CHAPTER 14

Did he wake up again with a sense of dread? Was that fair after a night spent prostrate in front of the ship's altar? Vasiht'h lifted his head, groggy, and frowned. No, this wasn't about him and Jahir; he glanced at his partner, still sleeping alongside him, and his heart tightened in his chest. No, things there would be all right, somehow. That he didn't know how yet was immaterial. He would have to trust that the Goddess had a purpose in Her ineffable mind for their link and it didn't involve teaching Vasiht'h to cope with the trauma of a broken one. He chanced a touch, the way Lisinthir did so often, and ran a finger up Jahir's cheekbone: no response, just the same easy fullness in the mindline that whispered of dreams and rest. His partner was fine, if tired.

But Lisinthir was gone.

Cautious of a midriff gone sore from the odd position he'd slept in, Vasiht'h pushed himself to his feet and went into the front room. Nothing there, though there was a partially smoked cigarette, no longer lit, lying on some sort of small kit. The room still smelled of the drug, though, which meant he'd been using it recently….

That noise from the bathroom Vasiht'h knew intimately. He'd grown up with too many younger siblings not to recognize it; children inevitably picked up every possible virus they could find and some of his sisters and brothers had been 'vomiters,' as his elders so charmingly put it. He trotted to the door and waited for any other noise, then called, quiet, "Need help?"

The door didn't open for so long Vasiht'h almost tried the override, but Lisinthir finally stepped out just far enough to lean on the frame, arms folded and head bowed. Nothing on him smelled like blood or sickness—or at least, no more than it had when they'd first received him from the Chatcaavan vessel. In fact, he'd filled out a little: his skin was not quite so hollow under the ribs, though Vasiht'h could still count them.

"I'm fine," Lisinthir said, and sighed. "I may in fact be better than I was, excepting the seizures."

"But you're still throwing up."

"Yes. But not blood anymore." A faint smile. "That I did more than once in the Empire, toward the end, and I am relieved to be quit of it."

"How often?" Vasiht'h asked, frowning. "It can't be too often, or Jahir would have noticed." And fretted. "You're hiding it from him?"

"What can he do about it?"

Good question. Vasiht'h worried his lower lip, then shook his head. "Okay, good point. At least sit. I'll get you…" He stopped and flattened his ears. "Goddess, I'm so sick of not having a pot I can make tea in."

"Water would be welcome," Lisinthir said, and took himself to the couch. He sat and drew in a breath, then picked up one of two swords that had been lying on the cushions. Vasiht'h had missed them, probably because the scabbards were near the same black as the fabric. He watched as Lisinthir unsheathed the first and set it on a cloth covering his lap, then leaned over it to open the kit.

"Will it be soon, then?" Vasiht'h asked.

"Best to be prepared no matter what comes."

Sensible. Vasiht'h could grant that without too much distress after the night in the chapel. He went to the bathroom to fill two tumblers, one for each of them, and returned to the sight of the Eldritch doing something to the sword's edge with a rod. He sat to watch: the man as much as the process. What had Jahir said to him seemingly so long ago? Evaluate the client using his own senses, his instincts? Not easy, given how close Lisinthir kept his emotions. Was that in the way of a bandage holding in a bleeding wound, or was it honest-to-Goddess health? Could someone be healthy after what Lisinthir had been through?

"Thank you," Vasiht'h said, without planning it.

"For?" the Eldritch asked, absent.

"For what you've been doing for Jahir."

Lisinthir did look up then, one brow lifted. Something in Vasiht'h's expression must have spoken, though, because his eyes softened. "It was a needful thing. There will be no Seni heirs to follow him elsewise."

Vasiht'h nodded. "I could never talk to him about it. Not really. The one time I tried…." He thought of the moment on the Eldritch homeworld, and his partner's desperate rejection. His flanks twitched. "He couldn't bear to contemplate it."

"No, I imagine not." Lisinthir turned the blade, considering it, then set it back down on the cloth before resuming his work. "And what about you, then? Will there be Glaseahn kits to tumble over my cousin's boots?"

The domesticity of the image struck Vasiht'h so powerfully he couldn't speak; it spilled yearning into every crack that had been sucked dry by his emotional crisis, flooding him. Lisinthir let him gather his thoughts, filling the silence only with the scrape of steel against steel. "I'd always planned to," Vasiht'h said. "I think… maybe I've put it off long enough. Except the war's coming, and it would be cruel to leave the kits behind."

"So you will go with Jahir, if Jahir goes."

Vasiht'h said, quiet, "I have to."

Lisinthir nodded. "He is heart-lamed without you. I'm glad that you accept that." He glanced at Vasiht'h over the sword. "You will have to put more of your heart into what you do from now on, if you are to ensure both your safeties."

"I know." If he looked he could see a hazed reflection of Lisinthir's neck and jaw on the surface of the steel. "But if the Slave Queen can survive enslavement in the Chatcaavan Empire, I can survive fighting it." He drew in a shuddery breath. "I hope."

"You will," Lisinthir said. "You have your beloved to bolster you, just as she does hers."

"And you?" Vasiht'h wondered. "Who will hold you up?"

Lisinthir said nothing, setting the rod aside and taking up a cloth. He polished the blade and when he finally spoke his voice was husky, though there was nothing broken in it, nothing in it but resolve. "I live for the day I see my lovers again. As you would, were you parted from Jahir."

"Is it really like that, how you feel?" Vasiht'h asked, ears sagging back. "For two aliens, one of whom abused you?"

"If you could have felt his remorse…." Lisinthir paused in the polishing, then resumed. "And seen how he behaved after…" He shook his head a little. "He became Greatness."

Something about the word suggested a density of experience and meaning Vasiht'h couldn't begin to guess at.

"Besides," Lisinthir said, grinning. "Do you not have this passion for an alien yourself? Strange Glaseah."

Vasiht'h snorted. "You can't know Jahir and not love him."

"On that we are agreed." Lisinthir sheathed the sword. "And on that note, I dress." As he rose, the wall near them chirped.

"Bridge to Ambassador."

Vasiht'h glanced at him sharply. Lisinthir said, wary, "Ambassador here."

"We need you up here now. Looks like our visitor's arrived."

"On my way." Lisinthir was already stepping through the door to the bedchamber, catching up the clothes lying on one of his packs. "Wake your beloved. It begins at last."

The last set of clothes Lisinthir had were Imthereli's, and the reason they'd remained whole was because he'd hated to wear them. Partially because the colors were unkind—whatever ancestor had decided black on a white field would be fine colors for the House had been blind—and partially because they were his father's colors. But they were all the armor he had left, and he dressed hurriedly in preparation for the battle... because he didn't think there would be time later. The swords went at his hips, and the claw-knives he worked on, finger by finger, on his way to the bridge. The weapon was illegal in the Alliance, but he was not technically in the Alliance yet, and never would be if they didn't win this fight.

No one gave him a second glance on the way, which was significant not just for the blind eye they turned to his contraband, but for the fact that there were people in the corridors, and they were busy, working with the concentration of people doing very finicky work, but very quickly, affixing something to the walls near the deck. He was not the only one expecting to see the fight soon.

"Ah, Ambassador," Raynor said when he reached the bridge... and instantly Lisinthir knew something had gone very wrong. The man hid his tension well, but the very flawlessness of his control revealed him. "Your dragons have arrived."

"Prompt, as you hoped."

Raynor grinned, all teeth and no humor. "Maybe you can have a look at the sensor data for us. I have an idea of what's out there, but your intelligence is more recent." He waved toward the station where Cory was sitting... and there, hanging in the air, was a ship, hazily glowing in yellow.

"Well," Lisinthir said after a heartbeat. "This should be interesting." He stepped closer. "The measurements seem to be fluctuating?"

"Those are best estimates," Cory confirmed. "We're reading this off passive sensors: mostly the drone's right now, since they're too far away for us to use ours as effectively. I'm refining the picture as much as possible but it's not going to be as good as what we could get going active."

"Which we can't," a Tam-illee foxine said from the station alongside hers. "Because it'll warn them we're not the derelict we advertised ourselves to be."

"What do you think, Ambassador?" Raynor asked.

"I think," Lisinthir answered, "that I like a challenge."

That startled a laugh out of several of the people on the bridge, and while it hadn't been his intention, he did ease some of the tension that had been thickening the air.

"But yes," Lisinthir finished. "You are thinking it is larger than the last vessel, and you're right. That vessel carries sixty people, and unless it's been significantly damaged I don't think we can expect those numbers to be much reduced. Is it very far away?"

"No more than an hour out now," Cory said.

"Alas," Lisinthir said to the Captain, "You will have no opportunity for your drills, I fear."

Raynor was staring at the projection with narrowed eyes, one hand clasping the back of the chair he was standing alongside: his own, Lisinthir thought, from its central position. "Tell me... how likely is it that they'll really, really want prisoners?"

Lisinthir canted his head. "What are you asking? If they will try to take us, rather than destroying the ship outright? If they'd wanted to destroy us, they could have made their shots already, yes?"

"True." Raynor drummed his fingers on the chair. "What I really want to know is how many of them do you think we can lure over here? Because if we can get enough of them...."

"Then?" Lisinthir asked.

"Then we'll all cross over and I'll blow the ship myself."

Perfect, Lisinthir thought. The Chatcaava would never expect it: they knew the Pelted to be capable of self-sacrifice, but since they did not hold such acts to be virtuous they rarely remembered to plan for them in their enemies. He hadn't expected Raynor to be so decisive, and he wasn't the only one; there wasn't a set of Pelted ears that hadn't flattened at the Captain's declaration.

Cory said, careful, "You want to scuttle the ship, sir?"

"If I can get at least half that ship's complement over here, chasing us? Hell yes. That'll near even the odds. And honestly at this point, Lieutenant, we're all in now. It's be bold or die."

"He's right," Lisinthir said. "And there's a good chance we can lure enough of them over to make the ship's sacrifice worthwhile. Even if we don't, there won't be any escaping on it. Our only choices are to take them or pray to be rescued after they've taken us prisoner. I would prefer to die fighting."

Raynor nodded. "If we barricade ourselves somewhere and attrit them while they work on getting inside, will they keep throwing people at us?"

"Or will they just wire a bomb big enough to blow the bulkhead?" the foxine said, frowning.

"It's more likely they'd just try to Pad in." Cory's brow furrowed. "There's no good way to lock them out unless we can use a portable shield generator or a sensor scrambler. At that point, it's going to have to be a very small room. We won't have a lot of power to run one for long."

Lisinthir studied the glowing effigy. "If they're thinking the matter through, they won't waste people against a hardened target. They'll try to find some other solution. Which means it is to our advantage to ensure they are incapable of clear thought."

Raynor lifted a brow. "I recognize that look. All right, then, Ambassador. Let's hear your thoughts on how best to enrage a ship full of Chatcaava when we're outnumbered three to one." After Lisinthir explained, the human leaned back, considering him. The crew was studiously silent, though he could tell some of them were uneasy. Finally, Raynor said, "You think you can pull it off?"

"Captain," Lisinthir said, "I used the same strategy when I was in the court of the Thorn Throne... and I was outnumbered several million to one."

A tense silence... and then Raynor guffawed. "Yes, I see where you've come by your arrogance, sir. And I like it. All right, let's knock our heads together, see if we can't put together a route. If you want to play matador to a ship full of bulls, we'll make it possible and stay out of your way."

"Until it's time to cross over," Cory added, ears flat. They both glanced at her, found her teeth bared. "This is our fight too."

"Yes...," Lisinthir said, surprised by her fervor. He believed her, and that made some part of him whole that he hadn't noticed was lamed. To find these people worthy enough to fight for, yes, he needed that. To fight alongside them, to believe them capable of it.... "Yes. It is most certainly your fight, alet. And you're all welcome at my side, any time."

"Good," Cory said, her ears relaxing. "Then maybe we can start with the safe room. We'll need one large enough to fit everyone, but not large enough to tax the scrambler...."

Lisinthir found a chair close enough to the floating projection to see it in his peripheral vision, a necessary reminder of what was coming. His heart sped for joy, and hunger.

His partner's urgency broke him from sleep with an abruptness that felt like a blow. Jahir opened his eyes to Vasiht'h's hands on his shoulders. "...up, wake up—"

"I'm awake," he managed, and then shoved the blanket off at the crushing pressure in the mindline. "It's come."

"They're here," Vasiht'h said, ears flattening. "You need to get dressed, get ready... Lisinthir's gone to the bridge to have a look at what we've caught."

Jahir started shedding his nightclothes on the way to the bathroom. The mindline was pushing adrenaline to him in pulses, timed no doubt to the beat of Vasiht'h's doubled hearts, but that was far better than the misery he'd been expecting. Perhaps his cousin had been right: having too much time to dither over the situation was far worse for them than actually living through it.

At least, Jahir hoped so. The alternatives did not appeal.

He hastened through his preparations, found that he was reaching for a sword belt that wasn't there, and that startled him. He had hated the sword; had been disturbed buckling it on for the wedding at home, disliking its weight and the reminder of what he'd done with it. That he could now long for it felt surreal—

"Jahir?"

"Coming," he said, and left the bathroom.

"What should we do?"

"Arm ourselves for what comes," Jahir said.

"But what do I take?" Vasiht'h asked, anxious.

"We'll find something," Jahir said, and led him out.

There were crew in the corridors as they passed; two jogged by with rolled Pads on their shoulders, and another three were working on something that seemed electronic, affixing small beads to the floors or ceilings and then camouflaging them. Jahir led the way back toward the clinic, ignoring the suffusion of surprise in the mindline.

"Arii?"

"You said yourself that we are not fighters born," Jahir said, crouching beside one of the bio-beds and reaching under it for the expanded kit. "We are healers, and there will be a need."

Vasiht'h's uncertainty was at least leavened with a willingness to be convinced, something that reminded Jahir of... cookies. Inevitably, given how many times the Glaseah had baked his way through their difficult times. "Triona's far more qualified than we are."

"We know first aid. I have had experience with triage." He pulled the kit free and checked the straps. As he suspected, it could be modified to be buckled on, and Vasiht'h held still for him as he began the process. "Even if we cannot administer the aid, having extra supplies is always wise."

Vasiht'h glanced back over his shoulder, and Jahir found his breathing easing as the Glaseah's anxiety subsided. Not completely, but to a level they could both manage. "A little tighter. Goddess knows how much running I'm going to be doing."

"Very good," Jahir murmured, and tightened the belt. "There are weapons in the gym. We shall go there next."

The Glaseah breathed in, let the air out slowly through his nose. He managed a weak smile. "Right. Lead the way."

They were not the only ones heading for the gym; the two had to pause to allow a Hinichi to trot past them, carrying an armful of weapons.

/Kordreigh,/ Vasiht'h noted, the mindline tense with unease.

/Looking very grave,/ Jahir agreed.

/I wonder what the situation is?/

/We will find out soon enough./

Inside the gym they found Triona, dragging another Pad into the back corner.

"Alet?" Jahir said. "We came for a weapon and directions, if you know them."

"Directions... expect those soon," she said, terse. "For now go back to your quarters and stay out of the way. We've got half an hour to prep for boarding."

/Half an hour!/ Vasiht'h exclaimed, panicked.

/The sooner we begin, the sooner we end it,/ Jahir reminded him. He took his staff down from the wall. "Could you recommend a weapon for one of the uninitiated?"

She glanced at Vasiht'h instantly, then stopped the Hinichi. From his load she plucked out a palmer and tossed it to the Glaseah, who nearly fumbled the catch.

"The great equalizer," Triona said. "Point it, press the button."

"I thought they would be a poor choice on the Chatcaavan vessel?" Jahir asked.

"It will be, but we have to get there first. If you don't mind, aletsen?"

"Not at all. And thank you," Jahir said for them both, because his partner was speechless. Once outside the gym, he set a pace that would stretch Vasiht'h's legs—the Glaseah thought better when he wasn't idle, and if there was no kitchen for cooking in, exercise would do.

/This is really happening, it's really happening to us. There's a Chatcaavan ship and it's coming for us. Jahir—/

/Ariihir,/ Jahir said, putting all the firmness of his conviction into the words, /We survived the Ambassador's extrication from the first vessel. We will survive this as well./

Vasiht'h shivered. "All right," he said. "All right. You're right." He squared his shoulders. "Even if I'm useless with a gun, I can still watch your back."

"Yes," Jahir said, seeding the mindline with his approval. His partner's acceptance of it was rueful, the gratitude of a soaked person accepting an umbrella against a storm.

But as another of the ship's crew loped past them, Vasiht'h said, quiet, "It's amazing, watching them work. They seemed so normal, and now it's like they've become different people."

"The benefit of training," Jahir said. And then, sifting through the impressions he'd derived from all their Fleet clients over the years, "Training that some of them never need, but that they all take against the possibility of occasions just like this one. But it's the training that gives them the confidence."

Vasiht'h eyed him, and it was such a familiar look, such a normal one, that Jahir didn't begrudge the Glaseah one iota of his skepticism. "I think the lesson's clear enough without you pounding my head with the book."

Jahir grinned at him and received an amused huff, and if he could feel the slight hysteria edging it, it was only an edge.

They had barely entered their room again when Lisinthir glided through the door. That was the only word for it; he'd always moved with a duelist's precise grace, but now... now even if Jahir had not known the battle was upon them, he would have read it in his cousin's economy of motion. Jahir's self-defense instructor had often spoken of the fighter whose nerves were already aroused and reacting faster than the conscious mind could direct: as if every possible action and reaction was trembling in a net of light throughout every muscle. He'd never approached that state. Now, at least, he knew what it looked like.

"Cousins," Lisinthir said. "You'll be wanted in the gym presently. It appears the Chatcaava would also like to dance."

"Is it bad?" Vasiht'h asked. "How many people are we going to have to subdue?"

"We are guessing about sixty."

"Sixty!"

Jahir sent a calming wave through the mindline, and Vasiht'h's response was a single incredulous thought, like an exclamation point. To Lisinthir, Jahir said, "There is a plan, presumably. A new one."

"Yes. Most of you will be hiding in the gym, where good Cory can keep the enemy from penetrating for roughly three hours with her magical machinery. The rest of us will be encouraging our visitors to spend their strength against us. Our goal is to pull as many of them here as possible, then flee over the Pads onto their vessel and destroy this one."

"With them on board?" Vasiht'h said, eyes wide.

"As many as possible, yes," Lisinthir replied. "After that we will have to wrest control of the ship from them so we can use it to cross the border."

Jahir studied Lisinthir's face. "And by 'rest of us'," he said, quiet, "you mean 'you,' don't you. You will be the one taunting them."

"No one better," Lisinthir said. "Though I will have help. Very cunning help... these people are professionals, cousin. Don't fear overmuch for me."

"You should know better than to ask it," Jahir said, trying for exasperation and mostly feeling fear.

"Are you sure about this?" Vasiht'h said. "Lisinthir... you're good at what you do, I'm sure, but you said it yourself. These people are professionals. Shouldn't you be leaving it to them?"

"I would, arii," Lisinthir said. "But I can't. They are professionals, yes, and trained to it. But the Chatcaava are not soldiers: not without significant molding, and they are a people who resist molding. They are hunters, and so am I. And in the beginning this will be a hunter's game." He smiled whimsically. "Besides, I'm one of the few who knows the language and the only one who understands the culture. Much of our success hinges on the reduction of their numbers in this first phase. The fewer we have to fight on their ground, the better." He looked down at Vasiht'h. "Does this explanation satisfy you?"

"I can't say I like it," Vasiht'h answered reluctantly. "But I can see the sense in it, yes."

Lisinthir nodded. "Good. Because I have a request to make." He met Jahir's eyes. "I need you to remove the nerve block."

Silence. Even in the mindline: Vasiht'h was speechless, from mouth to heart.

Jahir said, "Tell me why."

"I am grateful for the comfort you've given me," Lisinthir said, careful of the words now. "Deeply so. But the block makes it difficult for me to tell when I'm hurting. And I am going to need to know that soon."

"The block's what's keeping your nausea managed," Vasiht'h said. "Your headaches. The gut cramps. For all we know it's helping with the seizures...."

"I know," Lisinthir said. "I know, arii. But I can fight through pain. I have before. And if you keep me insulated from my body, you'll impair my responses. Worse, I might take an injury I can't feel until my body fails me at the wrong moment."

"But if you leave it in place, you might get farther because you won't be crippled by your weaknesses," Vasiht'h said, fur bristling down his back. "Isn't that worth the risk?"

Jahir had been watching his cousin's face, his movements, the flicker of emotion in dark eyes. Vasiht'h was an expert judge of bodyspeech, and even did well with Jahir himself, who'd been trained to protect himself from the most careful scrutiny. But the Glaseah had not grown up among Eldritch, and Jahir doubted his partner could see what he did now.

In their tongue, he said, "You're hiding something." Black on every word, cutting them sharp, uncompromising.

Lisinthir met his eyes.

"You will tell me," Jahir said, low, and that was command. "You will tell me."

"And if I don't want you to know?"

"You'll tell me anyway," Jahir said, never looking from his eyes. "Because I am the one who will willingly go to your cruel hand and kiss it for gratitude, and you will deny me nothing."

That stilled his cousin's breathing, just for a moment. Yes, this was power: he had it, after all, even in his yielding. He was the healer and the servant both, or maybe there had never been any separating them. Gentler now, "Tell me."

Lisinthir said, low, "I want to kill them." A pause, then with a shudder that looked like desire, eyes closing, "I enjoy killing them. And if I can feel the pain of the injuries they deal me, then I might rise into rapture and I will no longer need your nerve block, because my own body will flood me with ecstasy." His cousin looked at him then, pupils swollen and lips wet. "Do you see? This beautiful state you come to by trusting another with your safety... I reach by opening throats and feeling the blood surge over my hands, hotter than fire."

So much in that admission, so much that he wanted to sink into; the therapist in him cried out for time, for the treasure of it, the trust. Here was the shadow side of Lisinthir's confidence, the fear that he had become unfit for any normal life, the vestiges of their acculturation trying to disease him. This was the whisper of their childhoods, bearing tales of cruel mages and tyrants, sociopaths without any tether in a civilized society.

This was his cousin's own cry: look at what I've become and how can it be right.

And of course, it came when they had no time to address it. But then, when had Lisinthir ever responded to words as easily as acts?

Jahir reached for Vasiht'h. /Hold me fast, arii./

Vasiht'h's misgivings tasted bitter under his tongue, like a too-steeped tisane, but the Glaseah joined hands with him and answered, /Here./

His long breath in brought serenity, and from that center he moved outward, cupped his cousin's jaw and breathed out into him, flowing through, flowing in, past the mind and all its thoughts and memories down into the underneath where snatches of song guided him to his own handiwork. One by one, he unraveled the knots that were holding the pain in check, hearing the music as they fell open, and this time he thought of singing as he worked, purposeful. Into Lisinthir and out of him again, tasting the acrid awareness of pain and nausea as they poured back into his cousin's body... and as he left, he felt Lisinthir steeling himself against them, the surge in confidence and the heightened alarm like the cry of a siren: danger – danger – ware –

Lisinthir bowed his head and Jahir left his hand on his face, an indulgence that nevertheless brought him the evidence of his cousin's gratitude. When Lisinthir looked at him, Jahir said in their tongue, polishing it in silver, "One does not admonish the wolf when it hungers to be slaying monsters."

"And when there are no more monsters?" Lisinthir asked, subdued.

"May we live to see the day," Jahir said. Something in him twinged, whispered of patterns too large to be grasped save in the briefest of glimpses. "But we will not."

Lisinthir sighed and turned his face just enough to kiss Jahir's palm, and the warmth of his breath on skin brought him back admirably from that uncanny place. "Thank you, Healer."

"Ambassador—" Jahir paused, then thought better of it. He met Lisinthir's eyes and said, "Imthereli. We have our duties. Let us go to them."

Startled, Lisinthir stared at him. Then with a flex of his mouth that was almost, but not quite, a smile, said, "Far be it from me to gainsay you, Galare." Switching to Universal, he said, "We are wanted in the gym."

"We're with you," Vasiht'h said, the mindline stiff with his resolve.

Lisinthir nodded and led them out.

/What was that all about?/ Vasiht'h asked once they were moving. /I caught impressions, but not enough to be sure of what I heard./

/A great deal happened to him, and he did a great deal in response,/ Jahir said. /Some part of him still fears that he's wrong and that he really is broken./

Vasiht'h was silent for so long Jahir thought he wouldn't reply. But he did. /Broken by whose standards?/

It seemed an inappropriate time to be laughing, but he did anyway, and hid it in the mindline where it wouldn't distress anyone else.

Cory handed him the telegem, and with it the brief caress of her mind, focused so intently on the fight that he drank it like wine. Lisinthir almost closed his eyes along with his fingers, feeling the points of the gem digging into the flesh of his palm. The pain was good, familiar; mingled with nausea and hunger, it brought him back to the peak of awareness that had been his world for months before he'd been ejected from the Empire. He was ready for this, was trembling with eagerness for it. The Chatcaava could not come fast enough.

"Ambassador?"

"I beg your pardon." He touched reality again, smiled at her. "You were saying?"

"Hook it on your ear," Cory said. "I'll be able to direct you from there if anything changes."

"Right." He seated it, careful.

"They've come alongside," someone said from behind her.

"Looks like it's about show time," Raynor said. "Triona, Reya, you good to go?"

"Ready, sir."

"To the Ambassador, then." Looking at Lisinthir, "If you need to deviate, tell us."

"This first wave should be quick," Lisinthir said. "It's the ones that come after that will be telling."

"Get on out," Cory said. "I need to seal the compartment so the scrambler can do its business."

"Right." Lisinthir glanced at Jahir, crouching with his back against the wall. The Glaseah was sitting beside him with claws showing at the tips of his toes. He flashed them a grin and then said to the women, "Let us greet our guests, aletsen."

Triona's growl was perfection. He liked these two, liked the healer's ferocity and the Asanii's edged sarcasm. They'd both volunteered to help him lay bait for their prey, and they looked handy enough with their chosen weapons; here in the roomy corridors and cabins of the Alliance vessel their palmers would be useful. There would be time enough for close-in fighting when they crossed over. The door shut on the gym and sealed; looking back at it, Reya said, "And that's that."

Triona said, "We'll be back there soon enough."

"Time is wasting," Lisinthir murmured, and led them through the darkened halls. As they swept toward their first staging area, the telegem in his ear whispered a muted tone.

"We've got five in the engine room."

He tapped it to acknowledge, flashed three fingers to the women to tell them which of their traps he wanted sprung, felt them peel from his side to attend to it.

Lisinthir drew one of his swords and went hunting. He had not spent long on the ship, but the days he had been here had been enough to acquaint him with the sound of footfalls on padded carpets, the sense of the lights and the shadows they cast, the way noises echoed when the corridors were empty and when they were busy with bodies. He was not Fleet. He had never been trained in the kind of combat soldiers could expect to see. The lessons in fighting he'd learned to defend the honor of his family had acquainted him with the use of a sword, but in a formal field and against single foes. He'd learned to improvise in order to assure his own victory, but that had been instinctive, not trained.

But before any of that--before the Empire, before Ontine palace and the dueling fields there—Lisinthir had spent decades maintaining and using the hunting lodge at the edge of his mother's family lands. He'd supplied the meat for more than one table in Nase Galare, tracking and killing everything from elusive ice deer to aggressive thicket swine. Those were the skills that woke in him now as he prowled from corridor to corridor, straining his senses for the Chatcaava... and it didn't take long to find them.

Five Chatcaava, hissing laughter to one another, for all the worlds as if they already owned the ship and everyone on it. He longed to kill them all himself... but his Pelted comrades were owed their own blood.

He stepped in front of them, smiling lazily.

For a moment, stillness.

Then Lisinthir lunged and put Imthereli's steel through the first one's neck, a fan of blood sheeting from the cut. On the backswing he caught a second through the wrist and then lunged back. "Pathetic freaks," he mocked, their language quick and hard off his tongue. "Come for a piece of the Emperor's catamite? You're not even good enough to soil my steel."

That worked. They vaulted toward him and he fled. As he expected, they gave chase. They would never gun him down when they could catch him and keep him. They hurled abuse at him as they sprinted after him, but as swift as they were they could not outrun him, and they didn't know the terrain. Lisinthir darted into the mess hall and jacked to the right.

The Chatcaava poured into the room, straight into Triona and Reya's fire.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Reya said, nudging one of the bodies with a boot.

"There will be plenty of time for excitement," Triona said. "What do you want to do with these, Ambassador?"

"Your palmers can cut, can they not?"

"Yes?"

Lisinthir nodded. "I want you to cut all the horns off them. The claws as well. Reya-alet, if you will come with me? There is another body, we should disfigure that one also. We can leave them where they are once we're done."

"You want us to mutilate the bodies," Triona said.

Lisinthir leaned down, pulled one of the wings up and opened the vane with his sword. "I want you to desecrate them." He glanced at her. "If you'd like to sully them in additional ways, you're welcome to do so."

She eyed him, then the bodies. "Is what you're suggesting sufficient?"

"It will enrage them."

She nodded and bent over the first.

"And you?" he asked Reya once they were out in the corridor. "Will it trouble you to deface the enemy?"

Her ears were pinned back and she was breathing quickly, but her shoulders were set and her gaze steady. "Hells no."

"Good. We will have to collect the horns as well, but the number on this lot should easily fit in our arms."

"Is it really that important to them?" Reya wondered.

"You have no idea."

Back in the mess hall, Triona presented him with the horns and talons of the remaining dead. He noted that she'd also seen to the wings with rather more precision than he had: she'd skinned the wing arms. His Alliance self approved; his Chatcaavan self was horrified at how naked the corpses looked.

"Excellent. Now it is time to record our provocation."

Triona nodded. "Whenever you're ready, you can use the wall. I've reported already to the Captain. So far, everything's under control."

Lisinthir stripped one of the bodies and used its pants as a sack for the horns, then went to the wall and tapped it awake. He closed his eyes, breathing through his desires and his angers, and when he opened them again, the dragon spoke, haughty and dismissive. What he needed to say he did with a few words... and then he lifted the fabric and let it fall open so that the horns spilled free. Catching one he showed it to his enemies and told them what he thought he'd use it for, and then, grinning, told them that an Emperor's bedtoy was worth more than all of them combined. He ended the message there and turned from the wall to find Triona staring at him with her mouth agape and her ears sagging.

"Understood that, did you," he said pleasantly.

"Well, I didn't!" Reya exclaimed. "What did you say?" When Lisinthir didn't immediately answer, she elbowed Triona. "Tri. What did he say?"

The Seersa stammered, "I... don't even know if what he said is anatomically possible without killing someone."

"It is," Lisinthir said, low. "I would know." He lifted his brows. "Send the message, would you, aletsen? And warn the captain our next wave of guests should be here shortly."

"So far, so good," Cory reported. "The scrambler's holding."

"Good," Raynor said. "Ma'et? How's the game going out there?"

"They're down to six," the Aera said, long ears flipping back. "Triona says they've taken a few hits, but nothing serious yet."

How long would that last, Vasiht'h wondered, tucked in the corner alongside Jahir. It seemed incredible that Lisinthir had lured fifteen of the Chatcaava over already, and that he and the two women had killed nine of them. How long before the dragons decided enough was enough and showed up in force? Before someone took more than a glancing wound from a talon? He was trying not to imagine Triona with a torn-open throat, or Reya taken captive, Reya whose nightmares had been thick with her terror of slavery. They couldn't continue like this indefinitely. Someone was going to get seriously hurt. Someone was going to die.

/This is work he can do, arii,/ Jahir said, voice vague with unease and distant like fog. The Eldritch was distracted with his own worries; Vasiht'h could taste them. His partner had his hand tight on the staff; Vasiht'h had been given a palmer, snapped onto the strap of the first aid kit he wore over his barrel.

/Maybe,/ Vasiht'h said, trying for optimism, /he'll lure them all over here, and we won't have to go over there to fight?/

/Maybe./

'But not likely' was how that ended. Vasiht'h had been with Jahir long enough to be able to finish some of his sentences.

"Fifteen out of sixty," Raynor muttered, fingers drumming on the wall.

"Maybe they'll all come over," Cory said, echoing Vasiht'h's thoughts.

Raynor shook his head. "At some point they'll come to their senses and decide to tow us somewhere they can crack the ship open and attack en masse. Probably the only reason they haven't yet is a desire to be able to claim the prize all to themselves. If they can avoid sharing with some other group of Chatcaava...."

"And we can't have them running away for help either, or we'll never get home," Kordreigh said from the other side of the room among the crew guarding the Pads.

"We can wait out one more wave," Raynor said. "After that, we're going to have to go over."

Cory started to speak and stopped, listening to her telegem. "They've taken care of the last six. The Ambassador asks if we're good to transmit the next message."

"Give him the go-ahead. And tell him to be ready to pull back during this set."

"Will do." Cory murmured the message to herself, condensing it to the bare minimum words, then tapped the telegem and got it out, shut down the link. They had done something Vasiht'h didn't understand, involving the sensors the crew had been hiding in the corridors... it allowed them to leave the ship's computers offline so that the illusion of their defenselessness held, and still be able to sense the internal volume of the ship and communicate at short range within it. The two of them had been given telegems, too, though neither of them had judged it necessary to wear them yet. Like Jahir, Vasiht'h didn't particularly want to know more about what was happening than necessary. "Message away."

/Not long now,/ Jahir said in what Vasiht'h was sure was an attempt to be reassuring.

/That's what I'm afraid of./

"Next wave," Ma'et reported. "Looks like they're using Engineering again. Five... ten... " She hesitated, ears stiff as she concentrated. "Fifteen... they're still coming. Eighteen--"

"Tell the Ambassador's party to get here immediately, Cory, and put the block up the moment they cross over."

Cory was frowning. "They say if they come here, the enemy will head straight for our location, sir. If we put the block up we won't be able to use our Pads to get out of here."

"We can use the damned corridors, same as they are—"

"Thirty... thirty-five, sir! And they're spreading out!"

Cory was already repeating the information. She paused, ears back. "The Ambassador says they'll make their way to the engine room to meet us, but that we'd better get going now."

"Mouthy bastard," Raynor said, but his mouth twitched once. It was more grimace than smile, Vasiht'h thought, but the fact that the Captain could find any humor in the situation at all was astonishing. "All right, ariisen. Ma'et, have you seen any more crossovers?"

"I think that's the lot, sir."

"Let's get moving. Kordreigh, you and your team first. Healer-assist, you and your partner follow. Then the rest of us."

The Hinichi and four others were already moving, passing over the Pads they'd been so lately guarding. Jahir rose, pulling Vasiht'h up by the arm, and before he could object the Eldritch had guided him over the Pad and into the engine room. Thankfully there were no Chatcaava left in it... the only evidence that there had been were five flat black mats that must serve the aliens for their Pad equivalent. The room was eerie, drowned in extreme, crisp shadows and striped in the grim red emergency lights. Vasiht'h didn't think he would have seen a Chatcaavan coming for him... weren't they gray and black too? He shuddered.

/Just stay close,/ Jahir whispered, and the nervousness Vasiht'h sensed under the words made him feel better somehow. If his partner had been sanguine about all this, it would have been more than he could bear.

All of the personnel that had been waiting in the gym appeared out of the Pad-nothingness; Raynor did a headcount and was just finishing when the doors opened. Eighteen palmers whipped in that direction, but Triona called, "It's us!" and the weapons sagged. Their bait party jogged into the light and Vasiht'h flipped his ears back. Fleet uniforms were too dark to show blood, but the fabric reflected the overheads with a wet glitter. Both of them were injured: Reya had bled onto her eye from a gash over her brow and was limping, and Triona had lost a sleeve to the same wound that had opened her arm, a bad one if the way she was guarding it was any indication.

Behind them, Lisinthir was a ghoulish sight. He'd been wearing a white coat. It wasn't white anymore.

"I left them some provocations," Lisinthir said without preamble. "But we'd better be gone before they find us. I would not want to be the target of their rage."

/Do I want to know..../ Vasiht'h thought.

/No,/ Jahir answered, the reply tense even in the mindline.

"I've got the ship scanned," Cory was saying to Raynor and Lisinthir, who were gathered around her to peer at her data tablet. "Here's the internal schematic, as far as we can see—"

"They'll expect us to go straight for the engine room or the bridge," Raynor said. "We need someplace less expected but big enough for us all."

"Here," Lisinthir said. "This is a mess hall."

"Do it."

"On it, sir."

Kordreigh and his team were already lining up at the Pads as Cory did the programming. Vasiht'h tried not to flinch, knowing that as soon as the Hinichi went over, they'd have to, and then... then it would be real. He'd be on an enemy ship, surrounded by enemies—

"I'll take care of you," Lisinthir said from behind him, and Vasiht'h almost jumped forward a few steps. He glanced over his shoulder, wide-eyed, and found the Eldritch behind him. His drawn sword was no longer clean enough to reflect anything, and Vasiht'h didn't want to think about what was stuck to it. "Both of you."

"We'll watch your back also, cousin," Jahir said.

Lisinthir smiled grimly. "I know you will."

"Go!" Cory said, and Kordreigh's team disappeared. Lisinthir flashed past them, drew them after him as if he'd caught them in his wake. It was easier to let himself be carried than to think about it and his own mounting terror. He had to do this. He couldn't abandon Jahir. The Goddess had set him on this path: She would not forsake him, or them.

Gasping in, Vasiht'h ran over a Chatcaavan Pad, skidding to a halt on the other side and almost crashing into the person in front of him... and then Jahir had caught his arm and yanked him out of the way of the person on his heels. The room around him felt too small and too crowded, and the lighting was different and the ceilings too high and the vibration of the deck under his paws....

"Clear!" Kordreigh called. "The room's clear."

"Where's the Captain?" That was Reya.

Cory said, "He was behind me with Danne's team—"

"Headcount!"

"We're missing five."

Cory hissed and touched her telegem. "Selvein to Raynor! Come in—" She stopped talking, paled so suddenly at the ears that Vasiht'h thought she would faint.

Raynor's voice on the telegem was admirably calm. "Their shields are up. Cory—you've got the helm. Get the Ambassador home."

"Captain—!"

...and then the ship bucked beneath their feet. A few moments later, the telegem chimed in his ear and murmured, "Switching to local channel. Power reserves: four hours."

Someone whispered, "Oh, Iley, he did it, he really did it...."

It was too small a silence to contain the destruction of the courier and the remaining crew on it—too small and too vast. The shock of it was overwhelming.

Triona shook herself. "Cory, we need to know how many of them are left. Can you hack your way in?" When the Asanii didn't answer, Triona's voice sharpened, "Cory! You're the only one who can do your job. Do we need to move you somewhere else? Some other terminal?"

"I... I can do it from here. There should be... should be access..." The woman swallowed and said, more firmly, "On it."

"All right," Triona said as Cory slipped on the finger-sheaths that mimicked a Chatcaavan's claws. "We've got fifteen of us, plus the Ambassador and the therapists. We killed fifteen of them, and the Captain just took out another thirty-five. This is our ride home, ariisen. We can do this. More than that, we have to."

It was a good speech; though it didn't put the fire in their eyes, it at least loosened their rigid spines. Lisinthir was glad it had worked, and only wished it had worked on him... not because he needed heartening, but because all he could feel was rage and he needed some rein to put on it before it raced off with him. God and Dying Air... they had killed the people under his protection. Not just the helpless, but the men and women who had pledged to fight at his side using a plan he had helped them develop.

These Chatcaava had killed his people. He was going to kill them all.

"I've got a number," Cory said abruptly. "And it's twenty-five."

The words interrupted his rage. "I beg your pardon? Say again?"

"Twenty-five." Cory glanced at him, ears flattened. "That's fifteen more than we'd planned."

"It's fifteen more than this ship can carry without compromising something," Lisinthir said sharply. "Are you certain?"

"Dead certain." Her pupils dilated as she realized what she'd said. She bit her lip, distracting him with the sight of her vulnerability, until for a moment all he saw was the gleam on her lower lip as it creased. "Five on the bridge. The rest are spread out."

He shook off the fugue. "Spread out where?" Lisinthir strode to her side, looked over her shoulder. She still had her hand with its artificial talons socketed into the interface and had frozen the interface on a wireframe of the ship's layout.

"I assume the plan's still to take the bridge," Triona added.

"We'll have to," Cory said. "That's the only place we can't be locked out of the ship's functions. And they know we're here, so we can't stay long."

He'd seen everything he needed to see. "Go now. I have an errand to run."

Cory bared her teeth at him. "There was nothing in the plan about you going off alone! You of all people? You're not allowed to die, or all this will be for nothing!"

"He won't die," a voice said from behind them. "And he won't go alone." The Pelted glanced over his shoulder, but Lisinthir didn't bother. He'd known Jahir would volunteer himself—later he would decide whether he was glad of the company or hated being slowed down. He just needed to be gone.

"Great, so you want to take a civilian," Triona said. "Are you crazy?"

"By many standards. I won't be long, and we need what I'm going to get."

"Which is?"

"Intelligence," Lisinthir said.

"In case you've forgotten," Triona said, her voice acid, "You are the intelligence asset here, Ambassador. You're the one we have to keep alive."

"They won't reveal what they know to any of you."

"If we take some prisoners—"

"You can't," Lisinthir said. His anger was so vast he was having trouble talking around it, around the impatience, around the knowledge that as worthy as these people were to fight alongside him, they would never do to a living Chatcaavan what would have to be done to pry the knowledge out of them. "They won't talk to you."

"And they'll talk to you?" Triona challenged. "I understand the bleeding language, alet. I heard what you called yourself when you were taunting them!"

Cory had fallen silent and was now staring at him.

"We're wasting time," Kordreigh said.

"You speak the language," Lisinthir said to Triona, and to Cory, "And you can take control of the ship. Go, I won't be long."

She was still staring at him. The dilated pupils, the clammy color of her ears....

She knew what he intended.

Cory pulled her claws free, flexed them: the overhead lighting poured down their metal surfaces, feeding his hungers. "Go," the Asanii said to Kordreigh, and as the Hinichi led his team to the hatch and out of it in quick, practiced motions, added to Lisinthir, "You. Don't be long." And then she was jogging with Triona falling in behind. The Seersa shot him a thunderous scowl, but he could read her puzzlement in it. She didn't know what had changed Cory's mind. Which suited him. She could find out later, or not.

"Come," he said to his cousins. "They're no less able to read internal schematics as we are. We must be swift."

"What exactly is it that we're being swift at?" Vasith'h asked, ears flat.

Lisinthir ignored him, trusting Jahir to make some acceptable answer for him, and silently. He slipped into the corridor, inhaling the alien and familiar smell of the ship, re-acquainting himself with the lighter gravity. There were fifteen extra people on this ship. Why? Why take the risk? Who were they?

No one was in the corridor, and his glimpse of the diagram indicated that there were a handful of Chatcaava heading for the stern but away from the power chamber, probably for damage control stations. He flexed his fingers under the knives hidden on their backs and went stalking, sensing his cousins falling into place behind him. The ship had been damaged by the close-on destruction of the courier—he could sense it in the lighting, in the stutter he could feel beneath his boots, a cough in the grids that fed the ship's energy needs on every deck. The air circulating had an actinic cling, a taste like storms. He remembered the sight of the Emperor slicing through one, framed by a lancet window, and suppressed his tremor.

We hunt, Exalted, he whispered. We were born to the hunt.

Lisinthir led his faithful shadows down a level, through a narrow shunt that Vasiht'h was almost too bulky to squeeze through, and there he found what he wanted. At one of the damage control stations, a Chatcaavan perched on an open drawer shining with ducts. Before the male could do more than whip his head toward them, Lisinthir tore him down and manhandled him to the deck, onto his stomach. The fight was brief and violent, the way he liked them… but not as difficult as it should have been. A runt, he thought, contemptuous, pinning the male's wing back at an angle that was too painful to evoke more struggle.

"I greet you," he hissed into the male's ear, his free hand pressing the narrow head into the grid flooring with a tight hold on the horn. "And I believe there is something you can tell me. For this information, I will let you keep your wings before I kill you."

This got him no answer save eyes wide enough to show the whites.

"Whose ship is this?" Lisinthir asked. "Whose?"

"I tell you nothing, freak!"

The claw-knives flicked free of their sheaths. Lisinthir ran one of them down a trembling wing vane, the light gleaming off the metal edge. "I think it's time... for negotiation."

The struggle began then, and though he'd promised his Fleet people he'd be along quickly he became unaware of time passing, and cared nothing for it. His victim fought him, and he was glad, so glad, when the dragon didn't give in immediately. It left Lisinthir the luxury of sinking into the threats, the relief of action after holding back too long, so long, and oh, God, how he missed his lovers.

The information came at last, and he hadn't had to do more than part the wing vane halfway up the finger. And it was everything he needed, and yet he could barely grasp it around his desire to utterly destroy the enemy under him. It was an almost orgasmic need, one that pressed him close over the Chatcaavan. Dying Air, how good it would be to humiliate him....

He swiped the claw knives through the male's throat and shoved the body away, rising so quickly he nearly stumbled. He drew in a shuddering breath and back-pedaled, turned and found the Glaseah keeping an agitated watch at the corridor, hunched low with wings tight to his back.

His cousin was facing him, face grave—had been watching the entire time, no doubt. Before Lisinthir could react, Jahir held out an arm, and with a muffled noise he went into that embrace, bringing his nausea and horror with him, and oh, God, oh, Air around him, his arousal and his rapture as well. He pressed his nose into Jahir's jaw and shook, just for a moment.

Jahir clasped him close, pressing his free hand to Lisinthir's shoulder and holding the staff to one side. Conflicting needs and desires surged through him, flushing his skin with exhilaration and leaving it clammy with Lisinthir's revulsion... but none of it was strange to him, or unexpected, and he breathed through the flood, spoke. "Do not doubt yourself, Ambassador," he murmured into Lisinthir's ear in their tongue, painting the words in shadows and gold. "For your cousin still loves you."

"Even now?"

"Think you I didn't know this about you already?" Jahir kissed his temple. "Straight now, Imthereli. Have we what we needed?"

Lisinthir drew in a breath to answer, and then the dragons dropped onto them from above, and the first Jahir knew of it was Lisinthir's shove, so tremendous he smacked into Vasiht'h's side and almost toppled over it into the corridor. He grabbed the edge of the hatch and used it to push off, back onto his feet. The fight was a blur of steel and wings blocking his view—God and Lady, but the Chatcaava were so small but so fast! Like vipers, complete with mazing reflections off their gleaming hides. He tripped one of them with the staff point and got a wing in his face, a blow so hard it staggered and briefly blinded him, sending a flood of hot liquid down his lip.

...and then the newcomers were dead, all three, and Lisinthir was panting, his sword drooling crimson and the claw-knives slick.

"Jahir!" Vasiht'h cried.

Jahir held out a hand. "A nosebleed, nothing worse. Messy but not deadly. Cousin—"

Lisinthir shook his head, turning from them with a hand held out. "It's nothing."

Jahir reached past his arm, grabbed his face and tilted it down. Someone had taken a swipe at it, bisecting the brow near the eye, and there was blood down the temple—had the temple been compromised? No, just scratches, but deep ones. "That's going to scar. Your eye is fine, though. What did you do, offer him your face?"

"It was that or my throat. I chose to duck."

Vasiht'h was dancing on his paws in agitation. "We need to get out of here!"

"Are there more in the corridor?" Jahir asked, infected by the Glaseah's urgency.

"No, but those three came from the ceiling... how did they know? They can't be the only ones up there. Maybe there are reinforcements—"

"Doubtful, but possible," Lisinthir said, wiping his brow.

"But we should go," Jahir said, resisting the urge to do the same with his nose. But as he turned, his cousin didn't move in his peripheral vision. He stopped. "Cousin?" Lisinthir had gone gray and Jahir dove for him. "You're hurt? Where!"

"No—" Lisinthir managed. "But I am... Dying Air... not now—" And crumpled, his body falling into Jahir's, the mind losing cohesion.

"Vasiht'h!" Jahir cried.

"Not here!" Vasiht'h exclaimed. "Goddess, where we could be beset, and I'll be the only one conscious—"

"Then you'll have to make do!" Jahir said, and fell to his knees, and into the disorder shattering his cousin's mind. This was it: the disastrous seizure, the monster in the dark, the killing event that all the others had been working toward. He felt Vasiht'h catch him, trusted the golden tether to hold him fast, and dove, heedless of the danger, and the stench of blood and the alien lighting and the despair and adrenaline followed him in. Had Lisinthir said he sang while he worked? He called up anthems and strung them like banners to snap behind him as he plunged to the very center of the chaos. How many blood-streaked memories had Lisinthir given him by now? And yet most of them had been bled in love. They were all that made meaning out of violence. Jahir held up his arms, drew in a breath, and called those memories to heel. Come now, he cried into that unsense. Come and become my cousin. Come and make him anew. Come, Dragon King! Come Queen of Martyrs! Come, Death and Suffering, Conquered! Come Sweetness and Exile, Grief and Beauty!

Come now!

Thoughts and words, languages and memories, they all flew to him as if summoned, grew dense and twirled around him, storms of color and light and burgeoning elation. His cry then was triumph—

Someone grabbed him, yanked him back with a pain that pierced him so deeply he let out a shocked yell as his assailant flung him around, blood arcing from the lacerations along his ribs. He found himself face to face with a Chatcaavan, saw over his shoulder Vasiht'h struggling toward him, beset on all sides: two, three, four....

No—no, this was not how it ended. It was not! Instead of pulling back he lunged into the male—there is no safety in distance—and smashed a fist into that narrow face, connecting with an eye. He ducked the dragon's swipe, feeling it graze the side of his head, and almost fell backward—

A hand grasped his shoulder, shoved him down. Lisinthir lunged past him, took the head off his assailant, and redoubled into the group circling Vasiht'h. God, but how the Chatcaava moved, and how his cousin did to best them! Three he slew, so fast, in a dance of steel and blood-drenched coat; the next two crowded him and the claw-knives flickered, wet sounds, ugly. Lisinthir erupted from between them and grabbed the last drake by the wing before he could reach Vasiht'h. Another too-quick flicker, a lace of blood sprayed against air and the velvet flank of the coat as Lisinthir rocked back.

The bodies hit the floor with ugly wet noises, and then there was nothing but the sound of their ragged gasps.

/Arii!/ Jahir cried as Vasiht'h turned to him with fear and concern.  /You're bleeding!/

/Lots of scrapes,/ Vasiht'h said, his voice trembling in the mindline. /But I'm all right. Lisinthir--/

"Cousin," Jahir said, and stopped. Lisinthir was leaning against the wall with an arm around his midriff, and he was shaking on every outbreath. Jahir jumped for him. "Kit, bring the kit!"

The kit's scanner showed more wounds than Jahir had realized his cousin had been taking, so many he felt faint at the report... and the one Lisinthir was protecting was deep. Not deep enough to involve the organs, but so much blood...! Worse, to seal that slice he'd have to get Lisinthir prone for a good ten minutes.

"No time," Lisinthir said, as if reading his mind. "Telegem... find out if they took the bridge."

/I've got it, arii./

With Vasiht'h talking to the Pelted, Jahir fumbled the AAP from the kit and found a clotting agent, loading it with fingers gone slippery with sweat and blood. "You need a halo-arch."

"Then I'm in trouble, as we're several days away from the nearest." The ghost of dry humor made Jahir look up, see the unexpected smile, the gravity in dark eyes. "You brought me back, Healer."

"And I will do it again," Jahir said. "Your physical state is nowhere near so difficult a thing to hold together as your complicated heart."

"Don't worry," Lisinthir said, voice gone low with pain and fatigue. "I'm not planning on leaving this life until I've seen my lovers."

"And made me one of them," Jahir said, moving Lisinthir's arm aside to get at the wound. He tried not to flinch at the sight of it, so raw and dark a mouth.

"And made you one of them," Lisinthir murmured, wincing as the AAP hissed against his exposed skin. "But only to deflower you properly so you won't disappoint that woman of yours."

Jahir said, "Live to embarrass me, Imthereli. Promise me."

Lisinthir managed a chuckle. "Will take more than this to kill me, Galare, I pledge you."

Vasiht'h said, "They've got the bridge! But another three people died...." A surge of nausea through the mindline that Jahir forced himself to ignore as the Glaseah glanced at the bodies. "I told them we took care of eight. We've got to get up there, though… there are still too many of them running around. Only fourteen of the twenty-five are accounted for. Can you move?"

"I can move. I can even run—" Lisinthir paused, then smiled faintly. "With some assistance."

Jahir put his arm under his cousin's shoulder. "Let's go."

As they staggered into the corridor, Vasiht'h said, /You were right...!/

/About what?/

/About everything...!/

Too much, too confusing, and he was too exhausted and afraid. He would have to ask later. He would have to pray there would be a later. /Did they say where the stragglers are?/

/Heading aft,/ Vasiht'h said. /Hopefully already past where we are./

/Hopefully./

Which left him abruptly aware that he had no idea where they were going. "Cousin? Where now?"

Lisinthir chuckled, a faint sound in his throat. "You would manufacture a reason for me to stay conscious and focused."

"It is very much not manufactured," Jahir said. He didn't like how heavily Lisinthir was leaning on him. "Point the way."

/Arii?/

/I'm worried. His coat is sticking to me--/ Jahir tried not to tremble. /It's hot. Something's bleeding freely./

/We could stop?/

/We can't. We need Triona, and a place we can set him down and not let him up./ Jahir paused so Vasiht'h could check the next cross-section for Chatcaava. Thank God and Lady his partner was handling his self-appointed role so well.

/On the bright side--/

/There is one?/ Jahir asked, trying not to sound incredulous.

/The ship is humming under my paws. Can you feel it? The engines have changed pitch./

Jahir started. /They have!/

/Maybe Cory's gotten this thing moving in the right direction..../

/Oh, arii... Goddess and God hear you./

A smile through the mindline, strained but grateful.

They hobbled through an interminable series of halls, all too cramped despite their high ceilings. The color of the light oppressed him, too yellow, too red, too something. And in his nostrils, blotting out everything else, the reek of blood. He was aware, distantly, that moving too quickly dizzied him, and that it hurt to breathe... the crust from his nosebleed had dried so stiff his face felt like a mask.

"Almost there," Lisinthir murmured. "Breathe, cousin."

"You are giving me the exhortations?" Jahir shifted his burden, torn between distress that Lisinthir seemed to be weakening and gratitude that his cousin's stay in the Empire had stripped him to bare flesh, sparing him any added weight.

"You need them. Look, last stretch."

Vasiht'h had stopped, shoulders falling. "You didn't say it would involve climbing!"

"You didn't ask," Lisinthir said.

Vasiht'h sighed and reached for the ladder. Jahir was so numb by then that he came to a halt, watching his partner's black and white fingers as they opened...

...saw the talons inch into view on one of the rungs.

/VASIHT'H!/

Vasiht'h backpedaled as the dragon fell out of the lift tube and lunged for them. Those claws filled Jahir's vision, clouded it with a phantasmagorical pastiche: his partner's throat torn out, Lisinthir with entrails dragged over the deck. His staff—he'd dropped it—but he'd been bruised by the scabbard trapped between him and his cousin. Imthereli had two swords, one of which had slept while Lisinthir used the claw-knives. Jahir grabbed the hilt and drew it, his wrist howling protest at the angle.

He knew... knew... that Vasiht'h would break to the right. He dodged to the left, and when the Glaseah twisted and rammed the Chatcaavan from behind, Jahir had the sword raised. The drake impaled himself on it, gliding up the steel as if being cut by a holoblade. The sight of it stunned him: Galare's swords were not so sharp. He backed away before the enemy could reach his face with a dying blow and the body collapsed to the deck.

"Nicely done," Lisinthir said from the wall he was leaning against.

Jahir was staring at the sword. His hand was trembling... was it fatigue? Shock? Horror?

"Arii," Vasiht'h said, grabbing him by the free wrist. "Come on, we've got to go!"

"He's right," Lisinthir said, and pushed himself up. Staggering past, he managed a ghoulish grin. "Keep the sword. You'll be faster with it than I am right now." With that he started up the lift tube.

Vasiht'h glanced after him, then said, "He won't be able to manage long without help. We're almost there, we have to keep moving."

"I know," Jahir whispered. He shook himself and said, "Go, I'll bring up the rear."

On the next floor up, Lisinthir said, "There. Keep going down this corridor. We'll get to the entrance at its end."

"How far?" Vasiht'h asked, ears flat as he scanned the length of it.

"A third the ship's length, I think."

"A third the—!"

Lisinthir smiled, eyes closing. "I think I can trust you to manage from here, cousin. Straight line. Can hardly miss it."

"Stay awake!" Jahir growled.

"Mm."

/We're running out of time,/ Jahir said. He started down the corridor with Vasiht'h at his side, and with every pulse of his heart he expected another attacker… but none came. The relief of it made the sudden lurch of the deck beneath them all the more frightening.

/Are we under attack?/ Vasiht'h asked, the words bright with panic. /By whom?/

Another shiver, smaller this time. Jahir shook his head and redoubled his pace. They reached the bridge just as the ship threw them to one side.

"It's us!" Vasiht'h was calling through the telegem, and the door opened for them. Two gore-streaked Pelted ushered them in and sealed the hatch behind them, and no sooner had they stumbled to a halt than Triona was on them.

"He took too many wounds," Jahir said as she pried Lisinthir from him and set the Ambassador down on the floor, well away from the fore of the bridge and the frenzied activity there.

"Help me get this coat off him." Triona pushed a spare scalpel on him. "It's wet, it's making him too cold."

Had he once balked at the notion of stripping another Eldritch? How things had changed! Jahir fell to his knees alongside his cousin and began cutting it off as the Seersa made hissing noises under her breath, flipping her larger kit open and going to work as the ship shuddered beneath them. Panel by panel the wet Imthereli coat came off: no longer white now, but scarlet and gory black, the embroidery clotted with it. Perhaps Lisinthir should petition to have the color of his arms changed from white and black to crimson. Jahir could imagine him laughing over the idea, held fast to that image as he peeled the sleeve off and parted the last of the sodden garment from his cousin's body. Triona had already destroyed the blouse to get to Lisinthir's skin, and the sight of it, purpling with contusions and laced with the fretwork of deep gouges, so many claw marks....  

He was too tired to watch, and found even if he hadn't been he didn't want to know how bad it was. Normally he would have wanted to help, but now—

"Dammit, he needs a blanket and the dragons don't seem to believe in them," Triona said. "He's going to go into shock if we can't get him warm—"

"Maybe I will do," Jahir said as he found himself slumping to the floor. To faint now seemed ill-advised but everything in him was crying out for him to do it now—for he would have no opportunity later? He wished he could question the source of the feeling, but fighting the exhaustion proved too difficult. He had the presence of mind to make sure he was against his cousin's side and then he let go of consciousness.

Vasiht'h lunged toward Jahir and dug his paws in before he could smash into Triona. His cry started in his throat and welled into the mindline, mingling emotional and physical realities in a way that made him realize that it was Jahir who'd made them whole in him. To lose that now! "Jahir!"

"He's fine," Triona said tersely. Amending, "Well, no, he's pretty banged up, but he'll be fine."

It was impossible to disbelieve such frank confidence. Trauma care was Triona's specialty and it shaped her voice, informed the quick precision of her movements. Vasiht'h crept closer, ignoring the constant quivers of the deck beneath his paws. "And the Ambassador?"

"Won't survive if he bleeds out. Put your hand here, push, don't stop until I tell you."

Startled, Vasiht'h did as commanded. "What am I pressing on?"

"An artery I want to stop gushing at me." The Seersa continued her labors with a sealer, bent close to the largest wound; her white-furred face was spattered in blood and smeared pink all the way down her neck, and the only reason her hands didn't look worse was that she'd gloved them. "Steady on there, alet," she murmured. "Stay strong. Give me these few minutes."

"He will," Vasiht'h said, then glanced over Lisinthir's shoulder at Jahir. His partner had fallen at Lisinthir's side, but he was breathing normally, and there was nothing in the mindline to suggest serious injury. Weakness, though…. "Are you sure about him?"

"The Ambassador? No."

"I meant Jahir—"

"He's got some bad-looking lacerations but they'll keep. Hold still. You, I mean, Vasiht'h. Stop moving, you're letting it leak."

He gritted his teeth and did as she asked, closing his eyes against the shivering lurches of the ship. He couldn't close his ears to the too-quick talking happening at the consoles in the front of the room, but he could at least ignore them. If it left him prey to the sickening squelches and the low hiss of the sealer on flesh, at least he could pretend that putting Lisinthir back together represented the worst of their problems.

"There, let up." Triona sat back on her heels and wiped her brow with her forearm. "Speaker-Singer. And no, don't ask me if he's going to make it. What he needs is a gods-damned transfusion and I'm not going to get one here. This ship doesn't even have a rhacking sickbay. What do the damned shapechangers do? Toss their injured out an airlock?"

Vasiht'h flipped his ears back, but the Seersa was already rolling Jahir onto his back and tearing open the blouse from the seam under his arm. "Nice big holes your partner got put in him here. Did he hold still for it?"

"No!" Vasiht'h said, horrified.

Something in his voice made her glance at him, just the most fleeting of looks while grabbing the scanner. She sighed. "Sorry, arii, sorry. Just… we've lost so many people, and if we lose the Ambassador too, after all this…."

"We won't," Vasiht'h whispered. More clearly, "We won't. He'll pull through."

"Even if he does, we have to make it home," Triona said, running the wand over the deep, ugly slices. Was that… one of Jahir's ribs gleaming through the cut? No, he was imagining things, because if he wasn't, he was going to vomit. "And the damned dragons have jumped into the fighter craft and are trying to lame us. Presumably so their calls for help can arrive and finish the job."

He started shaking. "Oh, Goddess…."

"Prayer sounds helpful about now, yes." Triona shook her head at the wounds. "These are going to hurt him like hell and probably scar too, since we don't have the facilities to heal them prettily. But he's going to be fine. What did he do to his face?"

"I think it was a wing to the nose."

"Should have broken it. Lucky man, your partner. Let's have a look at you next, ah?"

Vasiht'h suffered himself to be examined, but of the three of them he'd taken the fewest hurts. He'd bruise badly, but the few scrapes and cuts he had were pronounced 'cosmetic' and left untended—the medical kit only had so much power, and there was no easy way to connect it to the Chatcaavan vessel's power grids to recharge. "If someone can be spared from damage control later, I'll see if they can jury-rig some kind of outlet for me to use," Triona told him after she'd finished putting Lisinthir's feet up on the mounded remains of his coat. "Otherwise we're going to have to save it for the Ambassador, because if he doesn't get home all this is for hell."

"What happened?" he asked, tentative. He couldn't fathom how she was ignoring the constant quakes and jerks of the deck with such equanimity, but she was... sitting next to him with her back to the wall, seemingly unfazed.

"Nothing unexpected, I guess. They're vicious fighters—you've seen how fast they are?" She wiped her bloody forehead again, tired. "Right. Palmers work, but in corridors this narrow we could only shoot a couple of them at a time, and they were always right into us before we could get off more than a shot or two. We're lucky that they could only get to one or two of us at a time, too…." She trailed off, drew in a careful breath and finished, "Well. We fought our way to the bridge and took it. Cory got us moving and then started redoing the beacon, which is how we found out they'd sent a message out. We got our own out too, informing people that we've taken possession of the vessel and are under attack. We're going to have company at some point, and unless we're lucky some of it's going to be bad." She rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand, and for the first time her voice quavered. "We had to leave the Quicklance behind."

"If we get rescued, maybe we can send someone back for it?" Vasiht'h offered.

She shook her head. "If anyone managed to get to an escape pod...." She trailed off, then closed her eyes, and he knew then that there had been no chance, none at all, that anyone had survived. He opened his mouth to speak words of comfort... and stopped.

"Arii?" she said, catching his expression.

"The courier... it's gone," Vasiht'h whispered. He met her eyes. "The courier had the drug on it. The one the Ambassador needs. Or he'll have seizures."

This time, even he didn't notice the battle going on around them.

"Speaker-Singer," Triona breathed. "You mean to tell me that on top of being barely stabilized from a million wounds, I might have to contend with a crash withdrawal from a drug that's not even in the Alliance catalog?" At the sight of his stunned expression, she swore viciously.

"It's not long to the border, right?" Vasiht'h asked in a small voice.

"It doesn't matter that we're only a day and a half from the border at normal speed," Triona said. "If those fighters succeed in crippling us, we might never get there." She rubbed her forehead. "Hellfire, alet. I can manage his injuries—barely. But I don't have a cold stone's chance of doing anything about seizures. And if they're bad, they could trigger a real physical crisis. I'm tempted to slowsleep him, but I'm not sure what that'll do to him. It's contraindicated for some types of seizures, and I don't know what's causing his. Unless you two do?"

Vasiht'h shook his head. "Neither of us trained in it. Jahir knows chemistry, but he doesn't have enough of a healer's training to guess at how it'll affect him based on his injuries."

"So I could give him a dose and it might be fine," Triona growled. "Or I could give him a dose and it could kill him. Or I could give him one and it might put him so far under he might not come up again. And all of this is optimistic, because he still might die from internal bleeding or some other problem I can't even guess at because he's been taking a chemical cocktail that none of us have the first clue how to treat...! What the hell was he thinking?"

He'd been thinking that it was the only way to stay alive long enough to service the Alliance, Vasiht'h thought... long enough to be useful. And maybe not much more beyond that, because what chance had there been that there would ever be a future for him?

Except now there was. And what a future: full of conflict, war, joy, family, heartbreak and passion, all the things that Vasiht'h well knew moved every Eldritch, no matter how self-contained his presentation—or hers, for that matter. He'd met the Queen, Sediryl, and Jahir's mother. They all had that poetry in their blood. They'd all been made for great deeds.

And that was all right, suddenly. Because there were great deeds to be done, and someone had to do them.

Vasiht'h pressed his forepaws into the floor, firmed his resolve. "We can keep him from having seizures. Jahir and I. It's what we were doing with him before."

"I thought you were keeping him dosed on some sort of schedule?" Triona asked, ears flipping back. "I saw the notes...."

"It wasn't enough. He's had several," Vasiht'h said. "And we can treat them." He thought of the nerve blocks. "We might even be able to help in other ways."

"I'll take all the help I can get." She sighed. "I don't suppose you heard whatever intelligence it was he went crusading after?"

"The conversations were all in Chatcaavan," Vasiht'h admitted, ears sagging.

"Of course they were." Seeing him deflate, she said, "Oh, don't. Don't be crestfallen. If you can do this with the seizures, you'll be more than earning your keep. They'll probably give you a citation, even."

How ridiculous would that be! A medal to add to his unicorn necklace? How many parts was he made out of, anyway? Vasiht'h grimaced. He could accept a world full of great deeds, but he'd rather be the one helping others accomplish them. "I hope they don't." He rubbed his arms. "Jahir's got to be awake for it to work, though. I can't do it alone."

Triona was silent then, considering the two Eldritch lying side by side. "Stay here," she said finally, and pushed herself up. Vasiht'h watched her head for the front of the bridge, there to listen to the conversations and ask questions. She was a little too far for him to easily hear distinct words without straining, so he didn't. He allowed himself to drift instead.

Had he really just come through a fight? He hadn't fallen apart, either. He'd loathed the whole experience—that Lisinthir could find it exciting was beyond belief—but he hadn't frozen up, either. He'd been too terrified that his hesitation might get Jahir killed... and yes, Lisinthir too. Lisinthir, who was irresistible in his own way. Vasiht'h leaned down, slowly brushed the hair matted to the Ambassador's temple back until the blood released it. To that slack face, he murmured, "I guess every family needs its wild and dangerous uncle."

The moment he said it, he liked it. Of course Jahir's children should have an uncle. Who else? And his own kits? Vasiht'h tried to imagine some stubbornly pragmatic Glaseahn girl tagging along after Lisinthir and almost laughed.

"For that," he finished. "You have to live. So you'll have to."

Triona returned, dropped down beside him. "The next few hours are going to be hard. You should rest if you can."

"What happens then?" Vasiht'h asked. "Will we be all right?"

"We won't be all right until we're docked at the station," Triona said. "But if we can finish off the fighters before they finish us off...."

He glanced at her, incredulous. "And you think I'll be able to rest?"

"I could sedate you?" She sat, resting her head back against the wall, eyes closed.

He narrowed his eyes. "Will you sleep?"

"Someone's got to keep watch on the Ambassador."

"Then I'll keep the vigil with you."

"Fine." Rousing herself to courtesy, she said, "I'd like that. And I'm sorry if I've been short with you."

"Don't apologize," Vasiht'h said. "I understand."

She smiled a little. "You know... I think you really do?" She managed a chuckle. "I guess that's how you get people to tell you their problems, huh."

"I like to think I'm good at my job," Vasiht'h said. "But I'm better at it with him."

The Seersa nodded, ignoring the fresh shudder beneath them. "We usually do better in company, don't we." She smiled a little. "Fleet motto, or should be."

"Then we're going to be fine," Vasiht'h said. "Because no matter what, we're here together."

"From your mouth to the Speaker-Singer's ears."

Jahir woke abruptly, sodden with confusion, entwined with two separate minds and one of them in distress, the other clamoring equally for his intention.

/What?/ he said, and couldn't tell if he said it aloud. /What—/

/Seizure. Now—/

Now? Adrenaline cleared his mind, sharpened his awareness. Yes, he could see it, the actinic sparkles in his cousin's mind. He dove for them, brought a cloak of coolth behind him, soothing, whispering lullabies, forcing the energy to disperse. It listened readily to him: either this was a minor event, or his had become a trusted intrusion, and his cousin's body acclimated to accepting instruction from him. How Lisinthir would laugh at that! Absolutely Jahir must tell him later, how the healer became the conqueror. But first, he needed to know their disposition. Rising from the dreamworld that had clouded his vision, Jahir opened his eyes and found Lisinthir lying on his side, exactly where he'd been left. Vasiht'h was sitting alongside their heads, bent close; Triona was on the other side holding a diagnostic wand and a tablet. Beneath him the deck was vibrating, slowly enough that he could perceive each discrete tremor. He frowned.

"What goes on?"

"Well, hell," Triona breathed. "I had to see it with my own eyes. How do you do that?"

"Everything is connected," Jahir offered, and sat up, and only then became aware of how much he hurt. He listed and allowed Vasiht'h to catch him by the arm... awkwardly, because the Glaseah had grabbed for the one farthest from him. Why? Oh, there were pressure strips over his ribs. He touched them gingerly, winced. "We have survived, it looks."

"Barely," Vasiht'h muttered, the mindline heavy as a plumb-line with his exhaustion.

"Don't listen," Triona said. "We acquitted ourselves well. No way we should have survived against that many fighters when we don't have any strategy for dealing with them."

"We're limping for the border," Vasiht'h told him. "But it's going to take us five days."

"Five... days?" Jahir whispered.

"Five days," Triona confirmed. "And there are messages out there telling both sides where we are and what's happened, so our chances of making it without attracting someone's attention are basically nil. Meanwhile, our Ambassador here is doing his best to die on me, and he's apparently going to be having withdrawal seizures. Vasiht'h tells me you can prevent those... so if you can, I'm afraid you're not going to be getting much sleep for the next week."

Vasiht'h added, quiet, "We let you rest for a few hours."

Appalled, Jahir looked down at Lisinthir's drawn face.

"Silver lining-wise," Triona offered, "there's not much any of us can do for the next few days. So keeping watch is the limit of our responsibilities."

"That and the other thing," came another voice, and there was Cory... Cory whose body looked much the worse for wear. Her uniform was shredded across an entire shoulder, showing off four strips of pressure bandaging, and where it wasn't torn it was stained and had dried in strange folds. She'd washed her face and pulled her hair back, but her exhaustion was palpable in the set of her ears and the weight of her tail. And yet... there was something good in her, Jahir thought: a calm. She had been tested and not found wanting.

And then he paid attention to the words. "What other thing is this?"

Cory nodded to Lisinthir. "He's got information we need. Recent information, intelligence he thought was important enough to go haring off alone in pursuit of it. And we need that information in case he dies."

"She wants us to go after it," Vasiht'h murmured.

In an unconscious mind? Jahir supposed it was possible. A terrible breach of privacy, but Fleet was within its rights to ask. These were people who had accepted two strangers into their minds in order to improve their performance, and done so without giving individual consent; they would think nothing of requiring it of Lisinthir, who while not technically Fleet had become vital to their success, particularly about information this important.

Lisinthir would consent if asked, though; Jahir knew him that well. It was the implication that his cousin might die before they reached the border that troubled him... because he didn't think Triona would have brought it up to Cory, or allowed Cory to make the suggestion, had there not been a real danger of it.

"Of course," was all he said. "We'll do our best."

"Good," Cory said. "Is there anything we can do, meanwhile, to make your job easier?"

Was there? Jahir glanced at his cousin, touched his shoulder and found it cooler than was its wont. His fingers were bright against the blouse, gone a pale rose at the seam where it had soaked blood-tinted sweat. Seeing them there, Jahir said, "Yes, actually. If you can spare someone to help us with the watch? I think having his head in some friendly laps might please him."

/And give them something to do that makes them feel useful?/ Vasiht'h observed.

/Yes,/ Jahir said, his sending muted. /But he'll know they're there. And their worries will draw his attention./

/You think?/

/I know./ Jahir looked up at Cory. "If, of course, you can find people to oblige him."

Cory managed a rough chuckle. "Oh, I think we could. Even if none of us are very pretty to look at anymore, it would be fun to pretend like we are."

"There you are, then."

"I'll go fetch a volunteer," Cory said. "I've got the watch this shift, but I'll come when I'm off. Thank you, aletsen."

"Do you need anything?" Triona asked Jahir. "I don't want you working yourself into a crisis yourself."

Jahir smiled a little. "I'll be fine." He glanced at Vasiht'h and let some of his fondness saturate the mindline. "I have someone to remind me to sleep and eat already."

Vasiht'h answered with the sort of quiet satisfaction that had been so common to them before this trip, and armed with that Jahir slid back down and into his cousin's psyche. He rested a hand on Lisinthir's arm, and spread out—out—over—until he felt thin as a film over all the shivering sparkles of that agitated nervous system. He hushed them, sank deeper, like water into soil, looking for damage and seeing it everywhere. Oh, God and Lady, cousin—

A whisper from above him: /Triona suggested wishing she could dose him with slowsleep./

That was a good idea. He also knew why the Seersa hadn't—he couldn't imagine calculating the right dosage for someone as habituated to sedatives as Lisinthir. The most credible scenario involved his cousin failing to react to ever-increasing doses until one of them finally threw him into metabolic crisis. /You think we can duplicate the effect./

/We did the nerve block..../

They had. But this would involve a great deal more effort. Maybe more than he was capable of. A frisson of fear shivered through him, fluttering the blanket he was holding over Lisinthir's responses, and he felt the response like barbs against his skin. That it felt good bothered him, but he set it aside. /I don't know if it can be done./

/I can help you with the energy. You just concentrate, I'll feed you./

/And who will keep you anchored?/

A pause, measured in the too-swift heartbeats of his patient. Jahir tried not to count them, but they filled his ears, suggested a frenetic music.

/Triona can pull me back./ At the flexure of his skepticism, Vasiht'h said, /I'm not like you. I'm more connected to reality./ Memories of tastes, sugar that burned the tongue, the pressure of a brush on pelt, the feel of wet pavement beneath pawpads. /It won't shock me to have someone else pull me back, the way it would you./

/You are stronger than I am, ariihir./

/No./ Firm as the deck of their starbase home, and exhilarating for what the epiphany it suggested. /I am stronger in a different way./ Gentler: /Try it, ariihir. Do your job. I'll do mine. And we'll all get home—I swear it to the Goddess./

/All right,/ he whispered. /I trust you./

He turned his attention to his cousin and pulled from memory one of the oldest lullabies he knew and began weaving it into their joined minds. His nurse had inevitably sung him songs of duty, when she wasn't singing the nonsense and sweetness commonly cooed to children. It was from his mother had he'd heard the rare songs of melancholy and mystery, and they had lingered long after those simpler songs had receded.

 

Maiden goes down to the silken shore

to answer the sea's sweet distant roar

leaves her prints on the glistening scree

as she pirouettes there for the hissing sea.

 

...there, the heartrate. Slow, slow to the rhythm.

 

The mist-gray air of the clouded sky

breathes wind through her hair as she draws nigh

and the foam makes shoes for her bare white feet

as she walks where land and ocean meet.

 

...now the breathing. Gentle, gently now. Jahir sang, and something listened.

 

In the in-between spaces the spirit can travel,

the soul finds its ease and dreams can unravel

And a Maiden might know what it is to be free

in the silvery dusk between strand and the sea.

 

Truth, something whispered back to him, and calmed.

 

Maiden goes down to the damp, soft shore

to answer the sea's sweet distant roar

leaves no prints on the glistening scree,

nothing but laughter by the hissing sea.

 

Jahir rested over Lisinthir, covered his cousin, sank with him into the tranquil dark.

First there was anger. Always, he started with anger. It had formed his life, for as long as he could remember: anger at his parents for quarreling. Anger at his father for giving in, and then for trying to shape him into a weapon to be used against his mother, and then for wanting to use him to redeem his father's balked ambitions. Anger at the court, for its uselessness. Anger at Imthereli, for failing its duties so often it had opened the way for other Houses to take its territory. Anger at other Eldritch, for their mockery, for their easy lives. And then, a brief respite in the Alliance before anger again became the fuel that drove him: anger on behalf of the slaves, anger on the behalf of the Slave Queen. Anger at Second, at Third, at the Emperor. Anger at an entirely different court, again for its uselessness. Anger at being drawn from his duty; anger at being separated from his lovers; anger at his unwanted therapists.

But then, love drifted in, sweet as the perfume of blossoms in late spring. Love, the redeemer, with her attendants, Compassion and Empathy, and her lover and tutor and guard, Duty.

That was him, Lisinthir thought. He was Duty, blessed to be warden and lover of Love.

He breathed in, tried to breathe in, found he couldn't. What was happening? All around him, he caught the fragments of thoughts.

...come so far, please, don't let it end like this.

Can't remember last time I was this tired. Need a bath....

...his hair feels nice, where it's not matted. Never thought I'd ever touch an Eldritch!

If we don't get there... if he doesn't tell them what he knows... if he can't....

If he couldn't—what?—report? He would, absolutely. He couldn't conceive of not living to do so. Was there so much fear that he might die? Why? He strove for more data, heard the whispered chimes of one of the diagnostic wands, caught hints about bleeding: too many wounds, too much internal damage from the hekkret and the alcohol, too much everything. He was not yet dying, but he stood on a precipice. Knowing it, he could feel it everywhere, the creeping dark stealing up his limbs, toward his heart.

Lisinthir refused it entrance, but it wanted to fight him and he had no strength. It backed him into a corner. He felt it against his spine: nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. This now, or nothing else again. No more touch. No more love. Never to see his lovers again—

He howled defiance and leaped for the fight—

—and it fell away, so abruptly he felt staggered.

He stood on a featureless plain of gray earth, extending as far as the eye could see. The sky was a similar blank, a darker gray. Strangely, he could hear the sea at some distance, but it was all suggestion. He himself wore Imthereli's white: not the torn and sullied coat he remembered last, but immaculate, unmarred save for the brief black embroidery at the breast that pricked the striking dragon from the fabric. There was lace at his throat, even, and a cravat pin with Imthereli's drake. He wore the swords and black pearls in long chains in his hair. In every way, he looked a prince—the prince you are, something whispered—and because of that, he looked for and found his counterpart. The Emperor stood some distance from him, watching him, dressed in black to match his white, dark wings spread and cupping the air like hands open to receive.

How long did they look at one another? Lisinthir didn't know. How fast did time go here? He thought the distant roar of the surf coincided with the beat of his heart, but perhaps that was romance and poetry speaking.

"And why not?" the Emperor asked, indulgent. "Are we not that?"

"A grand romance?" Lisinthir laughed. "By some standard. The trouble is that I'm not sure which."

The Chatcaavan snorted, a puff of breath through long nostrils. "We make our own standards, Perfection. Out of your sense of honor and mine, we make them."

Lisinthir paused. "I suppose we have, at that." And added, "It is good to see you. I am dreaming, am I? I must be, and yet you seem so real to me."

"And here I thought I was dreaming you." The Emperor stepped closer, and again, until he could raise a hand and caress Lisinthir's cheek with the back of one curved talon. "It is a welcome dream. You have been missed, Perfection, by us both."

Lisinthir touched that hand with his, looked past his lover for the Queen, saw her not. "Is she—"

"She's well, yes. But she will come to us later, after we two are done." The Emperor touched a finger to his lips. "Listen now, Ambassador, and carry this with you when you wake—for you will wake, because you must. Don't come for me until I send for you. You will want to. But if you return to the board before time, we may lose the game entirely."

Lisinthir's breath caught, and his heart raced. "Exalted—"

"Emperor, yes," the dragon said, gentle but implacable. "Promise me, Perfection. It won't be long, but you'll have to wait."

"You will leave me out of the fight!"

"No. You will have enough to do with your pretty Alliance people to stay busy," the Emperor said. "And when the time comes, you will wield your swords... for me this time, not for your Queen." The passion in him when he said it, the relish... Lisinthir shuddered with longing. "But you must promise me, or you may die, and I may die, and she may die, and all of it will be for nothing. Do you?"

"I must," Lisinthir whispered. "But oh, Exalted...."

The drake drew closer, until Lisinthir could feel their chests brushing. "Call me by title. Call me by your title, now."

So he breathed it, as he hadn't dared before leaving. "Beloved."

The Emperor sighed, closed glowing eyes, rested a hand on the side of Lisinthir's neck. "Again."

"Beloved...." Lisinthir framed that narrow head in his hands and kissed the edge of the mouth where it curved near the eye. "Oh, my Beloved."

"We have a little time," the Emperor said, and then the Queen was there too, behind him, sliding the coat off him. "Stay a little longer."

"Yes," Lisinthir answered. "Yes, always yes."

Kisses, the embrace, hotter than fever, rousing him from the torpor that had been trying to claim him. Whispered confidences in his ears, making his heart leap, confusing and tugging him into grappling with mystery, with life. And ecstasy, oh, such ecstasy, and such love. Love without shame, love with promises of a future.

"But how will I know?" he asked, beneath the Emperor. "How will I know?"

"You'll know. I'll send a message you'll understand." A caress that brought him upright to seek more, more of the touch, of kisses, of their embrace. "Not long, Perfection. It will feel like forever, but not long."

"Every moment from your sides has already lasted forever," he said, sliding his hand beneath the Queen's mane. "Every moment I breathe without you never ends."

"Ahhhh...." The Emperor sighed, face hidden against Lisinthir's neck. "No, Perfection. This is only a pause. Only a pause for us all." He swiped the sweat off the curve of pale shoulder, cool tongue, so slick.

"Live here now," the Queen whispered, pulling him down, and he consented, and when he rose again, he was renewed, all strength beneath his wings.

Jahir had expected his work to be effort, and it was—he was dimly aware of the physicality of it, of mounting hunger and exhaustion, of muscles grown stiff from tension, as if he was fighting with a sword rather than his mind. But having sunk down into his role, what he felt instead was a looseness, as if he might continue spreading out, past his cousin's boundaries, into the world, every world. It cost him to dig deep and abide, but he did, and soaked in memories and impressions, fragments of words and their meanings, shocking moments of clarity: the Slave Queen's hand on his when she took his pattern, the fruity scent of the liquor poured for him by the Emperor, the shocking pleasure of denuding Third's head of horns. He caught snatches of conversations happening over his head, of Triona's concern and Vasiht'h's steadfast vigilance, of a rotating set of minds accompanying the laps that ended up under Lisinthir's head. So many minds, all so tired and so focused.

And over, and over, he felt the surge of a jangled nervous system, striving for disorder, and the frenetic complaints of a body trying to fall apart. He denied them, covered them, forced them to obedience. Over and over, he refused entropy.

He sang songs: every song he could remember in their tongue, and all the ones he could recall in Universal. The music enforced the stable pattern, kept him present.

He abided, and slowly lost his sense of time, lost even the rhythm of the music, lost the notes, lost language, lost everything. He felt it all slipping from him as fatigue loosened his grip, and he panicked and lurched for it, and missed—

—and exploded outward, this time unable to stop himself, skating as if on the leading edge of the expanding universe. The stars glittered as if seen through tears: so many, so many colors, seen now, yesterday, tomorrow. The tranquility of it staggered him; he couldn't fight it.

Here was the Pattern, and it was Divine. Here was the Pattern, and so long as he dwelt in it, he needed no food, no sleep. All he needed to be nourished was in him, around him, through him. Jahir tucked himself close against his cousin and feared no longer, and the net of stars cradled them with innumerable points of light.

"…siht'h, Vasiht'h, wake up—you with me?"

Where was he? He was spinning out on the Goddess's outbreath—no, he was on a Chatcaavan vessel, and Triona had his arm in one hand. She looked somewhat worse for the wear. Had something happened? "Yes? What's wrong? Did something…."

"No, no. It's good. Actually it's all good. I need you to help me get the Ambassador transferred to the Starsight."

Vasiht'h rubbed his eyes and glanced at the two Eldritch. He knew Jahir was fine, but Lisinthir—

"He's fine," Triona said. "All right, well, fine might be overstating the matter. But he turned a corner a day ago—"

"A day ago!"

Triona held up her hands. "Let me finish. Or start, better yet. We've been crawling home for three days, during which I've been keeping you all alive on intravenous solutions. Half a day ago, the Starsight—that's a scout class vessel, and about twice a courier's size—showed up at the same time as another Chatcaavan ship. They had it out. We won. Now we need to send you and your partner and the Ambassador over there, where there's an actual Medplex, a healer, and two assists waiting for you, plus a ride all the way to Sector Alpha."

Startled, Vasiht'h said, "We slept through a fight?"

"Not much of one," Triona said. "We were bystanders for the most part. Took a few shots, but really it was the Starsight's show." She managed a smile. "Pretty impressive show. Maybe a little bit too much suspense in it for the rest of us."

It was just sinking in: the ease of the woman's shoulders, the quieter, slower conversations on the alien bridge. They were safe. They were going home. "It's over?" he asked, daring to hope.

"It's over," Triona agreed. "But you've got to wake up your partner for me. I need both of you conscious and ambulatory, if possible. You'll need to explain what's going on to the C-Med over there."

"You're not coming with us?"

Triona shook her head. "The Starsight's towing us over the border. Once they set us loose, they'll be free to go deepest Well to Fleet Central; they'll get there much faster than they would pulling us behind them. Once we make the border station we should be fine… we can debrief while they take apart this ship." She met his eyes. "We paid for it, alet. We paid with blood. We want to see it to the end."

"I understand," Vasiht'h said. And strangely, he did. Something lingered in him that felt like a knowledge of the connections between things, their proper beginnings and endings, and their never-endings. He shook himself then reached for Jahir's shoulder. /Ariihir./ No response, but it didn't concern him. He knew how deep into himself—or out of himself—his partner had gone this time. Patiently, he repeated himself until he received a faint query, no more than a hint of something: salt on the tongue, sparking flavor. /Ariihir,/ he said. /It's time to come back./

Wistfulness, regret. Must he? Had Vasiht'h seen what he had seen?

/Yes,/ Vasiht'h said, sharing the regret. He'd only brushed the edges of Jahir's communion with the thoughts of the Goddess, and that alone had made him long to remain. /But our escort home's arrived. We need to get Lisinthir somewhere safe, where they can take care of him./

Very distantly: /Yes./ And then, closer, more distinctly, /So soon?/

/It's been three days./

/Three days!/ A jangle of color, spilling through the mindline as it narrowed once again into the link Vasiht'h recognized. Jahir sighed out, ribcage lifting, and then opened his eyes.

"Welcome back," Triona said.

Jahir began to sit up and almost fell; Vasiht'h caught him under the arm, took the swell of concern and disorientation with it. The whispered thoughts brushed against him, fur and spirit: why do I feel so weak?

/You've been working very hard for three days on nothing but nutrient solution,/ Vasiht'h answered. /We both have. But you in particular./

/It doesn't feel like much!/

"It was," Vasiht'h said firmly, out loud. "Can you coordinate your limbs?"

"I think," Jahir said. "My tongue seems clumsy, though." He touched his mouth, hesitant. "Am I slurring?"

"No," Triona said. "But you're exhausted, and the sooner we get you under a halo-arch the happier we'll all be." She pointed at Vasiht'h. "You too. You've got hollows under your eyes. It's like you've both been running marathons uphill nonstop."

/So it feels./

Vasiht'h chuckled a little in the privacy of the mindline. /We'll feel better when we cross over to the new ship. Just think: a genie means…./

/Oh, a real meal!/ Jahir steadied himself on Vasiht'h's shoulder. "For a real meal and a cup of coffee—or tea—or chocolate—I will go anywhere."

"Ice cream," Vasiht'h suggested.

The mindline exploded with confetti. "Ice cream!"

"I think we've earned it several times over," Vasiht'h said.

"You like ice cream?" Triona asked, one ear sagging.

"He loves ice cream," Vasiht'h said, and surprised himself by laughing. A little, and not much. But it was something. And the Seersa… she smiled too.

Jahir paused, touched Lisinthir's shoulder. "Does he look better, or is it my imagining?"

"No, he's better," Triona said. "I wouldn't go so far to say that he's well, but at some point he just… sprang back. No idea why or how. It happens that way sometimes, though."

"Triona?" Kordreigh called from the fore. "The healers-assist have Padded over. They're bringing the stretcher."

"That's your cue, aletsen," Triona said. "Can I say, from all of us… thank you. You were dropped in a bad situation and you came through for us."

"We didn't fight—"

"The hell you didn't," Cory said from behind them. "Maybe you didn't rack up the Ambassador's kill count, but you put yourselves in harm's way. You did the jobs you could. And you kept him alive at the end, and I have no idea how but I couldn't have done it. That part…" She shook her head. "That part was magic, as far as I'm concerned. Don't demean your accomplishments."

"We'll put in a good word for you," Triona added. "I'd be surprised if you didn't end up with medals, but even if you don't Fleet is generous with its civilian volunteers."

/To say we would have done our best without expectation of reward will not be kind, even if it's true,/ Jahir offered, still leaning on him. /It is a compliment./

/So we say…/ "Thank you," Vasiht'h finished aloud. "We're glad we could help."

Jahir's smile felt like sunlight in the mindline.