“I do forget,” Jahir murmured, abashed.
“You forget because you don’t want to remember.”
Jahir looked up at him, and the pain there… Lisinthir felt it echoing through the skin despite the narrowness of the point of contact he was sustaining.
“God and Lady,” Jahir whispered.
Lifting that hand to his lips, Lisinthir kissed it. “I don’t think you want to hurt yourself, cousin. But I suspect you would rather not think of your body and its inconvenient desires, and so you push them away. All of them.” He rested his cheek against those knuckles and brushed skin against far too defined joints. “You are beautiful, Galare. I would not want you to think otherwise. But you permit yourself no enjoyment of your desires, even the most necessary.”
Jahir put his head in his free hand. “Maybe I should be the one in your lap for this.”
“Move over, then.”
Once they’d rearranged themselves, and Lisinthir had spent several enjoyable minutes running his fingers through his cousin’s hair, Jahir said, “You brought me here to a place we’d have to eat from the same bowl and drink from the same cup so that you could feed me with your own fingers, didn’t you.”
“You really are too smart for me, Healer.”
Jahir looked up at him. “Do you believe that?” And then, “You do, don’t you.”
“That you’re more intelligent than I am? Absolutely.” Lisinthir leaned down and kissed his brow. “Too much intellect can be a handicap, though. I am not unhappy with the balance of gifts I’ve been granted.”
“So long as you think of them as gifts,” Jahir said. “And not as excuses to denigrate yourself.”
“Do you think I am? Denigrating myself?”
“I think you measure your worth in your utility, Nase’s Heir… and we know that we are disposable when we are no longer of use. But we don’t need to be useful to be worthy.”
“Don’t we?” Lisinthir asked, quiet.
Jahir caught his fingers in Lisinthir’s collar and dragged him down to be kissed, and it was startling to see him initiate, and deeply, deeply satisfying. When they parted, Jahir closed his fingers into a fist, keeping him in place… a gentle hold, one that relied on Lisinthir’s willingness to entertain it. But he was willing, and he met his cousin’s earnest gaze and accepted it, no matter how hard.
“We are all worthy of love, no matter what we’ve done lately to earn it.”
“We stray into philosophical territory,” Lisinthir observed.
“You strike into tangents in an attempt to hold the distance between us,” Jahir said. “Don’t. Even if this is the only standard you will accept, cousin, you have liberated slaves, transformed the Empire, saved the Alliance. What more must you accomplish before you are willing to admit you are not Imtherili’s bootless heir?”
Lisinthir closed his eyes and let his brow drop to rest against Jahir’s. “Maybe nothing will be enough.”
Jahir’s hand slipped up to cradle his face. “If I promise not to mortify my flesh… will you promise not to mortify your soul?”
“I’ll fail in that vow.”
“So will I. But we can aspire to the fulfilling.” A pause, then softly. “Please, cousin.”
Lisinthir inhaled, chuckled huskily. “Only because I can deny you nothing when you beg so prettily.” He kissed Jahir, soft drag of mouth on mouth. “And I have not saved the Alliance yet.”
“Incorrigible man.”
“I do my best.”
Jahir huffed, and the knock at the door drew both their gazes. It opened on the waitress, who stopped with her tray at her shoulder to stare. And then, sheepish, “They were supposed to tell you ‘no response’ is assumed to be permission.”
“Harat-Shar,” Jahir muttered.
Lisinthir laughed.
CHAPTER 12
It was in the nursery that the Slave Queen first saw the ramifications of the change that would race through the Empire, these ripples that were spreading from the Ambassador’s arrival, and overwhelmingly it expressed itself in energy. Like the harems, the nursery had languished in a spiritual and emotional torpor, and now… now when she entered, it was to the sight of Chatcaava doing something other than lying in corners, trying not to be seen, noticed… trying not to live. There were children playing games with each other and with the tongueless caretakers, writing and reading games, and both male and female children were playing them because the females, too, were learning. The only people who remained aloof from the heightened activity were the guards assigned by the Knife… and even they seemed more alert. They were no longer protecting the faceless assets of the Empire, but something more precious and vital. The Change had come here, just as it had to her in her tower. They now perceived the power in themselves, and her protection made it possible for them to grasp it.
It became part of her routine to visit the nursery and speak to the children there, and to Change into her Eldritch shape and talk with the slaves. Linking with her allowed them to grasp linguistic concepts they could bring to their studies, and this accelerated their learning. They took to those studies with eagerness, and watching them the Slave Queen wondered if the Surgeon could fix their mouths. Surely there was some way to regenerate organs, given how frequently male Chatcaava ripped one another to shreds in their honor contests. She should ask.
To her surprise, the Mother took to the work of overseeing the nursery with compassion and zeal. Each morning, the Slave Queen stopped at the harem to ask for her and together they made their way downstairs. The Knife revealed that the Mother lingered long after the Queen left, and that he’d detailed a guard to escort her on her return in the evening.
“Does it look suspicious?” the Queen asked him as they prepared for the descent. How slowly the days seemed to pass, knowing that she had to wait to call Laniis again and secure their route! But there was only one day left now.
“For the Mother to be traveling the tower?” The Knife grimaced, tucking his wings more tightly against his back. “All the guards here report to me now, and in the Emperor’s absence there is no one to gift the harem’s time to other males. We should be safe....”
“But?” she said, hearing it in his voice.
“But it is foolish to assume safety in the Empire,” the Knife said. “Anyone can be suborned.”
The Slave Queen sighed and wrapped her diaphanous shawl around her shoulders. “I wish I could disagree.”
“You know better, my Queen. Until the Emperor returns….”
And not even then, perhaps. The Empire would have to change before they could be safe, and how long would that take? Would she even live to see it happen? “Let us go.”
He led the way, disappearing into the thin shadows of the stairwell. Glancing once at the windows framing the morning sky, now advanced well past the sunrise’s brilliant rose, the Slave Queen followed.
The harem proper, however, was quiet with the kind of tension the Queen no longer associated with its chambers. Leaving the Knife at the door, she advanced into the room and said, “What goes on here? Where is the Mother?”
“Here,” the Mother said, scurrying toward her. But it was another female who answered the Queen’s first question.
“It is Second.”
“Second!” the Queen exclaimed. “Here?”
“In one of the private rooms,” confirmed the female. “With Song and Pretty.”
“Is this the first time he’s come?”
“Yes.” The female was watching her with unreadable eyes.
“Song and Pretty are not pain-lovers,” the Mother added, frowning. “And have not distinguished themselves in any other way.”
“They made their welcome clear to Second,” the female standing with them said. “That is how they have distinguished themselves.”
The Slave Queen glanced into the harem. “Is he hurting them?”
“No one has heard them scream.”
She glanced at the female sharply.
“You th
ink I am forward,” the female said. “But I think you would want me to be. You do not love fear, do you.”
“No,” the Slave Queen said. “What is your name?”
“Stripes,” the female said. Noting the Slave Queen’s gaze flickering over her solidly-colored body, she said, “I was not named for my patterning, but for what males enjoyed leaving on me.”
The Mother cringed, but the Queen ignored her. “Will you tell me what Second does while he is here?”
“I will watch.” The female lifted her chin. “It is in our interest to watch.”
“We all watch,” the Mother murmured.
“Except the Queen,” Stripes said, eyes on the Slave Queen’s. “She acts.”
“We are all capable of action,” the Queen said. “If you will watch Second for me, Stripes, that will be the beginning of your action.”
“And what will be the end?”
The Queen cocked her head. “I don’t know. That will be your choice.”
“Will it?”
The Queen laughed suddenly, hushed. “Yes. I sense that it will be.”
Stripes ducked her head and padded back into the harem, tail flicking. She settled on a bench near the room where Second was sequestered, leaving the Queen to study the room. The other females had scattered or were doing their best to look occupied, much the way the children had when she’d first visited the nursery. How many Chatcaava spent their lives hoping to go unseen! All of that would change—was changing now. The Queen turned her back on it and went with the Mother into the hall, where she resumed the downward march to the nursery. As they walked, she murmured, “Second is in the harem, Knife.”
The Knife said nothing for several steps. The Queen noticed his silence corresponded to how far they were between guards. “The right to use the harem is traditional for Second and Third.”
“The right to use the gift harem,” the Slave Queen said. “Singular visits to the Emperor’s harem are a privilege bestowed by him.”
“Maybe he gave Second the right before he left?” the Mother asked, timid.
Could he have? But wouldn’t he have told her? If not her, he would have told the Knife, surely. She glanced at him and said, “Did he?”
“If he did, I was not informed, my Queen.”
They continued almost to the nursery door without speaking again. Reaching it, the Queen paused to let the Mother precede her, then set her hand on the doorframe and looked at the Knife. He met her eyes, and in them she saw her own unease.
“Is this the sign we have been waiting for?” she asked him bluntly.
He looked away, jaw clenched. Resettling his wings against his back, he said, “There is an easy way to uncover the answer.”
She waited.
“We could ask.”
“Ask...” She paused. “You mean the Emperor.”
“There is no reason not to. He may not answer immediately, but this is a matter that wants confirmation.”
Even if they interrupted him? She thought again of his comment before he left, of how he could not trust himself to stay focused if she was there and in need of protection. Would this also split his focus?
And yet the Knife was right. “Then call him,” she said. “Without me, though.”
She wondered what he saw in her eyes to make him so still and pensive. But whatever it was, he shook the mood off and said, brisk, “I will make arrangements, my Queen.”
She inclined her head and followed the Mother inside.
“Tell me about some of these words you use,” Jahir said as they were walking back from the diner. When his cousin glanced at him, he said, “You told me about titles, but there are other important words, aren’t there? Beauty. Perfection. Delight. When I have my hands on your skin, I can tell they mean more than they seem. I assume this is some Chatcaavan thing.”
“It is, yes. Their language distinguishes between ideals and their reifications in a number of ways. The ideal is all that is perfect, the apex—things that are concrete, however, are subject to change and death and eventually forgotten.”
“How bizarre,” Jahir murmured. “And yet… I suppose their experience would make them sensitive to such things.”
“It’s an interesting tongue,” Lisinthir said.
“I am pleased to have access to your superior understanding of it,” Jahir said, and threw out his challenge. “The primers available in the u-banks are lacking in subtlety and breadth. I have learned more from you in these few days than I have since I began my studies, and what you know… it may make the difference between living and dying, on the border, or in the Empire.” He ignored the sharp look that got him and waited to see what he would earn as response.
Lisinthir stopped at the door to their room and folded his arms, and the closing of his body language was eloquent enough to a therapist. “I thought you were learning the language for lovetalk?”
“I think some might colloquially suggest ‘dirty talk’ as more accurate,” Jahir said.
The wicked amusement in Lisinthir’s eyes was exactly what he’d been hoping to elicit, so he knew his satisfaction was the foremost emotion under his skin when his cousin’s fingers lit on his mouth. “You did not just say so.”
“I believe I did.” Jahir lapped at the fingertips. “Truly, cousin. Do you blame me for wanting to know more?”
“And what ulterior motive are you hiding behind this facile reason?” Lisinthir asked, brow cocked. “I find I mistrust your meekness, cousin mine.”
Would it be the right time to press? Best not to yet. “I would not want to say as I fear you will dislike it.”
Lisinthir snorted and pressed on Jahir’s lower lip. “Talk.”
“It is the language you associate with your time in the Empire,” Jahir said, quieter. “And that is tied into all your vicious self-denials and angers. Do you blame me if I want to reclaim it for something healthier?”
Lisinthir hesitated, shoulders easing. Then he smiled his lopsided smile. “Healer.”
Jahir closed his eyes, kissed the fingertips. “I am what I am.”
“We’ll talk about it after your call.”
“Then you will teach me more?”
“I find it hard to argue with the therapist who has so obediently put himself in my lap to be fed fruit dripping with wine.” Lisinthir shook his head. “Denying you anything is a challenge.”
“I’m glad of it. I would hate to bore you—”
“You!” Lisinthir laughed. “Go! I am for my walk.”
Jahir inclined his head and withdrew, and when the door had shut behind him he rested his back against the wall and blew out a slow breath. Did his new ability work through walls? And could he wield it carefully enough not to be noticed? He tried, imagining it as the thinnest tendril of smoke, and thought he brushed against his cousin as Lisinthir receded toward the lift. Handy that, even if using it for what was essentially spying was deeply distasteful.
He had managed that conversation well… he hoped. Lisinthir liked to underestimate his own intelligence, but Jahir wouldn’t make such a mistake, and he didn’t truly think he’d done more than deflect his cousin from the real reason he wanted to have a better grounding in Chatcaavan. One did not need a degree in xenotherapy to know that Lisinthir would not want Jahir involved in the troubles brewing with the Empire… and Jahir guessed that one didn’t need to have learned psychology in the pit of a dragon’s dueling grounds to predict that Jahir planned to be involved anyway. This was an elaborate game they were playing beneath the more obvious one, the game where they pretended not to notice each other’s efforts while planning to subvert them.
They were, after all, Eldritch. The more important something became, the more it was subject to layers of obfuscation. They could no more have sustained this visit as a simple assignation than they could have changed shape themselves. Merely by participating, they were turning it into something more significant.
And he had made a decision, hadn’t he? To be involved. Jahir looked a
t his hands, opened and closed them, wondering how his body had not changed to reflect what he was becoming. Or had always been, apparently. But these talents, the way they worked in tandem with Lisinthir’s… if Vasiht’h was right, and this was the Goddess’s gift, would She have wanted him to hold them back from the use they were so obviously intended for? Was it not a violation of all that he’d been taught to turn from the duties the God and Lady required of him?
Was it wrong to enjoy it so much? Was he wrong in the head, to find himself wanting the fight? And did it matter in the end? The Pattern was moving.
So. Lisinthir would surely do everything he could to stop Jahir from participating, while preparing him simultaneously for the possibility that he’d find a way to do so anyway. It was, Jahir thought, savoring it, the finest of compliments from a man who’d done nothing but play the most lethal game of politics in the galaxy for most of a year. And Jahir hadn’t lied, anyway. His cousin did slip into the dragon’s tongue when distracted, and it was making an association. Just as leaning on the wall was reminding him of more pleasurable interludes. Shaking his head ruefully, Jahir went to the console and asked for the connection.
When Vasiht’h answered this time, he was rumpled in a way that made checking the local chronology unnecessary. Jahir said, “Oh, but I woke you!”
Vasiht’h yawned and put his cheek in his palm. “It’s all right. It’s actually mid-morning. We were just up late talking so we didn’t get to sleep at a reasonable hour.” The Glaseah considered him, eyes brightening. “You look better than you did last time you called.”
“I think I am better,” Jahir said cautiously, but… it appeared to be true. “Your advice was good advice.”
“So you won’t balk if we have a celebratory dinner when we get back?”
Jahir smiled a little, rueful. “No. And I know you are asking if I’ve been eating and the answer is, yes, my cousin is adamant on the topic.”
Vasiht’h slowly lifted his head, his ear feathers fanning. “This sounds like an epiphany.”
“He suggested I was practicing a form of self-neglect. And… you will tell me what I know to be true, which is that he is correct. Won’t you.”
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