CHAPTER FOUR

The Queen Ransomed had been expecting to be brutalized by the Lord of the Twelveworld after the avarice that male had displayed on accepting her as a “gift” from his new Emperor. She’d had no feeling about the possibility; she’d suffered so much casual violence in her life that yet another round of it scarcely mattered, especially when set against the horror that had been perpetrated on her wings… and the worse pain of having failed in her aims so quickly. She hadn’t expected Second and the Usurper to identify her as a spy so quickly, and then move to neutralize her rather than patronize and punish her, as females were typically punished.

And yet, to despair… no. That would leave her prey to inaction. The one thing she knew the Ambassador wouldn’t do when thrown in another kind of captivity would be to assume there was no profit to be gained from it. She might not know when she’d be able to make good on that profit, but she would remain vigilant. Perhaps the Lord of the Twelveworld would let something slip while raping her, or she would have a chance to overpower him somehow?

But he didn’t send for her. Did not even give her as a gift to someone else, or remand her to his males to be disciplined or trained. It was not that he dismissed her potential to betray him, because he’d thrown her into an empty room and chained her there and then posted guards at the doors. But that was the extent of his interaction with her, and the Queen was surprised to discover that she was… offended.

Offended.

The thought was laughable, and yet it persisted. She’d hoped he would make a mistake she could take advantage of; barring that, she expected him to at least find her fascinating enough to personally abuse. And while being ignored wasn’t new to the Queen, she found she no longer accepted it as her due, as a non-entity.

Her options, though, were depressingly limited. She was in the palace still, so she knew no one would hear her yelling through the thick stone walls. Her bonds kept her from reaching any of the walls or the one door. There were no windows, certainly. No computer access. No one she could suborn through speech. They waited until she was sleeping to set out food, water, and switch out the humiliating pail they’d left for waste, and they always put those right within reach… not far enough for her to do more than scrabble for them.

It was gratifying to be treated as a prisoner and not a harem prize, she supposed. But it left her too much time to brood on her powerlessness, and how much her naked wing arms distressed her.

Without windows it was difficult to tell how much time was passing. But eventually, something did change: she was unchained from the wall and marched to a bathing chamber.

“You-my-lesser will wash,” one of the guards said. “And dress yourself properly. There are two of us-your-betters outside the door. You-my-lesser will win nothing by attempting escape.”

“This one understands,” she murmured, head bowed and shoulders rounded in what she hoped was an attitude of utter dejection. Maybe it worked, because she wasn’t cuffed for daring to answer him. She worked on projecting that mask of obedient depression by shuffling after the guards, looking neither right nor left, and pretending not to notice when they’d arrived at the bathing chamber, as if she’d been so busy staring at her feet that she hadn’t seen where they were going. She let them shove her into the room, and only after they took their posts at the door did she wonder how they expected her to wash effectively with manacles and chains depending from all her limbs.

Except she wasn’t alone. There was another Chatcaavan waiting for her in the bathing chamber. A golden creature, slim and lovely, who would have made a beautiful harem prize, and for a moment she dragged in a shocked breath because she had not seen another winged female in so long… except that looking down, she saw that this was no female, but a castrated male.

She had heard stories that the males who kept the palace clean and its courtiers fed were not Outside, but she had never been able to picture how that would work. Now, she knew.

“Let me,” the male said softly, reaching for her hands.

She had rarely heard a lovelier voice. Out of another Chatcaavan, never. She stared at him, wide-eyed, as he undid the manacles and drew them from her.

“You will be reprimanded,” she finally found the wherewithal to say.

“No,” he said, his voice very soft. “I was asked to bathe you completely. You are to be a gift, Mistress.”

She exhaled. “It was only a matter of time.”

“No,” the male whispered, eyes meeting hers. “Not to one of the Chatcaava, Mistress. The Lord of the Twelveworld intends to give you to the pirates. As part of the payment for their part in the war.”

Her eyes widened.

“We listen,” he murmured, and pulled her into the pool, pouring water over her head. “No one cares that we do. What are we to do with the knowledge? We are powerless. Like females.” He met her eyes as he brought another cascade of water, wetting her mane. His were a luminous turquoise, almost too dark for beauty… but she had fallen in love with a male whose eyes were darker still. “But there was one female decided not to accept the impotence of females. It was she who showed the rest of us that knowledge is power.”

The Queen glanced wildly toward the door.

“They won’t hear us,” the male murmured. “Because whatever we say can’t possibly be important enough.”

“How can you be sure?” she whispered. “I was caught!”

“You were caught by Second, who is cunning. If you had been given to the Usurper, perhaps he would have posted guards who cared what you were saying to a castrate. Second’s guards would never have left the room. But the Lord of the Twelveworld is busy with plans of domination and plunder, and he has the entire pirate nation to employ if he can bring them to heel.” The male began working polishing sand into her shoulders and arms, smoothing the foam over the places where her hide became skin. “His guards see only an unnatural female, worthless and ugly, and they dismiss her.” He glanced at her. “Just as they do the males who clean their bedclothes of seed and wine, and provide the meals they are too lazy to kill themselves.”

“Oh,” the Queen whispered, staring at him. “Can you… could you free me?”

His head drooped. “That is not in our power, Mistress. There are not so many of us, and we are not fighters. And though we know many secret ways in and out of the palace, Second and the Usurper are in command now, and they know now how you secreted the females and children out.”

“I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, horrified. “I didn’t know… I didn’t think—”

He set his fingers on her chest, startling her into silence. “If you’d known about us, I think you would have tried to save us too. We all know it. But we keep ourselves from view as much as possible. It is the safest way for us. We are not Outside, to be sheltered from violence… and we cannot fight as well as the males who can grow horns. Even casual gossip about us we consider dangerous.” He smiled a little, sad. “We knew that lesson long before Second learned it the hard way.”

The Queen was silent as he continued bathing her. His hands were gentle. He was gentle, in a way she didn’t associate with any Chatcaavan male. Even the kinder males she’d met, like the Knife and Uuvek, had given off an air of competence that implied their familiarity with violence, and the Emperor, who’d learned gentleness at the Ambassador’s hands, had been so affecting because he was tender despite that latent aggression. To be ministered to by a male who gave off none of those signals was… perplexing. He must have been castrated before puberty, to lack the ridging along the brows, the extra horns, and the muscle and hide development of uncut males. What had it been like? Had he come out of the harem nursery? Who decided which males would serve their lives as cooks and janitors?

She thought of what the Emperor had said about the worlds beyond the throneworld and doubted, somehow, that this was a habit common to most of the Empire. It sounded like exactly the sort of custom that would flourish in the cruelty of the court.

“This,” the male said, touching her wing arm. “Oh, Mistress.”

She dipped her head.

“I do not mean to bring you pain—”

“It hurts whether it is noticed or not,” the Queen said, soft. “I would rather that it be acknowledged as the cruelty it was, than not-seen. I think… you understand.”

“We do,” the male said. “And while we cannot save you, Mistress, this much we can do. We can know things.” He rested his hands on her back, between the new scars. “We can know where you were taken, and when, and why, so that we can tell those who want to rescue you. And we can tell others anything you want them to know.”

Her head jerked up. She looked slowly over her shoulder.

“We order supplies through the computer system,” the male said. “To do that, we must send messages. And we are no longer wholly male, nor strong enough to contest with whole males on the dueling field… but we are not stupid.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “If you could… if I could tell… I know things… Second’s treachery!”

“You have only to tell me to whom you would like your message passed, and what it should contain,” the male said. “We will see it done.”

She gasped in a breath against the emotion that crested in her. Had she doubted her decision to stay? But the Air was not dead, as so many proclaimed…! It lived yet, to whisper hope into the ears of its people, and to buoy them up when they thought they could no longer fly. “What are you called?”

“We use names, Mistress,” the male said. “And we do so without shame, preferring them to titles. I am Oviin.”

“Oviin. If you could do this thing….” She found herself sliding to her knees in the water with a splash.

One of the guards ducked his head in. “What are you-our-lessers doing?”

“Apologies, my-better,” Oviin said, wings tightly folded. “She-your-lesser slipped on the tiles.”

“Don’t break her-our-lesser’s neck,” the guard said. “And hurry up.”

“Yes, my-better.”

The Queen watched with wide eyes as the guard resumed his post.

“As you see,” Oviin murmured.

“I do.” She squared her shoulders. “Then, since you have offered….”

“Tell me what to say, Mistress, and to whom.”

She gathered her thoughts then, and chose them, chose the people to whom she would send the message and the prioritization of those people in case Oviin could only reach one of them. He repeated back to her the information, so perfectly that she stared at him agape.

“I volunteered for this,” he said, finishing with her hair. “For more than one reason, but because also my memory is so good. The gemstones, now. We are almost out of time.”

She nodded, the borrowed gesture coming naturally to her. “Then I would ask… do you have anything you would like to ask of me?”

“Me, Mistress?” Surprised, he looked up from the selection of rings and bangles. When she waited, he said, hesitant, “The Ambassador seemed… generous.”

A memory then, visceral and warm and dense, of long fingers wrapped around her ribcage as he lifted her over him. His strange kisses, the drag of soft and clever lips past her cheek. The tongue, so blunt to be so talented and so teachable. She flushed. “That is a good word, yes.”

“Did he teach you the shapechange?” Oviin asked, cautious.

“What? Oh… no. I learned when I was young,” she said. “No one taught me. I just… tried until I succeeded.”

“I would have liked to know the shapechange,” the male murmured.

She set a hand on his upper arm, surprising him into looking at her. “There is no reason you might not. You’re winged, Oviin. It’s in you.”

“Maybe.” He slid an armband up her arm. “Maybe, Mistress.”

She let him decorate her with all the hated gauds of her status, wondering what the pirates would do with her. What they’d think of her, if they’d been hoping for a normal Chatcaavan female… or even an unnatural one, but not mutilated. She tried not to think of the ugliness of her denuded wing-arms, but she couldn’t imagine even an alien seeing them without finding them distasteful.

Oviin brought her mane forward to rest over her flat chest and smoothed it down, then said, “You are ready.” And, very quietly, “I am sorry we could not warn you faster, Mistress.”

“You did,” she answered, willing him to feel her sincerity and wishing she could share it the way Eldritch would have, through held hands. “It was the flowers, wasn’t it?”

He inclined his head.

“Had you not made us suspicious, we would never have been able to get the others free. And one day… one day we will come for you,” the Queen said. “Oviin—it will be soon.”

“May the day come, then, Mistress,” he murmured. Louder, “She-your-lesser is done, my-betters. But this one cannot bind her-your-lesser in the chains again, for it will disturb her-your-lesser’s costume.”

“Fine,” the first guard said. “It’s not like there’s anywhere to run. Come on.”

“Go with the Living Air,” Oviin whispered as she passed on toward the arch.

The Queen joined her guards and followed them with her lowered head and artificially strained posture, keeping her bells and bangles from sounding as much as possible. But beneath that façade she found herself… tranquil. If Oviin succeeded—and she had to pray that he would—then her warning would reach those best positioned to address it, and what she’d done here would not be in vain. And now, she would be sent somewhere she could learn about this second threat to her lovers’ aims. She knew Chatcaavan and Universal, could change shape into both Pelted and Eldritch bodies, and was used to being underestimated. The pirates would be bad, she thought. But how much worse than Chatcaava could they be? She had endured everything short of death. So long as she avoided that final insult, she would live to be useful.

I am doing our work, she thought fiercely to those she loved. Do not fear for me. And as they turned the corner to head up the ramp back to the suite, she added, But don’t let me languish too long, for I miss you both…

“Are you sure they’re coming?” Na’er drawled, leaning against the stone doorjamb.

“They’re coming.” Amber’s voice was tense, less out of frustration with the Aera, Lisinthir thought, than out of his own internal agitation. It fascinated him, seeing the similarities and differences between the siblings. Amber seemed to have inherited all the aggression in the family, but he hadn’t channeled it into anything physical or violent. In him, it seemed to have become restlessness. Sediryl had some of that as well, but it was understandable in a woman of her position. She’d been raised to rule a province and been denied. He could sympathize with the scars left by frustrated ambition. One longed to be useful—male or female.

“What are you thinking?” Sediryl asked, coming up alongside him.

“That I will be glad when the waiting is done.”

“Me too,” she muttered. Then, with a conscious effort to shake off her mood, “At least we know Jahir’s on his way.”

Lisinthir’s mouth twitched. “So he is. Are you looking forward to your role in that particular play?”

“It’s not a play,” she said with distinct dignity. “It’s an operation.”

“Forgive me. Your part in the… operation.”

She eyed him, then huffed. “Since you’re asking… yes. I think I am. I like my ship, and I’ll be glad to be back on it again, even if it’s just to play glorified taxi. Though how Maia and I got designated the official expendables of the mission, I have no idea.”

“There is a fine tradition of tempering future leaders in the fires of war,” Lisinthir offered. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of the Queen’s plans, if that is in fact her aim.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Na’er said. “It’s because us Fleet people are so handy to have around. Cannon fodder for later, when people start shooting, you know.”

“You’re not supposed to be listening to their private conversation,” Laniis whispered.

“If they hadn’t wanted me listening, they should have used a language I didn’t know.” He smoothed his ears back with a theatrical gesture. “Nothing stops these beauties.”

“You could at least pretend not to be eavesdropping,” Laniis said, tail swaying.

“I don’t think that would fool the Ambassador.” Na’er craned his head over his shoulder and flashed Lisinthir a fangy grin. “Would it?”

“Not at all,” Lisinthir said, amused.

“You see? And you should know better, anyway. He’s your Eldritch.”

“He’s not my Eldritch!”

Na’er guffawed. “Uh-huh.”

“They banter thus always?” Sediryl asked him in their tongue.

“It relieves their anxiety. It is like you with your fingers picking at your clothing.”

She stared up at him, mouth ajar, and he politely ignored her.

“Mind-mage!” she accused.

“It doesn’t take a special talent to see what is before one’s eyes,” Lisinthir said. And then, sobering, “Courage, perhaps, to admit to it. But talent?” He smiled down at her and cocked a brow. “A word people use when they prefer not to admit they are too lazy to develop the skill.”

“You see?” Na’er said to Laniis. “Now they’re having a private conversation. Either that, or the Ambassador’s tweaking my ears.”

“Can you blame me when they’re so tweakable?” Lisinthir said in Universal.

That laughter Amber interrupted. “There they come!”

Onto the green that Lisinthir had so recently covered himself, they were, in fact, coming: about twenty Chatcaava herded by a handful of Pelted guardians. How alien they looked amid the abbey’s buildings, avoiding the geese and the Pelted children, with the sun gleaming off the bare hides of the females and the horns of the males. For there were males, he was surprised to see: two in the vanguard, with two females in close attendance, one proudly apart, the other with a babe in arms and two children trotting after her like an honor guard. He was surprised to recognize the latter female as the mother he’d summoned the Surgeon to save.

It was good, good to see them. His only regret was the lack of the single female he’d wanted most to greet. He accepted that the Queen had chosen to exercise her free will on their behalf, but oh, how he missed her.

Amber had already advanced and was hailing the Tam-illee female accompanying the group. Lisinthir ignored them to head for the male Chatcaava, and sensed his Fleet personnel following… and Sediryl as well. One of the males was a muted silver with eyes that were dark for a Chatcaava, and his demeanor was grim. The other, taller and thicker through the shoulders and chest and wing-arms, seemed more phlegmatic. Or had, before he caught sight of Lisinthir.

“You didn’t mention this part,” that male said to the other with interest.

“Because I didn’t know about it. But I probably should have.” The male came to a halt in front of Lisinthir and glared up at him. “You were the one who put the idea in her head, weren’t you.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lisinthir said, cordial. “I believe she had ideas in her head long before I was involved. Or did you think your Queen a dumb animal, incapable of imagining a fate separate from that designed for her by the males that trammeled her?”

The second male made a sound suspiciously like a cough.

“It’s not that,” the proud female said. “He’s just upset that she lied to him.”

“I’m not talking to you,” the first male said between gritted teeth.

“You’re talking to her now,” the second male pointed out.

“I’m only talking to her to inform her that I still haven’t forgiven her.”

The female sniffed. “As if I wanted your forgiveness.” She studied Lisinthir, curious, both sets of arms folded as she leaned toward him. “I remember you. You said we were ugly.”

“I cannot have said anything of the sort,” Lisinthir said, startled.

“When the Emperor offered you our use,” the female pressed. “You said that wings were our species’ most attractive feature. It was your reason for not wanting us.”

“I believe what I said was that I was accustomed to two arms. Which, you will perceive, is only the truth.”

“You see?” the first male said. “She is infuriating. You tell her something—or ask her something—and she creatively reinterprets it to suit herself!”

The second male patted him on the shoulder. “Well, now she’s the Ambassador’s problem. You are the Ambassador, I assume.”

“At the Exalted’s service, as I presume you are?”

“You presume correctly,” the first male said stiffly. “I apologize for our discourtesy. I am the Knife, the male assigned by the Emperor to head the Queen Ransomed’s security. This male beside me is Uuvek, who served with me in the Navy as a computer specialist before I asked for his expertise in the palace.”

“And we,” said the female, “are the Priestess. And the Mother.”

“The Mother I have met before,” Lisinthir said, inclining his head to her. “Your child, I believe?”

“The one you-my-better helped to save,” she said shyly. “Thank you.”

“I am pleased beyond words to have done so. And these two drakes?”

“Gale,” said the Mother. “And his brother, Whisper.”

“We’re her guards,” Gale said. The stubborn scowl eased. “You were the one who gave the Queen the shape of the alien? The one she used to communicate with the tongueless attendants?”

“I… did, yes,” Lisinthir said, startled. “Did she truly?”

“She did!” Gale said. “It was amazing! I had no idea our nurses were thinking anything at all! I mean, I knew they had to be, but when you never hear those thoughts, you forget that people think them….”

“Gale,” the Mother muttered.

The Priestess reached over and swatted the boy on the head. Gently, Lisinthir noticed, but firmly. “You inherited the Emperor’s brain. Try to use it before you speak.”

“It is true that we often become complacent when no one contradicts our beliefs,” Lisinthir said to Gale. “It is wise of you to have noticed. An observation befitting an Emperor’s son.”

Gale scowled at the Priestess. “So why did she hit me?”

“I’m afraid it was because you implied that females are dumb animals,” Lisinthir said. “You will also note that people who have been much maligned are more sensitive to such attitudes. You should choose your words more carefully around the disenfranchised.”

The Priestess rolled her eyes. “I cuffed him because the Mother didn’t. Someone needs to teach him that females are not all meek and clawless.”

“If he has met the Queen and see her in her power,” Lisinthir said, “then I think he knows that already. Do you not, Gale?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “She’s fierce!”

“In her own way,” Lisinthir agreed. To the Knife, “There is much I would ask of you, but we should see the frailer among you to shelter where they can rest. You and your redoubtable female companions I plan to wring for information, but babes and their wet nurses are another matter.”

“Yes,” the Knife said, with such poorly concealed long-suffering that it was difficult for Lisinthir to conceal his amusement. “Yes, they are. Please, lead on.”

Settling the noncombatants took some time; setting up the room for their conference still more. Sediryl fought her irritation—poorly—at the discovery that the Fleet personnel could provide translation via data tablet and telegem. “Why didn’t you do that for us when they first started arriving?” she asked Amber.

“Because,” Amber replied, testy, “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s all of one computer in this entire abbey, and it’s embedded in the abbot’s room upstairs.”

“There’s a thing called a data tablet,” Sediryl shot back. “I hear they’re cheap, particularly for people with our resources.”

“I don’t see you waving your data tablet around,” he growled.

That had given her pause, which Amber used to resume his conversations about preparing the room with those Fleet people. “Maia?” she asked, low. “Could you have fed me a translation?”

A pause. Then, “The answer to that is… ordinarily, yes.”

“Ordinarily,” she repeated.

“The Ambassador’s trip to the Empire made it clear that our existing database on Chatcaavan is lacking in a great deal of necessary nuance,” the D-per replied. “It is currently being re-evaluated for veracity. Opinions vary over how true to the original our translations would be, and when we are talking about translating the words of those who mean us harm….”

“I see,” Sediryl said. She frowned, watching a stranger set out plates of food and drink. “Why are the Fleet people so confident, then?”

“Because they have Lieutenant Baker. If records are correct, she just returned from almost a year, maybe longer, in the Empire. And, of course, the Ambassador, who also appears to know the language colloquially.”

“Have you been listening?” she asked, interested. “Could you replay the exchange I just heard outside for me?”

“I could, yes. I believe it would be eighty percent accurate.”

“Well,” Sediryl said, taking a seat on a corner bench while the others finished setting up. “Let’s have it.”

“Replaying now, alet. At a somewhat higher rate of speed.”

While the others went about their business, then, Sediryl listened, trying to keep her mouth from betraying any mirth at some of the exchanges and marveling at her cousin’s fluency. She’d been forced to listen to the conversation as incomprehensible noise, and left without any meaning to interpret she’d fallen back on evaluating the rhythm and play of it… and Lisinthir had never hesitated, nor faltered in search for any word. Sediryl had learned Universal as a child, long before she had any clear memory of whether it had entailed any effort. She hadn’t attempted to acquire any language since, but she couldn’t imagine learning Chatcaavan this well in two years. Less than that, given that Lisinthir had no doubt been given a quick course in it and then flung into the Empire.

There was nothing in that conversation relevant to their problems now, but it did suggest a very great many things about her cousin and his beliefs.

When the four Chatcaava were led back in, the room looked very much as it had when they’d greeted their cousin, but with some exceptions. Food and drink, of course. And now translating telegems for everyone, including the Chatcaava. It was all very cool and dim and very Alliance despite its rustic facade. Sediryl wondered how the Chatcaava found it. Did they think it soft? Comforting?

The Mother looked at the food with what seemed to be wistfulness, but didn’t reach for it. Glancing at her, the Priestess sighed and snagged a round red fruit. “I assume this is safe for us to eat,” she said to Lisinthir.

“It would not be there otherwise.”

The Priestess pressed it into the Mother’s hand. “Stop apologizing for existing.”

“I didn’t say anything,” the Mother whispered in protest.

“No, but you were thinking it.”

Lisinthir cleared his throat, and strange it was indeed to hear him speaking a completely unintelligible language, and yet to hear the Universal less than a syllable later in her ear. His confidence, though, needed no translation. “Shall we begin, then? There is a matter that requires immediate address.”

“That being?” the Knife asked, wary.

“I require proof of your loyalties.”

The two males stared at him so fixedly Sediryl’s shoulders tensed. Her cousin, she noted, showed no signs of discomfort at all.

“You question our loyalty,” the Knife repeated.

“As the ship that was carrying me back to the Alliance was attacked by a system lord’s militia in consort with a Naval vessel and Naval personnel… yes. The Emperor has been betrayed by those he trusted implicitly, so I can no longer take your profession as proof of your allegiance. I require that proof before we continue.”

“I can’t argue that,” Na’er said, and if Lisinthir’s voice had been shocking in Chatcaavan, the Aera’s accented drawl was even more so.

But the effect of her cousin’s statement on the Chatcaava was electric. The Knife was leaning forward, eyes so wide the pupils visibly contracted in them from the extra light. “You know this? You are certain!”

“Completely.”

The Knife stared at Uuvek. “She was right!”

“If we hadn’t agreed with her, we wouldn’t have gone,” Uuvek replied, nonplussed.

“I agreed it might be possible!” the Knife said. “I didn’t want to believe that it was true.” Shoulders slumping, and wings with them, he turned back to Lisinthir. “You must have your proof, then, though I don’t know how you plan to derive it. Unless…” He hesitated. “You will do as the Emperor did to me once?”

“And what did he do?” Lisinthir asked with interest.

“He touched me while wearing your shape in order to assess my fitness to be the Queen’s Knife.” The Chatcaavan canted his head. “Will you now do the same?”

“How convenient for us all that you are familiar with the procedure,” Lisinthir said, and Sediryl hid a smile. Her cousin held out a hand. “Let us be quit of that quickly, for it is apparent we have a great deal to do.”

The test of the Knife didn’t take long, and try as she might Sediryl couldn’t see any evidence that it was transpiring, or that it was disturbing her cousin’s peace. What must it be like, to be capable of that level of mindtouch? She had never been that good at even the easy parts, and had never thought of that lack as a liability. To have to wear dense, long sleeves, never able to push them up without worrying about whether she’d brush someone’s skin? Goddess save her from that kind of trouble.

Lisinthir moved on to Uuvek, and opened an eye partway through that evaluation to quirk a brow at him.

“Find something interesting?” the Chatcaavan asked.

“You have a fascinating mind,” Lisinthir replied. “Very well organized.”

“Thank you. I worked hard on it.”

Lisinthir laughed. “Did you. Well, it shows.”

To everyone’s surprise, he held out his hand to the Priestess afterwards. It was the Mother who exclaimed, “But we are females!”

“And apparently he knows that females are capable of power and action and treachery if it suits them,” the Priestess said, eyeing Lisinthir with approval. “I think I am going to like the world we are being thrust into, if this is typical of people’s assumptions.”

“It is typical of many of them,” Lisinthir said, and looked across the room at Sediryl. “Alas, you will find the occasional person who underestimates others based on criteria that have nothing to do with the quality of their will or spirits.”

The Priestess sniffed. “Good. May there be many such among our enemies.” She rested her hand confidently in Lisinthir’s and watched him throughout the test with avid curiosity.

That left the Mother, who regarded Lisinthir with trepidation.

“You I ask this of only because someone may have used your mind as a trap,” Lisinthir said. “I do not fear for your loyalties. But let me be certain.”

“Can… can that happen?” the Mother asked, aghast.

“Even among powers without access to mind talents,” Lisinthir said. “The mind can be bent unexpectedly.”

She gave him her hand, which was trembling visibly. Lisinthir caressed it softly with a thumb until she relaxed, and then kissed the back. “And you are safe, Mother.”

“Again, thanks to you,” the Mother murmured.

“Mostly due to my compatriots, this time, you’ll find.” Lisinthir leaned back. “So. The Navy has betrayed the Emperor. What made the Queen decide to flee?”

Uuvek and the Knife exchanged glances. The latter said, “Second.”

“Second?” Laniis asked.

“A new Second, I presume,” Lisinthir said.

“What is Second?” Amber interrupted.

“What it sounds like,” Na’er said. “The Emperor’s chief minister.”

“The new Second was Command-East.” The Knife rested his talons on the table, pressing lightly. “You know our sectors?”

“Yes,” Lisinthir said.

“Then you should know that the eastern quadrant is the densest, population and industry-wise,” the Knife said. “Our military has nodal bases in each of the four quadrants, but East is our largest and considered our headquarters. Second was the male charged with the military administration of the entirety of the Eastern Navy: its supplies, its fixed defenses, its fleets, its personnel.”

“Logical choice for a new minister, as long as he doesn’t turn on you,” Na’er said. “Is that what he did?”

“He must have,” the Knife said. “Someone had to give the order to intercept you, Ambassador. But we had to leave before securing any proof or we would never have made it out.”

“That’s why the Queen stayed, though,” Sediryl said. “Would she have been able to get you any information?”

“We haven’t had access to any computers on our flight,” the Knife said. “So we wouldn’t know. Unless you received something, Ambassador?” At Lisinthir’s negation, the Chatcaavan said, “Then… we would have to check.”

“Can you even reach your computers through ours? Don’t you… I don’t know. Secure your networks?” Amber asked.

Uuvek huffed. “Give me a console. That’s all I need.”

“But not the one in the abbey,” Sediryl said. “Which means mine.” She held up her tablet. “Do you know how to use our interfaces?”

“I can walk him through it,” a voice murmured in her ear.

“That would work, then.” Sediryl rose, leaned over the table, and set her tablet in front of the Chatcaavan. “My crewmember can help you. Her name’s Maia. She’s a D-Per—a digital personality—if you know what that is.”

Lisinthir said something to the Chatcaava then that her translation blanked on.

“A what?” the Knife said, startled. “That’s possible? But why would you do that?”

Uuvek was staring at the data tablet with a look Sediryl had to describe as avarice. “Can I talk to this being?”

“I am listening to you right now,” Maia offered through the data tablet’s speakers. In Chatcaavan, which made the simultaneous translation in the same voice in Sediryl’s ear bizarre.

Uuvek’s head jerked back. Leaning forward slowly, he said, “This tablet. I can’t scratch it.”

“No,” Sediryl said.

Laniis added, “We have many species with claws or talons.”

“Then, with your permission, I will withdraw to make the acquaintance of this… being. And I will find out if we have any messages. Knife?”

“Go,” the Knife said. And then, as if realizing he may no longer have any authority, “Unless there is a problem with this.”

“No,” Lisinthir said. “But don’t leave the building, please. I don’t know how many people here may have… issues… with Chatcaava they may want to take out on your hide, if they find you alone.”

“There’s no violence here,” Amber said.

“There’s no violence here now,” Lisinthir said. “That was prior to there being provocation.”

“So the question,” Na’er said, “If you’ll pardon me for dragging us back to boring practicalities… is what do we do now?”

“Where’s the Emperor?” Sediryl asked. When the Knife and Lisinthir both looked at her, she said, “He’s the one with the crown, yes? He left, presumably, or he would have been there to help the Queen. So where did he go, and why hasn’t he come back?”

“Deployed,” the Knife said. “As he has been frequently since your departure, Ambassador, taming the rebellions.”

“And the last rebellion was…?” Lisinthir asked.

“I no longer know the location of his campaigns,” the Knife said. “As I was detached from the Navy to serve palace security. But.”

“But,” Na’er muttered. “There’s always a but.”

“One of the reasons we fled was that we couldn’t contact him to ask for direction,” the Knife said. “No one was answering his tag. Not even the flagship.”

That silence was harsh. Sediryl broke it by saying, “So he’s in trouble, is what you’re implying.”

“Or under operational security so strenuous he wouldn’t allow it to be broken even for the Queen Ransomed,” the Knife said.

“And the chances of that?” Sediryl asked.

The Knife said, low, “You find us here.”

“So what we’ve got is an empire in the process of complete destabilization with its nominal head of state missing in action and no one with legitimate authority to stop that process,” Na’er said.

“I fear you misunderstand,” the Knife said heavily. “The Empire wants very much to conquer you aliens. If we are promised that war, we will not at all be destabilized. We will be very united, and very little will be able to brake us.”

“For now,” Lisinthir murmured. More clearly: “We must find the Emperor. He only counts as deposed if he’s dead. He also understands the subcultures of the Empire; balancing their competing desires has been the work of his lifetime. So our task must be to discover where he went last and what happened. We extricate him from whatever contretemps he’s found himself in, help him rally his supporters, and go back to the throneworld to dethrone the usurper. Providing one has selected himself.”

“I like a nice solid plan,” Na’er said. “I’m guessing that Uuvek can figure out where he went?”

“There is very little Uuvek cannot discover, given a computer,” the Knife said. “But this plan does not offer a solution for its most important contingency.”

“Which is that the Emperor might be dead,” Sediryl guessed.

“Yes,” the Knife said.

“He’s not,” Lisinthir said. “But we should ascertain for certain, as much as possible.”

“And if he is dead?” Laniis asked, softly.

“Then I’m guessing we leave the whole notion of reforming the Empire to rot while we kill them all,” Amber said.

All the Chatcaava looked at him.

“Amber,” Sediryl said. “That might not be the most diplomatic way to talk in front of our allies.”

“On the contrary,” the Priestess said, “That’s the most Chatcaavan thing we’ve heard at this table yet.” She leaned over and plucked up a grape with her talons. “It is comforting to encounter something familiar here in the middle of freakland.” She eyed Sediryl and grinned, all fangs. “If my lack of diplomacy can be excused.”

“I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you,” Sediryl said, wry.

“So,” Na’er said. “Just to reiterate here. We dig up some information from secure Chatcaavan networks on the location of the Emperor, or where he was last headed. We check for any message drops. Then we sortie for wherever he went, in secret, and see if we can find him. We rescue him, if he needs rescuing, gather his allies, and go pound the tar out of his enemies. Which will hopefully also stop them from conquering the Alliance.”

“Or trying,” Amber muttered.

“That sound about the size of it?” Na’er said. “What are we doing with the refugees? Leaving them here?”

“I would prefer to see them safely into the Alliance,” Sediryl said. “The Queen of the Eldritch has offered them asylum.”

“Has she,” Lisinthir said, glancing at her with raised brows.

“As long as there’s someplace for them to go?” Laniis said. “Beyond the Eldritch homeworld. Or is that what the Queen was offering?”

“I would like to see the homeworld of the Ambassador’s people,” the Mother said, surprising… everyone, it seemed. Including herself.

“Who’s going to oversee that process, though?” Amber asked. “You, cousin?”

“Actually,” Sediryl said, “I was thinking of nominating you, cousin.”

“Excuse me—”

“I have a ship,” Sediryl said, “with a military-grade Duster. It doesn’t have a great deal of passenger space. And I have things to do, you perceive, that don’t involve me traveling all the way to the opposite end of the Alliance.”

“What things are those, pray tell?” Amber asked, eyes narrowing.

“Oh, I could think of several applications for a small vessel with a military-grade Duster,” Lisinthir said, considering the ceiling. “Can’t you, Na’er-alet?”

“I think if I put my mind to it for long enough I could come up with… oh, I don’t know. One or two? Maybe?”

“I am not going home,” Amber growled. “I have work to do here too!”

“Your work, if I’m guessing correctly, involves punishing the Chatcaava for crimes committed against the Eldritch,” Lisinthir said. “I can hardly think of anything more fitting than to take some of their most vulnerable members away from them and hide them among us. They have done violence to the more vulnerable of our members often enough, have they not?”

Amber’s eyes narrowed. In their tongue, and swathed in black on every word, he said, “That was a rogue’s touch, and unworthy of a gentleman.”

“You will find me a proponent of expediency when it suits my purposes,” Lisinthir said. “And I am remarkably unruffled by insults.” Switching to Universal, he said, “I believe that plan has merit, cousin Sediryl.”

“She’s the one who arranged the refugee flight,” Amber said. “She’s supposed to be the one overseeing it!”

“I am overseeing it. That means I’m free to deputize you,” Sediryl replied. “Which I shall. Or are you not a loyal subject of our Queen?”

“You’re not the heir yet,” Amber growled in their tongue.

“Let’s not be rude,” Sediryl said in Universal. “No one else speaks our language, cousin.”

“I won’t deny having an extra ship that can travel in stealth would be handy,” Na’er said. “If Lord Sernataila doesn’t mind seeing to the refugees.”

“But with what ship?” the Knife said. “If not the extra one you are speaking of?”

“There have been arrangements for getting the refugees off this planet in small groups,” Sediryl said. “I’m sure if Amber put his mind to it, he could consolidate most of those flights, since you’re all here.”

“So we all have work to do,” Lisinthir said. “Shall we be about that work?”

“Sounds good to me.” Na’er rose. “Since you and Lord Sernataila and Lady Sediryl are going to be busy with the next stage of the refugee situation, I’ll lead these folks to their temporary quarters. If that’s all right?” He grinned at the Knife. “Laniis and I speak the language, if not with the Ambassador’s facility.”

“Nothing like his facility,” the Priestess agreed. “But you can make yourselves understood.”

“Maybe you can help us with our accents,” Na’er said.

The Priestess snorted. “Unless you’re willing to cut your words off with your teeth, we’re not going to make any progress.”

“I've got teeth.” Na’er flashed them, all fang, and startled the Priestess into wide-eyed silence. Sediryl found those surprised expressions strangely charming: something about the size of their eyes and the enormous irises.

“He has very good teeth,” the Mother observed placidly.

“They’re only as good as his ability to use them,” the Priestess replied, but she cast a speculative glance at Na’er.

“Let’s go, then,” Na’er said. “And leave the Eldritch to their plans.”

In the silence that remained in the wake of the departure of the aliens, the three Eldritch stared at one another. Amber was fuming, so visibly angry that Sediryl felt an unwilling fascination at the sight. Would he explode? Refuse to do as they asked? Call for a duel? Wouldn’t that be interesting.

Cousin Lisinthir was draped in his chair in irreverent nonchalance, his hands folded on his solar plexus and his legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankle. Sediryl found his pose just as fascinating as Amber’s anger. She tried to remember seeing any Eldritch so... What was the word she wanted? Arrogant, perhaps? Masculine? And yet, Jahir was masculine and she couldn’t imagine him just... lazing that way. Like a predator, sprawled in the sun. No, Jahir had to sit with that perfect posture and hint at his passions only with flickers in his mesmerizing eyes. Goddess and Lord, what a pair.

When the silence lasted too long, she finally said, “Will you do it?”

“Have you left me any choice?” Amber asked.

“No,” Lisinthir said. “Your inability to control your anger compromises you, cousin. You don’t know the language, the culture, or the situation. And you have outmoded notions of the potency of women which I fear we will not cure you of in time to prevent you from making a noble but perilous mistake.”

“You are trying to tell me you’re not compromised by your own emotional involvement in this?” Amber asked. He waved a hand at Sediryl. “She’s the only one who hasn’t suffered at the hands of dragons, and she’s no better than you because she has something to prove and she’s determined to do it whether she’s fit for it or not!”

Anger ripped through her so abruptly she felt the shock of it first, before the flame. Sediryl whispered, “Oh, cousin.” Something in her voice warned him, because Amber glanced at her sharply.

“Go,” she said. “Right now. Before I say something I regret.”

“You know it’s true, Sediryl.”

“I’d do as she asks,” Lisinthir said. “I would hate for you to break with one another over this.”

Amber stared at them both, seething. Then shoved off the chair, hands tight at his sides. “Fine. I’ll do what you ask. But this… this will clear the slate between us, cousin, of what I owe for Beth’s rescue. We are quit, we two.”

“As you wish,” Lisinthir answered, voice cool.

The vacuum of emotion in the room after Amber swept out was so distinct Sediryl felt lightheaded. She pressed a hand to her temple and said, “You tried, I know, but there’s no use. He’ll be angry about this forever. I played with them both when we were children and while Jahir would forgive anyone anything, Amber held grudges until they fell apart in his arms.”

“Proof enough that he doesn’t belong out here,” Lisinthir said. “The Chatcaava are creatures of emotion themselves, cousin, and if you allow yourself to descend to their level they will win the fight. One must be capable of mastering one’s emotions to contest with them and win. And Amber is carrying too much shame over the princess’s fate.” He grinned at her, sudden and wicked. “Besides, you have a ship with a Duster and he doesn’t.”

Sediryl blinked, then started laughing. “So all I’m good for is my hardware, is that it?”

“As I said, I am a great believer in expediency. Which brings me to Jahir. As you have been nominated the expendable one—” A cock of his eyebrow, inviting her to laugh, “—you are certain you don’t mind overmuch fetching him when he arrives in three days? Someone will have to pick him up, and to be honest he might as well remain with you in orbit rather make the journey here, when we ourselves will have to leave as well.”

“I said I’d do it… and I don’t mind,” Sediryl said, ignoring her heart’s flutter. “But… I thought you’d be coming with me?”

“I could, I suppose. Or you could ask someone else to accompany you, though who you would tap I do not know. The Fleet people must stay together, and I should remain where the Chatcaava are. And you will surely travel more swiftly alone.” He tilted his head, the rubies braided into his hair glittering as they shifted. “Besides, I have other reasons I would advise against it.”

Something in the way he said that... “You would?”

He smiled, winsome. “I would. You and your cousin may want some time to become reacquainted. It has been a while, has it not?”

“Ah... you might say so. I think.”

“Mmm.”

She eyed him. “You know something I don’t.”

“I know many things you do not, I should hope. But like most knowledge, it is more truly grasped when learned directly, rather than imparted by a third party.” He smiled as he stood, all mischief and predatory grace. “And now, I believe we should begin seeing to the schedule of those transports, yes? The less we put on Amber’s poor shoulders, the better for us all.”

She sighed. “That is putting it... diplomatically.” She managed a wry smile. “But then you would, wouldn’t you.”

“I have my moments. I confess they are fewer than some would like.”

Sediryl laughed. “All right. Let’s go get it over with.”

Had the flight of the refugees been the only task to divert him from their stalled mission, Lisinthir would have been subject to an agitation he would have hated to display in front of either of his cousins.

Fortunately, there was the Knife. The male had a skeptical crust of an exterior, but once past it was willing to speak of the Queen and what she’d accomplished in his absence. Lisinthir listened with intense satisfaction to her exploits in the nursery, and the way she’d taken to daily meetings with him, and with Uuvek. How she’d handled herself with grace and conviction. How she’d flowered. Watching the Knife speak of her was its own revelation, for the personal loyalty she’d obviously inspired in him and presumably the others. The Mother, of course, did not surprise him. Fierce little Gale, though, was a delight, as was his more demure brother. And the Priestess… the Queen had made friends among the females she’d insisted would always despise her.

It was hard to imagine so much change happening in such a short time. No wonder they’d become imperiled.

Uuvek was not the only one mired in a computer. Na’er was keeping a grim vigil on the movements of the Fleet. “There’s something going on there, on the coreward border,” he said, tapping the map on his data tablet. “Maia says it’s pirate activity. But pirates have always been associated with the Chatcaava, which makes it likely that there’s some link there.”

Thinking of Third’s deep involvement with piracy, Lisinthir said, “More than likely, yes.”

“The problem is that the least time deployment from the Empire to the Alliance takes the fight straight through the Bright Belt,” the Aera continued, dragging a fingertip along a corridor that encompassed many of the Pelted’s homeworlds. “If I thought I had parity with an alien’s navy, I’d probably start with diversionary expeditions, or raiding around the less policed fringes. Eat my way in from the edges, so to speak. But we’re not talking about a situation of parity, are we?”

Lisinthir said, quiet, “I fear we are not, no.”

“So if I knew I could attack in force…” The Aera’s ears slowly sagged until their tips brushed his shoulders.

“But numbers aren’t everything,” Lisinthir said. “We know the Chatcaava have more people than we do, and more space, and presumably a larger military. But as you had noted, that military is fragmenting. Some portion of it may rebel.”

“But enough of it?” Na’er said.

Lisinthir glanced at him. “That, I’m afraid, is an imponderable.”

“Yet we have to plan for something.” Na’er set the data tablet down. “I’m glad I’m just a grunt on the outskirts, trying to gather data. I’d hate to be making the decisions on this one. So much at stake…”

“We will prevail.”

“Will we?”

“Yes,” Lisinthir said. “There is no alternative. And a cornered beast, alet, is far more dangerous than its attackers often assume.”

The Aera sighed. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

Thankfully, Amber left on the following day with the first and largest of the refugee groups. The second group would be accompanied by the Priestess, who had surprised them all by deciding to help lead the effort. The Mother had decided to go with her, because children had no place on a battlefield by her standards, and she trusted no one else with the children. It was while that group was mustering to leave that Uuvek returned with the data tablet, and even knowing him poorly Lisinthir misliked his expression.

“You are about to tell us things we don’t want to hear,” the Knife said heavily. “So let us have everyone together so you only have to say it once.”

“Be quick,” was all Uuvek said.

Sediryl and the Fleet personnel were found, and once they had gathered again in the room underground, Uuvek said, “The Queen left us a message.”

“She lives!” Sediryl exclaimed.

“Maybe,” Uuvek said. “According to her, she’s about to be gifted to a ‘pirate nation’ as an incentive for continuing their attack on the freaks. That’s not a diversion, by the way. From what our contact’s written, the pirates have been promised as much of the coreward chunk of the Alliance as they can keep.”

“Speaker-Singer,” Laniis whispered, horrified.

“The Queen also said that Second betrayed the Emperor, but not to take the throne himself. He has put another male there, one who kills with guns rather than duels. She doesn’t know who he is, but she sent a good description of him and it matches that of the male formerly known as Logistics-East. Which means,” Uuvek looked at the Knife, “it’s likely that the entire upper echelon of the Eastern Naval administration is involved in this coup. Guess now where the Emperor was heading when he left the throneworld last.”

“No,” the Knife whispered.

“To the Eastern quadrant?” Sediryl ventured.

“To the Eastern Apex world,” Uuvek said. “Which is the seat of the Empire’s Naval power. He was supposed to meet up with reinforcements to take to his next action. I think it’s clear what those reinforcements were really there to do.”

“Well, rhack,” Na’er said. “What are the chances he survived that little party?”

The two Chatcaava looked at one another.

The Knife, grim, said, “I can’t believe that he did.”

“But there’s nothing about his death anywhere,” Uuvek said. “There should be some news. Not official, it’s obvious the Usurper doesn’t care whether people believe the Emperor’s alive or not. But there’s always rumors and scuttlebutt. I’m not seeing any of that. Unlike you.” He eyed Lisinthir. “You’re everywhere. The Usurper has set a personal bounty on your capture.”

“Has he?” Lisinthir asked. “Why ever would he care, if he has dispatched, or believes he has dispatched, the Emperor?”

“A bounty on a specific alien?” the Knife said, puzzled. “That makes no sense. That elevates an alien to the level of a male dangerous enough to warrant personal attention.”

“Maybe he wants a trophy,” Laniis said, ears flattened.

“It is possible,” the Knife said. “But unlikely. Unless the Usurper has a specific grudge against the Emperor, and why would the head of Logistics bear such a grudge?”

“Why would the head of Logistics want to be Emperor?” Na’er said. “For that matter… did you say that Second did this coup? But he didn’t become Emperor. He gave that title to someone else. That seems out of character for you people.”

“Too many mysteries,” Sediryl murmured.

“But enough to act on, finally,” Lisinthir said. “Did the Queen say aught else?”

“Only that she intends to discover what she can about the pirates,” Uuvek said. “She is a most unnatural female. But interesting.”

Lisinthir laughed. “She is quite natural. But special, very certainly.” He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “So then. To find the Emperor is our next task. Na’er, Laniis, Uuvek, and you, Knife. We shall finish assisting the refugee flight and then repair to the Fleet vessel. Sediryl, do you go fetch our kinsman, since he should be about to arrive. Once we’re all in space, we can see what we can discover about the ambush in Apex-East.”

“You want us to sneak into the sector with the biggest naval base in Chatcaavan territory,” Na’er said.

“I seem to recall you being disappointed by my lack of audacity?” Lisinthir said. “Consider this my way of making amends.”

“The chances of our succeeding are very slim,” the Knife said.

“Our stealth systems are pretty good.” Na’er folded his arms and lifted his chin. “I think you’ll be surprised.”

“We’d better be surprised, or we’ll be dead,” Uuvek observed.

“Does anyone have any better notions?” Lisinthir asked. When no one was forthcoming, he said, “Then we go with what we have. Cousin, you should leave immediately. May I walk you out?”

“Of course.” Sediryl rose, brushed the folds of her riding coat smooth.

“I shall return in a moment,” Lisinthir said to the others. “We have much to finish before we leave.”

Uuvek looked at his data tablet. “I have to return this, I guess.”

Sediryl tilted her head, as she did when listening to her crewmember through the telegem. Lisinthir wondered if she’d realized the tell yet. “Maia says there are others on-board. If you want to keep that one, you’re welcome.”

“If it is no trouble?” Uuvek said, folding his hands around the tablet.

“No problems here,” Na’er said. “That’s a consumer model. We’d rather not be distributing the military versions around if we can avoid it.”

“Then keep it,” Sediryl said firmly. “Cousin, shall we?”

“We go,” Lisinthir agreed, indicating the door with a flourish. Once they’d gained the stairwell, he switched to their tongue, silver and gold and a touch of carnal red. “I think what he desires is to maintain contact with Maia.”

“Really?” She glanced at him, startled. “But he could do that without a data tablet, couldn’t he? With a telegem, or through the computer on the Fleet ship.”

“Certes. But Na’er’s point is well-taken. I have no doubt Fleet data tablets have features they are not eager to share with the Chatcaava, be they ever so sympathetic to our cause.” He followed her to the main floor. “We will be a day or two behind you, I suspect. Will you and Jahir call when you are reunited? It would please me to hear from you both.”

“Would it?” she asked. And then laughed. “Oh, you’d love to answer that, wouldn’t you. I’m sure you have some number of sly and courteous responses just waiting.”

“Sly!” Lisinthir sighed. “I rather preferred ‘ungentlemanly’ from Amber. That at least implied I was occasionally capable of proper behavior.”

Sediryl chuckled. “Proper by whose standards?”

“Ah! Yes. That would be the question. And you would know, would you not?”

“I am the fallen woman of Nuera, so… yes. I would.”

“Pay those gossipmongers no heed,” Lisinthir said. “You are lady enough for the Queen, your cousins, and a passel of dragons. If that does not suffice, what will?”

She thought she was concealing her speculative look, but Sediryl, he judged, had been too long in the Alliance, casting out the customs she’d been reared to. She no longer schooled her face well enough to throw one of the Pelted off her scent, much less one of the Eldritch… and he suspected she didn’t care either. Which he found endearing. Jahir had chosen his bride well; hopefully he would have enough time with her ere this began to make his intentions known.

Lifting her hand, Lisinthir pressed a kiss to its back. “Go carefully, cousin.”

“I’ll call you soon,” she said firmly.

The trek back to the Visionary took longer than Sediryl liked despite her riding skill and how much she wanted time to herself to think. Once she had that time, what she found herself mostly doing was vibrating. She wanted to be off and accomplishing things, not sorting through the complex thoughts Lisinthir and Amber and the Chatcaava had planted in her head.

“I like him,” Maia surprised her by saying into her ear.

Sediryl, still a day and a half off from the outskirts of the town she could use to reach the vessel, canted her head. “Him… the Chatcaavan?”

“Yes,” Maia said. “He's interesting to talk to. The Chatcaava don’t have D-pers, but he said he’d always wondered what it would be like to create one.”

“And you told him what it entailed, I am guessing?” Sediryl imagined that and chuckled. “Was he nonplussed?”

“He was fascinated,” Maia said. “I think he could do it.”

“Code a D-per?” Sediryl said, startled. “I thought that required a team?”

“It does. But I think he could organize and lead a team. He has the imagination for it. It was a pleasure seeing him inject himself into the systems he was using to find his information.”

Sediryl pursed her lips. “Does that mean you can do what he did now? You witnessed the process, didn’t you?”

“I did. And I could, yes. Until they change everything, and I don’t know how they’d do it.” Maia’s voice sounded intrigued. “But I’d love to try.”

“Could you keep your fingers in it, maybe? Listen for interesting information?”

“I’m always doing that, alet.”

“Then we’re in good shape,” Sediryl said firmly.

“So far.” Maia paused, then added, “You don’t mind being sent off to fetch this man?”

Was she blushing? She brushed her fingers against her cheek, couldn’t tell if that was the sun’s heat or something more revealing. “Jahir? No. He’s my cousin. It will be lovely to see him again.”

“Lovely, is it.”

Sediryl cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“And here I thought that other fellow was pretty interesting. Lisinthir, yes? Very dashing.”

Was he? “Jahir is dashing. Lisinthir is… dangerous.”

“Oh, so this man we’re picking up isn’t dangerous?”

“No, no. He is, I think, just…” Sediryl exhaled noisily, then laughed. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you.”

“Your heart rate is unnecessarily high, maybe. You’re agitating yourself.”

“I want to be doing things,” Sediryl said. “Things worthy of you and that ship.”

“And of you, maybe?” Maia asked carefully. “And your Queen’s regard?”

“That too. Of course. How not?” Sediryl straightened her shoulders. “And if I prove to Amber that he was ridiculous for thinking I needed coddling, well. That would be very satisfying too.”

“I wouldn’t mind that myself.”

“Really?”

“He might be right about this being a bad idea, alet. But it’s your bad idea to try. And you do have me, and the Visionary.”

“I do, don’t I?” she said, satisfied. “We’ll just have to see what we can do about rearranging our enemies’ plans for them. And in the mean…”

“Yes?”

“You can still talk to Uuvek, can’t you?”

“I… might be talking to him right now?”

Sediryl laughed. “And you are teasing me about my cousins! You are terrible, Maia.”

“A person’s got to have some entertainment, alet.”

“Apparently. Well! I shall leave you to your tryst. I promise to breathe deeply so that my heartrate won’t distract you.”

Maia made an indelicate noise. “Just don’t hyperventilate.”

Navigating the final stages of the journey to the orbital station was by turns worrying and tedious. Amber’s warnings had made her hyper-vigilant, though she never saw anything to give her cause, and the extended journey, with its extra steps to prevent or isolate pursuit, wearied her, particularly when it seemed unnecessary. But by and by she found herself upstairs, and from there she went to her ship; Jahir’s vessel should be docking at the station, but if everyone was convinced of the dangers of merely being Eldritch and in public, she thought it the better part of wisdom to wait for his arrival somewhere she could ensure her own safety.

She was on the bridge of the Visionary, untangling yarn to use for a game of cat’s cradle, when her timer went off. Sitting up, she said, “Maia?”

“Alet.” A pause. “I’m checking the gate schedules now.” Another pause, then: “They’re not here yet.”

“Delayed?” Sediryl leaned forward, frowning. “Did they say?”

“I’m looking.” Another pause that felt interminable but was probably only a few seconds long. “They had one stop. That second liner left on time. It should be here, but they’re listing it as delayed and nothing else.”

Her pulse began to speed. Gently, Sediryl set the yarn down on the console and rested her palms on the edge of the metal.

“Still looking…” Maia sounded distracted. Then, a growl. “On a comm buoy at the system’s edge. They sent a distress call.”

“They did what?”

Maia’s voice grew dark. “Pirates. They were attacked by pirates.”

“And haven’t returned yet?” Sediryl’s palms went clammy. “Did someone answer the distress call? Is there any record of anyone helping them?”

“Nothing.” The deckplates beneath her hummed as the engines woke from standby. “I’m requesting an exit vector. I assume you want to go looking?”

“Yes!”

“We’re cleared to depart in twenty minutes. Do you want to call your cousin?”

Who might tell her not to look? No, she thought… Lisinthir would encourage her to go. But she wanted to wait until she had something more distinct to tell him than ‘our cousin’s vanished and it was probably pirates.’ “Let’s wait until we get out there and find something.”

“We might not,” Maia said, low. “Sometimes there’s nothing left to find. A sensor trace, if we’re lucky.”

“Debris?” she asked, faint.

“If we’re not so lucky,” Maia said.

“We’ll be lucky,” Sediryl said, determined. “And hidden from sensors.”

“That goes without saying.”

The twenty minutes seemed to last just as long as the pauses between Maia’s comments earlier. But they did pass, and Sediryl stayed on the bridge as Maia brought up various displays: trajectories, scheduled flight paths, location of buoys, some sort of calculation about the speed of the message, or its age, variables she didn’t know enough to understand despite her years in the Alliance. They were suitable objects for her to fixate on, but not enough of a lodestone to keep her from noticing that it would take her several hours to retrace the liner’s route to the point at which it must have exited Well.

“Do you want me to lie down?” she asked Maia.

“Would you if I asked you to?”

Sediryl touched her hand to her stomach, where she could feel the knot winding tighter beneath the boned vest. “I probably should, but I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

“Have you ever tried anything to give your hands something to do?”

“Garden,” Sediryl said, rueful.

“You could do that, then.”

“I... what?”

“There’s a genie on board. You could improvise a tub and get it to give you soil and things to plant. No reason you can’t grow potted plants on-board. I can get you a seed catalog?”

“I... yes,” Sediryl said, startled. “That would do nicely.”

But even diverted by work she knew intimately, it was hard to concentrate. Sediryl was far too conscious of the hours passing. She forced down a cup of sweetened tea and regretted it, tried to wash it down with an unsweetened tisane of anise and Asaniian bittersweet, but even the herbs couldn’t convince her body to stop tying her gut into tiny knots.

Hearing the engines change pitch ranked among the best moments of her life. She was sure of it. “Are we here?”

“We are,” Maia said. “From here on out, we creep and sort through what we can find.”

Appalled, Sediryl said, “How long will that take?”

“With most people... probably another few hours.” Maia sounded distracted. “Fortunately, your D-per is former Fleet, and I know a little bit about the tricks that pirates play on merchants from organizing convoy and anti-piracy missions. There’s debris here, alet.”

“Did they... did they get shot?” she asked, horrified.

“Pattern and amount’s not consistent with shooting. They probably got yanked by a tripwire. That’s a risky trick, but if it works they can jar a slow-moving ship out of Well and damage it enough to keep it from fleeing. Still, that’s not the important part.”

“What is the important part?” Sediryl leaned over to study the displays, wishing she knew which one mattered. As if answering the thought, one of them swelled in front of her and began flashing competing arabesques of red and blue.

“Here.” The blue brightened. “This looks like a pirate vessel’s vapor trail. It’s not actual vapor, but we still call it that. Energy signature suits. Or at least, it’s what I’m presuming is the pirate vessel. Because this,” The red flashed. “Is distinctly a Chatcaavan trail. There were two ships here, alet, and they were here so close on one another’s heels I can’t tell which one came first. I want to guess that it was the pirate, because tripwires are more a pirate tactic. But now that we know that they’re working together, from Uuvek’s reports....”

“So either they were taken by pirates, or taken by the Chatcaava, or both,” Sediryl said. “Do we know where they were headed?”

“I have a trail leading away,” Maia said. “We could follow it as far as we could, and after that it would be all extrapolation based on their vector and probable places they might end up. I can’t guarantee we’d find anything.”

“But?” Sediryl asked, hearing it in the D-per’s voice.

Maia materialized beside her, edges crisping into the Seersa shape: dark now, no glitter. “But I’m former Fleet. Retired, technically. And while I don’t have the security clearances I used to, I’m also not a flesh-and-blood personality. And too often, Fleet doesn’t do anywhere near enough protection of its databases from digital people. Mostly, I think, because they don’t want to.”

“Ah?”

“Because we’re still useful to them,” Maia said. “We might not enjoy working off our indentures, alet, but all of us recognize that we exist because the Alliance does. And protecting the Alliance against its enemies... that’s something all of us care about. Even if we weren’t feeling patriotic, we survive—we thrive and travel and learn and are capable of growing—because of the networks the Pelted have built. Because of the extravagance of the money that goes into increasing the storage capacity, speed, and robustness of those networks. Those of us who worked for Fleet often help out, now and then. Even those of us who haven’t... we slip information to useful people when we find it.”

“And you know aught that might help,” Sediryl said, the knots in her stomach beginning to ease as the prospect of action opened before her.

“I know what Fleet knows about pirate bases and activities,” Maia said. “And with some prodding, I can know what the Chatcaava know, if Uuvek can hack into that information.”

“We could go hunting,” Sediryl murmured.

“You have the ship,” Maia agreed.

“The Chatcaavan Queen... it was implicit that she expected rescue. And my cousin Jahir cannot go missing either, without our doing something to impede the plans of those who wish us ill. Yes?”

Maia grinned. “Just say what you’re really thinking.”

“What I’m really thinking is that I want to be the one to save them, because the idea that our enemies might have taken people who matter to me—who matter—is infuriating?” Sediryl said, tasting the truth of that in herself.

Maia met her eyes steadily.

“Connect me with Lisinthir, please, alet.”

“Opening the channel.”

Sediryl waited, fighting impatience and worry. She didn’t think Lisinthir would disagree with her plan, but she could always be wrong. She had been wrong about a great many things in her life, and while she did not begrudge the lessons those mistakes had taught her—eventually—it had taken her a great deal of time to admit to that gratitude.

“Imthereli here. Cousin, I find you alone?”

“He’s gone,” Sediryl said without preface, and only barely wondering at how he’d identified himself. “Pirates, or Chatcaava, or both. We’re going after him.”

She held her breath.

He nodded, eyes fixed on hers. “Very good. You’ll report back what you find at regular intervals, yes?”

“I... yes... Lisinthir, really... that’s all?”

One brow rose. “Did you truly expect aught else?”

“Yes,” she admitted. And then managed a weak laugh. “Do I at least get some patronizing advice?”

He snorted. “No. But advice from one Eldritch in a warzone to another, yes. If you are willing?”

“Please?” she said, surprised that she meant it.

Lisinthir said, “Yon crew of yours. Ex-Fleet, I am guessing, or they would not have been assigned to a vessel with your armament.”

“Maia is, yes.”

“Then let them advise you on how to proceed so that you may succeed in your mission,” Lisinthir said. His gaze met hers, steady. “I went into the Empire alone, thinking that to do so would sharpen my senses, make me less complacent, and it did. But had I not had help, cousin, I would have failed. Don’t make the mistake of believing that augmenting your own strength with the strength of others implies weakness. Use the weapons that you are given. Be wise in their use. Be willing to trust their advice.” A sudden grin. “And your own judgment, above all.”

“I... yes.” She was startled. “I admit, that wasn’t what I thought you’d say to me.”

“And what did you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Come home, or do it the way I did, maybe, but not ‘learn from my mistakes.’”

“And if someone does not, what profit those errors?” He leaned forward. “Use the resources God and Goddess and Queen have given you, and track down the source of the link between pirate and dragon. Take your time. We will return with the Emperor and make use of all you have discovered.”

“You’re not... worried? About Jahir?”

“With such a deliverance at hand?” Lisinthir grinned. “No. You deserve a prince to rescue, Sediryl Nuera Galare. Go carefully, and good hunting.”

“Lisinthir,” she said. “We’ll keep in touch.”

She dropped the connection and inhaled. “Well, Maia. How do we do this smartly?”

“By being careful and making sure someone knows where we are at regular intervals,” Maia said. “Leave that part to me.”

“Let’s get going, then,” Sediryl said. “Lisinthir might not be worried about what Jahir’s enduring, but I am.”

“What did she say?” Na’er said as their mounts made their way through the grassland.

“The passenger liner was attacked by pirates or Chatcaava, or both,” Lisinthir said, “The ship’s missing.”

As the Aera swore—creatively and in more than one language—Lisinthir raised his head and drew in a long, slow breath. He flashed back to skin on skin, to blood under his fingers and a prophet’s mouth gasping against his.

All the tools I could give you, he whispered, I gave you, knowing this moment might come. I pray now they were enough.

“You seem awfully calm,” Na’er said, ears flat.

“There’s nothing I can do about that situation,” Lisinthir said. “Or rather, all that I could do, I have done, in delegating it to Sediryl and Maia.”

“Two people and a ship!”

“I thought,” the Knife said hesitantly, “that you were of the opinion that your technology was sufficient to oppose anything we might send against it.”

“Maia has the experience. Sediryl has the nerve—and the motivation,” Lisinthir said. “I trust them with the task that they are placed to handle. We have our own work to do. If we are to rescue not just Jahir and the Queen Ransomed, but the Alliance and the Empire as well, we must find the Emperor.”

“And you’re going to be all calm about that as well,” Na’er said sourly.

“I am,” Lisinthir said. “I’m also going to push these mounts, so I hope you have a halo-arch on the ship. You will shortly have the blisters to show for it.”

“I don’t like sitting on these beasts,” the Knife muttered.

“Too bad,” Na’er said. “You’re a lot more conspicuous flying.”

“Have no fear, aletsen,” Lisinthir said. “At the pace I’m about to set, you will not be on them long.”