“I… beg your pardon—”
“For you’ll have to learn to do so, you will note, if you want to please your future wife—”
“Which is rather a different situation!”
“Only in detail,” Lisinthir said, enjoying the fluster. “I assure you, having done both. You should have some practice. And I not only miss having someone over me, now and then, but you have something to learn from this.”
“That I am incapable?” Jahir asked, voice strangled.
“You will be more than capable, I assure you.” Lisinthir sat up, caught his cousin’s hair in a fist. “No. What I want you to learn, in your skin, in your mouth, in your heart, is that how you feel about what you’re doing is often far more significant than the action itself. This, I perceive, is a lesson you will find familiar given your profession.”
“Cousin…”
“Strip off the pants.” Jahir grimaced, but before he could object, Lisinthir said, gentler, “You fear to disappoint me. You won’t.” Shading the words white: “Trust me.”
“I do, but…” Jahir stopped, then smiled, pained, thought better of the conditional. “I do.”
“Better,” Lisinthir murmured.
“Must we do this here?” Jahir asked, after their clothes decorated the floor. “The bedroom will surely be…”
Easier? More expected? Lisinthir pulled his cousin over him. “We can repair there later. This now, though.” Winding his fingers through his cousin’s hair and dragging his head down by it. “Stop fretting. It’s no different than what we’ve been doing before. You remain my obedient servant; I remain your demanding cousin. I intend to use your body for my own pleasure, is all.”
“Is it?” Jahir asked, breathless.
“Mercilessly,” Lisinthir promised. “And you will please me, I promise.” He thought of the Emperor’s clawtips trailing up his sides, the arch of black wings over him, shuddered.
“I can’t be that!” Jahir exclaimed.
“You don’t need to be, and I don’t want you to.” Lisinthir yanked him down. “Be you, Galare. That is what I want.” He grinned, fiercely. “The musician, the healer, the therapist, the heir to the estate. I want him as well as the cousin, the innocent, the lover of knives and masks.”
“I don’t love masks,” Jahir murmured against his mouth.
“Liar.”
Jahir sucked in a breath and said, “Fine. I sometimes love masks. But I always love walls.”
Lisinthir chuckled, low, and said, “Now, kiss me, and make me believe it.”
That his cousin borrowed some of his emotions to make his actions possible, Lisinthir was well-aware… and didn’t mind. He let Jahir use him to find the courage to make the attempt, and once he had begun it, Lisinthir took back the control he’d allowed his cousin to assume. To show him that, yes, one could be over someone and still under them. And to do as he’d promised, and use his cousin’s magnificent body to his own purpose. He’d expected it to remind him of the Emperor and it did—he’d expected that reminder to make it harder to enjoy… but it didn’t. He loved the Emperor. But he loved Jahir too. And there was a delirious pleasure in the unexpectedness of it, and it made him laugh: a joyous laugh, easy and quick, torn from him with his ecstasy. He felt his cousin’s shy delight at it before Jahir asked, tentative, “Again?”
“Again,” Lisinthir said, and rolled him onto his back to continue the demonstration.
Much later, so much later that they’d repaired to the bed, Jahir observed, “You never cease with the teaching through demonstration.”
“Alas! My pedagogy is lacking in novelty.” Jahir nipped him near the shoulder and Lisinthir laughed. “Your criticisms have teeth.”
“I will not dignify that bit of wit with a response,” Jahir said. Quieter, he added, “But I do feel different.”
Lisinthir petted his cousin’s temple with the backs of two fingers, an idle caress. “Because?”
“Less virginal.” Said with gentle amusement, before gravity returned. “But also… you let me in.”
Tempting to point out the salaciousness of the comment, but the fact that his cousin had not shaded it white or gold or silver to prevent him from doing so intrigued—and concerned—him. “Did I.”
“This was something that cost you a great deal to learn,” Jahir continued, resting a hand on Lisinthir’s chest, near the heart. “Something you wrestled with while you were there. The question of whether you could commit acts in the right spirit and not be corrupted by them.”
How easy it would be to fall into melancholy, contemplating that struggle. The anguish of it. He remembered the Slave Queen’s arms around him, sheltering him as he fell apart… and how painstakingly he’d put himself back together again. Lisinthir stared at the ceiling, saw instead the canopy over his Chatcaavan bed with its ominous depictions of males wrestling one another into abject submission. “I was changed by them,” he said at last.
“We’re all changed by the events of our life. But this tonight… this was your way of illustrating to me that the core remains true.”
“Does it?” Lisinthir asked, looking at him. “You are the therapist, not I. In your years of work, have you observed it to be true?”
Jahir was silent, mind working. Lisinthir let him have the time, waited, found he wanted the answer badly. Had wanted it since they’d shared the moment on the courier before the battle, when he’d asked for the nerve block’s removal. The subsequent events had convinced him that Jahir did not think him a monster. But this question… this one cut closer than he’d been willing to admit. He could accept that others did not think him a monster far more easily than he could face the idea that he’d been warped from true by his own standard.
“I think,” Jahir said, quiet, “that unless we are shattered, who we are at core remains stable. I will always be…” He breathed in, sighed, smiled whimsically. “Jahir Seni Galare, a little too apt to self-sacrifice, submissive to the right hand, and wanting very much to do the right thing. And you…”
“And I?” Lisinthir prompted, low.
“And you will always be Lisinthir Nase Galare, swift to the defense of the helpless, easy with power, quick and vital and strong.” Jahir paused, then finished, “Unless you become Lisinthir Keldi Imtherili.”
That surprised him into a laugh. “I suppose I might, one day. Though if I take Imtherili back I will make a new family name. I want none of my father’s.”
“That would suit you,” Jahir leaned up, kissed him. Said, affectionate, “You are still you, cousin, despite the Empire.”
“And you are still you,” Lisinthir agreed, touching his fingertips to his cousin’s lips. “Despite having proven you are quite as good at giving as you are at receiving.”
Jahir flushed, shook his head. And smiled. “I find I like receiving from you better.”
“Once more, then,” Lisinthir said. “And after, sleep.”
His cousin hesitated, then said, “Yes, please.” And that smile was such sweetness that Lisinthir gave up denying himself. He adored the Emperor for his passion, his ferocity, for the challenge in their contests. He loved the Slave Queen for her gentleness, her courage, her intelligence. But he also, it appeared, loved his cousin, for the contradictions that made his surrender so poignant, among his many other virtues….
He had his dragons. His cousin would have his wife. This might be the only interlude they ever had together. If the once more before sleep became thrice… they could sleep a little longer in the morning. He would drink his fill while he had it.
It was so early when the Knife arrived that she was still asleep on the divan where once she had entertained her lovers. His hand on her shoulder dragged her from dreams dense with sweetness and fear, and the stickiness of them seemed to pull at her as she lifted her head to squint at him.
What she saw in his eyes made her struggle to sit up, pulling her blanket tightly around her shoulders against a chill more durable than any caused by cold. “You called. Is
it true? Did the Emperor not grant permission?”
“Worse, my Queen. We could not reach him to ask.”
“You... couldn’t reach him?” She waved him to the stool beside her, her racing heart clearing the shrouding sleep from her thoughts with nauseating alacrity. “That is not normal.”
“No. We should have received his messaging system, had he been engaged,” the Knife said. “Or the ship should have answered and taken the message for him. But the ship did not respond. Nor did the Emperor answer his personal tag. These things should not be possible. Not together.”
“Did the ship go down in battle?” she whispered, trembling.
“Possibly. Or our avenue to it is being blocked. By whom we do not know. Uuvek is at work on it.”
“The Emperor has enemies,” she said. “We already knew this.”
“Exactly,” the Knife replied, grim. “We know nothing more than what we already knew, my Queen. That the Exalted is besieged, and it may be that Second is behind it, or he may be innocent.”
But, she thought, the Knife doubted it. The set of his jaw, the way his lip was struggling not to curl back from his teeth, the hardness of his eyes... he presented every evidence of a male who felt betrayed.
The Queen thought of her flowers, and how much she missed them.
“We are not safe here,” the Knife said.
“No Chatcaavan is safe here,” the Queen replied, feeling resolve seeping into her, like the revelation of an alien body assumed for the first time after the Touch’s rapture. So quiet an epiphany to be so complete. “Let us finish with our plans, Knife.”
“We move, then. I need only to begin informing all those who will be abetting our flight. When shall I commence?”
When? How long could she tarry, and what could she learn in that time? The Knife was right: Second was in the perfect position to execute a coup. And she was in the perfect position to report on him. Did not the Emperor value knowledge like treasure? If Second was the Emperor’s enemy—if Second wanted the Emperor’s throne—then all that she could gather about him could be used against him. She would be responsible for crafting the weapon her master used to strike him down.
Such a thought. It dazzled with its audacity. More importantly, it was necessary. Why else had he left her here if not to exercise the fullness of her abilities on his behalf?
But how to balance that against the safety of those she’d been charged with?
She did not know the answer yet. So she gave the only answer she could. She met his eyes. “Do what you must so we can leave immediately. Wait for my word to commence.”
He bowed his head. “My Queen.”
For a long time after he left, she stared at the empty vase. Then she pushed the blankets aside and went into the day.
CHAPTER 14
Vasiht’h wasn’t sure which of the surprises surprised him most: that Kovihs offered to accompany him to Anseahla despite having to put his work on hold, that Sehvi had let him go despite it leaving the entire childcare burden on her shoulders alone, or that his brother-in-law turned out to be such good company. Apparently Kovihs wasn’t the only one who’d been missing other Glaseah. Vasiht’h loved Jahir deeply, but half a day of traveling with his brother-in-law convinced him of the sense of Kovihs’s observations about not being around his own kind enough. It was just… comfortable. The other Glaseah understood so many things implicitly that he would have had to explain to someone else, from the exact way saddlebag girths would itch at the most awkward part of the belly to how hard it was to nap in shuttles without enough room to stretch all four legs. That Kovihs himself was amiable, intelligent, and could take a joke was icing on the cinnamon roll. If Sehvi had sent her husband along to convince Vasiht’h of the wisdom of joining their households, well… she’d succeeded.
The procedure on Anseahla was exactly what he’d expected. Since there was no reason to favor one siv’t over another, Vasiht’h chose the one in his hometown and presented himself to request his addition to the queue for available surrogates. There he learned that the part of the process involving the selection of a priestess didn’t happen until after the people ahead of him had secured their children. The acolyte took down his name and assigned him to several days’ worth of information sessions, assured him that at the end of it he would be better prepared to make choices about how many kits he wanted and how involved he wanted to be with the temple’s surrogate, and then sent him away.
“How’d it go?” Kovihs asked when Vasiht’h joined him at the outdoor café.
“I’m twenty-ninth in line for the year.” Vasiht’h sat on the grass next to him, accepting the menu a passing waiter handed over. “Assuming I go through with it.”
“Any chance you won’t?”
“Not that I can see. Unless the presentations are full of gruesome horror stories…?”
Kovihs chuckled. “I wouldn’t know… they don’t force us natural childbirthers to go through the orientations.”
Vasiht’h chuckled. “Are you sorry?”
“That I missed them?” Kovihs grinned. “Not really. We had a few shocks but we figured things out. Smart people that we are, with biology degrees and everything.” He stared out over the lawn, shrouded by the liana-draped trees with their riotously colored tropical blooms. The cree-cree of the daytime amphibians filled the few silences in the café’s glade, busy with conversation and the occasional peal of young laughter. “I think if we had known, we probably would have been more afraid to try it. Sometimes nature protects us by keeping us ignorant.”
“Or making us forget,” Vasiht’h murmured.
Kovihs nodded. “Yes. There are experiences in life you have to leap into because that’s the only way you’ll find your feet.”
“I think all experiences might be like that,” Vasiht’h said, rueful.
His brother-in-law smiled over his cup of coffee. “So where to after this?”
“Home,” Vasiht’h said. “Or my mother will never let me hear the end of it.”
But his mother wasn’t the only one home, and while Vasiht’h was glad to see his nephews and nieces, the fur on his lower back bristled at the sight of his eldest brother. Fortunately between his bags hiding his spine and his wings obscuring his sides, no one could tell, and he forced himself to remain cheerful as he turned from greeting the children to Bret’hesk.
“Ariihir,” he said, wondering if alethir was even a construction and if it would have been an excessive insult to use it if it was. He leaned past his brother to hug his mother. “Dami. I’ve brought Sehvi’s spouse, as you can see.”
“I do!” His mother smiled and reached around him to pull Kovihs’s upper body into her arms. “Kovihs, so good to see you again. How are my grandsons?”
“Covering my lab with stick-glue and calling it high art,” Kovihs said with a grin.
His brother’s children were standing shoulder to shoulder in a neat line looking like the polar opposites of Sehvi’s rambunctious lot, but this revelation about their relatives caused several of them to share speculative looks. Seeing them, Bret’hesk said, “All right, karasen, off with you. You’ll see more of your uncle at dinner.”
They jogged away with only a few backward glances to assure Vasiht’h that they hadn’t been completely subjugated to his brother’s will. While he had no doubt that at least two of them were meek enough to flourish in the highly structured environment Bret’hesk preferred, he knew the others well enough to know that Bret’s authoritarian style had guaranteed teenage years wild enough to make anyone’s fur fall out in patches.
“So what brings you home?” Bret asked, ears perked. “I didn’t know you were coming, and I don’t think our parents did either…?” He glanced at Dami, whose serene expression remained inscrutable.
It was tempting to tell only his mother what he was about, but he was resolved to have the kits and the story was going to come out at some point. “I’m here to go to the temple.”
Silence. Then, smiling, his mot
her said, “I’m so glad.” And with a twinkle in her eye, “It’s about time.”
“About time!” He laughed. “Dami, I’m younger than you and Tapa were!”
“True, but you didn’t have to go through the long process of hunting around for someone to raise those children with! That’s the part that takes a while. You were smart, you got that over with while you were into college.” She grinned at him. “So you’ll be here a few days for the seminars? I hope you’ll stay here, both of you.”
At her inquisitive glance, Kovihs said, “I’m the moral support.”
“And the extra back for the bags,” Vasiht’h said, amused.
Looking from one of them to the other, Dami nodded. “You’re planning to joint-household?”
“We’re hoping,” Kovihs said. “If we can make all the puzzle pieces fit together. Sehvi and I have to be able to work, and of course we’re not sure what Vasiht’h’s mindbonded needs or wants.”
“We’ll figure it out, though,” Vasiht’h said.
She laughed. “Yes… yes, you will. Come on, then, make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get some cookie dough out.”
“Do you have any with fruit fillings?” Vasiht’h said. “Because I’ve lately heard that’s what my brother-in-law likes to snitch….”
“Tea cookie dough is easy to mix and it makes a good base for dollops of jam. Go put your bags in the guest room, love, then join us in the kitchen. It’s been too long since we’ve baked together!”
“I’m no good with baking, but I make a mean kerinne,” Kovihs said. “It’s got pepper in it! Should I…?”
“Oh yes!” Dami said, sliding her arm around his shoulders. “You come with me. I’ll put you to work right now.”
Vasiht’h reached over and undid the buckles on his brother-in-law’s bags, sliding them free. “I’ll put these away for us both. Also, kerinne with pepper sounds deadly.”
“It’s delicious, you’ll see. The pepper gives the cream some contrast.”
“Contrast! Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
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