Taji From Beyond the Rings

by R. Cooper

  Trenne slowly lowered himself and curled his legs to sit on the floor. If other Shavians were half as flexible, it was no wonder they sat cross-legged so easily. “You were exhausted from some travel.”

  Taji gave him the gesture he’d been saving for Nadir. “I’m not Koel Gia, with something to prove to the Olea,” he insisted stubbornly. “The Koel were dragged here but Eriat is trying something. If the ambassador wants to know what, Talfa is the one to ask. I couldn’t say what Talfa wants, but Eriat has a plan, and it wasn’t the plan that led him to invite the ambassador to his home.”

  “Tell Tsomyal.” Trenne sprang into motion, balancing on his hands once more, then turning and slowly lowering himself into a different position. The taut arch of his back was delicious.

  “What are you doing?” Taji wondered with a bit of strain. “Those aren’t sparring exercises.”

  “Sha children, even the lower classes, are trained in case we may join the Guards. Not any rank, not for some of us, but we are trained.” Trenne slowly lowered himself to the floor again. “They teach fighting, in many of the old styles, and this. It is…not simple to keep control. It comes with effort. There are many ways to learn it.”

  “It’s a centering exercise?” Taji guessed with surprise. “Do you need centering? Because of this morning?” Trenne’s gaze was too much. “Eriat was rude, but that wasn’t a surprise. Rinnah was. Not to me, but to you. Or, to me, through you. You bother her almost as much as her brother’s actions do. Still, I was surprised. I suppose I expected better of her because she was interested in history. Careless of me.”

  Taji propped his head up on his hand, then scowled. “They didn’t take care of me properly, which was an insult to you. Or a test or something—though possibly not, since the walk was led by Mos. But either way, Rinnah and Eriat were less than diplomatic. Which means if one, or both, of them is trying to be emperor or impress IPTC, they have a lot of work to do.”

  “Impress IPTC, through you?” Trenne asked, before nodding to answer his own question. “And yet you have chosen an animal. They must not know how to go forward.”

  “Animal.” Taji made a noise of disgust. “Every one of them got shown up by you today. Hmm, they don’t know what to do when their traditions come into contact with something new, do they? Which might have been fine if the planet had stayed isolated, but then the I.P.T.C. showed up, and now look at them.”

  Taji realized his foot was twitching and stopped it. Trenne, of course, was breathing carefully but the overall image of calm.

  “Getting your views—your entire world—shaken like that, in one moment, is a big deal,” Taji went on, voice rising. He tried to breathe like Trenne. “You have rules for yourself, but then they’re gone.” His lips felt warm, buzzing in a way that he knew was his imagination. “Completely shattered, and you have to figure out what to do next. But there’s no time to think, is there? You have a role, and IPTC is there, and the emperor has questions, and—”

  “You should sleep,” Trenne gently cut him off. “You didn’t last night, not as much as a human needs to function properly.”

  The only way Trenne could know that Taji hadn’t slept well was if Trenne also hadn’t slept all night. But his physiology was different.

  “You don’t fool me,” Taji huffed. “You and Lin brag about your tiny naps, but you both practically fall into ten hour comas at least once every few days. Your needs aren’t less, the cycles are just different. Probably all the constant light on this planet.”

  Trenne was not to be deterred. “You should sleep now while you can. Think later.”

  “Tell that to my brain.” Taji licked his lips again, watched Trenne stretch without rising from the floor.

  “I can bring you some zhatren,” Trenne suggested. His gaze landed on Taji lying across the bed before he closed his eyes. “It slowed you down—for a while.”

  Taji flopped onto his back. “Do not tempt me. I have to be sharp.” The dueling but not dueling Shavians on the ceiling wore open, unbelted sorias. He hadn’t noticed that before. “Okay. Maybe I didn’t sleep enough last night.”

  “If my presence bothered you, I will sleep on the floor tonight.”

  Trenne’s offer made Taji roll over to face him again. Taji took a deep breath. He did not feel centered. He hadn’t felt centered in a very long time and hadn’t even realized it until Trenne had kissed him. His thoughts were as big a mess as the files on his DD. The only thing anchoring him to the bed was the pain in his hip.

  He still rolled his eyes at Trenne. “We both know I wasn’t bothered by you being here. Not like that.” He took another deep breath, trying to remember himself at school, on the shepherd moon. Pulled into himself. Quieter, if not collected. “But there is a lot going on, and I’ve had no time to process, and…well, it’s been a while since I’ve slept next to anyone. Which I know is obvious, but there it is.”

  Taji focused on the pain as he held eye contact with the most beautiful being he’d ever met. “It’s not your fault and I’m not angry, but the, uh, situation we are in here is messing with my head. It’s…not knowing the rules, or where the boundaries are. Do I even have boundaries? I made you kiss me. I can touch you now, and I—” He stopped himself by dropping his face to the pillow. “I made you kiss me,” he mumbled. To the others, that had been a shehzha’s need, but Trenne would have seen his desperation, heard it in Taji’s quiet whine when Trenne had pulled back.

  Trenne’s movements were nearly silent, probably centering himself again, or standing up to stretch. “They doubted me, so you offered yourself to protect me,” he said, in a tone that implied Taji’s memory of that moment was incorrect.

  The wisp of air tickled Taji’s bare leg, though not quite registering on the synthetic skin of his other leg; Trenne crossing the room. He checked the door, then went still. “Shehzha are kept from the eyes of strangers so they will not be embarrassed later by their own behavior. A noble shehzha is…reaching for rays of violet, hoping to drag your fingers through them.”

  The softness in Trenne’s voice as much as the unfamiliar phrase brought Taji’s head up.

  Trenne stood at rest but not at ease, posture tense. “Nobles dress well, in light, fine weaves, in houses made of trees and flowers. And in those houses are the most pampered of shehzha, sheltered and safe.” Trenne locked eyes with him. “We were never permitted to see them. Only lower class shehzha, on occasion. But everyone knew they were there, and that they were as sweet and needy as any other. Some pay a great deal for those who will act like their shehzha, an adored and worshipped shehzha who take, and give, and give. It was something to dream about.”

  Beneath Taji’s breastbone was a tremor. He was weak and too warm.

  “But none of us, no one like me, would ever know one,” Trenne continued. “All I know are the rules of how to treat them and some stories. Outside of the noble gardens, shehzha are not as hidden. They are still protected, honored, but the beauty of them is in fulfilling their needs and offering them pleasure. There is no greater challenge. You cannot fail to do this. For that, the nobles regard shehzha with a trace of fear. They are not allowed to fail, so they are afraid of them, and of you. Your mouth, I think, and what you might say.” Trenne exhaled. “It was my honor to kiss you. To annoy them and shame them, but more because you are shehzha. And I have wanted.”

  “You grew up dreaming of a shehzha.” Taji resolutely did not allow himself to imagine fanciful things, like beautiful shehzha lying on luxurious beds, beckoning to Trenne. “This all has you confused, too. I see.”

  Trenne contested that sharply. “No.” He was very certain. “But I did not expect you to touch me like you do. You did not, before this. Not without zhatren in your system or unless a situation required it.”

  “Oh.” Taji should have known his humiliations weren’t over for the day. “That.” He sighed gustily before giving a weak laugh. “Humans are pathetic creatures.” Taji screwed his eyes shut. “It’s one of the first things
you hear, as a human in a nonhuman space. The jokes. What we crave, how easily we bond with people, animals, computers, anything that talks to us or even halfway resembles a person. We need others to be healthy. We have to socialize, even the most reclusive of us. We also usually need touch to feel psychologically at ease and safe. Sexual, for some, but platonic touches—that means nonsexual—for others.”

  He opened his eyes and did his best to keep eye contact. “But I was with nonhumans, or alone, or here. I guess I…being here and having to touch you… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I can stop. We can make up a reason.”

  The immediate softening in Trenne’s stance surprised him. “No. I would not want that, and if you need it—” Trenne’s ears abruptly went flat. “You have not touched the other humans on the team.” His visible anger was almost alarming. “On the moon, you did not have anyone to say goodbye to. Not even one friend.”

  “Trenne.” Taji swallowed.

  “And here you do not go out. Only the one time, and I—” Trenne frowned. “I stopped you.”

  “Trenne.” Taji struggled to sit up amid all the pillows. “It’s not a big deal.” He visited his father as often as he could. He’d even managed to get laid when working on the moon. “I’ve gotten by.”

  “But it is a need.” Trenne stepped closer to the bed. “I would have given you that if I had realized.” He stopped in front of Taji, serious and unhappy. “Other humans touch each other without fear. You could have asked.”

  He brushed the tips of his fingers across Taji’s cheek, then paused, waiting, watching Taji’s eyes flutter closed and then open again. Taji could feel the difference between Trenne’s hand and a human’s, but the touch wasn’t rough, or painful. Trenne repeated the movement, light across Taji’s cheekbone, and then dropped his hand to the back of Taji’s neck.

  Taji opened his mouth to catch his breath. His eyes went hot, stinging. The tremor under his breastbone was his heart. He lifted his head and tried, but he couldn’t speak.

  Trenne ran his palm over the knobs at the top of Taji’s spine, once and then again, before settling his hand there with gentle pressure. “I am here if you have need, Taji Ameyo. Always.”

  A shiver wracked Taji. The unsteady shaking in his chest spread to his limbs.

  “Are you cold?” Trenne asked. His hand had not moved, would not move, unless Taji demanded it.

  “No,” broke fiercely out of Taji. He met Trenne’s eyes, then shut his. Bowing his head hid his face but not his shaky breathing. “No, I—” His voice sounded wet, thick. Trenne began to pet him again, one finger, slow and careful at Taji’s spine. The rest of his hand did not move. Taji didn’t want it to. “I can’t…I want…”

  When he didn’t finish, Trenne’s other hand landed on his shoulder. “Peha, what do you want?”

  “Trenne,” Taji whispered in complaint, because it was easier to never ask when he couldn’t ever have. But he turned his face to press it blindly to Trenne’s arm and burned to hear his desperate hiccupping gasps. “Don’t ask me that. Shehzha means anything, and I can’t think. They would give. You would give. And I…” want. “I’m scared,” he said instead, shuddering for warm caresses he hadn’t earned but wasn’t going to refuse. “I’ve never had anything. Never been offered. What if I do something wrong? What if I hurt you? Look how weak I am already. Greedy.” Trenne firmed the hold on the back of his neck, and Taji took one last, deep breath. “Sorry.”

  “You are tired with more than lack of sleep.” Trenne’s fingers found the side of Taji’s throat, tender places beneath and behind his ear. They swept over sensitive skin, raising goosebumps. “You have not been using your translator and this language is still new to you, though you are fast. You have new rules to learn, and you have done it without a need being filled—a need you said humans required. But now I know and can help you.”

  “Do too much already,” Taji mumbled without leaning away from Trenne’s arm. With the initial panic slipping away, he was drained and warm. Trenne’s hands felt good. Trenne felt good. “Is this your honor, too?”

  Trenne didn’t hesitate. “It is.”

  Taji fought to open his eyes. “You’re also tired, or should be. Not a single person here aside from that servant has been kind or even decent to you. And Laviias, the playground of the Olea, is full of tension. You haven’t slept properly in days and now you have to deal with me.”

  “My honor,” Trenne repeated levelly, which was Trenne practically digging in his heels.

  Taji wished he could be that certain about anything. Then he remembered he was dealing with a hurat raised among the Sha, and the Sha were only direct when forced to be by a demanding shehzha.

  “Are you ever scared, Trenne?” he asked, on a weary sigh.

  Trenne did not disappoint him. “Always,” he replied immediately. “For the ambassador, and the others. For you.”

  That, Taji could believe. Trenne spent a lot of time saving him. “What about you?” he wondered anyway. “Do you worry about yourself?”

  Trenne was still. “I have concerns with the I.P.T.C., but they were the first people to make me feel I had value, small though it was. I was—am—a soldier to them. But they invested in me, taught me, promoted me. I am afraid of losing that. And there have been times I might have died.” Taji lifted his head. Trenne resumed tracing the curve of Taji’s cheekbone and jaw, then stopped again. “The Major—my major—and Tsomyal’s last assistant,” Trenne said abruptly. “We are on our own here, far from IPTC. We have no way to say they and Tsomyal were poisoned, although two of them died, and the ambassador was ill for a long time and has not yet recovered.”

  Taji had suspected, but no one had ever said it. Not even with his life on the line, along with everyone else’s, possibly more. In a few hours, he was probably going to be terrified, but for now he kept thinking of Tsomyal accepting tea and midye that could be poisoned after being poisoned, and how Tsomyal hadn’t ever seemed to hesitate in taking a sip.

  “I asked for help,” Trenne went on, gentler now. “I meant soldiers. I warned them a new translator would be in danger.”

  “And they didn’t care,” Taji finished for him, unsurprised.

  “So I am afraid. For all of us, and you.” Trenne’s thumb paused below Taji’s lower lip, then he dropped his hand, leaving just the one at the back of Taji’s neck. “Tsomyal is using you to disturb things, to see what the nobles will do and to have the protection of a shehzha. I understand it and how Tsomyal might view it as harmless, but it does not make it safe. That’s why I sent Lin and Nadir when I could not be there. It might even be why Larin sent the Imperial Guard to you. But their loyalties are not ours. Do not trust them.”

  Taji shook his head. He hadn’t planned on trusting them. “You think Larin really cares for my wellbeing?”

  “I think he publicly scorns what he fears and wants,” Trenne answered with that same startling directness, as if all it took was one small question. “You are IPTC and you can destroy him. You are shehzha and he cannot touch you. He will have to find some other way to hurt you.”

  Taji wrapped his hands around Trenne’s arm. “Like hurt you?”

  Trenne didn’t deny it. “Can you sleep now?”

  “Oh.” Taji jerked back. “I didn’t mean to make you keep touching me. I’m not… that kind of shehzha,” he finished at last, stumbling. “I’ll do my best to sleep.”

  “I will also, if you do not object.” Trenne moved to dim the lighting and check the door, again, leaving Taji to watch him approach the bed.

  Taji fell back onto his nest of pillows and stared through the shadows as the bed shifted and dipped with Trenne’s weight. His limbs were heavy but his eyes were wide open.

  Larin and poison ran through his mind, rain and ruins, Talfa’s downcast gaze and Lin’s shame of her own accent. Rinnah’s clever mind. Mos stepping in front of her. Tsomyal scheming and watching. And then Trenne, young and without value to anyone here, catching a glimpse of a shehz
ha and wanting.

  “Trenne,” he whispered in the near-dark, and felt Trenne turn toward him. “Touch me there again. Please. It helps.”

  The thoughts faded, slowed, once there was firm but gentle pressure on the back of his neck. Taji breathed, carefully, in and out until the heat was familiar again, then shut his eyes. “Thank you.”

  “It is my honor,” Trenne murmured, a warm, close presence. And for the first time, that phrase made Taji smile.

  HE WOKE again, briefly, sometime later, his nose squashed against Trenne’s shoulder, his arm across Trenne’s chest. “Trenne,” he murmured, questioning and complaining, “Peha means star.”