Difficult questions. Even thornier to answer, when set against an urgent fight for survival against an Empire almost three times their size. But then, if he had these powers, perhaps the Queen and the Emperor did as well in their shape-shifted forms. He could hope so, for it would be immensely helpful to their cause if so. But that he could not depend on, and could not plan for. What he was certain of was that he and Jahir could not leave their new abilities unexercised. He was due to leave in less than two weeks… he couldn’t imagine that being enough time, unless they spent all of it at their experiments, and that would never work. While Lisinthir had no trouble conceiving of himself as a legendary mind-mage who could crush his enemies into submission, Jahir was another matter. If he pushed his cousin too far, too quickly….
Lisinthir sighed and kissed skin still tacky with sweat. No, he did not want to be responsible for breaking Jahir Seni Galare, healer and heir and Unicorn’s get. And this revelation had the power to do so in a way mere bedplay could never.
He could ask the Night Admiral for an extension. But he wasn’t sure what the extra time would accomplish. Exploring the limits of these new abilities would want months of trial and experimentation, not weeks. And it was questionable whether he was the person to deal with it at all. Vasiht’h might be better positioned to aid his partner with this particular transition, which would leave Lisinthir with his original mission, to introduce his cousin to more practical pleasures. And if those broken, blood-streaked visions had reflected true, then there was a future where everything he could teach Jahir about his body, he would need... and a few other things besides, which Lisinthir planned to arrange for him ere they parted. Some of it, Jahir would object to, so he would have to be sure his cousin didn’t notice his machinations. But to give him the tools he needed to protect himself in the event of that particular future unfolding, Lisinthir would gladly dissemble... or more probably, distract with a great deal of carnal activity.
Which was fine with him. It was clear sex gentled his cousin. It certainly focused Lisinthir’s mind. The great cats who’d had his training would have been proud: the act had been far harder than anything he’d ever done with either of his previous lovers. The Slave Queen wanted all his gentleness; the Emperor, all his ferocity. The weirdling combination of cruelty and tenderness that Jahir required had needed all his self-control to administer, and when he’d been free finally to find his release it had come with an overwhelming relief, that he hadn’t failed.
And truthfully, it had been rather too long for him. Jahir was a challenge, and he found challenges... inspiring.
If that was a taste of what they’d be doing for the next week and a half, he’d certainly need the rest. Lisinthir flattened his palm against his cousin’s heart and allowed himself to sleep.
The Knife found her perched not on the windowsill, as was her wont, but beside it, on the bench where she usually arranged flowers. She had, in fact, displaced the vase that had been on it, and was petting one of its lilies while sorting her thoughts. It said a great deal for him, she thought, that he immediately perceived this difference and thought it significant enough for comment. “My Queen? Have you been distressed?”
The subtext there: And what shall I do to mitigate your distress? How astonishing that he should exist, her Knife, and be so willing to engage with her when so few Chatcaavan males had. Or females either. She thought again of the Mother, and looked away. “No, Knife. I have not been distressed. My own thoughts disquiet me, however.”
He padded further into the room, his wings lowered and folded. Until him, she’d never been the recipient of that particular courtesy: in a normal Chatcaavan universe, no male held his wings in a submissive posture to a mere female, no matter the exaltation of her debasement. But she no longer lived in a normal Chatcaavan universe, and was that not enough cause for discomfort?
“May I ask, then?”
She ran a finger along one of the lily petals. “Do you go about in the court, Knife?”
His head canted back. “Mistress? My duty is here. I would have no reason to repair to the court. That is a place for high-ranked males and their guards, if guards they choose to have.”
“So you could not tell me what it is like now, in the Emperor’s absence.”
“No….” He drew the word out, brows lowering. “I trust the new Second is capable of communicating the Emperor’s authority, however.”
She thought of her discussions with the Emperor before his departure. “Second. Who was once Command East. Did I say that right?”
“Yes, my Queen. The Empire is a sphere—roughly—divided into quadrants, and each quadrant has a Command, who sees to the fight there, and a Logistics, who makes sure Command has something to fight with. Command East was charged with the Eastern quadrant, which is the most developed. He will have had significant experience with managing fractious and complex political and military relationships.”
The Queen frowned, straightening one of the flower’s lanceolate leaves, creased from too long in the vase. “You do not think it likely that he might lose control of the court, then.”
“I would be surprised if so,” the Knife said. “The Emperor would not choose an impotent male to serve him in the role of Second. Second must be the Emperor’s… well, second. In all matters.”
“Have you met him?” she wondered.
“Second?” The Knife was startled. “No, my Queen. I served in the Eastern quadrant, but few are the males who would have known or worked directly with one of the Commands. I was nowhere near so important.”
She smiled at him. “Important enough to end up here.”
“No,” he said. “Do not confuse yourself on this, my Queen. I am here because I am competent in my chosen role, not because I am important. Important males become Second and Third, and Command and Logistics. But the Empire rises on the wings of millions of males like me, all of us named, not titled.”
“And this… this protects you,” she said. At his puzzled head-tilt, she said, “Because you are useful, because the Empire needs you, then you are safe.”
“No one is safe in the Empire,” the Knife said, quiet. “But one can pass beneath notice. Even if one is curious. The faceless ranks of males necessary to maintain the Empire cannot be individually assessed. Not consistently. If one is careful, one might live a long and fruitful life, no matter how backwards one’s attitudes.” When she glanced sharply at him, he said, rueful, “Not all one’s superiors are as keen-eyed as the Emperor.”
She leaned back, considering. Passing beneath notice... that was the issue, wasn’t it? If she began changing the females and the children here, would the other males overlook it, because females and children had been chattel for so long no one would expect otherwise? Or would it been seen as a dangerous precedent?
This contemplation raised an anxiety in her that made her skin seem uneasy on her flesh, as if she was straining toward a Change she couldn’t complete. “Tell me, Knife... if I were to ask you to do something seemingly nonsensical, would you?”
“My Queen,” the male said. “The Emperor gave me a title and the imperative to obey you. I will not fail you.”
“You would take commands from a mere female.”
“You are no mere female,” the Knife said.
Surprised, she jerked her head from the flower and looked at him.
“I have been watching you,” he continued, standing at seeming ease before her, with his hands at his sides and his wings politely couched. “The Emperor values you, and that alone makes you intriguing. Everyone knows this Emperor is not long fascinated by trivialities. You hold his interest, and I wondered why. And now that I have been in this tower, I have been listening. There are stories about how you aided the Ambassador. How you saved some of the members of the harem from the depredations of Third and his Hand. That you left the tower entirely to see the Emperor in the Surgeon’s offices. And when I look at your eyes...” He trailed off, studying her, and she returned his scrutiny, even k
nowing that proper females would never. But she was not a proper female, was she? Not anymore. She was the Queen Ransomed.
“When I look at your eyes, you look back,” he finished. “And I see things there that I don’t understand, not because you are female, and weak, and consigned to the vagaries of the flesh that females alone suffer. But because there is a mind there, thinking thoughts I am not privy to, and they are complex enough to leave streamers, the way a fighter darting through clouds leaves contrails.” He cocked his head. “I obey you, my Queen, for the same reason the Change fascinates me. Because I do not understand what I see, and seeking knowledge leads to greatness.”
She couldn’t help it: she laughed, low and quiet, but in genuine delight. “You are perverse, Knife. How did you survive so long among other males!”
“One learns best by remaining silent,” he remarked.
“Oh, yes! We both know that wisdom, don’t we.” She considered him, nodded slowly the way the Ambassador would have, noted the avidity of his interest as she did. “Then I tell you, Knife... I would like you to help me find a way to smuggle the children and the females from the tower. In the event of a coup.”
His eyes widened and he hissed in a breath.
“You think I am histrionic,” she guessed.
“I would never call such precautions histrionic,” he said. “I cannot evaluate their appropriateness, however. I have heard stories about the atmosphere at court, Mistress. Everyone has. That everything here is broken horns and poison. I’d thought those stories exaggerations, but even on the periphery I sense that, if anything, such stories may have understated the matter.” He looked away, muscles tightening along the edge of his mouth. When he looked at her again, his strange dark eyes were steady. “It is not what I would have hoped for the highest court of the Chatcaava.”
To this extraordinary statement she said nothing, to see if he would elaborate. Instead, he allowed the silence to lie between them, and that in itself was elaboration enough.
“I don’t know that there is a coup in the making,” he said at last, wings mantling. But slowly, as if even dismayed, he was conscious of his body. “But I can’t tell that there isn’t, either. There is too much innuendo here. Too many masks. I have secured this tower by subjecting it to military protocols, my Queen, and many have told me I am showing coarseness of manner unbecoming to a male in my position. But I am not confident in my ability to read the intentions of the courtiers here.”
She stared at him, nonplussed. That he would confess to his own flaws...
He seemed to understand, too, for he smiled, a faint show of teeth along the rim of his blue-gray mouth. “I know it is perilous to admit to incompetence, but it is your safety at stake. If you know better how to judge the mood of the court, I will be guided by your superior understanding. Do you fear a coup? Do you think someone will fight Second in order to depose him, or the Emperor?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still startled. “But I worry, Knife. And because I worry, I would like...” She trailed off.
“A contingency plan?” he offered. His smile then was almost winsome, and on the face of a male Chatcaavan it was unbelievable. She wished the Ambassador had been there to see it, to comment on how quickly things change once they began. “It is a very military term, I know, but I am a very military sort of male.”
“It suits,” she said. “Yes. I would like a contingency plan. My plan involves the evacuation of the Emperor’s children and females—and myself, and you—off this world in the event of catastrophe. It may seem unbelievable to you, but I have reason to suspect the Emperor would want us at liberty. To answer to whatever plans he might have for us, or to deny us to the enemy.”
“He plans to make you something worth denying?” the Knife asked, interested.
And because he’d made the suggestion, a suggestion outrageous in its implication, she said, “I plan to make them something worth denying.” And lifted her chin, daring him to ridicule her.
But the Knife only frowned. “With Third dead and not yet replaced, the palace’s port has returned to the Navy’s control. But there is no saying that the port would remain in our control in the event of a coup. And I am very definitely concerned about how we would manage from there. Security in the solar system and the surrounding areas has been upgraded recently, and no one has said why. To smuggle… how many females and children are we discussing?”
“Some thirty-odd children,” she said, because she’d taken a rough count while in the nursery. “The females in the harem? I cannot say. Perhaps around the same number in each of the harems? We could guess at some hundred individuals.”
He winced. “That would require a large conveyance. Or several smaller ones. There may be a way to get them to the port… I will investigate. But from there? That is a more difficult matter, my Queen.”
Thinking of Laniis, the Slave Queen said, “That part, I may know how to handle. If you tell me it is safe to use my console to make calls outside the palace.”
“Outside the palace?”
“To the Alliance.”
He considered her, head tilted. “These aliens. The ones you befriended while they were here. They remain your allies.”
She inclined her head.
“Astounding,” he murmured, awed.
“They may not be in a position to help me. But I will never know unless I ask. So…”
“I will consult my security expert immediately and tell you when you can make your call.” He trained curious eyes on her. “The children will go where they are sent. The females… will all of them consent to your plan? If they are incapable of volition after so many years of powerlessness, they may become liabilities.”
The Slave Queen set her lily in her lap. It had not occurred to her that the females would be disobedient. What would they think of her explanations, that they might have a future if they embraced it? Would they even want it, when it had taken the Ambassador so much love and time to convince her of the merits of a life filled with freedom’s responsibilities? She couldn’t imagine changing their minds in the time she had allotted. Should she kidnap them, then, in order to give herself that time? Because if something did happen in the palace, they would be trapped here…
“In the event of a coup, what would happen? To the females.”
The Knife shrugged a hand, though she noticed his shoulders twitch, as if he’d begun to copy her hybrid gesture. “They may be left here to serve the next Emperor. Or they might be given away. Or killed outright.”
No help there, then. If their deaths had been certain, the choice would have been easy. As it was… she knew for every female who fled, obedient, at the Knife’s command, some number of them would become too flustered, would demur, would delay them.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t know how many of them will want to leave.”
“The male who deposes the Emperor, if he succeeds... may very well be worse for them,” the Knife murmured.
Because the comment surprised her, she said, “Or he may be better, depending on their personalities.” And sighed. “So I suppose it will be up to me to discover which of them belong with us.”
“Not a very Chatcaavan reply,” the Knife observed, considering her.
“I have been infected by the ideas of aliens.” The Slave Queen slipped the lily back into the water and rose, setting the vase back in place. “That is the danger of the Touch and the Change, Knife. You do not return from it the same.”
“If the Living Air had wanted us to remain the same, it would not have given us those abilities,” the Knife answered. Before she could decide how to respond, he bowed to her. “I must go and see to the arrangements.”
“The sooner, the better,” she agreed, staring at him.
After he’d left, she looked at the lily, white on its narrow green stem, the one leaf still creased despite her efforts. Laniis, she wondered. Where are you? And will you be able to help us? Because… she reached out and traced the
fracture, I think we will need it, and sooner than I hope.
CHAPTER 4
Sehvi smelled like tart citrus. It had been so long since Vasiht’h had been able to bury his nose in her shoulder fur that he’d almost forgotten the happy associations of fur shampoo and family. But after far too many years spent communicating almost entirely by telepresence, he was finally in her arms, and the memory was still vivid and present, spilling years of their lives together back into his heart.
“In my arms and in my home!” Sehvi added, leaning back just enough to look at his face. “Which you’ve never visited in your life.”
“It’s a nice planet,” Vasiht’h said. “But the only thing it’s got to recommend it is in this room right now.” He glanced over her second back. “Well, almost the only thing. Where are my nephews?”
“Over at a friend’s,” she said, chuckling. “They’re gregarious children. They should be home for dinner, along with Kovihs. Who is not with the children. He’s at the hospital overseeing some finicky bit of research in the lab that he insists couldn’t wait a day.”
“Of course it couldn’t,” Vasiht’h said, amused. And added, “Oh, but it’s good to see you, ariishir! And you look well. I’m so glad.”
“It’s good to see you too, big brother. Though I admit I want to know why.”
Vasiht’h set his messenger bag down on one of the low, softly-stuffed couches and started on the buckles holding the remainder of his luggage to his barrel. “It’s not enough that I wanted to see you and your kits? You don’t come back to Anseahla much anymore.”
“Call it mother’s intuition. Or sister’s, in this case.” Sehvi padded past him to the kitchen. “I’ll put kerinne on. Do you want biscuits or cookies?”
“Is both an acceptable answer?”
She snorted. “You sound like your partner. Where is he? Some sort of conference you didn’t want to attend?”
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