CHAPTER 12

It was in the nursery that the Slave Queen first saw the ramifications of the change that would race through the Empire, these ripples that were spreading from the Ambassador’s arrival, and overwhelmingly it expressed itself in energy. Like the harems, the nursery had languished in a spiritual and emotional torpor, and now… now when she entered, it was to the sight of Chatcaava doing something other than lying in corners, trying not to be seen, noticed… trying not to live. There were children playing games with each other and with the tongueless caretakers, writing and reading games, and both male and female children were playing them because the females, too, were learning. The only people who remained aloof from the heightened activity were the guards assigned by the Knife… and even they seemed more alert. They were no longer protecting the faceless assets of the Empire, but something more precious and vital. The Change had come here, just as it had to her in her tower. They now perceived the power in themselves, and her protection made it possible for them to grasp it.

It became part of her routine to visit the nursery and speak to the children there, and to Change into her Eldritch shape and talk with the slaves. Linking with her allowed them to grasp linguistic concepts they could bring to their studies, and this accelerated their learning. They took to those studies with eagerness, and watching them the Slave Queen wondered if the Surgeon could fix their mouths. Surely there was some way to regenerate organs, given how frequently male Chatcaava ripped one another to shreds in their honor contests. She should ask.

To her surprise, the Mother took to the work of overseeing the nursery with compassion and zeal. Each morning, the Slave Queen stopped at the harem to ask for her and together they made their way downstairs. The Knife revealed that the Mother lingered long after the Queen left, and that he’d detailed a guard to escort her on her return in the evening.

“Does it look suspicious?” the Queen asked him as they prepared for the descent. How slowly the days seemed to pass, knowing that she had to wait to call Laniis again and secure their route! But there was only one day left now.

“For the Mother to be traveling the tower?” The Knife grimaced, tucking his wings more tightly against his back. “All the guards here report to me now, and in the Emperor’s absence there is no one to gift the harem’s time to other males. We should be safe....”

“But?” she said, hearing it in his voice.

“But it is foolish to assume safety in the Empire,” the Knife said. “Anyone can be suborned.”

The Slave Queen sighed and wrapped her diaphanous shawl around her shoulders. “I wish I could disagree.”

“You know better, my Queen. Until the Emperor returns….”

And not even then, perhaps. The Empire would have to change before they could be safe, and how long would that take? Would she even live to see it happen? “Let us go.”

He led the way, disappearing into the thin shadows of the stairwell. Glancing once at the windows framing the morning sky, now advanced well past the sunrise’s brilliant rose, the Slave Queen followed.

The harem proper, however, was quiet with the kind of tension the Queen no longer associated with its chambers. Leaving the Knife at the door, she advanced into the room and said, “What goes on here? Where is the Mother?”

“Here,” the Mother said, scurrying toward her. But it was another female who answered the Queen’s first question.

“It is Second.”

“Second!” the Queen exclaimed. “Here?”

“In one of the private rooms,” confirmed the female. “With Song and Pretty.”

“Is this the first time he’s come?”

“Yes.” The female was watching her with unreadable eyes.

“Song and Pretty are not pain-lovers,” the Mother added, frowning. “And have not distinguished themselves in any other way.”

“They made their welcome clear to Second,” the female standing with them said. “That is how they have distinguished themselves.”

The Slave Queen glanced into the harem. “Is he hurting them?”

“No one has heard them scream.”

She glanced at the female sharply.

“You think I am forward,” the female said. “But I think you would want me to be. You do not love fear, do you.”

“No,” the Slave Queen said. “What is your name?”

“Stripes,” the female said. Noting the Slave Queen’s gaze flickering over her solidly-colored body, she said, “I was not named for my patterning, but for what males enjoyed leaving on me.”

The Mother cringed, but the Queen ignored her. “Will you tell me what Second does while he is here?”

“I will watch.” The female lifted her chin. “It is in our interest to watch.”

“We all watch,” the Mother murmured.

“Except the Queen,” Stripes said, eyes on the Slave Queen’s. “She acts.”

“We are all capable of action,” the Queen said. “If you will watch Second for me, Stripes, that will be the beginning of your action.”

“And what will be the end?”

The Queen cocked her head. “I don’t know. That will be your choice.”

“Will it?”

The Queen laughed suddenly, hushed. “Yes. I sense that it will be.”

Stripes ducked her head and padded back into the harem, tail flicking. She settled on a bench near the room where Second was sequestered, leaving the Queen to study the room. The other females had scattered or were doing their best to look occupied, much the way the children had when she’d first visited the nursery. How many Chatcaava spent their lives hoping to go unseen! All of that would change—was changing now. The Queen turned her back on it and went with the Mother into the hall, where she resumed the downward march to the nursery. As they walked, she murmured, “Second is in the harem, Knife.”

The Knife said nothing for several steps. The Queen noticed his silence corresponded to how far they were between guards. “The right to use the harem is traditional for Second and Third.”

“The right to use the gift harem,” the Slave Queen said. “Singular visits to the Emperor’s harem are a privilege bestowed by him.”

“Maybe he gave Second the right before he left?” the Mother asked, timid.

Could he have? But wouldn’t he have told her? If not her, he would have told the Knife, surely. She glanced at him and said, “Did he?”

“If he did, I was not informed, my Queen.”

They continued almost to the nursery door without speaking again. Reaching it, the Queen paused to let the Mother precede her, then set her hand on the doorframe and looked at the Knife. He met her eyes, and in them she saw her own unease.

“Is this the sign we have been waiting for?” she asked him bluntly.

He looked away, jaw clenched. Resettling his wings against his back, he said, “There is an easy way to uncover the answer.”

She waited.

“We could ask.”

“Ask...” She paused. “You mean the Emperor.”

“There is no reason not to. He may not answer immediately, but this is a matter that wants confirmation.”

Even if they interrupted him? She thought again of his comment before he left, of how he could not trust himself to stay focused if she was there and in need of protection. Would this also split his focus?

And yet the Knife was right. “Then call him,” she said. “Without me, though.”

She wondered what he saw in her eyes to make him so still and pensive. But whatever it was, he shook the mood off and said, brisk, “I will make arrangements, my Queen.”

She inclined her head and followed the Mother inside.

“Tell me about some of these words you use,” Jahir said as they were walking back from the diner. When his cousin glanced at him, he said, “You told me about titles, but there are other important words, aren’t there? Beauty. Perfection. Delight. When I have my hands on your skin, I can tell they mean more than they seem. I assume this is some Chatcaavan thing.”

“It is, yes. Their language distinguishes between ideals and their reifications in a number of ways. The ideal is all that is perfect, the apex—things that are concrete, however, are subject to change and death and eventually forgotten.”

“How bizarre,” Jahir murmured. “And yet… I suppose their experience would make them sensitive to such things.”

“It’s an interesting tongue,” Lisinthir said.

“I am pleased to have access to your superior understanding of it,” Jahir said, and threw out his challenge. “The primers available in the u-banks are lacking in subtlety and breadth. I have learned more from you in these few days than I have since I began my studies, and what you know… it may make the difference between living and dying, on the border, or in the Empire.” He ignored the sharp look that got him and waited to see what he would earn as response.

Lisinthir stopped at the door to their room and folded his arms, and the closing of his body language was eloquent enough to a therapist. “I thought you were learning the language for lovetalk?”

“I think some might colloquially suggest ‘dirty talk’ as more accurate,” Jahir said.

The wicked amusement in Lisinthir’s eyes was exactly what he’d been hoping to elicit, so he knew his satisfaction was the foremost emotion under his skin when his cousin’s fingers lit on his mouth. “You did not just say so.”

“I believe I did.” Jahir lapped at the fingertips. “Truly, cousin. Do you blame me for wanting to know more?”

“And what ulterior motive are you hiding behind this facile reason?” Lisinthir asked, brow cocked. “I find I mistrust your meekness, cousin mine.”

Would it be the right time to press? Best not to yet. “I would not want to say as I fear you will dislike it.”

Lisinthir snorted and pressed on Jahir’s lower lip. “Talk.”

“It is the language you associate with your time in the Empire,” Jahir said, quieter. “And that is tied into all your vicious self-denials and angers. Do you blame me if I want to reclaim it for something healthier?”

Lisinthir hesitated, shoulders easing. Then he smiled his lopsided smile. “Healer.”

Jahir closed his eyes, kissed the fingertips. “I am what I am.”

“We’ll talk about it after your call.”

“Then you will teach me more?”

“I find it hard to argue with the therapist who has so obediently put himself in my lap to be fed fruit dripping with wine.” Lisinthir shook his head. “Denying you anything is a challenge.”

“I’m glad of it. I would hate to bore you—”

“You!” Lisinthir laughed. “Go! I am for my walk.”

Jahir inclined his head and withdrew, and when the door had shut behind him he rested his back against the wall and blew out a slow breath. Did his new ability work through walls? And could he wield it carefully enough not to be noticed? He tried, imagining it as the thinnest tendril of smoke, and thought he brushed against his cousin as Lisinthir receded toward the lift. Handy that, even if using it for what was essentially spying was deeply distasteful.

He had managed that conversation well… he hoped. Lisinthir liked to underestimate his own intelligence, but Jahir wouldn’t make such a mistake, and he didn’t truly think he’d done more than deflect his cousin from the real reason he wanted to have a better grounding in Chatcaavan. One did not need a degree in xenotherapy to know that Lisinthir would not want Jahir involved in the troubles brewing with the Empire… and Jahir guessed that one didn’t need to have learned psychology in the pit of a dragon’s dueling grounds to predict that Jahir planned to be involved anyway. This was an elaborate game they were playing beneath the more obvious one, the game where they pretended not to notice each other’s efforts while planning to subvert them.

They were, after all, Eldritch. The more important something became, the more it was subject to layers of obfuscation. They could no more have sustained this visit as a simple assignation than they could have changed shape themselves. Merely by participating, they were turning it into something more significant.

And he had made a decision, hadn’t he? To be involved. Jahir looked at his hands, opened and closed them, wondering how his body had not changed to reflect what he was becoming. Or had always been, apparently. But these talents, the way they worked in tandem with Lisinthir’s… if Vasiht’h was right, and this was the Goddess’s gift, would She have wanted him to hold them back from the use they were so obviously intended for? Was it not a violation of all that he’d been taught to turn from the duties the God and Lady required of him?

Was it wrong to enjoy it so much? Was he wrong in the head, to find himself wanting the fight? And did it matter in the end? The Pattern was moving.

So. Lisinthir would surely do everything he could to stop Jahir from participating, while preparing him simultaneously for the possibility that he’d find a way to do so anyway. It was, Jahir thought, savoring it, the finest of compliments from a man who’d done nothing but play the most lethal game of politics in the galaxy for most of a year. And Jahir hadn’t lied, anyway. His cousin did slip into the dragon’s tongue when distracted, and it was making an association. Just as leaning on the wall was reminding him of more pleasurable interludes. Shaking his head ruefully, Jahir went to the console and asked for the connection.

When Vasiht’h answered this time, he was rumpled in a way that made checking the local chronology unnecessary. Jahir said, “Oh, but I woke you!”

Vasiht’h yawned and put his cheek in his palm. “It’s all right. It’s actually mid-morning. We were just up late talking so we didn’t get to sleep at a reasonable hour.” The Glaseah considered him, eyes brightening. “You look better than you did last time you called.”

“I think I am better,” Jahir said cautiously, but… it appeared to be true. “Your advice was good advice.”

“So you won’t balk if we have a celebratory dinner when we get back?”

Jahir smiled a little, rueful. “No. And I know you are asking if I’ve been eating and the answer is, yes, my cousin is adamant on the topic.”

Vasiht’h slowly lifted his head, his ear feathers fanning. “This sounds like an epiphany.”

“He suggested I was practicing a form of self-neglect. And… you will tell me what I know to be true, which is that he is correct. Won’t you.”

The Glaseah said nothing for several moments. “Arii….”

“I am not incapable of recognizing my own errors,” Jahir said, and added, sheepish, “I hope.”

“Oh, arii.” Vasiht’h shook his head, his expression soft. “This really is good for you, this trip. I’m so glad.”

“I can’t promise I will always succeed in being better with the self-care,” Jahir said. “But having had it pointed out to me, I cannot leave it unattended. It would be unfair to those who love me.”

“For once, I am completely behind your sense of duty on this one.” Vasiht’h grinned. “And next time I see Lisinthir I’ll have to give him a hug for this. I’ve been working on you and food since I met you.”

“He will enjoy your gratitude, no doubt,” Jahir said. “I find you still on Tam-ley, I believe? I don’t know how time is advancing there versus here. You are still having a good time?”

“Very,” Vasiht’h said. “In some ways, I think this may be the more important stop. If I’m thinking about starting a family, I have to reconnect with my own, and… well, Sehvi’s the easiest for me. Sehvi and my parents. They’re the ones I’m closest to.”

“And you are liking your time with your nephews.”

“They are…” Vasiht’h trailed off, laughed. “They’re… I can’t even describe it. I love them. I really didn’t know how much living you do when you’re chasing children around. But it’s a lot of work, arii, which is one of the reasons I’ve been staying longer than I planned. Sehvi’s letting me help out around the house so I get a feel for what I’m getting into, and… it’s not minor.”

“I imagine not,” Jahir said, fascinated by the change in his partner’s expressions. Would that the mindline was still thick enough to bring him the feelings that rested beneath those sparks in the Glaseah’s eyes! “I never did ask if the Glaseah always had multiple children per birth.”

“It’s how most of us do it who choose to reproduce, yes. I’m told that it’s easier with more than one, in some ways… they entertain one another, and they learn from one another as much as they learn from you. It gives them a broader social dynamic to build off of.” Vasiht’h was stroking a finger on the desk absentmindedly, a gesture Jahir hadn’t seen before. “When the priests and priestesses reproduce for the temple, they usually only go with one child at a time. But that’s a special case. I think I’d prefer the big family model, myself.”

“So would I,” Jahir said, and added, hastily, “If I am allowed an opinion…”

“Of course you are! They’re going to grow up knowing you as family, arii. You’re going to end up helping me with them. Your opinion matters, though I admit, I was expecting you to prefer the quieter option.”

“Arranging our life around any child will constitute the real disruption, I would think,” Jahir said. “The number of them at that point only matters in terms of logistics and… I believe you have said you will no longer cavil at sharing finances more equitably?”

Vasiht’h sighed, chuckled. “I did, didn’t I? But I am betting it’s going to be much easier to say yes to being rich if it’s on behalf of my kits. Though that’s going to bring its own challenges.”

“Those being?”

“Oh, people who grow up knowing they can have anything they want?” Vasiht’h’s brows lifted. “Tell me you don’t know that creates trouble.”

“I suppose it does,” Jahir murmured, and smiled. “But I am still looking forward to it. And would vastly prefer that challenge to the one of not having enough.”

“I think I would too,” Vasiht’h admitted, grinning at him. “We’ll have to make sure they’re not spoiled somehow.”

“We will find a way.”

“We always have.” Vasiht’h considered him, nodded. “You really are doing better. I can tell.”

“There is a great deal going on here that is only peripherally related to the tryst I thought we would be spending most of our time on,” Jahir admitted.

Vasiht’h snorted. “Why am I not surprised.”

“Eldritch?” Jahir offered, modest.

Vasiht’h laughed. “Yes! Yes, you are. Both of you. Will you call me again?”

“Probably.”

“Then I’ll look forward to it.”

Jahir smiled. “I will also. Arii—”

“I love you too.” Vasiht’h grinned and turned the connection off, leaving Jahir to think they might not need the mindline to know one another well enough for everything that mattered. And then to wonder why he hadn’t tried to reach for his partner with his new talent. Could it stretch across parsecs? The idea was astonishing. But if using such an ability required energy, he could only imagine the fatigue of making the attempt, and yet… how useful would it be, to be able?

Truly, Lisinthir had corrupted him, if he could now think only of the benefits of being a mind-mage out of legend. But Vasiht’h would be the first to tell him otherwise.

Time to himself… an unexpected luxury. Would it be inappropriate to read medical journals? And yet, he was what he was. Perhaps he would read them in the bath as a concession to his cousin’s expectations. Smiling, he went to run the water.

“That your partner?” Kovihs asked as Vasiht’h flopped back into the hollow space his weight had created during the night.

“Yes. He’s fine.” Vasiht’h dug in until his side was pressed against his sister’s mate’s back. Kovihs’s family line lacked the wings on the lower body, unlike Vasiht’h’s. Known as sef-Glaseah, they were a variation on the original winged pattern, but though the Pelted gengineers had intended the winglessness to breed true and eventually eliminate the awkwardness of the original design, they hadn’t counted on the Glaseah preferring themselves the way the Goddess had first dreamt them. After being subjected to their creations’ polite but unswerving opinions, the designers had made the winged trait dominant and the sef remained rare, centuries later.

Having not known a sef-Glaseah intimately until now, Vasiht’h had never appreciated how much easier the lack of wings made sleeping arrangements. “Sehvi decided not to come back to bed?”

“Nah. Even though the kits are old enough to get their own breakfast and entertain themselves if we want to sleep in, she never feels right about leaving them up alone.”

Vasiht’h snorted. “Since I’m sure their idea of breakfast is leftover cake and milk, I can see why she’d feel that way.”

“Milk is healthy!” Kovihs said. “Besides, you can’t blame them for reaching for the easiest thing. They’re old enough to get out their own plates, but that doesn’t make them old enough to cook anything useful.”

“It was cookies for me,” Vasiht’h said, amused. “My mother liked cookies.”

“Hah! I liked fruit.”

“Fruit!” Vasiht’h eyed his brother-in-law over the shoulder. “Snitching healthy food doesn’t count.”

“It does if you only liked it baked into crumbles, strudels, or pie,” was the smug reply.

Laughing, Vasiht’h said, “All right. Granted.”

Their mirth bled into companionable quiet. It was customary for Glaseahn families to sleep in piles, and Vasiht’h hadn’t been surprised to have been invited into Sehvi’s. The children were restless, and at least one of them—Vasiht’h hadn’t figured out which yet—was a kicker, but once everyone quieted the room had felt like home: dense with the smell of fur and warm from the combined body-heat. The sound of everyone breathing had brought back memories of how no matter when he woke up, there was always at least one person amid all the other sleepers who was also awake. No nightmares among their family: you were never left alone long enough for them to develop fangs.

Sehvi’s family might be small by the standards of the one they’d been born to, but only because she was just starting. And Vasiht’h, who’d acclimated to sleeping in a room with only one other occupant, found it revelatory how much he’d missed it.

“So, ariihir.”

Vasiht’h cocked an ear back toward his brother-in-law.

“Tell me what you’re planning.”

“Kovihs?”

“Sehvi’s told me you want kits. You don’t have a friend to marry, though, do you? You’re going to go through the priests.”

“I… yes. I think that would work best for me. I’ve already got a partner.”

“That Eldritch,” Kovihs said. “Just one person.”

Vasiht’h lifted a brow at that. “What’s on your mind, exactly?”

“It’s good to have you around. And it makes Sehvi and the boys happy to have you. You know that. So I’m waiting for you to tell us that you want to arrange a group household, so we can support each other.”

It was surprising that his pulse could accelerate so quickly over something so minor. But it wasn’t minor, was it? “I haven’t said anything to Sehvi—”

“I’m sure you haven’t because you don’t want to disrupt our life.” Kovihs sighed. “And you know, a few years ago I would have resented the imposition, and not wanted any part of it.”

“But something changed.”

The other male chuckled. “Yes. Me. We get older, ariihir, and we realize that living among aliens is fun but a strain. I’ve been thinking for a while that I wished we had more contact with other Glaseah, and feeling like… balancing my career with my family was getting to be too much of a zero-sum game. Having you here even for a few days has been comfortable. I like having you sleeping at my back.” A grin. “For one thing, you don’t kick like Joreht.”

“Oh, so he’s the culprit?”

Kovihs laughed. “Don’t tell him I said so.”

“I won’t.” Vasiht’h fell silent, measuring the pressure of the other Glaseah’s spine against his side, the warmth of it, the safety. “I miss this too.”

“But?”

“I don’t think there’s a but,” Vasiht’h said. “Except possibly that figuring out how to fit our lives together won’t be easy.”

“We’re thinking about it. Thinking is the first step toward actualizing.”

“The Goddess would say so.”

Kovihs chuckled. “Which is why we worship Her. She’s sensible.”

“Who’s sensible?” Sehvi demanded, darkening the entrance. “You’d better be talking about me.”

“We’re talking about the Goddess,” Vasiht’h said.

“Oh, all right. I guess it’s acceptable to hold Her above me.”

“Only conceptually,” Kovihs promised, tail flicking in amusement. “You are obviously Her embodiment in flesh.”

“You see why I married him,” Sehvi said, flopping down alongside her spouse and draping her upper torso across his lower shoulders. “That and the winglessness. It’s so much more convenient, not having to watch where I put my arms.”

Vasiht’h laughed as Kovihs sighed the long-suffering sigh of the afflicted.

“So what was all the serious talk?”

“I was trying to convince your brother that we want him as part of our household.”

“Oh!” Sehvi eyed him over her husband’s back. “Yes, that would be the hard part. That and convincing him that us living next door to him and his Eldritch wouldn’t be a problem for us.”

“Living next to each other isn’t the same thing as living with each other,” Vasiht’h said.

“But it’s a workable compromise,” Sehvi said. “Given your lordling’s need for privacy and space.”

Vasiht’h eyed them both. “You’ve discussed this already.”

“Let’s just say it’s occurred to us?” She grinned at him. “Really the only issue here is Kovihs’s research, which he’s almost done with. And he may be able to do the last of it remotely, depending on how fast you want to move on this.” Sehvi propped her cheek in her palm, and seeing it Vasiht’h realized just where he’d gotten the mannerism. Or perhaps they’d both gotten it from their mother. Or grandmother?

“It’s hard to do without family,” Vasiht’h said, quiet.

“It’s impossible if you want to raise more than one kit and stay sane,” Sehvi said. “You don’t know that yet, but you’re going to find out, ariihir. Why, when I went out there this morning the three of them were building a spiderweb—”

“This should be good,” Kovihs murmured.

“—that completely blocked Kovihs’s entire office,” Sehvi finished. “Out of quick-stick glue.”

“What!” Kovihs exclaimed, bolting upright.

“I thought I’d let you handle that one,” she said serenely.

After her husband had lunged from the room, Vasiht’h said, “You stopped them, I’m guessing.”

“Of course I did. But every once in a while it’s a good idea to remind him how much I do around the house.” She grinned. “I get bigger presents on Mother’s Eve that way.”

Vasiht’h laughed and hugged her. “Terrible.”

“I am, I know it.” Resting her head on his shoulder, she added, “You know you want us to come live with you. All you have to do is tell us where and when and we’ll be there with bells on.”

“I know,” Vasiht’h said, quiet. “If I knew exactly what I was planning…”

“You don’t yet. But you will. And when you do….”

He kissed the top of her head.

There were so many bars in the Hull’s chasm-like market that Lisinthir could have patronized a new one every day for a month… but he found he liked the minimalist ones that hugged the banisters of the walkways, the ones that were nothing more than a set of stools and an abbreviated counter. People perched there, had a quick drink, and were swept away again by the stream on their way to the lifts, the stairs, or their destinations.

The one he chose hugged the catwalk at the transition between it and the corridors leading toward the habitations, so it had one tiny corner where he could put his back to a wall. No doubt his cousin would chastise him for imbibing, but he found he wanted the alcohol... not to indulge a craving, but to continue his efforts to sever the addiction he’d developed on the Chatcaavan throneworld from the pleasure he’d once taken in the occasional drink. Like most men of his class he’d had access to a fine cellar, and been obliged by tradition to partake not just for social occasions, but religious ones as well. He’d liked the taste, once upon a time, and cared about flavor, texture, bouquet. The thought that his stint as an ambassador might have dulled that sensitivity was disagreeable.

Besides, his tolerance had been greatly magnified by his adventures with Chatcaavan liquor. If he could afford now to sample more before he was impaired, surely he owed it to his palate to re-educate it.

“A man with a great deal on his mind,” the bartender offered. “You want a refill?”

He glanced at his drink: seltzer water and some liquor made from an astringent seaweed native to Seersana, brightened by a twist of lime. “Not yet, thank you.”

“Passing through or here to stay?”

Watching the crowd, Lisinthir said, “Passing through.”

She chuckled, wiping down the thin counter. But he liked that she didn’t press. She had a breezy demeanor, lacking in attachment…to be expected, perhaps, in one of the usually nomadic Aera. She was making conversation with a patron, that was all. So he said, “Would you use a friend to save the worlds?”

She clicked her tongue against her sharp teeth. “Guess it would depend.”

Not the answer he’d been expecting. Intrigued, he said, “On?”

“Whether the friend wanted to be used.” The tattoos lining the insides of her ears were detailed with tiny gemstones that flashed when she splayed her ears and grinned at him with her long muzzle.

“I would have thought it would be more concerning,” Lisinthir said. “Being a user.”

She refilled the bowl of salted seeds nearest him. “That makes it all about you, though. Who cares what you do or don’t? What about them? Don’t they get a say? That’s what I’d ask. Their body, their fate. Their decisions.”

“Even though you could stop them?”

She shook her head. “Who am I to stop anyone? The only hero in my story is me. Everyone else’s actions are their business.” She arched a brow. “You sure you don’t need a refill?”

Lisinthir chuckled. “No. I am entirely certain I’m fine.”

She left him to his devices then, and he did not re-open the conversation. He didn’t need to; he’d made his decision the moment he’d turned his back on his cousin.

He’d honestly believed nothing would change his mind, having seen Jahir’s reaction not just to becoming a mind-mage, but to violence in general. He’d decided he would indulge Jahir’s desire to prepare for his supposed entrance into the fight, do everything in his power to abet that preparation in case some freak chance catapulted his cousin into the turmoil despite everything Lisinthir could do to prevent it. As recently as this morning, Lisinthir had been convinced that Jahir’s ambivalence would be the death of him, and anyone who depended on him.

With the instincts that had kept him alive in the court of dragons, he knew everything had changed. As suddenly as a sparring session, a sobbed confession in a shower, and a probe about the language... all that he’d thought would take weeks, possibly months, to accomplish had happened, all on its own.

Paying for the drink involved a swipe of his palm, and then he was on his way down into the Trenches. He would be back with Jahir in tow soon enough, to pick up the knife and choose the restraints that would keep his cousin from hurting himself by accident during their lovemaking. But that was the gift Jahir was expecting. This second was the one he wasn’t, and Lisinthir had planned it so that he could offer it as an innocuous token exchanged between lovers… or as a conduit for the tool he now knew had become essential.

He was Galare, and Hunter. He found the pattern on the edge of the blade, and when he did, he knew it.

The jeweler came out of the backroom to meet him when he approached the counter. “My lord,” said the Hinichi, a grizzled male with the most articulate and beautiful hands Lisinthir had ever seen. “I assume you have come to arrange the modifications you mentioned when you first gave me the commission.”

“I have, yes,” Lisinthir said, drawing the box from his inside breast pocket. Sliding it to the wolfine, he said, “I want the chip in that card inserted in the back, where it can rest against skin. Can you make it unobtrusive?”

The jeweler opened the box and turned it at a slight angle, catching the light. “That won’t be a problem.” He looked up at Lisinthir without lifting his head, just a flick of eyes. “I trust I won’t be charged with any crime for this, my lord.”

“I’ll record an authorization for you before I pick it up.”

The Hinichi smiled. “Another three days, then.”

Lisinthir inclined his head and left the man to his work. As he went up the stairs toward the nearest set of lifts, he thought of the jackal chest his cousin had sent him. The illegal claw-knives in that chest had saved Lisinthir’s life in the Empire. It was time now for him to return the favor. Because he was what he was. The Alliance and the Eldritch were his sacred charges and to protect them he would sacrifice whatever tool was available and necessary. Jahir had offered himself, and Jahir had become too powerful a sword to be left sheathed.

All that remained was for Lisinthir to make sure he survived the experience.