CHAPTER 11

“This is my least favorite activity, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Lisinthir said.

“And that is why you are dragging me into it, no doubt.”

“You love so much to be coaxed,” Lisinthir replied airily. “I am obliging you, you see.”

Jahir eyed him as they walked through the early morning traffic in the Hull’s lower corridors. The Pad station had whisked them to a less decorative part of the starbase’s wall, one that looked more like the popular conception of such places: tree-lined corridors interrupted by large chambers that hosted various rooms or halls, the flexglass, metal, or plastic surfaces filmed with murals by local artists or soothing outdoor vistas imported from viseo feeds across the Alliance. The salle his cousin had engaged was off one of these large chambers, and they were passing the morning commuters on their walks to their places of business. It was… very normal, particularly in compare to the blacklight market in the Trenches.

“Come now, I have hardly earned that look.”

“You have hardly earned it… yet,” Jahir said.

Lisinthir pursed his lips. “That I accept.” And grinned. “All will be well, cousin. We will do the work that needs doing, and then I will kiss you quiet and you will be content.”

Jahir quelled the shiver that ran his length. Mostly. “Perhaps we can do the work that needs doing by kissing alone?”

“So quickly I have converted you to my religion,” Lisinthir said with a laugh. “But no. This needs a sword or two, and a staff.” He indicated the portal leading to the gymnasium complex. “After you, cousin.”

Jahir sighed and stepped through.

Lisinthir had brought his own swords, so they stopped at a desk to allow the personnel to run a security check on them and to rent them a staff for Jahir for the session. The salle they’d engaged was innocuous enough: its wooden floors and mirrored walls could have served dancers for a studio, or gymnasts. He could almost pretend they’d come for some other purpose; barring that, he could at least imagine that most people who used the room did so for less violent activities.

“You really do have too great a distaste for it, cousin,” Lisinthir said, shucking his coat off.

“I deplore violence.”

“Except when it’s exercised on you.” He held up a finger. “And no, that was not flirtation.”

Jahir ignored his blush because it had been incited by shame and anger. He preferred his blushes more positive in inspiration. “I cannot change who I am, cousin.”

“We all change,” Lisinthir said. “Pick up the staff.”

With a sigh, Jahir lifted it.

“Aim for my head, if you will. And strike like you mean it.”

Jahir’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t worry,” Lisinthir said dryly. “You won’t hit me.”

So he lunged and his cousin stood there and there was no time to pull the blow. He tried and failed… and connected with the air an inch from Lisinthir’s cheek. A chime sounded, startling him into looking up at the ceiling despite knowing there would be nothing to see.

Lisinthir’s hand gently pressing the staff away brought his attention back. “I have arranged things so that we won’t connect with anything vital.”

“Anything vital,” Jahir repeated. He’d thought he’d reached the limits of his wonder with Alliance technology, but he’d been wrong.

“The rest of our blows will hit,” Lisinthir said. “Bruises teach.” He grinned, sly. “And arouse. Up staff, Galare. Let us see what we’re made of now.”

Jahir ignored the obvious innuendo—barely—and resigned himself to the lesson. They had not sparred this way on the courier, where it had been Jahir’s staff against Lisinthir’s hands and what would ordinarily would have been a crippling handicap had been mitigated by his cousin’s far greater skill. Pitting a staff against a sword—and only one, for which he was grateful—was even less the equal contest.

“Distance, Galare.”

“I am keeping it, you’ll note.”

“If you keep me at bay forever, you’ll never award me my bruises.”

“Unlike me,” Jahir said, stepping back to avoid the point of Imtherili’s too-sharp blade, “you are not fond of them. What are we here to learn, cousin? And when are you going to start using your talent to shove me off balance?”

“I’m not going to use my talent to shove you off balance,” Lisinthir said, pressing the attack. “We are here to exercise you, cousin, not me.”

“Oh are we?” Jahir sucked in a breath at the jab that creased his tunic. The salle wouldn’t allow the sword to pierce him, but it did approximate the blow. He didn’t doubt he’d have his bruises, on top of the aches he’d retained as souvenirs of his second night of trysting. “What is my assignment, then?”

“Your assignment is to compensate for your lack of skill with your new talent.” Lisinthir stepped out of the way of Jahir’s thrust with an ease that looked and probably was far too casual.

“By projecting my emotional state onto you.” Jahir paused, dubious, and received a rap on the tip of the staff from the strong of his cousin’s sword.

“Don’t stop just to talk. Don’t stop at all until you’ve immobilized me. I am your enemy, recall?” Lisinthir shoved his staff back into motion. “Continue. And this time, bring your new ability to bear as well.”

Useless to protest or resist when he knew Lisinthir wouldn’t let him out the room until he’d made the effort. And perhaps some part of him was curious. A small part, granted, but enough that the next thrust he made he coupled with a mental stab, shaping his reluctance and revulsion into a weapon.

“Too obvious,” Lisinthir said. “If I can tell it’s an attack then I will be moved to defend.”

Jahir failed to dodge the sword that gave him a sharp rap on the top of his wrist. “You are playing with your food, Imtherili.”

“Because the chef is lacking in subtlety. Come, Galare. Yours is not the path of brute force. Subvert me.”

Jahir snorted and retreated hastily out of range, ruefully admiring his cousin’s lunge. He continued through several more exchanges while struggling to frame his next ‘attack’… how to project an emotion he wasn’t feeling? Perhaps by shaping it with his thoughts. The next time he pressed, he tried extending a thought and let the emotions trail it like streamers. Alarm. Guilt. You want to miss.

The point he took to the chest proved that one hadn’t penetrated. He frowned, parried badly, wished for a sword short enough to carry through with a riposte. Pity. Tenderness. You want to give me a chance to win.

Nothing. That next exchange drove him almost to the wall. He forced his way back to the center of the salle mostly by taking blows he shouldn’t have. He was allowing far too many of them to land; had he been unarmored by the Alliance’s real-time shielding he would have died long ago. Frustrated, he pulled from the memory of Lisinthir’s fight on the courier, thought of too-hot blood, the joy of conquering and the madness of the fight, of being fevered with lusts more vicious than any sexual drive. You want to kill me, you want to watch the blood spilling, you long to see me dying at your feet—

“Ah!” Lisinthir exclaimed, eyes flying open. “YES! Good! Again!”

Jahir rammed that blood-lust through with the next few blows until his own head pounded with it, until his vision bled crimson. Several of his thrusts connected, finally. He stopped, panting. Wiped his brow. His cousin let him, resting the flat of his blade on his shoulder.

“You are teaching me to use this talent as a weapon. But it doesn’t have to be one.”

“Oh?” Lisinthir asked, far too innocently. “You seemed to think it was only capable of serving as one not even a day ago. I thought I’d believe you.”

“God and Lady, Imtherili, but you are infuriating…!”

“Because I’m right?”

Jahir’s hand tightened on the staff, fighting outrage. The constant challenges were hard enough, but the intimations that accompanied them were outside of enough: that he was inflexible, morose; that he shied from the duties bequeathed to them with their titles, which included the inevitable need to defend their families. Just because he was willing to call anathema what it was! He took a step forward—

Vasiht’h’s expression over the comm-call flashed back to mind: the wonder, the happiness. The Goddess’s gift. All the anger drained from him like blood from a wound. He saw himself in the mirror and read the fear that shaped the tension in his shoulders, that lay simmering beneath the anger it had inspired.

Jahir forced his fist to relax and cursed, quietly, under his breath.

Lisinthir crossed the distance between them, paused to search his eyes. And because that was a tacit question, because Jahir knew his cousin would always ask when matters became delicate, Jahir dipped his head and accepted the hand that slid over his neck to rest on the nape, beneath hair gone tacky with sweat. It was tempting to resist the pull that hand exerted on him, to allow his anger to shove a barrier between them, but how fair would that be? His cousin had been right. Jahir sighed and rested his brow on Lisinthir’s shoulder. “You prefer to teach through demonstration, apparently.”

“I did say bruises made for the best lessons.”

“So you did.” Quieter, silvered, “You illustrate my own contradictions to me. I know I am not always gracious when you do. I am sorry for it.”

A kiss on his hair, then. “I seem to recall having vented my outrage on you once or twice myself, Healer.”

“Even so. I am sorry. And… I am grateful. Thank you.”

He heard the smile in Lisinthir’s voice. “Always, cousin. Now, shall we continue?”

Jahir straightened and pushed his hair out of his face. “I thought we’d just agreed that this ability was not solely a weapon?”

“It isn’t. But it still requires exercise.” Lisinthir grinned at him. “You’re a smart man, cousin. Find a use for it that I haven’t thought of.”

Jahir snorted. “Oh certainly. A use you haven’t thought of yet. That’s likely.” He lifted the staff.

“Ready?”

“Continue,” Jahir said. “Just remember, every bruise you put on me will require payment.”

Lisinthir stepped back, sword at ready. “Ah? And what coin am I compensating you in?”

“A kiss on afflicted skin,” Jahir said, bringing up the staff. “And by now you will have at least an hour’s work before you.”

“Only an hour! By all means, let us go on. I won’t settle for less than two.”

Jahir snorted and pressed the attack, if only to have some say in where the next bruise would blossom. Lisinthir obliged him and they resumed their very unequal sparring. In no universe would they ever be well-matched… even attempting to slide his emotional jabs in with his attacks, Jahir found no purchase. His cousin was expecting him now, was in fact, indulging him. Instruction might have engaged him; Jahir had taken lessons from him on the courier and his cousin seemed to enjoy the challenge of imparting what he knew in the most effective way possible. But to spar as a contest with someone as poorly suited to him as Jahir was? He had no doubt Lisinthir was only partially present.

What must it be like, he wondered, to be so good at something so lethal? In the few memories he’d received from Lisinthir during their more intense communions on the courier, he’d received impressions of it: of the joy of combat, of the absolute trust in one’s own body that came with such supernal skill, learned not just in the salle but in the wild. Hunting boar alone, and from horseback! Only the sight of Lisinthir riding convinced Jahir that had been no idle boast, the sight and the feel of his supreme confidence when they’d been linked—

Jahir inhaled. Could it be done? But then, hadn’t he done it already? Lisinthir drove him back and he retreated, watching the sword, reaching, not to attack, but to sink in, to expand, to surrender. Give it to me, cousin. His staff met the sword. Lend it to me. Let me be it. Again, another parry. Press, something whispered, and he did and almost touched flesh. Yes. Again. He blocked, shoved, made space for himself. Dodged a blow that would have landed. His body knew suddenly where to step. No doubts. Raise the staff—higher—turn, step forward, feint, lunge, connect. Again. Faster, faster. He gave the reins to his cousin and rode Lisinthir’s skill, and the more he let go the quicker it came to him, until nothing was getting through his guard. He caught Imtherili’s sword and met Lisinthir’s eyes over their crossed weapons and in them he saw an exhilaration that caught him off guard.

“All right?” he asked, suddenly worried.

“More!” Lisinthir demanded, and slammed a shoulder in him.

Jahir grabbed for the changing rules, ducked the kick that would have crumpled his knee, and leapt headlong into the link, abandoning his training, his knowledge, even his own reflexes. He fought with Lisinthir’s, with a dragon’s, sword and staff and fist and claws, feet and entire body blows that would have smashed him into the mirrored walls had he not been riding someone else’s talent for violence. There was no time for doubt or pain, only endless movement, pouring into spaces not occupied by cutting edge or clawing nails. When Lisinthir said, laughing, “Catch!” he lifted a hand to receive Imtherili’s second sword, and dropping the staff he engaged with it. No more bruises, no more touches. He fought as if he’d been born to the fight, and the exaltation of it was overwhelming, made it stronger, made him better at channeling it… so that when Lisinthir called, “Add opponents, two!” he didn’t flinch. Scooping up the staff he turned his back to his cousin and braced to receive the thrust of the first solidigraphic enemy the computer provided them. Lisinthir’s situational awareness was exponentially more advanced than his, so he used it, and between the two of them they kept their attackers at bay with so much ease that he welcomed the next two his cousin summoned… and the next two.

The ability began to degrade when they were completely englobed, and by then Jahir was so deep in the communion that he couldn’t figure out why, or how to improve it, only that he was fighting better than he’d fought in his life against multiple attackers pressing him from every side but behind him. This was the limit, he thought vaguely—no more was possible, surely—and then he felt the conduit broaden, and the opponent that had been about to strike him stumbled back as Lisinthir aimed his ability through Jahir’s body. The shock of it, of that alien power using him, sent a shudder through him… and then he embraced it.

After that, nothing could touch them. When at last Lisinthir called the halt they were both panting and dripping sweat and the exhilaration of it coursed them both in enormous waves. The hand that grabbed him by the neck—he’d known it was coming, and the mouth that landed on his. Jahir swayed forward, answered their ardor, didn’t know where Lisinthir’s ended and his began and didn’t care until his knees started to sink and Lisinthir caught him, laughing into his hair. “Cousin,” he said, “Cousin. God and Living Air, you are Treasure, such beautiful Treasure, my perfect and tremendous cousin.”

“Imtherili,” Jahir managed, gasping. “You fight like a god.”

Lisinthir framed his face in both hands, the hilt of the sword pressed against Jahir’s cheek, and kissed him again, and again, devouring kisses that began to demarcate their boundaries because they were making him weak with the desire to melt. “And you fight like one when you let yourself.”

“Only… only because I let you guide my hand.” Jahir shuddered. “Cousin, wait, let me… let me think—”

Lisinthir smirked, kissed his brow. “Always thinking, Galare.”

“We did that, didn’t we? And it worked somehow. I wasn’t just fighting well against you because I was anticipating your movements. I was fighting well because I was borrowing your skill.”

Another kiss, but gentle, above one eye. “Yes. You had trouble later because, I am guessing, you were using my awareness of our contestants to fight them, but I wasn’t exactly where you were in space, so—”

“So I wasn’t always able to compensate.” Jahir frowned, sorting through his impressions. “Which was when you intervened.”

“By using my awareness of you to aim my ability.”

“To protect me when I miscalculated.” He inhaled, let it out slowly. “I was working to my limit—”

“For now.”

Jahir looked up.

“You were working at your limit for now,” Lisinthir repeated, brushing Jahir’s hair back and lifting his face by the chin. “This was the first time you’d tried this, cousin. You did a superlative job of it, but still… it was the first time. Imagine how you will do when you know what you intend…!”

Jahir sighed, smiled a lopsided smile. “Would you like to wager that knowing what I intend will make me less capable than giving into it in the moment?”

Lisinthir paused, then laughed, low and tender. “My cousin. Perfect, beautiful, cousin.” Sheathing his sword, he caught up Jahir’s hand and kissed the back of it as nicely as any gallant at a ball. “You are your own worst enemy.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“Maybe so.” Lisinthir took the other sword back and sheathed it on the other side of his hip. “And now, there is a shower awaiting us in the adjacent room.”

“A shower? Here?”

Lisinthir turned him by the shoulders and pushed, gently. “A private shower. Where I am about to introduce you to yet another wall.”

Jahir flushed. “I… suppose saying no wouldn’t matter.”

“Of course it would, if I knew you meant it.”

No use arguing that. So he said the true thing. “I like walls.”

“I know you do.” A nip on the back of his neck. “Ah, cousin. My cousin. My Delight.”

“I know,” Jahir whispered, remembering the rush of it, the feeling of invincibility.

Lisinthir pried the staff from his hand and herded him into the shower, and there in the water he cried out against his arm and it was as much for the glory of what they’d done as it was for the hungers it had driven them to. So powerful a rush: too much, much, much too much. When his release gripped him he found himself shaking uncontrollably against the shower wall and not all the heat of the water striking the tiles alongside warmed him, nor the clouds of steam. His cousin was very still behind him, one hand still spread over Jahir’s chest. Could Lisinthir feel his heart racing through that palm? Jahir felt the weight on his back and the arm around his ribcage like shelter. It was the only thing that made it safe for him to say, abruptly, “I killed a man in a duel.”

And then his next breath came as a gasp, and a sob, and he cried against the wall, as he had never been able to, not even when he’d confessed the event to Vasiht’h. He’d thought the grief expunged by the chaste and loving embrace he’d received from the Glaseah, but he’d been wrong. He’d needed to move through the joy of combat to admit to his guilt at its inevitable harvest, and to feel a killer’s empathy burning through their naked skins as he wept.

Lisinthir remained pressed to him throughout his catharsis. When the last paroxysms subsided, a kiss on the edge of his shoulder interrupted the warmth of the shower’s patter, came accompanied with a low murmur against his skin. “O my cousin. Sex breaks you open, doesn’t it.”

“You break me open,” Jahir said, exhausted. But grateful. He closed his eyes, the better to feel the nose that was tracing a wet line through the drops on his skin, up to the back of his ear. He waited for the command, the inevitable command, because he knew Lisinthir understood he needed it... and received it at last, in their language, shaded for holy things, and shadows.

“Tell me.”

“It was... it was ridiculous.” So good to admit it, to confess to the tragic stupidity of it. “A maiden at the summer court had been seeking relief from her over-managing mother and aunt. We found an alcove to sit in and talk. That was all. But we were seen and aspersions were cast on her, so I called those who maligned her to account.” Another breath drawn from the steam, wet and heavy. Lisinthir was stroking his chest now, a light caress along the sternum. “We dueled. He put his tip through my shoulder, but I fought on until I sliced him. So honor was satisfied.”

“And then?” Lisinthir asked, quiet.

“My wound, though more serious, healed. His... developed infection, and he died.” Jahir shuddered under his cousin’s body, one hand curling into a fist on the wall. “He died, cousin. Such a trivial wound. Such a trivial matter. I did not even care for the woman—she was the daughter of one of the Queen’s enemies! I was fighting Galare’s allies when I threw down the challenge.”

Lisinthir’s sigh was gentle. He disengaged and pulled at Jahir’s shoulder until Jahir turned to face him, and there under the water his cousin parted the streaming hair that shrouded Jahir’s face and tipped his head up to meet the kiss. There was no absolution in it, but compassion headier than wine, and Jahir drank at that glass until something in him finally gave up the guilt and shame of that accidental execution. When they parted, just enough to breathe, Lisinthir was petting his jaw with the back of a wet finger, and what Jahir saw in his eyes settled him.

“Better?” Lisinthir asked.

Someone believed him. Someone understood. Someone who had killed from vengeance and fear, who knew the difference between murder and manslaughter... who also knew why the ending had been inevitable, and such a waste. Jahir closed his eyes and said, huskily, “Better.” And softer, craving the intimacy, “May I... would you...”

His cousin’s hands were already gliding up his sides. “Yes. And I know just where to begin.”

When Lisinthir set his lips to the almost invisible scar on his shoulder, Jahir cried out, and this time, he begged.

The confession in the shower had not surprised Lisinthir, not entirely. Such stories were too common and he had heard many of them given his penchant for putting paid to insults on the dueling field. But to have lanced that wound—to have had a part in it—he inhaled as he dried off, helped his cousin with his own towel. How much of Jahir’s revulsion for violence was that innate sweetness of spirit, and how much of it was horror over his accidental crime?

“What now?” Jahir asked him as he dressed, and in his voice was a tender resignation that softened Lisinthir’s heart—momentarily. As much as he longed to drown in this endless now of his cousin’s passions, the implications of what they’d done kept sneaking in, whispering promises and warnings. So much before them... so much before him. And increasingly he felt the inevitability of their sharing it, because of their potency as a team. He had told the Slave Queen once that he’d gone without entourage to the Empire because knowing he had no one to watch his back heightened his instincts. Perhaps he’d been wrong; certainly he’d come to lean on her, could not have survived the Empire without her. But he did not plan to go without escort this time, and the Fleet personnel would be trained to the tasks that his cousin found distasteful.

There was no questioning what they’d done together in the salle. It was so obvious they’d been meant to fight together, and in this war. Perhaps all the Eldritch were so meant, for he suspected Amber’s involvement ran deeper than they knew, and who knew what other resources the Queen was even now bringing to bear? But the war could not be won without whole-hearted commitment, and his cousin’s ambivalence remained distinct through the skin. Lisinthir wanted to hope Jahir had released the grief that had been holding him back with his revelation; and he’d seen for himself that when his cousin let himself live in the moment, he was present, wanted the fight, was capable. But how well Lisinthir knew that the conflict before them was more than a moment: was a marathon of perseverance, of cold nights, of uncertainty and exhaustion.

He knew his cousin could fight a battle. Would follow him willingly into it. But a war?

“Now,” Lisinthir said, “we eat. And then you shall call your beloved and I shall go for a walk.”

His cousin had been sitting on the bench in the changing room, pulling on his boots. Pausing, Jahir said, “You know you need not leave. I appreciate your concern for our privacy, but you are family.”

Lisinthir smiled. “I know it. But even siblings let each other alone now and then. And you need to engage your partner unadulterated by your feelings for me. Especially when I am pushing you so constantly past your place of comfort.”

“I suppose.” Jahir resumed dressing. “And after this call?”

“Then, I tumble you until it is time to go dancing. And then we dance, and I eat the rapture off your skin with all the finer things, and we sleep.”

“And do it again tomorrow,” Jahir murmured with that peach flush on his cheekbones.

“With some variation, but... yes.” Lisinthir grinned. “So... shall we dine?”

Jahir stood. “And what outrageous place have you chosen for us this time?”

“You’ll see.”

“How do you even find these places?” Jahir asked sometime later, fond, exasperated.

“I look them up in the directory?” Lisinthir replied. “After you, cousin.”

The look he received in response to that gallantry amused him, but Jahir allowed him to guide them inside the Harat-Shariin diner. Which, on entrance, was revealed to be exactly what he’d expected: a family-style restaurant with its patrons strewn across the floor of the enormous central room, lounging in one another’s laps and eating from communal bowls, or playing games, or cuddling.

Sotto voce and dripping shadows all over the Eldritch words, Jahir said, “You cannot be serious, cousin.”

“Two for lunch?” the cheerful pantherine hostess asked.

“Please,” Lisinthir said.

“Private room or family room?”

“Thank God,” Jahir muttered in their tongue.

Mouth quirking, Lisinthir said, “Private room, please.”

The pantherine pursed her lips in a moue. “Am I allowed to be disappointed?”

“I would think so. In your position I would be.”

She burbled a laugh, hand flying to her mouth. “This way, please.”

“You are terrible,” Jahir said, low, but the words came silvered.

“I am protecting your modesty, cousin.”

“It would not have needed protection in a more reasonable restaurant.”

“Ah, but you did not come to me for reasonable, did you? You came to me because you wondered if I would take you bent over the table in the private room of a Harat-Shariin restaurant, and if I would finish before the waiters arrived with our food.”

He didn’t have to look to know his cousin was blushing. The silence was telling enough. Folding his arms behind his back, Lisinthir strolled after the pantherine, knowing Jahir would follow.

The private room was all that he’d hoped: small, intimate, decorated with a great many pillows in rich maroon silk, and dominated by a sinfully comfortable chaise longue with short enough legs that there would be no need to bend to reach the low table. There were inevitable pieces of art on the walls, erotic without straying into pornography and all of them, he noted, involving food.

“This is perfect,” he said to the hostess.

“Sangria comes with the meal,” she said. “I’ll have someone bring it. After that, everyone will knock before entering.”

“Considerate,” Lisinthir said.

“Of you,” the hostess agreed mournfully, though her eyes danced.

“Alas,” Lisinthir said. “Not so much of you.”

She giggled and shook her head. “Enjoy your meal, aletsen.”

“God and Lady, but you are mad,” Jahir said as the door closed. And with a sigh, added, “Whose head is going into whose lap?”

“Mmm?”

“I assume that we are sitting together, which suggests you want one of us draped on the other. It would be the only way we’ll fit.”

“You learn so quickly,” Lisinthir said, grinning. “Now, tell me which you think.”

Jahir thinned his eyes, and that quickness of intellect surfaced again. Almost Lisinthir could feel it, a brush on his skin that prickled like nerves waking. “I am here for some new lesson, I presume.”

“I would hate to waste our small time together.”

“And it would be too easy for this to be a continuation of your existing efforts to acclimate me to submission. So, you want to put your head in my lap, and I shall pretend to be the one with agency, even though, I note, this would be a falsehood. I have no idea what you are about, cousin.”

“I like your plan,” Lisinthir said. “Sit, cousin.”

Jahir sat, folded his arms, lifted a brow.

“We are here for something entirely other,” Lisinthir said. “But we’ll get to that in a moment, because…”

The door opened for a waitress with a pitcher.

“Here is our wine. Greetings, alet.”

“Aletsen.” She set the pitcher on the table with a single wide cup. “Welcome to Ninochka’s. Private diners can choose from the a la carte menu or go with the family-style special of the day.”

“Which is?” Lisinthir asked.

She grinned at him. “Seafood, alet.”

“Does that please you, cousin?” Lisinthir asked.

“I assume we are not ordering separate meals from the menu for a reason I will find appalling,” Jahir said in their tongue.

“You assume correctly.”

Jahir shook his head and said in Universal, “Seafood is fine.”

“Any allergies?” the waitress asked. “No? All right, then. I’ll be back in ten minutes. You can set the occupied sign using the interface alongside the chair.” She bowed and left, leaving them to the quiet and the alcohol which he poured for them both into the single cup. Offering it, he said, “You first.”

“So you are going to explain this to me, I assume,” Jahir said, serious now.

Lisinthir went to a knee alongside the divan and set a hand on his cousin’s midriff. When he received no objection to the touch, he slid that palm upward, slowly, sensing the contours of the body beneath the layers of clothes: vest, blouse, undershirt, all very neatly arranged and buttoned. “In your work, I assume you have seen many disorders that affect the flesh.”

Jahir had grown tense, but he answered. “Yes.”

Lisinthir trailed his hand along his cousin’s arm, down to the hand. Turning it, he unbuttoned the cuff to expose Jahir’s wrist and traced a circle around the prominence of bone on its edge. “Vasiht’h reminds you to eat.”

“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.