It remained perilous and strange, to be alive and in his right body, like handling a sharp-edged knife with numb fingers. That he could have been delivered from a hell he’d deserved back into life, and even more, into the life he’d left with all its privileges and responsibilities… it was surreal, like a dream from which he could not fully wake. The rings on his horn—they were weights that drew his head down from its proud arc. When he didn’t catch himself, he found himself bent, awaiting the blows he’d come to expect. He was no longer naked, and yet the clothing felt less real than the weariness and uncertainty that mantled him, dragging at his shoulders and wings.
The Emperor knew his state was worrying his lover and the Admiral-Offense. He was glad, then, of the Knife and Uuvek. Particularly the Knife. Because the Knife was here, and not with the Queen, and the Emperor had not yet heard this story. It reminded him that even before he’d been crushed he’d been struggling to grow straight, toward the sky and the Living Air.
“It was her doing,” the Knife said. The Chatcaavan was wearing his rightful shape now rather than the convincing guise of the Seersa he’d been in when they returned to this Alliance vessel. They were in its conference room alone; the Admiral-Offense and the Ambassador had withdrawn to answer the questions of the female trying to guide the ship out of what had become enemy territory.
“The Queen’s,” the Emperor said now.
“Yes, Exalted,” the Knife replied, earnest. “She discerned Second’s heart and arranged for our escape. Which meant all your harem, Exalted. The children and their nurses, and all the females of each harem.”
“But not herself.”
“No.”
“Because….”
“Because she wanted to reconnoiter.” The Knife’s words now were hesitant, as if fearing they would sound presumptuous. “She thought… she could stay, and learn things that could help us.”
“She did already,” Uuvek pointed out. “She learned that Second truly has betrayed us, that Logistics-East is now on the Thorn Throne, and that we are in league with the pirates coreward of the northern border.”
The Knife shuddered. “I am sorry, Exalted. I failed. But you tasked me to obey her and to protect her. I could not do both. I had to choose.”
“And you chose the former because?” he asked, quiet.
“Because she had the right to ordain her own destiny,” the Knife said, wings sagging. “No less than any of us.”
The Emperor studied the fretful gaze of the male he’d watched for so long before lifting to the title. Smiled, at last, and if it was a small and tired smile, it remained genuine. “You could have done no less.”
The Knife shuddered and closed his eyes, head dipping.
“She did magnificent work,” Uuvek said.
“Yes!” the Knife exclaimed. “It’s true, Exalted. She inspired the females to follow her. She shifted shape so she could speak to the minds of the tongueless servants in the nursery and won them that way. She arranged the escape with the Alliance by contacting Laniis and the Eldritch sovereign’s new ambassador. She… she did things.”
And such things…! “Where is she now?”
“Alive, as far as we know,” the Knife said slowly. “She was to be gifted by the Lord of the Twelveworld to the pirate nation. She said she would find out what she could.”
The part of him that had been dormant during captivity woke, murmured warnings. “The pirates on the Twelvelord’s border, then. Not the ones on the eastern border.”
“As far as we know?”
The Emperor’s wings quivered once. “And they call themselves a nation now.”
“Or the Twelvelord does, to please them,” Uuvek said.
They had not been privy to the reports brought back by Third, when Third had been marginally useful. There were pirates in all the unclaimed parts of space, but the ones coreward of the Empire had been particularly erratic and violent. Slavers were endemic to lawless areas, but they were far worse on the northern border… and it was only that area that produced sentient furriers. He’d never had an opinion on the furriers. Now he thought of Simone and Emlyn and Dominika… oh, how beautiful the Harat-Shar’s pelt would be to someone who thought of her as only an animal to be stripped of it. He didn’t realize he was growling until he discovered both his subordinates staring at him.
“You see,” Uuvek said to the Knife. “It’ll work out.”
If the Knife had had Pelted or human flesh to blush with, the Emperor thought he would have. Strange that it had become easier to read mortification in aliens than in his own species, but at least the Knife’s expressions were exaggerated enough. “I don’t doubt it!”
“Don’t lie,” Uuvek said. “He can tell.” Eyeing the Emperor. “Can’t you?”
“Yes,” the Emperor said.
“And he won’t punish you for it,” Uuvek said to the Knife. “Don’t you see it yet? This is the male we’ve wished we could serve. Finally.”
“You shouldn’t be so forward, still,” the Knife hissed under his breath.
The Emperor watched this byplay, remembering a time when he’d expected it. Those first days in the Navy—he’d always recalled his impatience, his breathless need to excel, to fight his way to the top. But there had been camaraderie, and he’d held it dear even if he hadn’t held it dear enough.
They both stared at him now, the one guiltily, the other almost daring him to disagree. What he said, at last, was, “That will be enough. You may go.” And hearing a whisper in himself, added, “Uuvek is correct in that I won’t punish you for what others would perceive as insolence. The obedience of unwilling males is worthless to me.”
“We should still respect you,” the Knife insisted.
Why, he wanted to ask? What had he ever done to earn respect? Even if the respect attached to the title… what had an Emperor ever done for the Chatcaava to deserve it? What he said is, “You respect me with deference, Knife. Uuvek respects me with fearlessness.”
“You see?” Uuvek said, unperturbed. “I’m right.”
“You always think you’re right.”
“Until I’m proven wrong,” was the amiable response. “How else can you live?” Uuvek rose and bowed, stunted wings spreading. “Exalted.”
“Uuvek.”
The Knife rose and repeated the obeisance. “Exalted.” More hesitant. “The Queen…”
“Do not apologize,” the Emperor said. “If you give someone a knife, you must trust them when they choose not to use it.”
“But when she wants it, it will not be there,” the Knife murmured.
“She is a resourceful Chatcaavan. Don’t doubt that she will find a weapon if weapon she needs.”
“Exalted,” the Knife said, and bowed deeper before letting himself out.
For a long time, he didn’t move. It had become habit, stillness. Some might have kindly called it conservation of strength, but it wasn’t. He’d come to the end of his strength. Somehow, now, he had to find his way back.
Perhaps that need is what finally impelled him to his feet, and from there to the clinic. Because someone had given him advice on finding his way back, and she was there, sitting on a stool with Dominika. They were talking, and stopped when the door opened for him. The pard’s expression was interested and noncommittal, which made it comprehensible. It was the happiness that welled into Andrea’s eyes at the sight of him that broke his world into deeper cracks, because how could she be glad of the monster who’d ruled the nation that had tortured her?
“You’re back!” Andrea exclaimed. And then rising, worried, “Are you having symptoms? Headache? Fuzzy vision?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
“So you’re the Chatcaavan Emperor,” Dominika said. When he glanced at her, the pard nodded toward Andrea. “She told me, or I would never have guessed.”
“No,” the Emperor said. “No one did.”
Andrea had come close enough to touch him. Just as he found himself hoping she would, she did, resting a pale-skinned hand on his arm. “What brings you by?”
He glanced at Dominika. Was he willing to expose his weaknesses before someone else? And yet, had not the Worldlord’s slaves seen him brought to his nadir? What did it matter, if they saw that doubt and pain persisted into the shell of a dragon? “I came to ask after Simone. And for advice.”
Again that radiant smile. “Simone’s in stasis, which is the best thing for her. Healer Crosby’s been keeping an eye on her.”
“You have too.” To the Emperor, Dominika said, “He’s given her work in the clinic.”
“It’s the closest thing to the job I used to have. Besides, if what we’re guessing is true, it may be useful to have more than one hand in the clinic.”
“And you have heard...what?”
Dominika stretched, her long tail curling as her arms pressed outward. “That we’re off to war? It’s hard not to draw the conclusion when a Special Forces team is sneaking around enemy territory with the Emperor of the Chatcaava and nationals from a foreign ally.”
The Emperor wondered what the Chatcaava of the court, or even of the Worldlord’s circle, would have thought of this kind of analysis springing forth from the mouths of aliens they’d dismissed as animals.
“Of course,” Dominika finished, “We’re also one very small ship, with almost no people on board to speak of, sailing around an enemy empire at least twice the Alliance’s size. So the likelihood of us doing anything useful seems…remote, we’ll say.”
“I don’t know how you can say that!” Andrea said, laughing. “For Heaven’s sake, arii. We rescued the Chatcaavan Emperor!”
The pard snorted. “The Sword and his fake pets rescued the Emperor. We just came along for the ride.”
“No,” the Emperor said. “Andrea is correct. You, no less than the Ambassador, kept me alive and sane. Though… to what end, I don’t know yet.”
“You see?” Andrea said.
“I see that you’re impenetrable when it comes to things you have faith in,” Dominika said with a grin. “But I like that about you. And of the two of us, I hope you’re the one who’s right.” She slid off the stool. “I’m off, unless you want my help?” She stopped before the Emperor. “I’m a counselor, I think Dellen told you?”
“Yes, but… I am…” What was he? Certainly not all right. “Functional, for now. I appreciate your offer.”
For a moment her insouciance faded. The woman looking up at him, he could well imagine confiding in. “Take me up on it if you need it, alet.” She paused. “Can I call you that?”
That broke through his melancholy, finally, and while he couldn’t laugh he could find it amusing, just a little. Poignant as well, this question of names and titles, so fraught with protocol and truth. “You can. I hardly expect you to call me Emperor.”
“A bit grandiose,” she agreed, grinning with teeth. “Do you prefer Survivor, then?”
“My name is Kauvauc.”
“Kauvauc-alet, then.” She nodded to him. “Andrea, see you after your shift.”
“Sure, arii.”
That left him alone with Andrea and the realization that he had given away his name as if it mattered more than his title, because it did to these aliens. And that he didn’t find it offensive. Strange, though. Frightening. Maybe it was in his eyes when he raised them because Andrea smiled. “It’ll get easier.”
“Will it?” And then, perplexed. “Do you even know what I am struggling with?”
“No,” she said. “But you are struggling with it. And practice makes you better at anything.” She grinned. “Sit. Did you really come here to talk to me? I’m glad.”
“I still don’t understand why,” he murmured.
She perched on one of the empty beds. “Do you have to?”
Did he? Why did she puzzle him so much? Where did she find her font of baffling questions? “Dominika is not wrong to doubt what we can accomplish.”
“All right.” Andrea pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged, hands on her knees. “Why do you say that?” At his sharp glance, she said, “You need to talk, arii, that’s obvious. And you’re talking with me, maybe, because I didn’t know you before. I don’t have any expectations that you’re worried about upsetting. I won’t judge you for not knowing what to do next. Right? So go ahead, I’m listening.”
His wings sagged behind him. “Why you would, why you say such things… is it because you hope to end the war and see me as the only way?”
“Like I said.” She met his eyes, grave. “I don’t expect anything from you.”
“But… then…”
“Because you’re my brother,” she said. “God loves you. So I do too.” She grinned suddenly, sweet and merry. “Don’t ask me why I love you because I don’t know either. I don’t have all the answers.”
But she had seen into his heart when it had been broken open. Maybe it was as simple—and as difficult—as that. He drew in a breath and said, “The Empire is larger than the Alliance.”
“How much bigger?” she asked. “I was never really up on interstellar politics. It wasn’t relevant to where I was. Or… at least, I thought it wasn’t.”
“Too big to lose,” he said. “Despite all the mistakes they are going to make. If my replacement keeps them united, they may not remain so after the war… but they will come apart on the shattered corpse of the Alliance.”
Weakness had been so interesting to him before. Revelatory. He’d wanted to pry everyone and everything open and discover how it worked. But he found the flicker of dismay in Andrea’s eyes distressing, and watched her worry at her lower lip without any joy at this insight into her state of mind. Did he still want to know how people worked? He thought so, but he no longer wanted to push them to find out.
“There’s no hope at all, then?” she asked, soft.
He sat on the bed across from her, lifting his wings to keep them from catching on the edge. He noticed such things more, now that he’d spent so long out of this shape. “If the current Emperor can keep the Chatcaava united, the devastation will be… extreme. But I don’t know that he will.”
“And then we’ll survive.”
“And then some of you will survive,” the Emperor corrected. “But wherever they put their attention first… those places will suffer.” He imagined the Empire, saw the map clearly in his mind. “Unless.”
“Unless?”
“Unless they fall apart prior to their first strike. But then there will be war here, and we will not survive that either.” He shook his mane back, realized by the need for it that he’d let his head fall. “Andrea… I don’t know how to stop this from being a catastrophe. For everyone.”
“Is it your responsibility to stop it?” she asked, eyes grave.
“It is everyone’s who could possibly prevent it. But… I do feel my responsibility outweighs everyone else’s. It was my empire to lead.”
“It was? Or is?”
He glanced at her.
“I just want to know,” she asked, quiet, “if you’ve given up already.”
Had he? He gave her what he’d been unwilling to give anyone else yet: the truth. “I don’t know a way out of this.”
“Maybe there isn’t a way out of it, like you said,” Andrea answered. “And maybe it’s beyond any one person. That’s what prayer is for.”
He couldn’t help a smile, then. “Would Emlyn argue with you about its efficacy?”
She grinned. “A little less vehemently than before our rescue. But that’s what God does. He pushes us toward uncertainty.”
“That seems… contrary to what a god in need of worship would desire,” he said. “Wouldn’t they prefer certainty? You have spoken often of having faith.”
“And I do,” Andrea said. “But faith requires me to be all right with uncertainty. That’s the test of life, you see? Otherwise there’s no point. For all this to work, you have to start with the understanding that you don’t know everything and never will, and you can’t fix everything, and never will. Part of faith is being all right with knowing you can’t control everything, and shouldn’t.”
He laughed, unwillingly. “Of all the things you have said, alet, that is the one least likely to work for me.”
“But the one most likely to discomfit you?” She grinned at him. “That’s what God asks of us. The willingness to let go and let Him in.”
The absurdity of the conversation was somehow soothing. He was arguing theology with an alien with whom he’d been rescued from one of his own worldlords, on the vessel of an enemy who’d come for him at the behest of a lover. The galaxy was about to convulse in the grips of an impossible war from which there was no positive outcome, and yet, here he was. What did it all mean?
“I still don’t know what to do,” he murmured.
“So,” she said. “Ask.” At his dour look, she smiled, but this time without merriment, and it was arresting. There was something stern in it, like steel, and gentle, and challenging. “Your Living Air is listening. So. Ask.”
“Just like that,” he said.
She inclined her head.
He’d started walking to the door before he realized he was in motion. At the hatch, he paused. Perhaps something of how lost he felt was in his eyes, because she said, “I’ll be here.”
So he went.
‘Just ask,’ she’d said, as if prayer were simple. As if receiving a reply was inevitable. She had said similar things to Emlyn in the Worldlord’s prison: that the human God noticed even a sparrow falling. In the cabin he shared with the Ambassador he queried the computer and finally discovered what a sparrow was. The unprepossessing bird that fluttered and hopped on the screen confounded him. It wasn’t even large enough to make a useful meal. Who would notice such a thing?
In the head, he stared at himself in the mirror, the very large and unnecessary mirror the Alliance had installed in a warship’s head: a silhouette cut out against the light gray wall, so dark he lost the details of his own edges until he moved them and the play of light picked out his arm against his chest, or his mane against his shoulder. He made himself watch as he Changed, though his twitching eyes lost the exact moment of transition. He had never noticed the effects of the Change on his vision as his eyes shifted, and how in the first few heartbeats afterwards everything was blurry. His far paler skin bled into the wall, the natural camouflage of a prey animal.
Would this shape be easier to pray in? Would a human God notice a human body, even if the spirit in it was something other? When had he ever called on the Living Air and believed in it, anyway?
These were, he thought, the sorts of questions that had caused the Chatcaava to despise the Change. These existential unknowns that made one wonder what a Chatcaavan was, if a Chatcaavan could be… anything.
“Are your bones solid?” Lisinthir asked from the door into the bathroom.
The Emperor looked at his hands, turning them in the light, then ran his palms over his ribcage. “I assume. We could ask the healer in the clinic.”
The Ambassador was leaning against the door frame, arms folded over his chest. He looked… much like he had when first they’d met, wearing a coat in cinnamon red edged in bisque and bronze. Too fragile a shell to house the incandescent spirit the Emperor knew used it for lodging. Again, that question: what relation the body to the soul? Were there even souls? How could he not know, when he could shift bodies at whim and remain himself?
His lover was studying him with that too-cautious gaze. Still worried, then, though his voice reflected only that perfect dispassion the Emperor had once admired in the throneworld court. “We could ask. No doubt he would find the experiment intriguing.”
“I am not…” What wasn’t he? The Emperor knew what his lover feared, but could not find a word to describe it, not one that didn’t sound histrionic. Chatcaava did not mope, did not moan, did not suffer introspection. “I am not brooding.”
Lisinthir moved behind him, standing a full head taller: white and rust and far too somber. “Has this shape become one you can wear without cost, then?”
“Without cost,” the Emperor murmured.
The Ambassador said nothing, waiting.
“They all have a cost,” the Emperor said. “But they all have something to teach me.”
“And what were you trying to learn, here before this mirror?”
“Whether a dragon can become as important as a small and witless bird.” The Emperor turned from the mirror to look up at the other male. “Have we successfully crept from the system, then?”
“Not yet,” Lisinthir said. “A few days, Meryl says. She prefers a conservative approach to sneaking in and out of enemy territory. Even with directions and a near guarantee that we were avoiding a trap, she chose a long and circuitous path into the sector to rendezvous with the Admiral-Offense.” He smiled a little. “It’s a pity we have no poetry this time for the Knife to translate. Lacking it, her caution is even more exaggerated.”
“Poetry?” The Emperor frowned.
“Apparently how your partisans communicate their intentions,” Lisinthir answered. “Some sort of religious tracts.”
Amazing how quickly his mind’s shattered focus collapsed into a single point, like the tip of a lance. “What?”
“Poetry?” Lisinthir repeated. “From scriptures? I assume from your religion.”
Was it wrong that he was suddenly so certain? And yet it made perfect sense. He lifted his eyes to the other male’s.
“What?” the Ambassador asked, low. “Tell me.”
“The Living Air has temples,” the Emperor replied. “Many temples. But there is one on the homeworld, the Source, where it began.”
Lisinthir paused, eyes growing distant. Then he chuckled. “Of course. It may be too obvious, though.”
“To us, because we know that our partisans are using scripture as a signal,” the Emperor said. “To everyone else? A dead religion on a world long relegated to insignificance by an empire intent on expansion? We put our throneworld near the border so that we could supervise our depredations on the worlds of aliens more closely. Who would go backwards, who could go forth?”
“And who would go down, who could go up?” Lisinthir murmured. And nodded, slowly. “Yes.”
“The homeworld is in a dead sector, poor and abandoned. Perhaps we will find nothing there. But…” He inhaled, his heart racing in this thin-skinned body, poorly suited to it. The glory of the hunt beckoned and it didn’t matter that he might not be up to it. That he might not be right. That he might fail in the fight. It was still his fight. “But even if we find nothing there, something can be made there.”
“Out of obscurity,” Lisinthir said, mouth twitching upward.
“I came from obscurity,” the Emperor said.
His lover studied him for several long moments, then laughed and wrapped him in his arms. Against the Emperor’s hair, he breathed, “There. A hint of the hunter I remember.”
The Emperor rested a hand on Lisinthir’s back. “He is still in me, too. So many mes in me, Ambassador.”
“And all of them you.”
He sighed a little, then pushed the Eldritch back. “Let us find the others and have a discussion with them about where we are going next.”
“Now that we know.” Lisinthir grinned at him, all predatory anticipation, and ducked back out of the head.
The Emperor paused, glancing in the mirror at his human self. Would Andrea call it divine inspiration? And yet, he hadn’t prayed, had he?
He would have to ask her about it, later. For now, there was work to be done.