CHAPTER 10

After asking to be taken to bed, Jahir was expecting to be asked—to be made—to do something new, something difficult, something excruciating.

He’d been right.

“No, cousin.” Lisinthir pressed his palm flat on Jahir’s chest, near the shoulder. “No turning over this time. I require you on your back, where I can see your face.”

“I don’t—”

“Want to be seen?” Lisinthir leaned down and bit him beneath the collarbone on a piece of innocuous skin nowhere near any erogenous zone that might have accounted for its electric effect on him. Maybe it was the way his cousin rolled it between his teeth, pricking without digging, a promise of cruelty like the bouquet of a wine before it touched the palate. “I know very well you don’t want me to watch you climax, cousin. That would be a bridge too far, would it not? Too great a vulnerability. Not only that, but a witness makes it impossible to deny the event happened.”

“Cousin—”

“Don’t,” Lisinthir said, and there was anger there, enough to stipple Jahir’s sides with gooseflesh. “You forced my hand yesterday. I understand why you did it. I even allowed it. But you will not lead from behind, cousin. If you are here to be beneath me—” That knee between his thighs shoved them apart—“then beneath me you will stay. Do we understand one another?”

Could he speak past desire that strong when fear kept his mind clear enough to recognize it? He could, but his voice was hoarse. “Cousin… forgive me.”

Lisinthir met his eyes, searched them with an implacability that transfixed him, prey before the predator. Then his cousin’s gaze softened. He touched a fingertip to Jahir’s lips. “Always. But don’t push me on this one, Galare. I gave you what you needed because otherwise you would have flown apart. But I am charged now with your physical wellbeing, and I will not be managed when I am… busy…” Said with a kiss just beneath Jahir’s closed eye, “…seeing to your ecstasies. So. Are we understood?”

“Yes,” he managed.

“Good. Then this time I want to watch your face. And you….” A trailed finger up Jahir’s throat, “may watch mine, if it pleases you. But I am planning to make you suffer, cousin, and the first thing you must suffer is the knowledge that you are naked before me.”

“And you?” Jahir asked, unable to help the question. “Are you naked before me?”

Lisinthir gripped his chin. “Get your intellectualizing in now, cousin. You will forget words soon enough.”

Jahir shuddered. “And if I said that soon enough was not soon enough….”

“Then I would agree. And in fact, as you seem nearly incapable of silence, I will see to it.”

“See to—” Jahir stopped at the fingers that appeared on his mouth, and then slid into it. Startled, he looked up at his cousin and found him looming with a sly smile and a heavy-lidded look.

“Fingers, tongue, other things,” Lisinthir murmured, hooking his fingers behind Jahir’s teeth and shaking him lightly by that grip. “But I won’t leave you an empty mouth so you can fill it with words that order your thoughts. So—we begin. Suck, cousin.”

The next hours were torment in a way Jahir would have been hard-pressed to imagine prior to his deflowering. He’d thought he would always need physical pain to drive his thoughts into abeyance. Lisinthir taught him otherwise; he could reach that place of perfect calm merely by being forced to experience his own dissolution and know it was being seen. And then doing it again… and again… and again, until he no longer fought it, until the satisfaction that oozed from his cousin’s skin sank into his own and became pleasure that he could please someone so… utterly… demanding. He even earned his mouth back, later in the night, but by then he’d forgotten how to use it for words. He existed as a series of sensations: the ache of a jaw held open too long, the pounding of his pulse in his throat, the cling of the bedsheets to his back when he arched off them.

It was a gentler transition into the peace of submission, and it was easier to drift back from it. Did he like it better than the shock of crossing over due to violence? He couldn’t tell. They were different experiences… they both had something to recommend them.

Lisinthir’s low laugh brought him from the reverie. He tried to ask what had inspired his cousin’s mirth and discovered that he’d been idly sucking on one of Lisinthir’s fingers while thinking.

“That lesson took, I see.”

“Pardon me,” Jahir murmured, finding it odd to be speaking again. He moved until he could put his cheek on his cousin’s sweat-slick chest. Their state could charitably be called messy; despite his habitual fastidiousness, he found he didn’t mind so much.

“So,” Lisinthir said, using that damp finger to trace Jahir’s lips. “Fin for your thoughts.”

“Are we done then?”

“I think I have wrung us both out enough,” Lisinthir said. “So yes. You may return to psychoanalysis if it pleases you.”

He considered that, drowsy. ‘Wrung out’ was an inadequate description of his lassitude: he truly had been ridden hard and put away wet. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Please you? To psychoanalyze?” Lisinthir snorted, smiled. “I would wonder if I had accidentally concussed you.”

“You did nothing rough enough to merit the concern,” Jahir murmured, eyes closing. Lisinthir was still petting his lips—his very bruised lips, by now—but that ache was pleasure, too. “Though had you asked me, I would not have believed it possible to… convince me… to enjoy myself without violence. Not like this, with you.”

“There is more than one sort of violence, is there not?”

That brought Jahir’s head up. He sampled the emotions he could feel through his cousin’s skin and said, “You want to drink.”

“I’m thirsty, yes. But I don’t actually want alcohol. What I want is a smoke.” Lisinthir grinned crookedly. “The healers-assist gave me some variant of it involving water vapor and healthsome herbal extracts, if you’ll believe.”

Jahir laughed. “I do believe. And also that you found it unpalatable as a replacement for the hekkret.”

“Medicine is no replacement for vice, no.” Lisinthir chuckled and left his lips alone, transferring his attention to hair tangled and wet, stuck to Jahir’s neck and shoulder. “I enjoy a post-coital smoke, but somehow it’s not the same, knowing it’s good for me.”

“You would make me worry about you….”

“No.” Lisinthir tugged at a knot in Jahir’s hair. “Brace yourself.” As he pulled it out, he added, “So is this pain arousing?”

“I don’t think so,” Jahir said from between gritted teeth.

“Because?”

“The context lacks poetry.”

Lisinthir laughed. “Ah! So without an experience to remind you of possibilities, you default to normality? Is that it? And if I were to eroticize the untangling?”

“Is that possible?” Jahir asked, and knew the moment he’d asked that he should have thought through the repercussions of asking. It was too late when he found himself bent backwards by the fingers pulling his hair, arched like an offering.

“And now?” Lisinthir asked. “Your throat is nicely exposed. Your chest as well. If I continued, I might peel the rest of you back for… examination.”

“I am going to regret using that metaphor earlier, aren’t I?” Jahir asked, breathless.

“You did want my cruel hand,” Lisinthir observed, amused. “Don’t complain when I use it.”

He couldn’t help it—he laughed, and it was happiness. “Oh! But how I love you, cousin.”

Lisinthir brushed his nose down the line of Jahir’s neck, and his smile was in his voice when he said, “I love you too, Galare. And now… will you ask for release?”

“Should I ask for release,” shaded red, “or release?” Shadowed. That earned him a long lapping kiss along his collarbone and he shivered and chose the shadowed. “Release, certes. You have used me up, I vow it, I can take no more.”

A glimmer off dark eyes, looking up his throat at him. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. And… I believe we were on the topic of violence.”

“In more ways than one.”

“And you were saying,” Jahir said, his thoughts clarifying as the pressure on his hair eased and his cousin returned to idle stroking. “About emotional violence. Which… I imagine you have a great deal of experience with, don’t you.”

“Ah?”

Jahir glanced at him. “Your family.”

Lisinthir sighed and stretched back, pressing the back of his free hand against his brow. The other rested loose on the back of Jahir’s shoulder. “Yes. That would be where I learned to recognize it, I suppose. The Pelted would have called it an abusive situation.”

“And we would have called it…”

“Normal for a noble Eldritch family?” Lisinthir asked, dark.

“Fraught,” Jahir said firmly.

“A euphemism.”

The disgust underlining the word throbbed in the skin beneath Jahir’s cheek. He set his hand on his cousin’s chest, spreading his fingers. “We are past masters of such doubletalk, yes. I don’t imagine they laid a hand on you, ever.”

“Of course not. We’re Eldritch. We don’t touch.” The disdain now was palpable. “Doing something as honest as hitting someone we’re disappointed in would be gauche, when we could and should destroy them with words instead. And no, cousin, I do not want your pity, so you can stay its flood, if you will.”

“Can we dissemble thus?” Jahir asked suddenly. He felt his cousin’s sharpened interest, his blade of a cousin. Looking up to meet Lisinthir’s eyes, Jahir said, “Is there any use in doing so, when we are lying skin to skin?”

That must have evoked a memory, because he felt the piercing melancholy, the shock of the rightness of it. Lisinthir said, low, “No. No, there’s no lying with skin. And this is what we have together, isn’t it.”

“I like what we have together.” Jahir kissed him, a bare chafe of his too swollen lips.

“Like it,” Lisinthir repeated, and there was some amusement there, and a great deal of tenderness.

So he admitted, husky, “Crave it, truthfully.”

Lisinthir drew his hand up Jahir’s shoulder to the back of his skull and cupped it, gentle. Jahir wondered what he was thinking that he wouldn’t say, and why it hurt so much… but he knew his cousin well enough to know asking would not yield him the answer. Not yet. So he let the silence stretch, rubbing his nose lightly against skin, feeling the ache behind his teeth, under his tongue, where Lisinthir had been curving his fingers and the nails had scratched wet flesh.

“No cruelty in your family,” Lisinthir said after a while. “Not to produce someone like you.”

That compliment was so intense, and so painfully revealing, that Jahir pretended he didn’t recognize its significance. “No, nothing like. We both grew up loved. Amber tended toward rebellion but though he was upbraided he never felt belittled or unwanted.”

Lisinthir chuckled softly, his fingers idly petting again. “I’m surprised he wasn’t the one who fell in love with your cousin. She’s a radical herself, is she not? Carnal relations with a human or two, one of them female….”

“Oh, he loves her,” Jahir said, smiling. “But more as a partner in crime and a sister than as a love interest. In fact….”

“In fact?”

Jahir sat up, pushing his hair back from his face. “Mother and I always wondered if he and the heir might make a match of it.”

Lisinthir’s brows rose. “The princess? Bethsaida?”

“Liolesa’s heir, yes.”

“After her turn in the Empire, I imagine she won’t be making a match of anything with anyone,” Lisinthir said after a moment. “She did not come back whole.”

Jahir balled his fists against his knees, tensed. Did it make sense? It had to make sense. When Lisinthir pushed himself up and searched his gaze, Jahir said, “Did anyone ever say why she left the homeworld? I can’t imagine the Queen approving of such a jaunt.”

“I doubt she did,” Lisinthir said. “You’re thinking that the princess decided to go after your brother.”

“Amber left long before she must have,” Jahir said. “And he is a terrible correspondent. If they had wanted to talk….”

“Ah.” Lisinthir leaned back on an elbow. “So, the infatuated heir decided to follow her beau off-world.”

“Possibly with his encouragement,” Jahir said, low. “God and Lady.”

“Small wonder Fleet recruited him,” Lisinthir said. “Having seen his lady fair taken by the Chatcaava? He is probably on the border, doing his best to punish them for their temerity.”

“Do you think?” Jahir asked, startled.

“That Fleet recruited him? Absolutely. That he might have been involved, perhaps accidentally, in inducing the heir to leave the homeworld? And that her disposition thereafter might have infuriated him into a life of vigilantism?” Lisinthir’s smile was faint. “You know him better than I do, cousin. You tell me.”

“I’m afraid it sounds all too plausible. And I fear for Amber’s heart...what a blow to have sustained! For them both! God and Lady, to think our family might have some share in the responsibility for the heir’s destruction....”

“How serendipitous that your family also has a licensed xenotherapist!” Lisinthir said. When Jahir stared at him, he finished, “If you are to shoulder the blame for Bethsaida’s mental breakdown, cousin—and the pretext for your doing so is shaky indeed—then you will have to accept the neatness of the solution to that guilt. Yes?”

Jahir’s laugh was unwilling, but he let it leave him anyway. “You are terrible, cousin.”

Lisinthir caught his hands and tugged until Jahir was straddling him. The palms that reached up to cup his face were warm and he surrendered to their demand that he lean down for the kiss that stripped his thoughts from him. When Lisinthir let him breathe, he gasped in, shaking, and then sighed and rested his brow against his cousin’s.

“Beautiful lover.” Salacious in their tongue. In Chatcaavan: “My Delight,” a reminder of too many hours beneath him, gasping. Lisinthir trailed the backs of two fingers down Jahir’s temple, cheekbone. “You tempt me.”

“You can have me,” Jahir whispered. “I won’t say no.”

This kiss he received on the tip of his nose and the reprieve it implied seemed less whimsical now after hours of lovemaking, and more like a gift. “And because you won’t, it is mine to stop you.”

“Such a wanton, I,” Jahir murmured.

Lisinthir rested a finger across his mouth. “You are a generous and irresistible lover, Jahir Seni Galare, and I will not hear you denigrate yourself, even in jest.”

“Is it denigration? When it’s true?”

“Therapist.” Lisinthir nipped his lower lip. “Words have context. Our culture gives that one a negative cast.”

Jahir accepted that, head lowered, knowing Lisinthir would sense his capitulation through their skin and not wanting to interrupt the caress on his back, the little touches on his face. Was he a wanton for needing them? Or was he trying to make up for decades of starvation for physical affection? He could have sought that from Vasiht’h, and his partner would have given it gladly… but how could it have meant what it needed to mean when the Glaseah could not understand how painful giving and receiving that touch was?

He was grateful, suddenly and intensely, for his cousin, and dropped a kiss on his throat by way of thanking. The hand on the back of his head made him shiver, and it was as much fatigue as longing.

“Me too,” Lisinthir said against his hair. Sighed. “Let us wash and go to bed. We have a long day before us.”

“More riding?” Jahir asked, sitting up reluctantly.

“You will wish it when you hear what I plan—”

Jahir eyed him. “Which is…?”

Lisinthir grinned, resting his hands on Jahir’s thighs. “Tomorrow, cousin. Let us not borrow its troubles before time.”

The nursery was quiet the following afternoon when the Slave Queen entered it with the Knife at her back. Was it always thus? That she didn’t know enough about the normal rhythms of life there struck her as pitiable, and she no longer liked the idea that she might be pitiable. She had too much to accomplish to allow herself the luxury of subsiding once again into passivity.

The Mother was awaiting her, trying to hide her anxiety and failing, and her distress was communicating itself to the children. Most of them had dispersed to the edges of the room where they might be overlooked; all save the ferocious Gale, naturally, who hovered near the Mother with a scowl worthy of the Emperor’s get. His meek companion was with him also, though. What relationship obtained there, she wondered? And who had allowed him to sustain that connection when doing so was weakness?

“You trust the guards this shift?” the Slave Queen asked the Knife, quiet.

“I trust all the guards in the tower, my Queen. They are my choices.”

She nodded, using the gesture purposefully to begin preparation for the Change. “Stand by the door, though, please.” At his hesitation, she added, “You will be able to see.”

His eyes glowed. “Thank you, my Queen.”

“See what?” the Mother hissed. “What is it you plan?”

“I plan to bridge a gap,” the Slave Queen said, watching the female slaves see to their chores, ignoring the visitors.

“What does that mean?” Gale asked the Mother, anxious. “What’s she going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is your birthright,” the Slave Queen said to him. “Watch and learn.” She dipped her head and spread her hands, palms up… thought of the Ambassador, so long sped to have been gone so few days. Oh, my lord! She thought. We will meet again. Surely we must. With a breath, she closed her eyes… and Changed. She had sought this form so often the differences no longer staggered her. These eyes, placed so strangely, and yet they had seen the face of the beloved. These breasts, unexpected, which had known the touch of lovers. The solid bones that had taken the weight of the males she had fallen in love with—the skin that reminded her of one of them. She turned her palms to watch that skin crinkle around the bases of her fingers, so fragile, so translucent. All the air petted her, as if in apology for the caresses she could not ask for, the kisses she could not receive.

And yet, such a gift the Ambassador had made her, had made them both! Because this frangible shape, so delicate, so easily broken, was also powerful in ways her Chatcaavan body wasn’t, could never be.

The Slave Queen lifted her Eldritch head and beheld the stares of all the Chatcaava in the nursery, no matter their age or station. And smiled with alien lips.

“The Change!” Gale whispered, shocked.

“The Change,” the Knife said, reverent.

“An alien!” the Mother squeaked. “You are an alien, like the one you sent to save me!”

“I am, yes.” The Slave Queen rolled these shoulders, so much simpler than her Chatcaavan ones with their extra strands of muscle leading to the wing-arms on her back. As she stretched her toes, she studied the female slaves in the room. All of them had drawn back toward the wall at the arrival of the visitors, and her Change had driven them into the shadows. But none of them had fled. Did they feel some responsibility toward their charges? One strong enough to keep them near in the face of disruption and possible danger? Or were they curious?

How many of them, she wondered, were as deviant as her Knife with his provincial attitudes, the Mother with her love of children, the Surgeon with his seditious thoughts? How many of them might she lure to her cause?

She padded toward the wall and stopped there, letting them look their fill. Then she said, “With this shape, I can read your thoughts, and you may hear mine. We might converse. Which one of you would like to speak again and be heard?”

Behind her she heard the Knife inhale sharply. She kept her eyes on the tongueless females, waiting. She was no hunter to have learned patience in the games that males played… but females in the Empire learned a persistence all their own. And she was rewarded at last, not by one, but by several of them stepping forward. As she watched, fascinated, they halted and stared at one another. Did they consult by some means she could not discern? Because three of them stepped back, leaving one female waiting for her. An older Chatcaavan, dark brown hide and pale pink eyes, with a forthrightness to her manner that seemed almost belligerent.

The Slave Queen couldn’t blame her for it. How long had this female been imprisoned in a cage more complete than any harem?

There was a question in the other female’s eyes. The Queen said, “It is not difficult. We touch, that is all.” She offered her hands. “Like so.”

The female eyed her palms, then cautiously reached for them, grasped them. Her expectation filtered through the skin, but that was not enough. The Slave Queen bent closer, concentrating. Reaching the Ambassador had been easy: so much practice, and his willingness, and the talent native to his own body supplementing her borrowed one. This needed all her attention, and she lost awareness of the room as she stretched herself out, extending herself further and further until… with a snap, she heard the other female as clearly as water splashing, and that was overwhelmingly the vocal quality of this female: a plangent clarity, a singing voice.

/This surely cannot work./

/But it has,/ the Slave Queen said.

The female jerked her head up, eyes widening.

/You are not imagining it,/ the Slave Queen added. /You are sensing the true talent of this body shape, which I have borrowed from an alien who taught me its use. They read thoughts and emotions through skin./

The female’s astonishment suffused the Queen’s mind.

/I know,/ the Queen said. /I found it unbelievable myself./

/Why?/ the female said suddenly. /Why do you do this? What have you to gain? Who will punish you for the attempt?/

The Queen opened her eyes and found the other female’s narrowed. /No one will punish me for this. I do it because my Emperor needs allies, and he has taught me to seek them in unexpected places./

/You would believe any of us capable of being his ally when we are slaves to his children./

She evaluated the other female, glanced at the other slaves. /You are too old to have been instated by him. You and the others are my sire’s slaves, aren’t you?/

The female’s hands twitched in hers. /I… I don’t know. Time goes by and so little changes. We’d heard there was a new Emperor—is this the one you serve, then?/

/He is nothing like my sire./ The Slave Queen willed the other female to hear her sincerity. /My sire ripped my womb from me to deny it to his enemy. This Emperor comes to me, listens to me, asks what I need./ She remembered the taste of salt on her tongue, the feel of the briny water smacking her ankles. /He took me to see the sea, because I asked./

The female paused. /How is he not dead yet?/

/Because he is too strong for his rivals to kill him./

An audible snort, puffed through the female’s nostrils. /A male who coddles his Slave Queen is either too weak to survive or too mad to lose. Which is it?/

The Queen smiled, feeling it stretch the mobile lips of her Eldritch face. /He’s still alive./

Another pause. Then the female chuckled, a husky noise in her throat. /I am Lead Attendant./

/You have a title!/

/Why shouldn’t I?/ Lead Attendant said. /No one can hear me to reprimand me for insolence./ She indicated the other females with her nose. /Those are Lead Milk and Lead Attendant for the Male Nursery. We know each other by our actions, we three. The others had names before they were forced here. I don’t know if they have kept them./

/Then I will ask./

/And then what?/ Lead Attendant said. /None of us can speak. None of us can read or write. If the only way we can communicate is through you, what good does it do anyone?/

What good indeed. Aloud, the Slave Queen said, “Gale?”

The boy’s voice came from behind her, closer than she expected. His voice was guarded but there was no concealing the fascination that had brought him almost to her side. “Here.”

“You are learning your strokes? Numbers and letters both? I assume the boys are taught.”

“Yes,” he said, puzzled. “The tutor comes in through the window. He only teaches us, not the females.”

“And do you know your strokes well?”

She could almost hear him drawing himself up—no, she did hear it. His wings had mantled, and his voice came now from a slightly higher position. “I know them better than anyone else. I read many things. I read sometimes to the babies, too.”

“Good,” the Slave Queen said. “And you are your father’s true son, yes?”

“Yes.” Wary again, but still curious.

“Then this task you will undertake on his behalf,” the Slave Queen said, holding Lead Attendant’s eyes. “You will teach these females to read. In fact… you will organize your fellow male children and put them to work teaching your sisters to do so also.”

“Sisters,” he said, testing the word, which was ancient, which had fallen out of use.

“They are that.”

Lead Attendant was breathing deeply, her pupils thinned. /You mean it. You would subvert everything. You would have us learn what is forbidden to us./

/Yes./

/Knowing what will befall us if we are caught at it./

/If my Emperor catches you at it, he will congratulate me for securing your allegiance. If some other male catches you at it, one not chosen by my Knife for your security, you will all be killed./ The Slave Queen cocked her head. /I lay the choice before you. Stay safe and mute. Or win back your voices, and gamble on the Emperor who would protect you while you do so./

Lead Attendant’s hands twitched in hers.

/You need not answer—/

/But I do, because the answer is easy./ The other female glanced at the children. /It is hard to give up safety. One clings to life, even a bad life. But it is not much of a life, what we have. For a chance to have more…yes, Slave Queen. I will risk it./

/Good. Then I go to make the offer to the others./

Lead Attendant dipped her head, eyes closed. /Thank you./

/We are both female, Lead Attendant. If we do not help one another, who will?/ The Slave Queen slid her hands slowly from the other female’s. Turning, she considered her watchers. Gale had drawn close enough to be able to touch her, if he extended his hand. He hadn’t, though. “Well?” she said to him. “Didn’t I give you work to do?”

Gale glanced at the Mother, who said, “She is the Queen.”

“It would be fun,” he said after a moment.

“Go find some assistants,” the Queen said. “While I talk to the other females.” As Lead Milk stepped up to her, she said, “This may take a while.”

Sediryl made herself a cup of hibiscus tea after seeing the Fleet personnel off with her promise to find them an answer. She wasn’t thirsty, but her hands kept twitching in an all too familiar agitation. How much time had she lost in pacing, in aimless motion? There was no stilling it in her, hadn’t been for years now.

So, she made tea and watched her fingers going through the motions of pulling hot water from the tap, filling her delicate cup, and draping the tea bag in it to steep, seeing them from a remove: Eldritch hands, doing inappropriate tasks, and suited to them.

She cherished the independence implied by her job; was glad of the solitude that had devolved onto her after her amicable parting of ways with Hyera, her human lover and the artist who’d given her Bells and Whistles. She enjoyed living here, loved her work, had been gratified by the way formal education had filled the gaps in the knowledge she had derived empirically while studying to be her mother’s heir. Had everything gone as it should have, she would have succeeded to the position of the richest Eldritch landholder on their homeworld. Not in monetary wealth, but in something far more important: arable land, beehives, livestock. All her life, she had prepared for that position. She had loved the fertile earth. And when her mother had disinherited her, she had vowed that she would never, ever grieve for what she’d lost... that she would drown her sorrows in the far more biddable soil available to her in the Alliance.

And she had succeeded.

To the extent to which she was capable.

Staring at her cup, Sediryl faced the truth she spent much of her time ignoring. She had been bred not just to stewardship of the land, but to power, and as deeply as she cared for her Alliance outpost it was incapable of the level of stimulation she needed. When the responsibilities of her birthright had been stripped from her, it was as if all the energy in her body had been trapped in her, straining for release and never finding it.

Thus, the constant nervousness of her hands.

But that was years in her past now, and she’d thought herself resigned to her situation. She’d even been contemplating additional projects, above and beyond her increasing involvement with the charity that had brought her to Fleet’s attention. The Alliance had an undeniable charm; she’d been prepared to sink into its arms when she’d been recalled for her far cousin’s wedding. She hadn’t planned that visit to do anything other than reaffirm her decisions. But instead, it had… adjusted… things in her she’d thought stable.

And she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what had done the adjusting. Or who. She thought briefly of the Glaseah, as seen from the back of a horse, his brown eyes earnest and distressed... and, just a flash, of her cousin. The courtly cousin she hadn’t thought to really look at. Not that way, not after growing up with him as a carefree maiden. He had changed, though, and now that she had seen a hint of what he’d become....

Sediryl wasn’t sure why she made the call she did, why she left the message that would guarantee the return call. Bringing the cup with her to the window, she watched the wind tousle the wheat, toes curling with the energy she could no longer release through her fingers. There she sipped the tea, the outrageously colored tea that Hyera had once used to paint her a picture before using the remainder on her lips and skin, astringent and outrageously pink. The taste reminded her that no matter what she wanted, she was still an outcast, and a deviant, and worse than either, a woman without a home.

It took an hour for the Chancellor’s office to call her back and connect her to the Queen.

Liolesa, as always, was unreadable, poised, and utterly implacable. Such a perfect façade, and such courtesy. Always a politician. “Sediryl Nuera. It’s good to hear from you.”

Sediryl folded her arms. She was taking this call standing because she didn’t think she could handle it seated, and the Queen’s image floated across from her, looking uncannily right framed in all the Alliance’s technology. Because Liolesa could never look out of place, especially amid the civilization she’d cultivated as their people’s ally. “Is it?”

“You know it is,” Liolesa said. “But I questioned the message Delerenenard passed to me. I admit to surprise that you are willing to call in your favor so quickly.”

“It’s been years.”

“We live thousands of them, cousin.”

Sediryl hugged herself beneath her concealing arms. “Point. I’m not actually calling in my favor, though. I have encountered a situation that I think you’ll agree would be beneficial to us both… you might end up owing me another favor, in fact.”

One of Liolesa’s brows lifted. “Go on.”

“You know my blood-cousin Amber is abroad on the border?” At her nod, Sediryl said, “He’s asked me if I’d be willing to help him rehome a group of Chatcaavan refugees using my contacts with the Whole Galactic charities. Fleet tells me they can get the people out but from they need a place to stay once they’ve been liberated. Mildred’s charity is known for its skill at helping resettle displaced people.”

“Interesting,” Liolesa murmured. “And you believe this relevant to my interests because…?”

“Because I’d like to resettle these refugees on our world… and one of them is the Queen of the Chatcaava.” Liolesa’s other brow went up and Sediryl grinned. “I told you you’d probably owe me another favor.”

She’d been expecting an immediate expression of interest, given how quickly the Queen thought. Liolesa was nothing if not decisive. But the other woman’s eyes lost their focus for a few moments before she returned from her thoughts to say, “When?”

Surprised, Sediryl replied, “I’m not sure? I don’t think they know either.”

“My answer, then, is a conditional ‘yes’. We may not be in a position to make the offer but I’m willing to entertain the proposition when it becomes a definite opportunity.”

Sediryl wondered what was going on to make the Queen so cagey. The chill that went up her spine… did that mean she cared what was happening to her world and the people on it she’d denounced? “If not us….”

“If not us, then the Alliance,” the Queen said, “and they are more than capable of accepting a political exile and her entourage. But I can see the potentials, yes. And if the offer is far enough out I may have a good place for them.”

“And if not?”

“If not, then our allies can host the Chatcaavan Queen until such time that I can make that offer.”

“But would she take it, if she had the choice between us and the Alliance?” Sediryl wondered, frowning.

“Oh… I think she might.”

Sediryl looked up sharply, but the Queen’s face was a mask. As she stared, Liolesa’s mouth quirked, just a touch. If she could call that a smile, it didn’t reach the Queen’s eyes.

“I see,” Sediryl said.

After a moment—one Sediryl was completely sure Liolesa was giving her to consider the situation—the Queen said, “I like you, cousin. And I don’t mind your adopting the Alliance’s egalitarianism.”

“But?” Sediryl asked, straightening her arms so she could force her hands open at her sides. What she really wanted to do was play with her hair, twitch the pleat of her pants, do something with her nervous energy.

“You don’t have to respect me because I’m the Queen,” Liolesa said. “But you might consider whether I might be due it for other reasons.”

“You’re saying I’m rude.”

“You’re hurt, I know,” Liolesa said. “Your mother has earned your opprobrium several times over. But we are not all made in her mold.”

“Enough of us are—”

“Your father,” Liolesa said. “Your tenants, who kept your bees and let you have the first taste of their honey. The guards who willingly followed you when you marked the borders, despite your insisting on it being more than a symbolic gesture.” An almost infinitesimal pause for emphasis. “Your blood-cousins in the Seni.”

Did she know? She couldn’t know. Sediryl hadn’t told anyone, and Goddess and Lord knew Vasiht’h wouldn’t have either.

“They’re worth hundreds of those who are less deserving. Would you not say?”

Sediryl folded her arms again and blurted the one thing she strove to keep buried. “I still want to burn it all down sometimes.”

“So do I.”

Sediryl looked up, stunned.

“But that would be a waste, no matter how satisfying the conflagration. We work with what we have, Nuera.”

“I’m not Nuera anymore,” Sediryl said.

Liolesa smiled then. “For now. Have faith, cousin. Am I not in your corner?”

The colloquialism, dropped into their tongue and translated, was so unexpected that she had to laugh. “If you say you are, then I guess I have to believe you. But I refuse to be rehabilitated.”

“Who said you needed it?”

That made her narrow her eyes, and when the Queen didn’t elaborate, beyond what could be implied very eloquently with her arched brows, Sediryl said, “What is it? What are you about to ask me?”

“Ah... but how did you know that I was going to?”

“Because you let me see it,” Sediryl said, scowling.

Liolesa laughed. “Very good! And why would I do that?”

“I hate being led this way.”

“So don’t follow. Lead me to the conclusion you’ve already made.”

Before she knew what she was thinking, she was speaking. “Amber’s in the middle of nowhere. Jahir and Vasiht’h have fulfilling jobs already. You don’t have many of us out here, but you need someone who’ll keep track of when the charity brings the refugees out, someone to extend the invitation to them.”

“Perfect. So what am I offering you?”

“Are you offering me something?” Sediryl asked, skeptical. “Because only an ambassador with plenipotentiary powers could make an arrangement like that with a foreign head of state. You would have to trust me. Me. The reprobate exile who’s been sitting on years of resentment and anger. Who just admitted to you that she wanted to burn the world down.”

“An ambitious woman thwarted,” Liolesa offered, bland.

“I’m not—” Sediryl bit back the lie and shook her head. “If I were you, I’d be crazy to give me that kind of power.”

“What would you do with it?” Liolesa asked, curious. She held up a hand. “Not your first impulse. ‘Destroy everything’ is not a plan. What would your destruction look like? How would you accomplish it? What exactly is it you want, cousin?”

“When did I become your cousin?” Sediryl asked suddenly. “When I became useful?”

Liolesa chuckled softly.

“I would...” Sediryl stopped. What would she do with power? With Liolesa in her corner? A woman who wanted to remake their world in an image more suited to modern mores? To actual civilization? To have been Sediryl Nuera Galare, head of the Nuera Galares... that was power, yes. But that was nothing to being someone the Queen trusted to help her... fix things. Fix everything. And fixing everything would destroy the world that had tried so hard to warp her. She could make it so that her sons and daughters would never suffer the sort of things she had, that her father had.

The possibility staggered her. For once, her hands grew still.

Liolesa canted her head.

“I... would want a little more guidance on what’s going on,” Sediryl finished, finally, cautious with the words. For once, she cared that they might affect something. “So that I wouldn’t accidentally burn anything we needed.”

That satisfied smile... it would have frustrated her before. Now that she was responsible for producing it, she found it a little more sororal. But still the Queen didn’t say anything, which meant she was waiting.

Sediryl inhaled, chuckled. “So, my Lady. I hear you have a job opening? I would like to offer myself for it if so.”

“Ah! Delightful. I think you’re just what we’ve needed.” Liolesa beamed. “Why, just think of the paroxysms your mother will undergo when she discovers what you’re about.”

Sediryl shook her head, trying not to laugh. “All right. After all these years, you’ve coaxed me out of my shell. What should I tell Fleet? That you’re willing to host, but that you need to know when?”

“Yes,” Liolesa said. “They will know why I’ve couched the response thus. But it is also important that you understand, cousin, so if you will attend me I will reveal what concerns me now.”

There it was: the lance of terror and elation. For so long she’d craved responsibility, had been trained to its weight, had expected to bear it... until she’d been denied. She’d wanted the fruit of the blackberry bush and longed for its honey; here at last were the thorns.

But scratches healed. Sediryl drew in a breath, found a chair and sat down. “All right, Lady. I’m listening.”

Her first political briefing, delivered by no less a power than the Queen of all their race, was harrowing. A new mind-mage in their midst? Traitors? Slavers and Chatcaava mixed up in it all, and the fate of their world and all its population uncertain? Her heart raced until she felt sweat sliding down the curve of her neck and she found herself clutching her knees. She had wanted so badly to destroy her world. Now that she knew how close it was to far worse a destruction than she could have imagined, all she could think about was the smell of Nuera’s fields in spring; the way the sunlight played on leaves in the forest; the thread of the road, so vulnerable, that had led her from Nuera to her great aunt’s home, and freedom.

“So,” Liolesa said. “There it is. Now that you perceive our difficulties, Sediryl Nuera Galare, what will you do?”

She met the Queen’s eyes. Her Queen’s eyes. “You chose a sword for your personal emblem, my Lady. Can I do any less in your vanguard? Give me your sash. I’ll don it.”

That glow in the Queen’s eyes... that was pride. Liolesa had certainly let her see it, but Sediryl was glad she had. She couldn’t remember the last time a woman who mattered to her had been proud of her, and it was humbling to discover that it could move her.

“Cousin. You live up to expectation.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t say ‘every’ expectation,” Sediryl said, hoping to lighten the mood so she could survive it.

“We are hardly begun! Let us see where the path takes us.”

That glint of merriment again. Sediryl wondered how often the Queen suppressed it, and whether she would have the privilege to find out. “All right.” She hesitated, then added, “Thank you, my Lady.”

“Cousin,” the Queen said. “Call me Liolesa.” The look in her eye was definitely impish now. “I will be sending along your credentials shortly.”

The connection closed.

For several minutes afterwards, Sediryl stared out the window, seeing nothing and feeling... relaxed. All the tension in her body seemed to have dissipated. She imagined it sinking into the ground, flowing out to enrich the crops like the ancient stories of women who watered the fields with their blood to make them thrive. The image struck her powerfully, ominous and potent—because she knew now that the war she’d thought pending had already begun—but it also exhilarated her. She had never realized how bitterly she’d felt her exile until now.

Bells’s barking brought her out of her reverie. “Fine, fine,” she said to the dog dancing around her feet. “I know. It’s time to check the crops. I’m coming, just let me make this call first.”

As the dog plopped down at her feet, scattering his solidigraphic fish halo, Sediryl waved her interface awake. “Connect me to Fleet Agent Meryl Osgood. Priority first.”