“No,” Jahir said, low.
“Then the answer to that,” Lisinthir said, winding a finger through Jahir’s hair, “is that I don’t know that any warning would have been enough. Not for how I did it. Which...” He tugged Jahir’s head back and kissed the corner of his mouth until he heard the other man’s breath quicken. Relenting, he finished, “…is not how I plan things for you.”
“Because how it was done for you was not ideal.”
“Because what we were doing when I lost my innocence was not lovemaking, cousin. It wasn’t even properly rape. It was a physical contest, in the way a duel is a physical contest. A duel as Eldritch see it, mind you. Which is that one might die in the contest. Not a game, but a war.”
Now, if the contraction of his pupils was any indication, his cousin was thinking again rather than drifting in fever, or fighting anxiety. “I find that hard to believe. In our practice we saw survivors of both kinds of violence, and they leave different wounds.”
“Ah, but you would be the first to tell me that people are individuals... wouldn’t you?” Jahir narrowed his eyes, and Lisinthir laughed. “Not allowed to turn your words on you, am I.”
“It’s in poor taste,” Jahir said, pretending to primness.
“I concede the point. About taste, anyroad.” Lisinthir tipped up his chin. “And speaking of taste, I am not going to tumble you not half an hour after you’ve stepped off the shuttle, so you will have to resign yourself to waiting. We can go out for a while, if you wish. I’ve two weeks or so, if that span suits you.”
“It does. If I may ask about the delay that kept you from sending for me sooner?”
“You may,” Lisinthir said, switching to their tongue and shadowing the words. “Though as much as possible I would prefer not to speak of what I’m about.”
“You fear someone might be listening?”
Did he? Lisinthir supposed someone must be. But, “No. Rather I admit to paranoia on your behalf, cousin. I would not want you to know things my enemies might want to pry out of you.” He paused, waiting for the protestation, found it curious not to receive it. He quirked a brow. “No reminders that you are not planning to become involved?”
Jahir met his eyes, unwavering. “I try not to make promises unless I know I will keep them.”
Both his brows rose. “Well,” he said at last, and kissed his cousin gently on the brow. “Thank you, then. Though I hope you will remain off the field. Part of the delay was physical, I admit. Yon doctors did fine work on me, thanks to your timely intervention, but I was not in the best of condition. There were logistical issues as well, which is how I am here rather than back on Selnor. I await the mustering of the Alliance’s official spies and saboteurs. They will accompany me to the border, where I will be seeking intelligence on how the war proceeds on the Chatcaavan side.”
“Because there is already war there.”
“Indubitably,” Lisinthir said, his stomach clenching. Anger, perhaps. Hunger. Frustration to be trapped here. “Prior to this Emperor’s ascension, the system lords held primacy, and there was little consensus on foreign policy, save that to raid one another was as profitable—sometimes more so—than to turn their attention outward. To wrest power from them required the Emperor to play the Navy against them, a Navy he gave unprecedented power through democratization of its ranks. He maintained that allegiance, and it was what allowed him to hold the Empire united; with it, he was too strong to challenge. But the Navy has fragmented—someone in its ranks, someone high enough to matter, has betrayed him and allied with the system defense forces.”
Jahir’s frown accompanied the withdrawal of his awareness from their skins, something Lisinthir felt as a coolth. “When we transferred to the second vessel. It was carrying more crew than it could support. Were those Naval observers on a defense force ship? Or vice versa? Partisans working together to attack you?”
How relaxing it was to work with an agile mind! Lisinthir rested a thumb on Jahir’s lower lip. “Precisely. You perceive then the importance of the knowledge I seek.”
Jahir kissed his finger, and Lisinthir lost himself there for a moment, in warm breath and dry skin. Soon enough they would play. But the Harat-Shar had not needed to explain to him the importance of transitions. He would not have from Jahir what he needed—what they both needed—if they leaped to the matter without a transition out of the roles they were accustomed to playing. “So,” Lisinthir said. “Two weeks or so, and then I will report to my confederates, and we will learn what there is to learn.”
“The border isn’t far,” Jahir murmured.
“No.” Lisinthir smiled, pulled at him. “We should go walking. There are things to be seen, things to do. And eventually, we should have dinner.”
Jahir grimaced. “So long as it is a light one.”
“A light one. With a little wine. And then we will return here and—” Lisinthir touched his cousin’s nose, trailed the finger down to its tip. “There will be kissing and touching, but no deflowering.”
Despite his agitation, Jahir’s mouth twitched upward. “Deflowering.”
“As if you were the gentlest bred of maidens,” Lisinthir said airily, dashing the words with silver and gold like flowers in spring. “Nothing less.”
Rising, Jahir said, “I suppose this is better than your earlier metaphor of me as stud to be ridden and put away wet.”
“The new one makes up in elegance what it lacks in accuracy,” Lisinthir replied, and grinned at the look that won him: so quelling, to also be accompanied by that peach flush over the cheekbones. “Cousin. You are too delicious. Do you know it?”
Resigned but smiling, Jahir said, “Only because you say so...!”
“Excellent. My word in the matter is all you need.” Lisinthir stood, stretched. “Let me show you some of Alpha’s more unusual features. You’ll find them an intriguing contrast from your Veta, I believe.”
“Will I?” Jahir asked, distracted by the thought.
Lisinthir smiled and took up a coat. The sight of it drew his cousin’s eye again, as he knew it would.
“Do you go conspicuous, then, the Eldritch heir?”
“An I do, when I do not I am not remarked.” Lisinthir shrugged into the new coat, cinnamon edged in black, dark blue, and copper, its lines antique by Alliance standards though it had been made new by Pelted hands. He’d restored his wardrobe using the one outfit Jahir had left with him in the hospital as a model, in all the colors he’d favored when he’d gone to the Empire, plus one… in Imtherili white. “Ambassador Nase Galare, the Eldritch prince, wears a court coat and swords and is quite noticeable when he goes abroad. Lisinthir, however, can go dancing in a bodysuit and a mask, and no one thinks ‘Oh, there is the Ambassador.’”
“Except the hair,” Jahir observed, mouth curving.
Lisinthir grinned. “No one will notice once I remove it from the context of my race. After you, cousin.”
Jahir started for the door, then halted abruptly. “Do you mean to tell me you were serious about the dancing?”
Lisinthir met his eyes, amused. “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER 3
Was he relieved or anxious? It was possible to be both, perhaps. Jahir followed Lisinthir into the hall, allowing himself a surreptitious glance at his cousin as he started down the corridor. Jahir had expected Lisinthir to look better after almost a month convalescing, but he hadn’t anticipated just how much. The hollows between the tendons on the backs of his hands had filled, and the shadows beneath his cheekbones were less knife-like; his skin had reclaimed its nacreous gleam and the whites of his eyes were clear, leaving one with no distraction from the unusual darkness of his midnight eyes. This was the man he might have met in the Queen’s court on the homeworld, had they ever attended it at the same time. This extravagantly vital man, narrow and quick as a blade, every motion confident and practiced on a field more dangerous than a drawing room. What would he have thought of the heir to Nase Galare then, he wondered? Would
he have found him as compelling?
It was a wonder their world had ever held Lisinthir at all. He did not belong there, for all he wore its costume with careless ease. He didn’t even belong here, in the luxurious halls of the Alliance’s cosmopolitan cities. He had been born to wrestle dragons, and Jahir wondered suddenly if he would ever see Lisinthir among the Chatcaava. What a sight that would be…!
“A coin for your thoughts?”
Jahir drew abreast of him, folding his hands behind his back. “Dragons.”
Lisinthir smiled at that, and did not press.
They gained the lift and took it, not to a Pad station or the city level or the port, but halfway down the wall. Surprised, Jahir followed his cousin out of the lift and onto a shadowed promenade lit with strung, colored lights, overlooking a twilit market thronged with people. There was no night on a starbase save that it was created, and this... this had been designed for atmosphere, for the drama of sharp shadows and backlighting, of fantastical lanterns and running lights guiding the throngs through the stalls, stairs, and mysterious shops.
“Stay close,” Lisinthir said.
“What else!”
His cousin flashed him a grin and threaded into the crowd. At least it was easy to see him: as varied as the Alliance’s peoples were, the Eldritch looked the breed apart that they were, taller than most, and pale. Lisinthir’s hair was an extravagance down his back, white banner on fabric gone dark as blood in the low light. And his cousin seemed not at all affected by the press… unavoidably, perhaps. He could not have survived the Empire had he been disturbed by touch.
Jahir, too, had acquired some resistance to the discomfort of casual contact. He didn’t like the crowd, but the market fascinated him. There were outdoor markets in Veta’s city, but this was more exposed technology than the Alliance typically favored as an aesthetic. There was no attempt to disguise the starbase’s metal walls and floors; the shops were cut into the walls and stitched through with glowing blue and purple lights, and glittering fabric swags hung from the balconies, or across the corridors that narrowed into a warren of tunnels: nothing like a true night sky, and yet reminiscent of one anyway. There were raised platforms with kiosks selling coffee and kerinne and alcohol, and alcoves tucked beneath spiraling glass and metal stairs leading to second floors, and third, and fourth. And the people here wore glowing clothes or paint, like deep sea fishes, luminescent and lovely.
Lisinthir touched his wrist, drawing his attention back. He ducked close enough to be heard over the noise. “The clubs are like this too, except with music. We will go to one later.”
“With music!” Jahir tried to imagine a club melded with this pastiche of phosphorescence and gossamer and paint. The music wouldn’t be dreamlike, he knew, but the sort of pounding bass and drumwork that would make the floor throb beneath his feet. He shuddered despite himself.
“Just so,” Lisinthir said, satisfied. “So we must find something to decorate ourselves with, yes? Or at least, I must. You may, or you may choose the alternate plan I believe I have waiting for you. I am curious to see if it will work.”
“Should I be worried?”
Lisinthir snorted, amused. “No? Yes? Pick.”
Jahir laughed, quiet. “Let’s find your warpaint. And eat.” He glanced at the flow moving past them. “Somewhere quieter than this, I hope.”
“Oh, certainly. It is raucous here, where you find the best of the artisans—I have been here several times on a multiplicity of errands. But the Trenches are only part of the Hull culture, which had its genesis in a fascinating twist of Alliance history.”
“Which… you will tell me about?”
“Over dinner,” Lisinthir agreed. “But our first and most important stop is here.” He gestured with a flourish and Jahir eyed him before stepping through the narrow hatch and into darkness. A truer one than the artificial twilight outside: the walls were swathed in black velvet, and there was some Alliance technology at work that made the shadowed spaces between the displays seem deeper and the people in them blurred and difficult to hear. Partial walls and columns further interrupted the room’s lines, swathed in the same draperies. The only lights in the store were bright spots trained on the wares, and they were masks… masks of such glory he almost didn’t move aside for his cousin to enter. Pieces of art, each obviously crafted by some artist, mounted above two small placards, a number and a list of materials. There were no prices. People who had to ask after prices would not be here.
The thought of donning such things was staggering, even to him, and he had worn chains of pearls and blue diamonds to court functions. With his back to the wall by the entrance, Jahir murmured in their tongue, “You mean us to go masked to the dance?”
“The club I have in mind requires costume.” Lisinthir slid a possessive arm around his waist, waited for him to object. Jahir considered it, but no one would see them in this carefully crafted salon, and he found he wanted the touch. “I care little what people think of me, cousin. But you are a man with a profession and a partner, and I knew not how much you wanted revealed, even fleetingly. A therapist needs to inspire trust, yes?”
“That presumes that we’ll be dancing in a fashion people would consider inappropriate.”
Lisinthir eyed him, lifted that brow, mischief and challenge and amusement all at once.
“You may be disappointed,” Jahir said, and immediately wondered why he’d said it.
“I won’t. Come. Let us find our costumes.”
There was something of a museum in the presentation, and yet the knowledge that there were people nearby he could not see well, and that all of them were here to buy disguises, lent the store an unavoidably erotic savor. He was unsurprised, given Lisinthir’s involvement, and accepted it in the intended spirit, looking at the works of art hanging on the walls and trying to imagine who he might allow himself to be if he knew he would go unrecognized. Phoenixes in filigree gold and copper metal, made from ores harvested from exotic locales in distant star systems; sly cats with hand-painted lines leading to suede nosepads fashioned from the pelts of animals he’d never heard of; peacocks with headdresses of gem-laced feathers that trailed down the shoulders, painstakingly harvested from the wings of rare birds that molted once every thirty years; crowns of flames in shaped leather and steel. The colors were riotous or delicate, the materials sensuous, begging to be touched. Each one was unique, irreplaceable.
They found Lisinthir’s midway through the store, a half-mask in black leather with sleek horns: the face of a demon, or a dragon, unadorned save for the starkness of its uncompromising lines. As they walked away from it, Lisinthir said, “No contest.”
“None, no.”
“And now thee, cousin.”
Jahir withheld a sigh. He had always avoided lingering overmuch on the examination of his own subconscious; obviously, or Lisinthir would not have been able to bring him to this pass. How to say he had not the first notion how to go about choosing?
Except that his choice was just as easy, in the end. As ornamental as Lisinthir’s had been austere, asymmetrical with stylized wings swept out from the eyes: like a swan descending, save that the bird was only suggested, abstracted into forms in silver, midnight blue, and white. There were gemstones… from the placard, the metal was in fact platinum, and there were mother-of-pearl panels set into the wings. It left his mouth and most of his nose bare, dared the wearer to trust to the arrogant beauty of the thing to distract from how much it exposed. The thought of wearing it stole his breath.
“Oh, certes. You must. In fact, I will give you no chance to say no.”
“Cousin!”
But Lisinthir had already vanished into the shrouded dark, no doubt to find someone to pay. Left to himself, Jahir looked again at the mask. He couldn’t imagine such a brief bit of metal and leather sufficing to disguise him, and yet he could not deny his avarice.
When his cousin reappeared at his elbow, he said, “May I at least pay for it?”
&
nbsp; “You are too late. Alas for you! I have months of accumulation in my account, having had no reason to spend it among dragons, and every desire to use it now. But you can buy our dinner… and yes, it will be expensive.”
Jahir blew out a breath, aware of a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders. He sensed his cousin’s sudden interest, but said nothing, following Lisinthir out of the store.
“They’ll be delivered,” Lisinthir said. “This way, then. We want another seven floors to reach our destination.”
“Which is?”
Lisinthir nodded up, and Jahir followed his cousin’s gaze until he spied what he assumed to be an art installation. “Should I ask?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
He did, when they’d pushed through the throng and woven their way through the staircases, ramps, and lifts that finally brought them to the restaurant. The art installation was nothing of the kind, but a rather more terrifying statement of the Alliance’s power: what he’d taken to be steel and glass pods, evocative of flower bulbs, were in fact private dining rooms yoked by invisible force fields to a central foyer, bar, and kitchen. They floated in a gentle halo, their windows clear or filmed for privacy as their diners preferred, and Jahir had no doubt at all that he’d be spending the masks’ prices for their single meal. The maître d’, a sleek black Karaka’An feline in black formalwear, walked them past the bar over one of a line of Pads. There they found a table for two in a room with pale cream carpet and a low ceiling, hovering in serene silence over Trenches’ deep cavern, twilit and connected and interconnected with dimly colored lights and catwalks and diaphanous cloths. The muffled quiet of the room made the bustle seem very far away, which is why Jahir did not object when Lisinthir caught his hand and pulled him into an embrace once they’d been left alone.
“No fear of heights, I hope?” Lisinthir murmured against his jaw, where he was using his teeth: not enough to mark, but enough to shatter Jahir’s concentration.
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