave Queen said softly, "He must. It is his only choice."
"I don't want to go," Lisinthir said, beginning to shake. "Oh, God, my lady... I don't know how to go back!"
"No," she said, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her head against his chest. "Do not /weep./" She licked his skin, distracting him.
"I don't want to go back," he said, dropping his head so he could rest it on hers and catching her in his arms. He hugged her so tightly he felt her pain, her supplication, her—yes. Her love. "I don't know how to go back."
She said, "You pack your trunks. The servants take them to the groundport. And then you walk, step by step, to the shuttle."
"What will you do?" he asked, resting his chin against her hair, breathing in the spice of her, the sorrow.
"I don't know," she said. "But I will stay with him, and see what the shape of tomorrow is like." She swallowed. "/My lord/... is this—this is—"
"Yes," he said, and did not know until then that he was weeping by the saltwater sorrow on his lips when he spoke. "This is /love./"
She said nothing, eyes closed. Then, "When first you taught me of being a person, I thought it was only pain. It took me months to reach its joy." A shivering pause, and then her voice so tiny and vulnerable. "Love will be like that, yes?"
"Yes," he said, and pulled himself apart while he still could.
She looked up at him with those orange eyes, so open, so clear. "I will serve him for you," she said.
He bowed his head, fighting. Somehow, he won. Somehow, he let her go and stepped away. Somehow, he turned his back on her, on everything he'd accomplished—everything he'd won, glorious and excruciating—and walked to his suite. He packed and silent servants took his trunk away. He followed them, step by step, to the groundport and the waiting shuttle. He did not allow himself to pause too long, one hand steadying him against the metal skin of the shuttle, only tarried long enough to feel that this wet wind, sea-tossed, was colder than he remembered, to see that the deep sky had grown taller, even more inaccessible. That the horizon had receded, now so distant he could not separate it from the sky.
Lisinthir boarded the shuttle and strapped himself into his seat to prevent himself from lunging for the door before it closed. As the crew ran through their pre-flight checks, he stared at the ring on his finger, the cold red ruby with its rearing drake. He chafed it with his thumb, slowly, over and over until his skin began to burn and flush.
The shuttle's roar ran through his bones. The pull of the planet began to fade, gradually replaced by the shuttle's heavier gravity. At last he understood the magnitude of what had transpired.
He was leaving.
Lisinthir cast off the restraints and stumbled to the viewport, staring out the back of the shuttle as the throneworld receded. He pushed an arm up against the glass, trying to see more clearly, to hold the plane
t in view for longer, but the speed of technology had no heart, knew not mercy or gentleness. It swept the world out of sight and replaced it with the smeared darkness of Wellspace, carrying him away.
"Ambassador... has there ever been something you wanted more than anything?" Her voice, so distant through the tunnel of memory.
"Yes, lady."
"And could you have it?"
"No, lady. At least... not in the way I could want it."
Not in the way that he could want it. And yet now he could, and he had, and he was leaving it behind.
Hanging between the Empire and the Alliance, Lisinthir pressed his forehead to his arm and wept, for misery, for regret, for the home that was now barred to him. Three of a Chatcaavan's lifetimes an Eldritch lived, and he would spend all three of them alone.
The Emperor came to her that night, in the silence, the utter and complete silence of her harem tower. She had been trying to arrange dead flowers in a vase ever since she'd seen the contrail mar the afternoon sky, and her listlessness was so complete that she did not have the strength to crumble the dry petals, even by accident.
The Emperor put a hand on her arm, stopping her. Wordless, she turned to him for comfort and he folded her into his arms. That, too, the Ambassador had taught him. Her /lord/ and their beloved, now sped. Had she once been so rash as to say she cared not how distant he was so long as he lived? Poor comfort that, now that he was gone impossibly far.
"You know why it had to be done," he said.
"Yes," she replied and trembled.
He knew enough to recognize her shaking for the memory of tears and drew her with him to the couch. There he sat and guided her head onto his lap, and he stroked her dark hair and untangled it, for she'd forgotten to brush it, and to eat, and to bathe or drink or nearly breathe.
"Tomorrow will be busy," he said. "There is no Second, nor a Third; they will need to be replaced. And Second was right—I have neglected much of my work." He took a long breath. "The rumblings of mutiny were not exaggerations. The next months will not be easy on us."
She roused herself to look at him, to say in a shaking voice, "On us?"
"On us," he said. "It falls to us alone now." He stroked her cheek. "Or did you think that I would become what I was before by sending him away?"
"I did not know what to think, Master," she whispered. "I did not think."
"Nor did I. And here we are." He looked toward the window, his face moon-tinted ruddy red and silver. "But I would not give up these months for stability or peace. I would not give them up for Second living at my side." A long breath through flared nostrils. "Not for anything, my Treasure. Not even for a soul free of remorse and regret." He looked down at her with his fierce yellow eyes, and she froze beneath them.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.
"Master?" she whispered.
"For all that I have done to you. For all that I have done to others," he said. "And will you stand by my side instead of kneeling at my feet, give me comfort, accept my protection?"
"Master!" the Slave Queen exclaimed, shocked.
He touched her mouth, silencing her. When she grew still, the Emperor said softly, "Will you be my Queen Ransomed?"
The ferocity in his eyes... it was not anger, not violence.
It was love.
For her.
"Oh, Master," she said.
"No," he said. "In this I am not your master. The choice must be yours alone." A wry smile. "You must give consent, and for that you must be free to choose, to say yes, to say no. If you decline I will try to find you a safe place to go where no one will think to seek you."
"Yes!" she said before he could continue. She found herself laughing, helpless with joy, with ludicrous joy that could somehow co-exist with her mourning. "Yes, I will stand by your side. Yes, I will be your comfort as you are my protection. Yes, I will be your Queen Ransomed. Yes, yes, yes!"
"Then as in the old histories, I will be your lord," he said, pressing his forehead to hers.
"And I will be your queen," she whispered, quivering. "Oh, my lord. I am so afraid. We are only two, and the Empire is legion."
"We will change things," the Emperor said. "One soul at a time. Ah!" When she began to protest, he touched her mouth. "No. There is no room for fear. If we fail... if we fail, at least we made the endeavor. And is it not worthy?"
She nodded, then wrapped her arms around his waist. He resumed stroking her mane and she closed her eyes. Thought of the view out her window.
"Mas—my lord. Will you have no time at all tomorrow?"
"I don't know," he said. "Perhaps a little. Is there something my Queen Ransomed requires?"
"Only a wish," she said, thinking of a day so long ago it seemed shrouded in mist and incense. "The sea. Could I see the sea?"
"You want to walk on the shore?" he asked, a touch of amusement in his voice, of the curiosity for which he was notorious. "Why?"
"Because I have never felt the ocean's touch," she said. "Have you?"
"Yes," he said, tickling her nose with one finger-tip. "It's cold and wet and dries in a crust on your skin. But if you wish it, I will escort you there. You will feel it for yourself."
She smiled. And it was bittersweet and it was heart-breaking, but it was also joy and bearable.
After a while, she said, "I will miss him."
The Emperor said, "I already do."
Return to the Alliance
Some Things Transcend
Princes' Game Book 2
Given a choice, Lisinthir Nase Galare would have stayed in the Chatcaavan Empire to help its reformed Emperor and Queen remake the worlds in their image. But when his presence proved a threat to the Emperor’s attempts, he bowed to necessity and accepted an exile that he thought would kill him… for what was left without duty and the company of the beloved? Adding insult to injury, his escort home included two psychiatrists, as if he was something broken and in need of therapy… and one of them was another Eldritch. Did they expect him to spill his soul to anyone without the courage to make his sacrifices, and to a member of a species he now considered completely craven? And would he even have the chance, when the Emperor’s enemies had a vested interest in never letting him see the other side of the border?
Xenotherapists Jahir and Vasiht’h of the novels Mindtouch and Mindline make an appearance in this second book of the Princes’ Game, and the game is as large as the fate of three nations and millions of worlds. Perhaps there’s a role for an additional prince on the playing field….
APPENDICES
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Lisinthir Nase Galare: lihs-ihn-THEER nah-SEH gahl-AWR-eh. In the first name, the vowel sound in the first two syllables rhymes with "mist," and the last with "fear." Some people have also said it "LEASE-en-THEER" and not irritated him. I recommend the first pronunciation. Galare is also occasionally pronounced "gahl-AWE-ray." Either is acceptable.
Chatcaava: shot-CAH-vah. First syllable equal to the word "shot", second two syllables rhyming with "ah!" the exclamation. Some readers may wonder why the double vowel in the middle syllable, which does not correspond to the change in the English pronunciation; in the Chatcaavan writing system, stress is indicated by doubled vowels. Sorry for the confusion. They insisted.
Khaska/Laniis: kahs-kah and lah-NEES (rhymes with, "Ah, niece!").
Bethsaida: beth-SYE-dah. The middle syllable rhyming with "my."
Liolesa: lee-OH-less-AH. Like "Violetta" except with an 'ee' sound at the beginning.
Imthereli: The other House that produced Lisinthir is pronounced ihm-there-EHL-ee.
Various race/species names: Tam-illee is said tahm ee-lee or tom ih-lee depending on the person. Seersa is, counter-intuitively SHEER-sah. This is important; any other pronunciation will get you stared at. Glaseah is glah-SEH-ah or glah-SAY-ah depending on the person. Hinichi is said hee-nee-chee, simply enough. The Aera say their race name ah-EER-ah. Stress in that language is indicated with a carat that I've spared you. Malara
i is mahl-are-eye.
The Species of the Alliance
The Alliance is mostly composed of the Pelted, a group of races that segregated and colonized worlds based (more or less) on their visual characteristics. Having been engineered from a mélange of uplifted animals, it’s not technically correct to refer to any of them as “cats” or “wolves,” since any one individual might have as many as six or seven genetic contributors: thus the monikers like “foxine” and “tigraine” rather than “vulpine” or “tiger.” However, even the Pelted think of themselves in groupings of general animal characteristics, so for the ease of imagining them, I’ve separated them that way.
The Pelted
The Quasi-Felids: The Karaka’An, Asanii, and Harat-Shar comprise the most cat-like of the Pelted, with the Karaka’An being the shortest and digitigrade, the Asanii being taller and plantigrade, and the Harat-Shar including either sort but being based on the great cats rather than the domesticated variants.
The Quasi-Canids: The Seersa, Tam-illee, and Hinichi are the most doggish of the Pelted, with the Seersa being short and digitigrade and foxish, the Tam-illee taller, plantigrade and also foxish, and the Hinichi being wolflike.
Others: Less easily categorized are the Aera, with long, hare-like ears, winged feet and foxish faces, the felid Malarai with their feathered wings, and the Phoenix, tall bipedal avians.
The Centauroids: Of the Pelted, two species are centauroid in configuration, the short Glaseah, furred and with lower bodies like lions but coloration like skunks and leathery wings on their lower backs, and the tall Ciracaana, who have foxish faces but long-legged cat-like bodies.
Aquatics: One Pelted race was engineered for aquatic environments: the Naysha, who look like mermaids would if mermaids had sleek, hairless, slightly rodent-like faces and the lower bodies of dolphins.
Even the Wingless Page 41
