CHAPTER 5

"This is not the homeworld."

Lisinthir was lying on his back with his arms folded behind his head, staring at the stars. They'd made a sort of nest on the balcony, and he wondered what it said of him that it no longer disturbed him to be within a foot of a drop so high he would have had ample time for terrified contemplation of his end had he fallen. It was also cold—or had been, before their exertions. Now the Slave Queen's head was pillowed on his hip and the Emperor was lying alongside—between him and the fall, he noticed, and knew it was intentional.

"There," the Emperor said. "That star. Can you see it, or are your eyes not far-sighted enough?"

"I think I do. So, you traveled here? Why?"

The Emperor snorted, amused. "Why else? To conquer."

"Why else, he says," Lisinthir murmured. "Some of us leave our worlds for other reasons."

"Or leave them not at all?" the Emperor retorted. "Be serious, Ambassador. The impetus to leave a world must be a driving one, a passion that can justify the expenditure of the resources needed to establish spaceborne industry. No one ever colonized other worlds 'just to see them.' They had needs."

"And yours, of course, revolved around the need to subjugate others."

"What else?"

They studied one another for a moment, challenge, acceptance, a brief duel in their gazes, then amusement. They were still sated from their play earlier... these times after, they had become precious too.

Into the silence that followed their mock contest of wills, the Slave Queen said, soft, "There are other stories."

Lisinthir glanced down at her, traced the line of her brow ridge and felt the reflection of her pleasure through their skins. "What stories, then?"

"Among females, it is said that we left seeking Air to breathe that would let us grow into what we were meant to become."

"Religion?" Lisinthir guessed, surprised.

"We had it, once, yes." The Emperor sat up, one arm on his raised knee, and glanced up at the sky; his eyes narrowed into the wind that teased his mane back. "The Living Air that held us aloft."

"So do the others swear by the Dying Air because that is all you have left of your beliefs?" Lisinthir asked.

They both regarded him at that.

"We worship ourselves now," the Emperor said, reaching past him for the cup they'd been sharing. "And the Air did nothing to stop it, or so they say. So yes, that is all that's left of the beliefs that once sustained us. That, and the legacy of our expansionism, if we are to believe it as a cause for our doing so."

Lisinthir studied the vault above them and tried to grasp that everything he could see the Chatcaava had claimed. "How do you keep it all unified? So much distance, so many worlds, so much ambition, so much want. How does it not implode?"

"It has," the Emperor said, sipping from the cup. Lisinthir's sharp look made him widen his eyes in amusement, so that they seemed to smolder in the dark. "Did you think we didn't have our periods of squabbling, collapse, conflict?"

"I didn't know what to think," Lisinthir admitted. "I assumed that the Emperor held everything together with the threat of the Navy."

"This Emperor does," the Emperor said with a grin, flashing white teeth. "But not all Emperors have been that strong." He offered the cup to the Queen, who lifted her head just enough to slip her tongue into it, lap. "There are some who say it is an inevitability that we should dissolve into separate political entities."

"And do you think it is?"

"Maybe," the Emperor said. "Maybe. If the pressures outside the Empire and the pressures inside remain favorably aligned, I can hold it all. If something changes significantly...."

"A significant change might cause you all to pull more closely together," Lisinthir offered.

"If we were like you, perhaps." The Emperor shook his head in a mannerism stolen from his Eldritch shape. "But we aren't. But fear not, Perfection—" A lick across his brow, affection from a dragon. "For now I don't see any of this changing."

"But you were wrong," Lisinthir whispered, and knew himself awake. Awake, and in trouble, curled around cramping sharp as knives in his gut.  It would pass. It had passed before. But damned if this time didn't somehow hurt more than the others. Why was that, he wondered, now that he was away from those who were poisoning his food and drink regularly? He closed his eyes and breathed through it, refusing to suffer. In the moments when he was lucid, he wondered when his keepers would descend on him. Fleet vessels monitored the vitals of their crew as a matter of course, if he remembered correctly. Would that function still be online with the decreased power budget? He supposed he would find out.

He had his answer much later, if the cooled sweat on his skin was any indication, when he woke at the sound of the door opening. The Seersa paused, backlit by the corridor's slightly brighter lights, then dove for him with a dismayed sound. "I'm fine," he told her, licked his lips so they wouldn't stick and smiled crookedly as she ignored him. "But by all means, check for yourself."

She scowled at him, ears flat. "I should have kept you in the clinic, Ambassador."

"This is far more entertaining, I assure you."

"What, collapsing in your quarters with no one to realize you might be dying?"

"I presume it's not so dire or you would never have released me in the first place."

She paused at that, a puzzled look on her face. Then she eyed him. "No. Not normally. I didn't think it was this serious."

"Neither did I," he offered, and watched a reluctant smile pull at the corners of her mouth.

The Seersa was studying the results of her diagnostics on the data tablet now. Her frown grew more pronounced as he watched, curious, until at last she said, "I'm going to call your specialists."

"You don't mind if I use the facilities?"

"Can you stand?"

"I'm fine," he reiterated, and proved it by rising. The headache was truly monumental, but he'd had worse. He could read the uncertainty in her squared shoulders and the bottlebrush bristle along her tail, but she didn't object, so he left her to summon his psychiatrists. While he regretted the lack of water—nothing quite compared to a proper shower—the Pad bath was admirably swift. By the time Borden had finished her call, he was back in the room, sitting with his feet up and his hands folded, impeccably clean and no apparent worse the wear for the episode.

Did she know what he was doing? Her skeptical look was both charming and amusing. When Lisinthir lifted a brow at her, she shook her head and said, "I'm very glad you're not my patient."

So he was laughing when his therapists entered, and that was even better for his purposes.

"Alet?" the Glaseah said—Vasiht'h, that one. "Was there a problem?"

The Seersa was eyeing him, still trying to hold back that flickering smile. "I found him collapsed. I'm not sure how long he was out, but he was unconscious for a while."

"Collapsed," Vasiht'h repeated, brows lifting.

The Seersa rested her hand to her breast. "Speaker-Singer bind me, it's Her own truth."

He'd done well to have her laughter tickling at the edges of her oath like that. Lisinthir lifted his gaze to the Glaseah's and quirked his brows, saw the Seersa's reluctant smile pass to his face. "And you, of course, don't know anything about this, or any other collapses you might have had in the past."

"Why ever would you have formed that impression, I wonder," Lisinthir said, to see if that bought him more amusement or more frustration. What it did earn him was the movement of his cousin at last. Jahir entered the room, passing his partner, and accepted the data tablet and the diagnostic wand from the Seersa. He remained silent, reading the results and paging through them, but it wasn't hard for Lisinthir to see the control he was exerting over himself. His face was a mask, but his finger where it was stretched across the back of the tablet was stiff. Very subtle, that tell—either he'd done well with the training all Eldritch had, or he really wasn't as concerned as Lisinthir had assumed he would be from their first extended conversation.

He suspected the former. The Seni were small but rich and well-favored by the Queen, and their heir would have been subject to a great deal of attention. If that attention had been more positive than that awarded Lisinthir, it still fueled more than enough gossip to disturb a private person.

"If you don't mind?" the Seersa said, rising. "I'll leave the two of you to it."

"Thanks," Vasiht'h said.

"You," she said to Lisinthir. "Stay out of trouble."

"I shall so endeavor, Hea…." He paused, waiting for her name.

"Triona," she said with another of those irrepressible smiles. Her fur had smoothed down, too.

"Triona. And thank you."

"My job, sir. Aletsen, if you need me further, I'll be in the clinic."

"We'll call," Vasiht'h said, and watched her go before turning his gaze on Lisinthir. It had gone contemplative. "You really are good at that."

"Good at what?" Lisinthir asked, permitting the gambit because he was curious where it would lead, and if it would eventually draw his House cousin from his silence.

"Diverting attention from things you don't want to discuss. I'm guessing this is something that kept you alive among the Chatcaava?"

How much was he willing to share with them? The easy answer to that was 'nothing,' because they had not earned it. "You live with an Eldritch, alet. I don't think I need to tell you where I learned the skill."

Vasiht'h glanced at Jahir, then sat and folded his arms across his chest. "You're doing it again."

"Nothing I've said is untrue."

The Glaseah tapped a paw on the carpeted floor. "We can't help you unless you let us."

That presumed he wanted help, which he didn't. Saying so outright probably wouldn't win him the outcome he wanted, however. Before he could decide what to say next, Vasiht'h continued, "And we know we're probably not your first choice. Once we get back, you'll be free to talk to any counselor you prefer."

"And if I want none?"

"That's your prerogative," Vasiht'h said. "We might be required to give a deposition on whether we believe you to be a danger to others, but no one's signed you to us for mandatory psychiatric care. You do need medical attention, but that can be handled separately if you're adamant."

This turn of events surprised him. "You… would let me go."

The two of them exchanged glances before Vasiht'h said, carefully, "The fact that you think of it as something that you need to be allowed an escape from is… suggestive."

"Therapy requires the consent of its participants," Jahir murmured from beside him.

It was difficult not to react to the words, given all that he'd done. What would his psychiatrists think of the "therapy" he'd forced on the Emperor, he wondered? Would the ends have justified the means, given just how little consent had been involved… on either side? Except, he supposed, the consent of the violent to the threat of injury and loss.

"Having said that, though," Vasiht'h continued, and he wondered if the two of them had designated him the spokesperson based on his reaction to Jahir—no doubt. "You have some serious physical challenges that need attention."

Denying that seemed pointless. "It has been a trying year."

Jahir held up a long vial. "Fluids and vitamins. May I administer them?"

"Go ahead."

As Jahir loaded the AAP, Vasiht'h said, "I don't suppose you could tell us if you have a history of these collapses, or what you felt prior to passing out."

"I am not a physician, to know whether my symptoms were medical or something else." Lisinthir ignored the soft hiss of the pump injecting, and the vague coolth that raced under his skin from the site on his upper arm. Jahir had wielded the thing so precisely there'd been no accidental touch.

The Glaseah was considering him without speaking. Then, finally, he said, "How do you feel?"

Lisinthir ignored his headache. "Well enough. I could use a water shower, however."

"Hungry at all?"

"Not at the moment."

Vasiht'h nodded. "The ration bars are enough to put anyone off their feed."

Lisinthir chuckled. "I've been living on them so long I no longer notice the taste."

Jahir was packing the kit.

"Are you sure there's nothing you can share with us that might help us alleviate your physical symptoms?" Vasiht'h asked. "Even a little bit of information would go a long way toward our being able to figure out how to help you. Your condition is both poor and mysterious, and we could probably make it less poor much faster if it was also less mysterious."

Lisinthir spread his hands. "I am sure with rest and proper nutrition, I will make a full recovery. Provided we have enough time to do so."

"Will they find us, you think?" Jahir asked, quiet.

A serious question about the political situation... that was something he could answer without divulging things he didn't want to share. "Captain Raynor's plan to be as unobtrusive as possible has merit. Space is vast; we find things in it by being creatures of habit, with predictable behaviors." He rolled a shoulder, fighting both the aches that never seemed to leave his muscles and the increasingly distracting skin-loneliness. "Our chances are good as long as they can make the repairs in a timely fashion. The longer we drift, the worse our odds."

"We'll pray for a swift repair, then," Vasiht'h said. "We'll be back to check on you in a few hours, if that's all right."

"Certainly."

The Glaseah nodded and left, taking his partner with him... and leaving Lisinthir perplexed. Had they truly conceded? It seemed far too easy a win; he was suspicious. And his House cousin had been much too quiet. He doubted the matter was settled, but found himself grateful they'd taken themselves away. The strain of making polite, if guarded, conversation was becoming vexing.

He rubbed a finger along his temple, slowly, noticing the tremor. Then he pushed himself up and went for his luggage.

"So now what?" Vasiht'h asked him as they exited the room. "Because I assume there's something or you wouldn't have been feeding me half those lines in there."

"There is something, yes," Jahir said, trying to let the tension bleed out of his shoulders. "And I'm afraid the ethics of it might be questionable."

Vasiht'h eyed him and then stopped when he did. Jahir chose a likely looking wall and sat against it, feeling the cold of the metal leach into his body through his clothes.

The mindline hung between them, dense with confusion and wariness. Then it cleared, just a little, and Vasiht'h joined him on the ground. "And... what is it we're planning to do?"

"In about fifteen minutes, we are going to go back into that room, without asking permission to enter first." Jahir ran a hand idly up his wrist, pushing the sleeve from his skin. He couldn't tell if he was hot or cold. "The scan was absolutely clear on his current condition. He has God's own headache and his nervous system is raw with agitation. We know he has some of whatever it is he was using. If there's any left, he's going to use it now."

"And you want it."

"Of course I do," Jahir said. "With a sample I can do analysis, find out what we're fighting. We're treating symptoms now. We'll get much farther if we can address the root cause."

"And this is worth damaging our tenuous relationship with our client," Vasiht'h said, but the mindline tasted like cookies and kerinne... as if his partner was thinking while eating.

"Our client has already confessed to not wishing to continue the therapist/client relationship with us, but has submitted to medical treatment."

Vasiht'h held up a hand. "He didn't outright say he didn't want us. Just accepted that we were offering to remove ourselves from the equation. He may change his mind by the time we get back."

Jahir tried not to look at the pale glow being emitted by the emergency lighting above them. "I doubt it."

A sigh, then. "Me too. You were saying...."

"That damaging his tenuous trust in us may be less important than discovering what's destroying his alimentary canal."

"Destroying?" Vasiht'h's ears fanned back. "As in 'still in the process of doing'?"

Jahir said, quiet, "Something is preventing him from absorbing the fluidics, ariihir. The halo-arch gave him a solution—you recall?" At his friend's nod, he continued, "It begins by dropping the solution into the gastrointestinal tract, usually in the stomach, rather than defaulting to intravenous because of the occasional complications that attend the latter. I know what the halo-arch reported putting into his system. I know what we should see in response, after this many hours. I know that there's a difference between that value and what it read just now in that room."

"How... big a difference?"

"Forty-five percent. Perhaps more."

The yawing vertigo in the mindline made him rest his palms on his knees and focus on them to  keep the hall from lurching.

"Nearly half of the food you put in him isn't getting used?" Vasiht'h asked, dismayed.

"It looks that way, yes."

"So you're saying… unless you feed him intravenously, he might starve. Or have some complication based on lack of some vital nutrient or something."

"Yes." As Vasiht'h stared at him, he added, "I suspect this is part of what's fueling the alcohol abuse."

"He's self-medicating with sugar, because he's starving for energy."

Jahir nodded once, slowly.

Vasiht'h stared at the wall until the knife-sharp horror receded back into his own mind. He shook himself. "Goddess. Yes, then, we absolutely do have to go back in there. Before he can be some other therapist's problem he has to be alive."

Jahir let some of his tension out with his next breath. "I had hoped you would agree."

"Ten minutes?"

"Should be long enough, I think."

Vasiht'h nodded and rested his shoulder against the wall, and then his head. Jahir was relieved; he hadn't feared his partner's censure for how he'd wanted the conversation in the room managed, nor for his suggested course of action... but he'd expected to have to make more explanation for himself, and wasn't sure why. They'd already discussed his concerns, so why did it feel like he had apologies yet to make? The easy silence between them, and the warmth in the mindline, were a balm, and he accepted it humbly.

"It is eerie, isn't it?" Vasiht'h said after a moment.

"The lights? Or the silence?"

The Glaseah grimaced and rubbed one forepaw over the other. "I hadn't even noticed the silence until you mentioned it. It is quiet, isn't it?"

"The floor doesn't hum," Jahir agreed. "It's like the difference between a sleeping body and an unconscious one."

Vasiht'h shivered.

"A few more minutes," Jahir said. And added, "It is easier, with you."

That won him a smile. "I feel the same way." And then another grimace. "Still... I want cookies."

"I doubt there are enough cookies in the world for this," Jahir answered. It was an old joke, and a good one, and through it they shared the implied years of camaraderie. It brought him back to the pledge he'd made over a decade ago now, when he'd decided to embrace the Alliance and the Glaseah's offer of friendship: to dwell in each moment as completely as possible, rather than looking ahead to an inevitable future where his shorter-lived friend was no longer at his side. He could inhabit this moment now and be happy, because the future where neither of them might survive didn't exist... and never would, unless and until it happened.

"It is good, isn't it," Vasiht'h said softly.

"Always," Jahir said. "Even when it's not." He smiled, then pushed himself upright. "It's time."

The Glaseah nodded and joined him as they walked back to Lisinthir's door. "Any thoughts on how to tackle it?"

Jahir considered. "As quickly as possible?"

Vasiht'h laughed.

/Ready?/

/Go ahead./

Jahir faced the door, inhaled, and keyed the medical override. Before the door had half-opened he was through it, aware first of the smell, more distinct than any sight in the artificial twilight. But Lisinthir he found easily by the pale length of his hair, moving as his House cousin turned to face them, faster than any striking drake... and then Jahir was within arm's length, his eyes locked on the thin brown cigarette.

"I've come for that," Jahir said.

"Funny. I didn't take you for a smoker."

Jahir met his eyes. "Should I try courtesy? Ambassador, may I have the drug for analysis? It may help me find—"

"A cure?" Lisinthir said, with what Jahir thought was amusement.

"A reason for your deteriorating health." Jahir tried not to stare at the ember smoldering at the end of the rolled leaves. He could just see their texture against the other Eldritch's pale fingers: varicose veins against the satin finish of the plant, ominously swollen.

"This isn't the reason for my deteriorating health," Lisinthir said. "Fortunately."

"Just like the alcohol isn't a problem."

Lisinthir lifted a brow. "Have you come to admonish me for my vices, cousin? If you have, I'm not interested."

/Ariihir./ His partner's voice was a distant stream, relaxing but so hard to hear. /He's trying to bait you./

/I know,/ Jahir said, forcing himself to relax.

Lisinthir took a drag from the roll and met his eyes while letting the plumes seep from just parted lips, and the challenge in it....

All the training he'd ever received, as a youth to win the inevitable duels that defended the Seni's honor, and as an adult in his defense classes, all of it informed the speed that allowed him to snatch the burning cigarette from Lisinthir's fingers. And none of it saved him from his cousin's answer, honed by a violence that branded itself on his body when Lisinthir grabbed him, and he was still reeling from the borrowed taste of blood in his mouth when the wall smashed in his cheek and every joint from his shoulder to his palm shrieked. Lisinthir was pressed against him, holding that arm twisted behind his back; the other was pinned to the wall under his cousin's. It had happened so quickly. He hadn't even had time to drop the cigarette.

There was a scream in the mindline, but he said, /NO./ A shocky pause and he said, trying to fight his tremors, /No. He won't hurt me./

/He's got you trapped against the wall!/

He did, but Jahir could feel the ragged breath against his neck, the utter control in the body against his... and the calm through their touching hands. Calm and other things, some fascinating, some appalling. That predatory interest again....

/No,/ Jahir repeated, ignoring the flutter of his heart. /I'm fine. This is important./

Lisinthir's nose brushed against his neck, just beneath the ear. "Do you always provoke everyone so, cousin?"

Jahir closed his eyes, trying not to react to the word and finding it hard. When had he ever had a body fitting so fast to his? He flexed his fingers, trying to keep hold of the roll. "Don't do this, Lisinthir."

"What exactly is it that I'm doing?"

He managed a smile. "Upsetting my partner."

Lisinthir snorted, but Jahir felt the flexure of unwanted responsibility through their skin. "Is that it."

"What else?"

His cousin leaned in. His voice was quiet and appallingly intimate, and that was nothing to the words. "Should I tell you?"

All the skin up his spine seemed to flush cold and then hot. The sensation was so distracting he didn't stop Lisinthir from plucking the roll from between his fingers.

"If I let you up, will you behave?" Lisinthir asked, and that... that was not mockery, if his skin told truth. Amusement, yes. But gentle.

"Somehow I doubt if I wanted to be otherwise that it would accomplish much."

"Probably not." The heel of Lisinthir's palm was still pressed against his wrist. He eased the pressure on the wrenched arm and added, "I am sorry. The response was out of proportion to the insult. It... is a bit of a conditioned reply. You did not merit it."

Their joined hands were just visible at the topmost edge of his vision. The trail of smoke was falling down his hand, gray smudge against white sleeve. "I'd like the drug back, please."

A very long pause. He tried to soak into the emotions washing into him through their touch and found himself unable to do anything but experience the pressure along his back and the pain of his wracked arm. The pain was particularly distracting, because of how alive every nerve ending felt, crawling from wrist to shoulder.

"You can have it when I'm done with it," Lisinthir said at last.

The smoke kept falling over his wrist. He thought of the wreckage left behind by addiction... the broken promises made by addicts. The cases he and Vasiht'h had suffered through, trying to help families destroyed by those broken promises, trying to save souls that refused salvation in favor of self-destruction. Thought of the pain he'd fought, over and over, bearing witness to those shredded lives.

Stared at the smoke and felt something break in him.

/ARII, NO!/

Jahir hooked his foot around Lisinthir's ankle and yanked with all his anger, sublimated so long on behalf of those victims, with all the resentment that he hadn't been able to fix it, fix anything for any of them, with all the pain of the years of witness. Here, now, finally, he could act, and he put everything he had into it, succeeded in knocking Lisinthir off balance. The other man fell—

—and took him with him—

The act that had seen him slammed against the wall had seemed so fast, but it was nothing to this. He was on his stomach on the floor—he lost a moment, couldn't breathe—

There were knives.

Jahir swallowed carefully, watching his jaw tremble in the reflection of the blades arced over the hand that had a grip on his throat. The only thing keeping skin from grazing the metal edges were the fingers Lisinthir had knotted in his hair. He couldn't move because there was a weight on his back, a knee pinning his forearm to the floor. Where was his other arm? Trapped beneath his body.

He was completely helpless. He had never felt so peaceful in all his life.

It terrified him.

Vasiht'h dove for them, pulled up short, his desperation and fear pounding in the mindline like a migraine at the temples. "Ambassador, no!"

Lisinthir was shivering. Slowly he released Jahir's throat and flattened his palm against the ground, the knives arching like a cat's claws.

The blood racing so impossibly fast beneath his skin—was that his? What about the fear? The fear was too complex, clouding his thoughts.

Lisinthir said something—Chatcaavan—but Jahir heard it through their touching skin: No. And then in Universal, "No." And then, with an effort Jahir could feel like his own, in their own tongue and shadowed, "No. Your fear is different from mine." He carefully rolled away, leaving Jahir free... and bereft. Addressing Vasiht'h now, in Universal again, "I am sorry, alet, I am very, very sorry."

"You're wearing claw-knives!" Vasiht'h said, aghast. "Claw-knives? In the Alliance?"

"I have only been in the Alliance a few days," Lisinthir said. He began removing the weapon with deliberate movements, pushing up his cuff so he could peel each sheath and its accompanying sleeve off his fingers. "And in the Empire, rather more than that."

"Besides," Jahir managed, wondering how he'd regained his voice and why he found it so hoarse. "I was the one who sent them him."

/Your accent is showing,/ Vasiht'h whispered, fretful. /You feel vague. Did he cut you? Are you bleeding!/

"No," he said aloud, losing the difference between the mindline and reality for a moment. "But I am rather bruised." And added in response to the mounting indignation beating on his skin like heat on a sunburn, "He pulled the blow. And I should have known better."

"I almost didn't pull the blow," Lisinthir muttered. He was standing now, and far enough that it would take more than a lunge to bring him within distance of either of them.

"Don't..." Jahir tried to push himself upright and discovered the right wrist wouldn't hold his weight. He tried the other and managed. "Don't..." He trailed off when he couldn't find the words for what he wanted Lisinthir to forgive himself for, or stop doing. That unnerved him but not quite as much as the sense that he was floating. Had he hit his head on the way to the floor? "You've been conditioned to violence, Ambassador, and I attacked you. Willfully. I have some responsibility to shoulder for... this."

"This," Vasiht'h repeated, shifting from foot to foot in agitation. "You're sure you're not hurt?"

Was he? He must not be, because otherwise Vasiht'h would have been at his side, checking. He could think of no reason his friend might be staring at him like this, as if he had become a stranger. Instead, it was Lisinthir who came closer, cautious, as if approaching a wounded creature. The other Eldritch crouched and began to reach for him, then stopped, fingers curling in, as if remembering that their kind didn't touch.

Vasiht'h stared at the Ambassador, astonished. Jahir would have also, but couldn't find the focus... and whatever it was Lisinthir saw in his face made him complete the arrested action, touch the bottoms of his fingers beneath Jahir's chin, and lift his face just enough for the dim lighting to filter through his lashes. Checking his pupils for symmetry? It's what he would be doing... but no. His cousin was looking past his eyes and at him.

"What do you see?" he thought to ask.

Lisinthir let his fingers glide up turning until their backs were resting against Jahir's jaw. In their tongue, he murmured, "A man who doesn't know himself... and wants to."

"What do you know that I don't?" Jahir answered, shading the question silver, for hope of an answer... but there was none, only his cousin's appraisal, and the density of experience he could sense but not touch through their skins.

Vasiht'h crept closer, body low and wings partially spread. "Arii. I think you should stop by the clinic."

"Probably wise," he murmured.

"And you too," Vasiht'h said to Lisinthir. "Because your Goddess-cursed stomach isn't working and you need a halo-arch to feed you. Understood?"

Lisinthir let his fingers fall off Jahir's face and rose. "The halo-arches may not be functional given the ship's power constraints."

"We're going to go find out."

Jahir expected another argument, but instead Lisinthir bent and retrieved the smoldering cigarette. He presented it to Vasiht'h, who took it, surprised. Answering the expression, the Ambassador said, "He risked a great deal for it, and fought well."

Well enough that he'd lost both times, but Jahir decided saying so would be counter-productive.

Lisinthir watched the Glaseah help his partner up, wondering if the former knew just how guarded his body language had become... and why. Would Vasiht'h recognize Jahir's condition the way he did? Because he knew that languor, knew it intimately. The Slave Queen's body had softened with it beneath his touch: trust and want and that river-running passion, so deep. But she had become yielding in response to tenderness and strength.

Jahir had in answer to violence and pain.

Not in response to the contest, the way the Emperor had. The way Lisinthir did. Arousal as a byproduct of fighting a worthy opponent was something he'd come to accept. That it reflected on him he also understood, but the Queen had been his helpmeet, leading him out of self-loathing and into a place where he could receive her attraction to him, not because he was cruel, but because he was capable of cruelty and withheld it; because he was strong, and she responded to his strength. But to want pain....

He knew there were those who needed it. But he couldn't imagine that road being walked by an Eldritch, and an Eldritch lord besides. Not carrying the weight of their culture on his shoulders. And definitely not Jahir, whom he barely knew but could see had bound himself to a beloved who could not help him, who might not even be capable of admitting his partner's needs. One had only to look at the crabbed footfalls and tightly-constrained movements to see the wall Vasiht'h sensed around the other Eldritch, and could not pierce.

God and Lady and Living Air, but what a mess, and he had stumbled into the middle of it... with only a few draws from the hekkret to ward off the headache that was now re-entrenching.

In the clinic, Lisinthir allowed himself to be directed to the second bed while the Glaseah chivvied his Eldritch into the first. They were talking: he couldn't hear the dialogue, but he could see it shaping their bodies, until they lost their stiffness around one another and Jahir sighed and put his head down.

"There will be nothing wrong."

"I just want to make sure you didn't hit your head. Or break anything vital." Vasiht'h threw a glance over his shoulder at Lisinthir. "And you. Lie down."

"I would rather not," he said, because between the headache and the mounting nausea he didn't want to shift position. Sitting on the edge of the bed was enough work. "But I promise I shan't move, if that will please you."

"It'll do."

"Which is it?" Jahir asked. His voice was losing its vagueness, but it retained a soft quality that made Lisinthir miss his lovers painfully. "The gut or the head?"

Had they earned that answer? Did it matter? The halo-arch, if they used it, would tell them. "Is 'both' allowed as a response?"

"Yes, though I don't envy you it."

Lisinthir snorted. "It will pass. It always does."

"It has before? There has been a before?"

Vasiht'h growled. "Let the cursed halo-arch finish with the tests before you start rolling off of it to go poke in his innards."

"He needs fluids—"

"You need your head examined. Literally."

"My head is fine—" Jahir paused as the test results appeared above and behind his head. His eyes flicked as if reading, though he couldn't see the projection; fascinated, Lisinthir glanced at Vasiht'h and found the Glaseah's eyes on the display. "See, it so says. You can let me up. The only thing wrong with me is a little bruising."

Vasiht'h backed away so Jahir could sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. They were close, almost close enough to brush against one another, and the look they exchanged made it clear they were talking again, and that what they were saying was affectionate. Vasiht'h was chiding, perhaps, from the flattening of his ears, but there was relief in his easy shoulders. Jahir was smiling with a tenderness that made the revelation of his other needs all the more incongruous. When the two of them looked at him, Lisinthir was wearing the mask he'd perfected in the Empire, where spontaneous revelation could destroy more than your honor, but he wondered what they were saying in response to it. Something, he knew. He could sense it in the way they were staring at him, and yet both so perfectly still.

"So," Jahir said. "What Vasiht'h said about your gastrointestinal tract was true. The damage is significant, to the point of doing a poor job absorbing nutrition of any kind on your behalf."

"Interesting."

"Is that all?" Vasiht'h said. "It's just 'interesting'?"

"I'm not dead yet," Lisinthir replied. "Anything that doesn't immediately kill me can afford to be relegated to mere notability." He flicked his eyes to the overhead lights. "Granting that we must set aside the possibility that we might not survive, of course."

Jahir ignored that and pushed off the bed. He took the hekkret handed to him by the Glaseah and turned it in his fingers. "So this is what?"

So many secrets. So many memories. Must he now drag them into the ugly light of the Alliance with its judgmental normalcies? He didn't want to discuss it, but he could still feel the silk of Jahir's hair in his fist. "That is the hekkret. That preparation in particular is... therapeutic."

He could see the questions, the fascination, and the mind suddenly at work on the puzzle. Jahir narrowed his amber eyes. "And which preparation was poisoning you? The internal one, I'm guessing."

Lisinthir inclined his head.

"Then why were you smoking it?" Vasiht'h asked, ears sagging.

"Immunity?" Jahir guessed, lifting his brows.

"A very limited one, but yes."

Jahir came closer, still examining the hekkret. "I am guessing, then, that the examination of this formulation won't tell me much about the mechanism of action for the ingested variant."

"I wouldn't know," Lisinthir admitted, resting his sweating hands on the bed's edge. Talking was beginning to get difficult. Moving his jaw made his head worse, and his tongue felt swollen. "But I doubt it."

"It's a place to start?" Vasiht'h offered.

"It is," Jahir agreed. He plucked an AAP from one of the banks alongside the bed, loaded an ampoule in it. "And thank you for giving it to us, Ambassador."

"Is this more nutrition?" Lisinthir asked.

"Tilt your head." When he looked warily at Jahir, the other Eldritch met his gaze and said, quiet, "Tilt your head. That way, away from me. It will work faster from the neck."

He turned his face away, though exposing his throat made all his instincts snarl. They relented when the pump hissed and a cold wave washed up the side of his scalp and sank into his head, behind his eyes, between his temples. Despite himself, Lisinthir shuddered.

"Good?" Jahir asked.

Because the question sounded clinical, Lisinthir answered, curt, "Yes."

The other nodded. "There are better painkillers, but they exacerbate nausea. The alternatives have a higher toxicity at high doses, so I'd like to limit their use if at all possible. Your liver won't handle much strain, and if it fails this clinic will not save you."

"They might have a stasis field," Vasiht'h muttered. "We should ask Hea Borden."

Jahir frowned, thoughtful. "That might be the only thing, yes. But a stasis field requires a great deal of power." He glanced up at the emergency lighting. "I'm not sure we'd have much time with one unless the Fleet personnel restore the engines."

"So then," Lisinthir said dryly, touching the skin at his temple. "The less medication the better."

"If you can manage your pain in any other way...?"

His first thought involved the Queen and the Emperor and wasn't suited for externalization. But then he wondered what his healer-with-unexamined-needs would say in response to the idea. "Not unless I can find a lover willing to provide me with an endorphin or two."

Vasiht'h folded his arms and eyed him. But Jahir, pulling the empty ampoule out and replacing it with a longer one, only said, "I fear you'll have to make do with your own company there."

"Pity," Lisinthir answered, submitting to the second, longer injection. "It's far more enjoyable with other people."

"Should I be checking you for sexually-transmitted diseases, then?" Jahir said, sounding distracted.

Lisinthir glanced at him, saw the golden eyes fixed on the slowly draining tube. He chose a truth that would obfuscate and lead, and wondered a little that he was willing to do the latter at all. "I would be surprised to have one, for sooth."

"So would I, given what it would imply." Jahir squinted, then pulled the AAP away. "That should be your meal for the next five hours. Would you lie down? I'd like to get a new baseline for you."

The conscientious healer, his cousin. And yet his behavior had his Glaseah worried, for Lisinthir caught the look Vasiht'h shot his oblivious partner. They both knew what had happened in his cabin had been as significant as any concussion. But he lay down anyway, and let Jahir consider his readings, and wondered what he would do—wondered in fact that he was thinking of doing anything. Part of it was a desire not to face just how irrevocably his world had changed. He had been divorced not just from his lovers, but from a life where he felt vital, necessary, productive... and ejected into a world where he would have to guard himself from overreacting to the unintentional provocations of an over-civilized populace... alone, and surrounded by people who would assume that he didn't want to be so much as casually brushed, much less anything more intimate. If he looked too closely at the days louring before him, he would truly need the mandatory therapy Vasiht'h had mentioned.

But that, he knew, was only part of it. The other was fascination, because his cousin had proven himself aggressive enough to fight... and then turned around and given in to him with all the trust of a lover. He was an Eldritch, but also apparently a xenophile. A healer, but who had been given martial training outside their own world, or how would he have ever learned stavework? A man who loved a Glaseah, one of the most steadfastly platonic of all the Alliance's species... but whose arousal had been very plain through their skins when they touched.

A man who could have been him, or that he could have been, had his father been less angry; had he been more Galare than Imthereli.

So many contradictions. It was perhaps inevitable that they should draw his attention when he'd spent over a year seeking the fault lines in others in order to exploit them to guarantee his safety, and the Alliance's. What Lisinthir hadn't expected, given that he no longer had to, was how much he wanted to dig under that surface and pry out everything hiding there. It would be a form of violence to do so... but then, there was every possibility that Jahir would enjoy it if so.

Perhaps so would he.

Another form of battle, perhaps. And the prize? What was his goal? That was the part he wasn't certain of.

Yet.