CHAPTER ELEVEN

No guard came for Jahir the following morning. He was fed three times a day, per the Surgeon’s instructions, and while the meals did not pacify the roquelaure they did reduce the incidence of its warnings to an interval Jahir could survive without wincing. Certainly the opportunity to lie still, minimizing his exertions, made a difference in its complaints. He spent the time dozing, wondering how long a Chatcaavan day was and watching the light in the adjacent bathing chamber as it aged, grew coppery, faded to a ruddy silver that made him wonder what the moon looked like, if there was one.

No one came for him the following day, nor the next. He found his neglect perplexing after the Usurper had been so adamant about exposing him to the daily fleet movements... and he was torn between relief to be ignored and frustration that he could not be about the work that had brought him here. If he had felt that this respite was building his internal reserves against the need of the roquelaure, he could have borne it better… but the chimes never ceased, nor did his cravings. Had Lisinthir tested the device? Had it affected him this way? How had he managed it?

Or was this some artifact of its being designed for Lisinthir, but inserted into someone else?

When would it become more dangerous to leave it operational?

He shuddered and pressed his face into the inside of his arm.

Came a day at last when the guards did prepare him for the wall. The map was still up when they buckled him into his restraints, but most of the fleets remained where they’d been days ago. Had it not been updated, or were they waiting for something? But the Usurper did not come to elucidate, and the guards brought him the gag, and the earplugs, and at last the blindfold. An imminent meeting with Second, then, and he accepted what he could not change.

The Surgeon’s strictures were observed exactly. He was hung for four hours at a time, with an hour’s break between each session. Three meals they offered, small enough to suit the appetite he’d had prior to the roquelaure, but nowhere near large enough to silence it or drive away the numbness at his extremities. Once Second had left, they did not reapply the gag, nor the earplugs. The blindfold remained, which galled him. He did not love the games of sensory deprivation, though Lisinthir had filed the edges off his revulsion. That day he learned only that the Usurper did not entertain many visitors, and did not prefer viseo or aural communication. He remained silent, and Jahir wondered if he thought of his newest prize at all. The temptation to find out directly rose again, but he tamped it down. A few more days to acclimate to the situation, and then he would try, tentatively, extending himself. For now he thought it wisest to conserve his energy.

By the end of the twelve hours the Surgeon had allowed, the roquelaure was adamant. Without sight to gauge the change of the light or access to a clock, Jahir couldn’t tell how frequently it reminded him that he was low on reserves, but it felt far, far too often, and it was accompanied by an alarming peak in his cravings. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so hungry, and when the guards unshackled him he fell forward so abruptly they couldn’t catch him in time.

“Pathetic,” the Usurper said. “Astonishing that the former Emperor found him so dangerous. Have his attendant see to him.”

“Yes, Exalted.”

They brought him directly to the bathing chamber without even stripping the blindfold and dropped him on the floor. “Your work,” one of them said. “Find out what’s wrong with it and fix it.”

“Yes, my-betters.”

The scuff of boots, retreating. A pause. And then a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Ambassador?” Oviin said, hushed.

“Oviin-alet,” Jahir whispered. “God and Lady. Please. Food.”

“Food?” Oviin repeated, mystified. “Were you not fed according to the Surgeon’s strictures?”

“Yes, but not enough…!”

“Another meal will be sent for. Hold.” An interminable pause. Then the light steps of the Chatcaavan returned. A few moments later, the blindfold dropped from his face. “They will bring you something shortly. Is that all that’s ailing you? You look… you look unwell.”

Did he? Was the roquelaure set to mimic his true physical state? He would have to query it later. Even without that, he had no doubt he presented a pitiful sight, curled around his middle with his face wrinkled into a grimace. “Just… very hungry. I promise you, that is all I suffer now.”

“Astonishing. One cannot imagine where you put all the energy you derive from the meals you’ve been eating.” The dragon petted along one of his thighs, hesitant, and that touch… that touch was prolonged, enough that Jahir could sense beneath the Chatcaavan’s concern some darker emotion, jagged, fretful.

“What has upset you?” Jahir asked.

Oviin froze, wings pressed tightly together and low, almost out of sight. “Ambassador? Perhaps there was a mishearing?”

“You are frightened.” Jahir forced himself to sit upright, touching a hand to his stomach. He was cold; parting company with the stone floor helped a little, despite the effort it took to sit up. His head swam and he waited for the sensation to pass before speaking. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to discomfit you. But something is troubling you… I couldn’t not notice.”

“Not now.” Oviin indicated the bath. “Please. The temperature has been prepared to your specifications.”

“I’m not sure that would be wise.” Jahir eyed the steam rising from its surface. “I may faint.”

“Faint!”

“I’ll just… lie alongside it?” Jahir edged toward the bath, slumped on the towel Oviin had set beside its lip. The steam drifted onto him, beaded on his skin; that felt good, without risking the lightheadedness of immersion. “Yes. After eating, I can go in. If I have time.”

“You have all night,” the Chatcaavan said. He settled on a stool across the bath from Jahir, staring at him, and no special talent was required to read his unease. The golden wings fidgeted; the male’s stare was too intent, and the whites around his eyes too distinct. “The Surgeon has said your mouth should be checked daily, if the gag was used.”

Jahir tried swallowing, found himself sore but not bleeding. “For now, it has done no harm.”

“For now.”

Jahir only looked at him, then closed his eyes.

“You… accept… cruelties with an equanimity I expected only of a disadvantaged Chatcaavan.” Oviin’s voice was very soft. “That, I did not hear.”

“What did you hear? If I may ask.”

A long pause. Jahir didn’t open his eyes. At last, Oviin replied, “That you have the passions of a male. The ferocity. That you suffer no insult to pass unavenged. That you… are soft-hearted, but only towards those you like.”

That made him laugh, so unexpectedly it hurt his chest on the way out. “What an interesting legend to have accrued. Who has been sharing these tales?”

“Those who clean and cook… we listen. It is something we are good at. The males at supper talk. They talk to one another while we are silently at work in their suites. The males Outside speak of their work, whether it is preparing slaves for the harem or changing shifts in the clinic. The guards. Everyone… everyone talks.” That came out stressed, almost urgent. “So, we listen. Because knowledge keeps us safe.”

“And much is said of the Ambassador,” Jahir guessed.

“Knowledge keeps everyone safe,” Oviin said. “It is the coin of power.”

That prompted Jahir to look at him, though he didn’t lift his head. The Chatcaavan was hugging himself, and he looked so pained and vulnerable Jahir wondered suddenly at his age. Whatever else Oviin might have said was interrupted by the arrival of the meal, and the smell of it carried clear across the room, so powerfully it felt like a punch to the gut. Struggling upright, he lunged for it and started on it with his bare fingers without even knowing what it was. Strips of meat, too rare for his taste and yet it was the best thing he’d ever eaten. Pieces of what looked like flatbread, but leathery and heavy. A sauce—he dipped his finger in it, licked it, found it so sweet his teeth ached and it was exactly what he wanted. He ate like a man famished, and would once have found his lack of manners appalling and his appetite gauche and none of that mattered. Only that when it was over, his stomach still hurt because his need had outstripped his stomach’s ability to accommodate it. For a few long, painful moments, he wondered if he would vomit.

When he looked up, Oviin was kneeling alongside him with a basin, and his wide-eyed look was almost comical. “Was… was that wise?”

“No,” Jahir managed. And groaned. “Yes. God and Lady, I hate this.” He rolled carefully onto his back and stared at the ceiling until the nausea vanished—too slowly for comfort, too quickly for his peace of mind. Was his body using up the energy that fast? Surely not. “Thank you, Oviin, but I believe—I hope—that won’t be necessary.”

“You eat like a starved thing!” Oviin breathed. “Will you not make yourself sick?”

“I wonder.” Jahir grimaced, resting a hand on his abdomen. The chiming had ceased, at least. “I beg your pardon, Oviin. That must have been an ugly thing to watch.”

“Only because this one feared you would choke. Or vomit. The bath now?”

Reluctantly, Jahir sat up, tossing his hair out of his eyes. “I need it, I’m afraid. But I would not want to sully the waters before washing my hands and face.”

“The water recirculates. But there is an understanding.” Oviin took up a cloth. “Permit…?”

Jahir hung his head. “Please.”

The Chatcaavan took one of his hands tentatively and began to lave the fingers. He was both meticulous and tender, and through their skins Jahir perceived that dagger-sharp fear, plainer now. He allowed the Chatcaavan to decide when he was done with the first hand, and to reach for the next. The face was harder for them both, which is why Jahir closed his eyes and allowed it, and that touch was almost feather-light, conveyed a tremulous fascination, and worry, and abruptly, very clearly, a thought: She would have helped him.

Jahir opened his eyes.

“Ambassador,” Oviin whispered, haltingly. “There… there was a message.”

“A message?” Jahir repeated. Who would have left him one? The Surgeon? Second?

“Before you came,” Oviin continued, wiping the corner of Jahir’s mouth and staring at it fixedly, “the Queen was given to the Lord of the Twelveworld, who ordered her prepared as a gift for the pirates who harry the Alliance. This one was ordered to tend her-his-better, to bathe and decorate her. During this session, she-his-better told him information she-his-better wished to be conveyed… outside the Empire. To the Emperor’s allies.” He lifted his eyes then, and the fear through their skins spiked. “Which this one did.”

“You,” Jahir whispered. “You were her contact in the palace.”

Oviin shuddered, a twitch arrested so hard Jahir flinched in sympathy. “Yes.”

“Brave male,” Jahir murmured. “You did your Queen’s work well.”

“This one tried,” Oviin said. “This morning… this morning, there was a message. A return message through that channel.”

Jahir forgot the lingering discomfort of his stomach, forgot the cold, forgot that he was naked and alone in the stronghold of his enemies.

“It was… it was in code,” Oviin said, taking obvious comfort from the details. “From the scripture, the scrolls about the ubiquity and power of the Living Air. Its goodness, filling our lungs and wings.” He let his hand drop to lie limp in his lap, the cloth crumpled in his fingers. “The first Emperors of the Chatcaavan Empire were referred to in this manner. And so I can only believe that the Emperor-who-was lives yet. And that my contact hopes for information—from me—that I might use to abet his return to power.”

“Oh, Oviin,” Jahir breathed.

“They do not know about you,” Oviin said. “Four stanzas they sent, two intimating the Emperor’s return and two about obedience to the Living Air and aid to its winds. Aliens… aliens are referred to through other sections of the tract and those were absent.” He lifted his chin, his elegant mane falling away from his eyes, and there was boldness in his mouth, in continuing to claim the unmarked pronouns. “I believe if they knew of you they would want news of you.”

“Yes,” Jahir said, careful not to betray his eagerness. “They would.”

“And I could tell them.”

“You could, yes.”

“And then… perhaps… they would rescue you.” Oviin twisted the cloth in his hands. “Or, more likely, ask you to work against the Usurper.”

“Yes,” Jahir said, grave.

“Then, Ambassador… what am I to do?”

Jahir set a hand on the Chatcaavan’s knee. “Shall I tell you, and deprive you of any agency? I do not command you, Oviin-alet. Nor would I, could I do so, when it involves so much peril for you and so little for me.”

“Just like that?” Oviin said, trembling. “You would tell me that I should do as I wish? That I should not think of your suffering? Or of the suffering of the Chatcaava who do not deserve the Usurper, do not deserve this war the court is inflicting on the Empire? You would tell me my death is more important than those things?”

“No,” Jahir said. “I would tell you that if you already know those reasons, you will answer the message, because you know what is at stake.”

“But I am afraid of dying!” Oviin cried.

“So are we all. But you ask me to believe you craven, Oviin-alet, and I say to you: the male who took the Queen’s words and transmitted them out of the palace behind the backs of his oppressors is no coward.”

Oviin stared at him. And then said, hushed, “I am no male.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes!”

“Then rejoice,” Jahir said, gently. “Because you are free. They cannot cage you in the expectations and games and behaviors of a male. You may make your own choices.”

“Alien!” Oviin exclaimed, covering his face.

“And enslaved,” Jahir agreed. “But also Ambassador, and unbowed.” He forced himself to slide over the lip of the bath and into the water. “There are more ways to power than the ones you were taught. Will you turn from them because they are unexpected?”

Oviin was silent for so long Jahir feared he had misjudged the moment. He gave himself to the water, tasked himself to breathing through the bodily discomfort of the meal, the roquelaure, his own aches now that his joints felt capable of protest. He splashed his face for the coolth it would bring when the water evaporated, wished for the calming teas his partner would have brewed had he been home: Terran chamomile, perhaps, or the odd, anise-like Hinichi herb he should remember the name of, but could not, though he could recall each of the active chemicals responsible for its anti-emetic effect. He did not think he was losing his mind, but he felt unmoored here. How strange to realize now how much he needed people when he’d grown up in a society that disavowed such needs.

“The Emperor-that-was,” Oviin said. “This one watched his behavior for the entirety of your first tenure here. Perhaps you did not realize, as this one was one of the many servants who brought meals to the Field. But I… I saw you kill Third and his Hand. I saw you on the second pillow, eating off the Emperor’s plate. And I saw the Emperor… change.” The Chatcaavan rose, pacing away, one hand clutching his arm. “I also saw him kill Second to renew his mastery over the court.”

The pronouns leaked out at promising moments. Jahir ceased his ablutions to watch his attendant.

“I don’t know if I want that male again as Emperor.”

“But?” Jahir asked, quiet, hearing it in the tone.

“But this Usurper…” Oviin shivered. “He is so, so much worse. He seems less dangerous because he does not rage. But he looks at everything, and everything is a legitimate target to him. And when he decides to remove it, he does so without the ceremony that attends such removals. We are… we are like parasites he has decided need extermination.” Lifting his face, the drake finished, “There is no beauty in it, and no honor, and no… no Fittingness. Do you understand that word, Ambassador?”

“I have not heard it,” Jahir said cautiously.

“The ideal of all that is and was and will be exists in the Living Air,” Oviin said. “And it is Perfect. We are the manifestation of one of those ideals: that which can know Perfection. To see that Perfection clearly we must act in ways that befit our status, as people, as souls incarnate. We cannot devolve to the status of animals.”

“And acts that lift you above that nadir are Fitting,” Jahir guessed.

“You understand.” Oviin dipped his head nervously. “It was said of you, that you understand our souls. The Usurper does not act in ways that are Fitting. He treats us like meat, and so we become meat. Undeserving of our status as that which can perceive the ideal. You are an alien, Ambassador, but do you understand?”

“I do,” Jahir said. “Fittingness… it is like Beauty.”

“You know our words,” Oviin said, soft.

They seeped through memories of skin against skin, of words whispered in rapture and trust. Hunter—my Delight. “Not as many as I wish. But enough to know why the Usurper is poison.”

Oviin returned to the lip of the tub and crouched there, golden tail held out for balance and wings tucked soft as a mantle against his back. “Ambassador. What shall I tell my contact?”

“Oviin—”

The Chatcaavan’s gaze had steadied. Jahir saw the future in them, the bright and bloody and possible future. “Tell me exactly, Ambassador. I remember everything I hear, Perfectly.”

“This is interesting.”

Lisinthir reached for a fresh shirt and pulled it on. “Go on, Exalted.”

The Chatcaavan didn’t flinch at the title, which made the information on the data tablet interesting indeed. As they’d crept toward the border of the Apex system, Lisinthir had left most of the work of data sifting to his lover—to distract him, and for the unique perspective that only the Emperor could provide after his years of managing the competing factions of the Empire. He limited himself to listening instead, and asking impertinent and oblique questions.

“As an adjunct to the main body of Uuvek’s cache,” the Emperor said, tapping a talon on the tablet’s surface, “there are news feeds. Military news feeds. And among them, consistently, a request for your capture.”

“Mine specifically, yes,” Lisinthir said. “I had heard.”

“That request has vanished. The most recent news no longer mentions it, nor asks for Eldritch captives.”

Lisinthir frowned. “Vanished?”

“Yes.” The Emperor shook his mane back. “So, I went looking, and I have found a mention of your capture.” He looked over his shoulder. “Did you spend a few days in captivity and escape?”

“Not at all,” Lisinthir said.

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed. “So, they are lying.”

Lisinthir set a hand on the desk to steady himself. For a moment, it was all he could do, swamped by memories. The Hinichi’s elegant hands accepting the card, so unassuming to carry such tremendous import. The sight of the secret rampant resting in the cleft between Jahir’s collarbones. The shudder of prophecy, conveyed through a body stiffened by rapture.

“You know something,” the Emperor guessed, studying his face.

Lisinthir resumed dressing. “It is possible they are not lying… and that the captive they have secured and believe to be me is, in fact, my cousin.”

“Your cousin,” the Emperor repeated, a faint frown marring his brow. “That is… the get of your sire or dam’s sibling.”

“Just so. Fleet has a technology that can make people look like someone else.”

The Emperor put the tablet down and faced him. “How you became the Sword.”

Lisinthir inclined his head.

“A projection.” The Emperor squinted. “One good enough to mimic you? There will be visual records, if anyone cares to compare them.”

“Oh, it will fool them.”

“Setting aside the possibility that they are lying, which is in itself interesting,” the Emperor said. “Why would they care? Me they needed killed to secure the throne. But if they think me dead, what use you to them?”

“Curiosity?” Lisinthir offered. “It motivated you.”

“It will not motivate Second.” The Emperor rose from the chair, still frowning. He crossed to the sideboard where Lisinthir kept tonic water on a tray far better suited to brandy. Unlike the healthy replacements Alliance healers had forced on him for the hekkret, he’d grown fond of the substitute he’d chosen for alcohol. He knew it was safe for Chatcaava to drink, but he wasn’t sure the Emperor was tasting it. The Emperor’s mind was elsewhere. “Second is an intelligent male, but not introspective, and not curious.”

“And Logistics-East?”

“Even less so. Detail-oriented. A very powerful mind, and precise, but he lacks the passion to stimulate warmer emotions, like curiosity. I would have also said he lacks the capacity for revenge or anger, but the throne may put paid to that.” The Emperor leaned against the sideboard. “I would suspect him of arranging for your capture so he could kill you. No loose ends. That would be his way.”

Lisinthir lost a beat of his heart.

“That distresses you.” The Emperor put his glass down and crossed the room to touch his arm. “This cousin. One of yours?”

“One of mine?” Lisinthir repeated, smiling weakly. “Like a female in my harem?”

“One of yours to protect,” the Emperor said. “And we both know how you feel about those you consider yours to protect.”

“He is dear to me,” was all Lisinthir could say.

“There is a hope.” The Emperor rested a talon on his lips, and that was gentle, a reminder of their earliest days. “They had so many bulletins about you that they surely would have announced your death had that been their aim.”

“I must hope you’re correct.” Lisinthir tilted his head, forced his mind to resume thinking. “Though I admit it puzzles me that they might be so interested in my disposition.”

“Does it? When you killed Third? Single-handedly arranged for the increased vigilance and aggression of the patrols on the border? Threatened us with our debts?” The Emperor snorted, nodded. “Yes. That would make sense. You acted like a male with power, and you are loose, gone back to the nation you would no doubt be rallying for war, when you weren’t spilling our secrets to the ears of the Alliance military. Some Chatcaava would have discounted that. Second, while incurious, is not stupid. And Logistics-East hates untidiness.”

“I suppose I was something of an irritant.”

The Emperor laughed. “You were a menace, and it was glorious.”

“Was it truly?”

The Chatcaavan smiled, reaching up to thread his fingers through Lisinthir’s hair and tug. “My Perfection. Lisinthir. Watching you work the court… do you know how many weaknesses you revealed in it by moving through it?”

“No,” Lisinthir said, fascinated.

“You knew I was gone, now and then.”

“I recall, yes.”

“It was my habit to visit the Navy.” A shadow crossed those fluorescent eyes, but the Emperor continued. “Several of my errands involved arranging for trouble for some of those courtiers. To take them from the court, or to destroy their power bases in preparation for their removal.”

“Really,” Lisinthir said, startled. “Why did you not simply kill them?”

“Even in the court of the Thorn Throne there were males it was not expedient to kill. Better to neutralize them more subtly.” The Emperor let the hair unravel from his finger. “That was how I managed some of the Empire’s politics. And why I lasted as long as I did.”

“And why you fell?” Lisinthir asked softly, sensing it in his lover’s gravity.

“Yes.” The Emperor smiled crookedly, showing teeth. “I was too dangerous, and too easily manipulated by the one loyalty I assumed to be unswerving, so much that I never questioned my reliance on its existence.”

“We all have our weaknesses, beloved,” Lisinthir murmured.

“So I have learned.” A pensive silence, brief but profound. Then the Emperor rallied. “These messages about you, they were ancillary to the packages put together by Uuvek. I would like to see if he can find more. It may hint at whether they have an Eldritch or if they are lying, and that in itself is information I need.”

“Need?” Lisinthir asked, caught by the unexpectedness of it.

The Emperor was drawing on a robe, sliding a wing through one of the slits in the back, then the other. “Yes. This situation with Logistics-East and Second… it makes no sense. The male who was Command-East should be on the throne. He was the one who betrayed me, who had the way into the court. He had access. Why then this puppet?”

“A mistake?” Lisinthir murmured, frowning. “Or perhaps he wants something it is easier to obtain from a position of less scrutiny?”

“Possible,” the Emperor said. “Probable, even. He is incurious, Second. But smart. He is playing a long game and I don’t know what he wants.”

“Troubling.”

“Very,” the Emperor agreed. “Will you come?”

“No,” Lisinthir said. “I will remain here for the nonce.” He smiled. “You need time with your own, Exalted, so they will continue remembering who you are to them.”

The Emperor snorted. “As if that male in particular requires it.”

Lisinthir laughed. “Perhaps not Uuvek, no. But this is your work, Exalted.”

A smile curved the Chatcaavan’s mouth, gentle and crooked. “’Exalted.’”

“Beloved,” Lisinthir answered. “Kauvauc.”

The Emperor leaned to him, cupped his face, lapped at his mouth with a cool tongue. Lisinthir lost himself there for several moments, breathing in the familiar smell, sinking into the dense and complex emotions that were still fermenting beneath the surface of the Chatcaavan’s mind.

“Kauvauc,” he allowed when they parted, just enough for speech. And smiled. “Exalted Emperor.”

The Emperor nipped his neck. “Insolent Perfection.”

Lisinthir laughed. “Is there such a thing!”

“If insolence exists, it must have been derived from its ideal. So. Yes.” The Emperor gathered the data tablet. “I return.”

“You will find me here.”

Alone, Lisinthir dropped onto the couch and rested his head on its back, eyes closed. Nothing in him could believe in the death of his cousin. Perhaps that comprised denial of what was, after all, far more plausible than that Jahir might have survived the calculus of a cold and precise personality weighing the dangers of a living Ambassador against the deflated potentials of a dead one. And yet… why would the Usurper forgo the power that would accrue to the male who claimed the Ambassador’s death? He rubbed his thumb against his temple, pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture he realized he’d picked up from Jahir. Could he ruin his alimentary canal a second time with stress? Probably. What his surgeons would say in such case he could hardly imagine.

The door chime was a welcome distraction. “Come.”

Meryl stepped through the hatch and paused. “Bad time?”

“Not at all, alet. Please, sit.”

“We’ve hit the system limit.” Meryl settled on the chair across from him and folded her long legs. “I’ve authorized a Well transition in an hour, and we’re doing data dumps now of the information you and the Admiral-Offense have communicated to us.”

“Is that wise?” Lisinthir asked. “To do so before we’ve left?”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Meryl said. “The information’s more important than we are, and it’s got decay. Fleet needs it as soon as possible. Besides, all indications show the Chatcaava are too busy to notice.”

“Are they leaving, then?”

“Not yet, but they’re forming up, which apparently justifies a lot of infighting. Maybe if it was Navy-only it would be a smoother operation, but the Admiral-Offense’s report makes it clear that they’re trying to integrate non-military units with their regular Navy, with all the predictable friction. Uuvek tells us that the Naval commbands are full of spit and vinegar.”

Lisinthir smiled, though he felt no mirth. “They are eager to be about their work, no doubt.”

Her fur had bristled, a subtle thing with her uniform obscuring her shoulders and throat. He spotted it on the tail curled alongside her hips, and at the backs of her ears. “We’ll see how eager they are once they’ve crossed swords with us.” She sighed. “Which brings me to my visit.”

“Not stopping by for tea, I assume.”

She snorted. “They don’t brew tea strong enough to get me through most of my assignments. This one is up out of coffee and into the alcohol range.” She tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair, finally said, “The Emperor. Is he good for this?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that.” She cocked her head. “This situation, alet… I can charitably call it disastrous. We’ve run the Admiral-Offense’s numbers six ways backwards and forth again and I’m not seeing a lot of scenarios that have a happy ending. For anyone.”

“I know,” Lisinthir said softly.

“And given how hard a slog we’re looking at, I need to know if he can go the distance. Because otherwise, you have to understand… we might be forced to cut our losses.”

“You’re talking about killing him.”

“I’m talking about eliminating him,” she said. “Yes. If Fleet Intelligence tells us that gives us our best chance for surviving this. If keeping the current power structure is more likely to destabilize the Empire enough that we could beat it. If he becomes a liability by splitting our attention. Or if he isn’t the ally we think he is.” She met his eyes. “Is he?”

“He is our only ally,” Lisinthir replied. “And, I begin to think, our only hope. Your worst case scenarios… they involve the two fleets smashing themselves to such pieces that pirates and criminals can pick off the remains, yes?”

“That is one of the possibilities, yes.”

“We need someone to reshape the Empire into something more in keeping with our ideals. That man is in your conference room now. He wore a human shape to your meeting. He has been a slave in his own people’s harems.” Lisinthir lifted a brow. “I will make clear to you, alet. If not that man, then no one.”

Meryl held his gaze a heartbeat longer, then nodded. “From my personal observations, I’m inclined to agree with you, which is what I’m going to advise Fleet Intelligence. But I also need to tell them whether he can handle the strain.”

“He will.”

She studied his face, then leaned back and laced her fingers over her ribs. “Then I’ll take you at your word, and hope you’re right.” Her expression became more closed. “You’re remarkably calm for someone who just heard me say I was capable of killing his lover.”

Lisinthir snorted. “I lived through the court, alet, where everyone was considering whether to kill everyone else. Even I considered it. And I did.”

“Kill someone?” Meryl asked, ears splaying.

“Did they not tell you?” Lisinthir wished idly for a smoke, resigned himself to yearning. “Yes. I killed two members of the government. They were involved in the slave trade. I wanted to send a message.” He smiled crookedly. “You forget that the Emperor came to power in this environment. I don’t doubt that he is also considering whether you’ll feel obliged to kill him or not, and doing what he feels necessary to prevent it.”

“That sounds… like a threat.”

“It would have been before.” Lisinthir shook his head. “He has changed. When he says he wants to work with the Alliance, he is sincere. I can tell.” He lifted his hand, moved the fingers through a piano exercise as Jahir would have. “Skin doesn’t lie.”

“I guess if anyone would know, you would.” Meryl grimaced. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”

“It was…” What could he say? “Immaterial,” was what came out. “As the court that was will never be again. Everything is changing, Meryl-alet. All we can do is try to guide the change into the channels that save us all.”

“At least the job is never boring.”

He laughed. “No.”

The comm chime was an arpeggio, different from the door’s. Lisinthir frowned. “Yes?”

The Emperor’s voice: “Perfection. We have something for you. Come.”

Meryl stood. “Something I need to know?”

The briefest of hesitations. “Yes. Both of you.”

“Never boring,” Meryl said again as they left.

The Emperor was in the quarters assigned to the Knife and Uuvek, bent over the desk where the latter was tapping away at the computer interface. “What did you find?” Lisinthir asked as he entered with Meryl at his heels.

“We’ve got a pingback from our contact on the throneworld,” Uuvek said. “They’re in the palace. They’re willing to relay data. But there’s a line in the message that doesn’t map to anything in the scripture, though it sounds like a piece of poetry.”

“What’s it say?” Meryl asked, leaning over the desk.

Uuvek quoted, “So long as there is breath in me, I will serve life.”

Lisinthir closed his eyes, head dipping just a touch.

“It is him, isn’t it,” the Emperor said softly, watching him. “Your cousin.”

“It is,” Lisinthir said, aware of a trembling in himself that was less his body and all his spirit. Thank you, God and Lady. “He’s there. Wearing…” He paused and smiled lopsidedly at Meryl, “My missing roquelaure.”

“What?”

“The roquelaure I misplaced,” Lisinthir said. “I gave to my cousin. He appears to be using it to impersonate me, and he is now in the imperial palace, captive of the Usurper.”

“How is that even possible?” Meryl exclaimed. “They should have keyed it to you. It shouldn’t work for anyone else!”

“It is working for him,” Lisinthir replied, since the idiosyncrasies of Eldritch biology were not something he cared to explain… even if he’d understood them completely.

“So you mean to tell me we have a plant in the palace and someone willing to relay his data out of it,” Meryl said.

“Yes,” Uuvek said. “And that’s not all.” He leaned back in his chair to look up at Lisinthir. “There were some delayed bursts waiting for me. Your nestsister is on her way to the pirate lair to rescue the Queen Ransomed and someone with an unpronounceable name, and to find out how the pirates might be neutralized.”

Had his faith flagged? He should never have doubted them. “I have no doubt she will accomplish all her aims.”

“God Almighty,” Meryl breathed. “Is this what it sounds like?”

“Alet,” Lisinthir said. “The hunt is calling, and what we hear…” He inhaled, smiled, all his blood singing. “We hear the horns.”

All the Chatcaava looked to him at that, and the Emperor, meeting his eyes, gave a slow nod.