“—because it’s going to be a long walk back.”
CHAPTER 8
Knowing that his cousin was likely to be distracted until they had an answer about his brother, Lisinthir opted to escort Jahir to a more familiar environment for dinner. They took it at an outdoor café in the City—known thus in opposition to the Hull—on the second floor balcony where a scattering of tables overlooked the pedestrian thoroughfares that all starbases built their civilian metropolises around. As Lisinthir had expected, the restaurant was similar enough to venues on Starbase Veta that it worked its subliminal magic on his cousin’s stress level. He found it amusing that halfway through the meal, Jahir eyed him suddenly and said, “I know what you’re doing.”
“I know you know, Healer.” Lisinthir smiled at him over their plates. “This hasn’t prevented it from working.” When Jahir sighed, he added, “You may pay for this meal, also.”
“Am I to pay for all of them, then?”
“As I will be paying for other things we’ll be using….”
“Like the masks?”
“Like the masks,” Lisinthir said. “And the bed. Which we have made very good use of so far, you’ll have noted.”
It delighted him that he could still make Jahir blush, just as much as it delighted him that his cousin maintained an otherwise flawless control over his comportment. They could have been discussing the weather except for that faint hint of peach over the cheekbones. “I suppose there is a fee associated with the entrance to this club, as well, which you have already paid for.”
“What else?” Lisinthir chuckled. “I fear you cannot wrest that privilege from me—I have sent our payment in advance. But rest at ease, cousin my dear. The prices they charge for drinks are appalling. You can take that tab if you so wish.”
“It amused you,” Jahir said. “That I knew you’d paid already.”
“Trying your talent on me?” Lisinthir asked, breaking himself a piece of the soft, flat bread.
“And if I was?”
“Then we have learned something about the limitations of your devastating mind-mage ability,” Lisinthir said. “I was amused, yes. But not that you knew what I was doing.”
“No?”
“No. I found it humorous that I have now begun to expect you to outthink most every ploy I try on you, once you put your mind to it.”
“And this is funny… why?”
“It is funny, exactly. Not ‘there is some irony here that I find humorous.’ Funny, as in ‘I enjoy it. It pleases me.’”
Jahir canted his head.
“It’s fun to be right about you, when being right about you involves assuming you have better than average intelligence and wit.” Lisinthir lifted a brow. “So your talent told you I was amused, but not why. Best keep that in mind when you use it.”
“That one can know what another person feels and not the reason for it?”
“And in fact, it can lead you to erroneous conclusions entirely.”
“For the best then that I am not planning to make any decisions based on that data,” Jahir said.
“Which you have the leisure to do… now. But what happens when you need the data?” Lisinthir rolled the bread and dipped it in the creamed cheese it had been served with. He expected the considering silence, and knew without lifting his head that his cousin was studying him the way he would have a complex and interesting patient. Which was why they had to have this discussion, in the end.
“With you it is always the fate of nations,” Jahir said at last. “The stakes in my life are somewhat less extreme than yours. You have noticed.”
“What I have noticed,” Lisinthir replied, “is that you habitually use all your powers of observation in every arena of your life, cousin. No doubt you use them in your work to evaluate your clients, and they would be the first to tell you their problems are high enough stakes for them.”
“This is not a power I can afford to use.”
“This is a power you cannot afford to ignore, is what you should be saying.” Lisinthir tried the cheese, found it heavy, judged his cousin would eat none of it. He’d had his hands on Jahir a great deal in the past day, enough to learn that at least part of the reason his cousin tended toward cold was the lack of even the smallest insulating layer of fat between his skin and the muscles swimming had layered on his frame. In more ways than one did his cousin tend toward mortification of the flesh, though Lisinthir thought the eating was less a conscious attempt at self-harm and more a product of sublimated anxiety.
Eating was a thing of the body. He would have to see what he could do about that.
Jahir was still frowning at him, so he said, “Would you prefer this ability to manifest when you want it to lie fallow? It will control you if you do not control it.”
To his surprise, Jahir said, quiet, “I know.” And drew in a long, shaky breath. “I can tell because I keep reaching for you.”
“What of the other diners?” Lisinthir asked, interest piqued.
“I think I might be trying so hard to reach you in order to keep myself from accidentally reaching for them.”
Too much pathos in that comment for his taste. Lisinthir had more of the bread, then said, “All the awkwardness of puberty, all over again. Gawky limbs and too-tall legs and the ground suddenly far too far away.”
Jahir covered his smile with a hand, looking away a moment. Then said, “I still know what you’re doing.”
“That’s fine,” Lisinthir answered, amused. “It’s still working.”
The conversation afterwards involved trivialities, allowed no doubt because his cousin was using them to bleed off Jahir’s tension. Since he had tension that needed it, he submitted to the coddling, even found himself grateful. By the time they returned to his room, they had an answer. Or a distinct lack of answer, for the note he’d received was a masterwork of brevity.
“Did you receive any word?” Jahir asked, trying to relax his jaw and shoulders. “I have not heard back from my lady mother, and the Queen’s chancellor says only that they are aware of my brother’s whereabouts.”
“Fleet is also aware of them.” Lisinthir tapped his tablet. “As they say he is not on the missing list.”
“That’s all.”
“That would be all they need to say. If he had been missing, they would have said.”
“All this tells us is where he’s not,” Jahir said, frustrated. “It doesn’t tell us where he is!”
Lisinthir set the tablet aside and braced a boot on the side of the desk, watching him. “He doesn’t want to be found, cousin. He must have his reasons.”
“His reasons!”
“His reasons,” Lisinthir agreed. “And in the fullness of time perhaps he will reveal them to you. But we now know, as far as we can know, that he is alive and not in the hands of our enemies.”
“This is a dangerous game to give so many of my own to,” Jahir said, touching his brow with his fingers. “You and now Amber. Who next?”
“You assume he is dancing with dragons, cousin.”
“What else, if Fleet knows where he is but will not say… and the Queen’s own office will not answer a family member’s query?” Jahir tucked his hands under his armpits, trying to warm them. “You know as well as I that she has more than one arrow in that quiver. I would not at all be surprised to discover she’d recruited Amber for something. And knowing him, he would have been glad to do it.”
“Well, then, perhaps he is about her work—and ours. Perhaps. You may or may not be involved, yes? And think of your beloved who will be remaining safe behind if you insist on throwing yourself into the fray.” Lisinthir canted his head. “He did say he would stay behind, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Jahir sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes, and I think he will when he realizes how much easier it will be on me if I go. Better to be parted than to worry about him.”
“Then that is one less hostage to fate,” Lisinthir said. “And Sediryl as well. She is on a star
base, is she not? Rung ‘round with Fleet vessels resupplying! Not likely to run into trouble.”
“No.” He sighed again, and with that released his anxieties as best he could. “No, you’re right. I borrow trouble. But only because I’ve never been confronted with so much trouble to borrow.” He essayed a lopsided smile. “You will forgive me for fretting, I hope.”
“I shall, yes. And now, I think, is a perfect time for us to dress for our descent back into the Trenches.”
“To dress, yes,” Jahir murmured. “And I have not the first notion how to do so. So… I suppose I shall have to let you advise me.”
“Shall you!”
The expression on his cousin’s face was disquieting. Or flattering, depending on one’s perspective. Jahir hastened to add a caveat. “So long as you don’t leave too much of me exposed.”
Lisinthir snorted. “You are not likely to take cold in a crowded dance club. Rather the opposite.”
“Nonetheless—”
“Nonetheless,” Lisinthir said. “We shall observe the proprieties.”
The masks had been delivered via Pad, an extravagance in keeping with their price; it was instructive that the hotel room had a specific locale behind the bar where such Pad-pushed purchases could be received. Lisinthir sent him to fetch the boxes while going through their wardrobe, or more likely, some catalog he could use to buy something utterly inappropriate, and while he did so Jahir looked again at his mask, touched the edge of a filigreed wing. He’d expected it to look outlandish deprived of the museum-like context of the shop. Instead, it looked more real somehow, as if it belonged in someone’s hands.
“You still like it,” Lisinthir observed, startling him from his contemplation.
“It is a jewel.” Jahir looked at the smudge he’d left on it, rueful. “If a high-maintenance one.”
Lisinthir laughed. “All the best things in life are high-maintenance, cousin.”
Were they? He frowned as Lisinthir guided him toward the bathroom. “Your rationale?”
“Because the things that matter are the things you dedicate your life to, willingly,” his cousin said, handing him a pair of pants. “That would seem the definition of ‘high-maintenance.’”
Put that way… Jahir rubbed the fabric between his fingers and said, “These pants are too thin.”
“Go put them on anyway.”
He sighed. “At least tell me I am allowed a shirt.”
“I am the essence of kindness, cousin. I am permitting you two.”
“One of them must be transparent.”
Lisinthir grinned. “Close.”
Jahir eyed him, but dressed anyway. The pants reminded him of riding breeches, tight but flexible; in keeping with the Alliance’s near-magical way with materials, they were very thin to also be so opaque, and a dark royal blue in color… no doubt to match the lapis panels on the mask. The first shirt, handed to him absently, was white, also of some thin, soft fabric that clung, with sleeves that reached almost to the knuckle and a high neck. The bottom hem was an annoying length: not long enough to tuck in, but not short enough to be rejected for riding above the waistline of the pants. He was scowling at it when Lisinthir handed him the second shirt: a silver gossamer, with a lower neck and sleeves that opened at the wrist just enough to hang. Unlike the first shirt, it was long enough to be tucked in, but too dense. He had to leave it on over the pants.
“There, see?” Lisinthir said, coming up behind him and slipping his arms around his waist. “Once you are booted, you will be covered from neck to fingers to toes.” They stared at themselves in the mirror until Lisinthir’s mouth began to twitch. “What?”
“It’s… not neat.”
His traitorous cousin laughed. “It’s not, no. We won’t be either by the end of the night.”
His reflection in the mirror didn’t look like him: too casual, too… loose. He could concede the dishevelment, but not, “It’s so thin.”
“You’ll need something light if you’re not to grow faint from over-exertion.” Lisinthir kissed the back of his neck. “And there are other compensations.”
“Other—” Jahir stopped abruptly at the wicked pinch, vision bleeding white. His knees trembled.
“As I said,” Lisinthir murmured, and nipped his ear. “Braid your hair. It will be less noticeable thus. I will be back.”
His fingers were a little unsteady, but he managed to ignore the throbbing of afflicted flesh and outraged desire to do as asked. Waiting, he rested his hands on the vanity and stared at himself, at the dilation of his pupils and the flush that tinted his cheekbones. And even if the clothing was less precise than he liked—one of the sleeves was riding up a little higher on his hand than the other and he was struggling not to adjust it—he was forced to admit he didn’t look… bad… this way. Nowhere near as dissolute as he’d feared when he’d agreed to the dance club. Though he still wished they would give it up and stay in. Perhaps he might convince Lisinthir with the proper plea? He turned from the mirror and halted abruptly.
Lisinthir had dressed Jahir so that he might walk into a coffee shop without remark. He had not bothered with such niceties for himself. Black boots, black pants—they looked like leather but were probably something as thin as his own—and a long-sleeved black shirt with a high collar that opened all the way to his navel, exposing a long vee of white skin and the pale gray shadows of claw scars. Over the shirt he wore black opera gloves with claw-tipped fingers. In leather. Surmounted by the mask with its horns he looked the dragon he was under the skin.
Jahir’s heart lurched, giving a tremendous double beat before it stumbled.
“Yes?” Lisinthir said, sliding his palms up Jahir’s arms.
“Yes,” Jahir answered, in Chatcaavan. And continued in that tongue, hoping but also terrified, “Keep me here tonight?”
“Mm.” A smile he felt just before Lisinthir pressed it to his lips. “Your accent improves.” And then, after another biting kiss, “But no. We go out, then we come in.”
Jahir sighed against his mouth and resorted to Universal. “I have not learned the language well enough if you can deny me.”
Lisinthir laughed. “Your ulterior motive surfaces.”
“Some of it, at least. I am crippled by the inability to call you something sweetly affecting.” Jahir closed his eyes, submitting to the caress on the back of his neck, made far too easy with the nape exposed by the braid. “There is no ‘my lord’ at all that I have seen in my studies.”
“No,” Lisinthir agreed. “They don’t have our notion of feudal ranking. But they do have titles. It is considered one of the ways to leave one’s insignificance behind. One prefers them to names.”
“Not unlike us,” Jahir murmured, thinking of all the names he and Lisinthir used. “So I should find something for you, if I want to distract you. Is that it? A Chatcaavan title.”
“If you can think of one,” Lisinthir said, amused. He was twisting Jahir’s braid around a finger, and the tug kept dragging his mind from its focus. Between his cousin’s proximity and his own rogue talent, it was far too easy to just… fall forward, into the haze of emotion and dimly sensed memory: of talons shredding skin, of howled challenges, of long, licking kisses that tasted of hekkret, exchanged in a dark and foreign bed. Jahir felt as if he was swimming in an unlit sea, bloodwarm and deep. He came up for air, exhaled, and found a word in the tongue of dragons. “Hunter.”
Lisinthir stiffened against him.
“Yes?” Jahir leaned back. “What one calls a master of hunting, because only such a master would be given the title.”
“Don’t tell me this word was in your vocabulary lessons.” Lisinthir touched a clawed fingertip to Jahir’s lip. The pinprick there was sharp: formed leather, and it tasted like it.
“No,” Jahir said, feeling his way through the process. “It was under your skin, awaiting release.” He closed his eyes as his cousin’s free hand smoothed down his back, lower, pulled him possessively near. “Hunter,”
he said again, low.
“And you are my Delight,” Lisinthir said against his ear. And sighed out. “Your distraction very nearly worked—”
“You like your title?”
Lisinthir growled. “Impertinent cousin mine. Yes, and you can feel it. But we are due at the dance club, so we are going.” He stepped away and took Jahir’s hand, kissing it, and used their third language, which, Jahir decided, was definitely the language of sex. “Now, my Delight.”
That they managed to gain the corridor Lisinthir counted a victory, and a necessary one, for his cousin’s use of his talent to seine for vocabulary struck him as astonishing. He’d been certain that the discovery that they were apparently mind-mages would have forever put Jahir off the possibility of employing those talents to win the war… but the afternoon riding, and now this… it made him wonder if his cousin was not lost to the cause. They had most of two weeks. By the end of them, perhaps things would change? And then… what? And how could he usher his cousin to that place?
Jahir was casting glances at him as they walked down the hall.
“Yes?” he asked, wondering more than ever what was under that carefully controlled exterior.
“You have done me a kindness,” Jahir observed. “No one is going to look at me at all, given the choice between us.”
Lisinthir chuckled. “There was no need to completely discomfit you when I am capable of being outrageous enough for us both.”
Jahir’s eyes traveled up toward the horns of the mask. “You have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Don’t we all?”
His cousin huffed softly. “It can be suppressed.”
“And suppression has led you down so many useful roads, has it.”
That blush, Lisinthir judged, was less modesty and more true embarrassment. He paused in the empty corridor outside their suite and set a hand on his cousin’s throat, just under the chin. He’d left very little of Jahir’s skin uncovered, and this was one of the few places he could touch, gather his cousin’s feelings with the stroke of his clawed fingertips. Even through the leather he could feel them now. “I apologize. That was too barbed a riposte.”
Amulet Rampant Page 18
