CHAPTER NINE

It took three guards to hold him down for the suppository, and when the one at his head leaned too close the Emperor bit his mane and yanked him so violently he staggered to one side. That almost let him wrestle his way off the examination table—almost. The first guard resituated himself and smacked him on the back of the head. “Bad slave!”

“Were you born an idiot or did you devolve into one?” the Surgeon said from the back of the table. “The freak’s had a head injury, don’t hit it!”

“You said he might never recover from the head injury, so why bother being careful?”

“Because if you keep hitting him, it won’t be ‘might’, it will be ‘definitely’, and then you’ll have to answer to the Worldlord for damaging one of these rare prize aliens everyone wants one of,” the Surgeon snapped. “So find some other way to immobilize it… or are you so weak you can’t figure out how to handle one solitary alien?”

“I know how to handle solitary aliens,” the guard said. “I hit them.”

“Dying Air save me,” the Surgeon growled. “I am surrounded by stunted morons.”

“It’s a good thing you’re Outside,” the guard said. “If you weren’t…”

The second guard nudged him, sending a lance of pain up the Emperor’s face when it shifted the first’s grip on his hair. “Don’t make threats like that.”

“Just get this over with,” the first guard said. “The Worldlord will be here tomorrow.”

“It’s done.” The Surgeon stepped to the sink and washed his hands. “No use for the alien until the Worldlord sees him. And don’t leash him, either. The way he’s been acting he might throttle himself on the collar and die.”

“So you want us to let him escape? Because that’s what he’s going to try to do if we don’t shackle him somehow.”

“Dying Air,” the Surgeon muttered. Louder, “Put him in the slave annex and key the field to his chip ID. If he’s desperate enough to suicide by battering himself against a force field, we might as well give up now.”

“That’s a good idea,” the second guard said. “We’ll notice him trying anything that obvious and be able to stop him before he does himself any serious injury.”

“I say if he dies, so much the better,” the first guard said. “He’s ugly. If these are the aliens everyone’s so desperate to own, I don’t see why.”

“No one’s asking your opinion,” the Surgeon said. “Take him back and follow my instructions. Don’t try to improve on them, either.”

“And if Deputy-East asks for him again?” the second guard asked.

The Emperor tensed.

“Tell him to come talk to me,” the Surgeon replied. “I don’t think light use will damage the creature, but that was before he became violent. I’ll advise Deputy-East on the situation personally and save you the trouble.”

“Thank you,” the second guard said, rueful. “He’s a very easy male to get along with until you need to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear.”

The Surgeon snorted. “That’s every male. Especially around here. Go now. And be careful with this thing. For better or worse, it’s valuable property.”

They manhandled him off the table and not all his writhing freed him. But he was proud of biting and tearing at what few bits of hide he could reach, even if it seemed to accomplish almost nothing. If he stopped fighting, he would have to live with the situation and he could no longer do that. Particularly having heard the Surgeon’s off-hand comment about the possible permanence of his head injury.

What if the fog never lifted? If that was preventing him from the Change…

No. He could not accept this life. He would die first. They might keep him from battering himself to death on a force field, but at some point their vigilance would falter and he would be ready.

They returned him to the slave annex and marched him down the ramp. His memory of this part of it was hazy, though he knew he should remember being here: the round walls were familiar. Had he been forced to wait here? Was his recall deteriorating? He tried not to panic as they dragged him amidst the pillows. The depressions in the cushioned floor for nests would surely have made an impression, and that second ramp led upward… toward sunlight?

He thought he remembered sunlight.

The guards shoved him forward and left him there, in the silence. He immediately turned and tried to follow them, and was repelled at the edge of the room.

So it was true. They had chipped him like a beast. Had not even bothered to register his unique biosign, which would have required work that a chip didn’t—the chip came trackable and assigned to inventory in some database, needed only implantation. Like… a prized possession in someone’s art collection. Or like materiel in some Naval warehouse, to be processed by Logistics….

The Emperor made a fist and slammed it against the wall. The pain jarring up the bones shot all the way to his elbow and he shuddered, resting his brow against the stone. From there it was a short distance to the floor, and he stayed there, folded in on himself, hand slowly spreading, digging against the surface of the wall.

Nothing belonged to him anymore. Even his memories of the Queen and the Ambassador had been sullied with the filth of this shape’s violations. He let his hand fall over his head, and though he refused to weep he felt the tears accumulating along the edges of his lashes. His nose and eyes burned, and the pain in his chest was, he discovered, muscle tension from his refusal to cry.

Was there no end to this?

He slept, he thought. When he woke again, the lamps were dimmer and the light coming from the exterior ramp brighter. And his senses were not entirely dulled, because it was a noise that had brought him from unconsciousness. Two people on the interior ramp. His shoulders clenched, but he remained where he was. If they were coming to take him back to Deputy-East….

But it was not the Chatcaava, but the human and Hinichi slave from the garden. At the sight of him, the human exclaimed, “Oh…!” And reached a hand toward him before she halted herself. She said, softer, “Survivor? Can I approach?”

How stunning it was to be asked permission. How stunning that he had never expected in his previous life to have to tell people they needed to ask permission. So much he’d taken for granted before. It hurt, realizing it.

“An… Andrea.” Talking around the need not to cry was hard. It was as if the tears were in his throat first, and pushing words past edged them closer to eruption. “Yes.”

Her footfalls were deliberate and slow, not at all like the predatory swiftness of the Chatcaava. Crouching alongside him, she set a careful hand on his arm. When he didn’t object, she slowly leaned toward him and turned him to face her. He didn’t want her to do this: to show empathy, to sense his need for shelter. He wanted to stop her and had no heart for it. He had no heart left for anything.

“Do you know… do you know anything about head injuries? In humans?” he asked.

Her smile was sad. “A little.”

“A little,” the Hinichi behind her growled, low. “A little?”

“Why?” Andrea said, ignoring the other alien.

“The Surgeon… he said sometimes such head injuries are permanent.” Just saying it made the terror mount. His chest leaped. “Is he correct?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “Usually, if they don’t kill you right away, they resolve. It might take months, though, for the worst cases. Years.”

“Years,” he whispered, beginning to tremble. “Do you think… do I….”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t have any instruments that would let me have a closer look. I don’t even know if it works the same for you—is your biology an exact mimicry of your donor’s when you’re in their shape?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and now the tears were too close to the surface. They were starting to well. “I can’t Change while I’m like this. When I try, I fail….”

“Oh,” Andrea whispered. “Oh, Survivor. I’m so sorry.”

He would have been able to handle anything except her compassion. He would never have expected compassion for a Chatcaavan from a Chatcaavan slave. But there was no mistaking the crimp of her brows and lower eyelids, the twist of her lips, the way she met his eyes so fearlessly so he could see that his situation hurt her on his behalf. It was her compassion, too, that guided his head to her shoulder so that when he broke down his face was hidden. The shame of it was so overwhelming he couldn’t bear it, and yet he wasn’t dying. How had the Slave Queen borne it, before she became the Queen Ransomed? How had the Ambassador survived—not only survived, but managed to plan the Emperor’s downfall throughout his own degradation?

The Eldritch would have said that the Queen had succored him. That the Queen had been help unsought, and unexpected. Wiping his eyes, the Emperor looked up at the alien holding him and felt utterly unworthy of the unanticipated aid he was receiving now in the auspices of the aliens being held captive by one of his own system lords. There was no irony in it. There was, however, a brutal justice in his situation, one that implied that the Dying Air was very much not dead at all, but Living… and like a hurricane, could condemn as well as lift with its winds.

Over Andrea’s shoulder, the Hinichi was staring at him, wide-eyed, close enough to smell: like evergreens, or something else that made him think of snow-flecked mountains. It was this male who had a hand on the Emperor’s back, because both of Andrea’s were around his waist, holding him fast.

“I didn’t believe you when you said he was different,” the Hinichi said to her. He had a name, didn’t he? The Harat-Shar had said it.

“Would it have mattered?” Andrea said. “Our religion tells us to turn the other cheek to our enemies.”

The Hinichi shook his head, ears drooping. “Jesus-Martyr did, yes. Jesus-Cleanser of the Temple tells us to send the moneylenders from the sacred spaces.”

“Context is everything,” Andrea said with a faint smile. She looked down at the Emperor. “A little better?”

“No,” he said. “But yes. I don’t know.” He sat up hesitantly, their hands falling from him. “My head hurts all the time. Crying did not make it feel better.”

“It doesn’t, usually,” the Hinichi said, rueful. “And the longer the nose, the worse it feels.”

“Tell me more about the headache,” Andrea said. “Do you have any other symptoms? Spots in your vision? Dizziness? Clumsiness? Slurred speech?”

He folded his arms over his chest to hide the unwelcome ornamentation, feeling his nakedness in a way he had never in his true shape. “I… lose time, sometimes.”

“That could be emotional trauma,” the Hinichi said.

“Maybe,” Andrea murmured. She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. Every variable on Earth, no diagnostic tools, and an alien biology out of some kind of crazy 3deo film on top of it.” She sighed. “Are you willing to lie down, Survivor? If you could rest quietly, that would help.”

Could he? “If I lie down, I might…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. They had their own memories to guard against. The two of them looked at one another. “We could talk to him?” the Hinichi said. “Does talking interfere?”

“It can. If it’s a real concussion, he shouldn’t be doing anything mentally strenuous. Under the circumstances, I don’t know if we could keep him from it. Particularly if he’s going to start developing post-traumatic symptoms.”

“Start?” the Hinichi said, arch.

Andrea sighed again and touched the Emperor’s head, hand gliding down his hair. He would ordinarily have found the caress insolent but he found he wanted a soothing touch. How had he failed to understand the power of gentleness? “You said you’d help.”

“I did not! I said I wouldn’t make it worse. But he is the enemy!”

Andrea shook her head. “Don’t make the mistake of turning them into a monolith, arii. I know how angry you are. I am too. But if we make them into a singular faceless mass, we’ll never learn enough about them to get out of this.”

“Andrea,” the Hinichi said, his voice low, “We are never getting out of this.”

“You giving up on your faith already?”

“No. I’m admitting to the fact that God doesn’t always save our bodies. Our spirits, yes. But these?” The Hinichi plucked at his ribs, pinching the skin so that the dark gray fur rippled. “These are perishable. They’re meant to be discarded. And in some cases, Andrea, it’s better to die for God than it is to live in the Hell other people make for one another.”

“I’m sorry,” Andrea said to the Emperor. “Here, lie down, head on this pillow.” She fluffed it for him and guided his head to it. “Emlyn and I have been debating religion since we ended up here together. He’s Post-Rapprochement Epiphanic and I’m Second Space Reformation. It’s amazing how many things two Christians can find to disagree on.”

“Gently and with utmost respect,” Emlyn said, mouth quirking upward.

“Oh, absolutely.” Andrea nodded. Her smile was a little sadder then. “It gives us something to do.”

“You believe me to be your enemy,” the Emperor said to the Hinichi.

“Aren’t you?”

Was he? “I don’t know.”

“Do you keep Pelted slaves?”

“No,” he said. Was he lying by omitting that he had once done so? But he had ceased to keep slaves before the Ambassador’s departure, and he found... he found he did not want to lose the esteem of these aliens.

“See?” Andrea said.

“Not a pass.” Emlyn’s ears flicked back. “He might not have been wealthy or important enough to have them.”

“Were you?” Andrea asked.

“If I tell you, you may be at risk,” he said. This choice at least was easy. “I will not do that.”

Emlyn’s ears sagged.

“You see?” Andrea sounded satisfied. “He really is unusual.”

“Is the Worldlord your enemy?” the Emperor asked. “Do you know… they are saving me for him. The Harat-Shar… she said one of your number was frequently away, and unwell. Is that his doing? What…” He hated to ask, but: “What should I expect?”

The two exchanged glances. Andrea sighed. “Get me the brush, arii?”

Emlyn shook his head and pushed himself upright. There was a basket of grooming tools in the corner; there had been similar ones in the imperial harem which the Emperor had never paid attention to. At least, not until the Ambassador had demonstrated there was a pleasure in brushing the Queen’s hair. He had thought of it as taking particular care of his Treasure… it had not occurred to him to think of it as something done to strangers until the males here had subjected him to it. Now he tried not to cringe as Andrea took the brush from the Hinichi and started using it on him.

Except her strokes were gentle. It was novel to have a mane that was not interrupted by horns. Less fraught, the care of it. Like so much about being an alien, it was gentler. He tried to hate it, and didn’t have the energy. He wanted only to exist in this moment, where he was not being hurt.

“The Worldlord is… weird,” Andrea said finally.

Emlyn coughed.

“That’s the best way I can think of putting it,” she said. “Dominika must have told you about Simone. Simone’s his personal pet. She really is sick, but I’m pretty sure she was always sick. Maybe with one of the genetic disorders that are holdovers from the Pelted’s engineered origins. If so, she’s never going to get better, and as an alien trophy she’s… not very convincing.”

“She’s frail and sick and she’s going to die in a few years,” Emlyn said frankly. “Nothing’s going to change that.”

“But she wasn’t getting worse as fast as she should have been. The way she should have been if he was brutalizing her. I don’t know what they did together up in his room, and she wouldn’t talk about it. Except to say that she slept a lot.” Andrea pushed the brush through his hair again. “That was before she stopped coming down to the kennel. Now I don’t know how she is or what he’s doing with her. So... there’s that.”

“But he’s raped you and Dominika,” Emlyn growled.

“Yes,” Andrea said. “But not Emlyn. And he didn’t kill Emlyn, which I guess is unusual. I hear most Chatcaava don’t keep male slaves.”

“No,” the Emperor murmured, frowning a little.

“So the truth is I don’t know what he’s going to do with you,” Andrea said.

“But I wouldn’t expect indulgence,” Emlyn said. “He hasn’t raped me but I get beaten regularly if I make a single misstep. And missteps here are things like ‘you didn’t respond quickly enough to a command’ or ‘you let your anger show in your eyes’.”

“Balanced against that,” Andrea said, still brushing the Emperor’s mane, “he lets us have the run of the garden. And this room. We sleep in the kennels, but they don’t lock the doors on ours the way they do yours.”

“They think you’re going to run away again.” The Hinichi had sat, was rubbing his hands on his knees. “And don’t think the garden is any great gift.” He lifted his hands, palm out, and showed them to the Emperor. “You see these? I used to have claws.” He strained and the Emperor could see the tendons in the fingers moving. “Gone. They ripped them all out, feet and hands.”

Andrea nodded. “I’m not going to say they’re good people. What they’ve done to us is evil. But compared to what Manufactory-East does to his slaves….”

“The kitchen and cleaning staff talk about him all the time,” Emlyn agreed, baring his teeth. “He’s bad even to his menials.”

That was peculiar. The Emperor curled tighter, twitched as Andrea reached past him and brought a blanket up around his shoulders. That made some tension in him ease. He’d been cold, then.

“And what he does to his slaves is unspeakable,” Andrea said. “The staff say he uses them up.”

“Which is a fancy way of saying he kills them for fun and replaces them with more,” Emlyn snarled.

The Emperor found himself in sympathy with Emlyn’s anger. Oddly, however, he liked Andrea as well. He could not choose his companions anymore, so he found it strange that he might find both of them worthy.

Or maybe he had simply been too arrogant in the past to realize that most people were worthy. He cringed.

“Deputy-East,” he said, low.

“Isn’t cruel on purpose, the way Manufactory-East is,” Andrea said. “But he’s rough. I’m surprised he was interested in you, actually… he usually prefers his slaves harder and meaner-looking. He probably won’t bother you again if you didn’t fight him.”

And he hadn’t, but he’d fought the guards afterwards. Would stories of his sudden rebellion reach Deputy-East’s ears? The Emperor shuddered and lowered his head.

“I’d say we’d protect you, but we can’t,” Andrea said sadly. “Except maybe through prayer. Which works.” She eyed the Hinichi.

Emlyn snorted. “Of course it works. But God doesn’t give you what you ask for, Andrea. He gives you what you need. And sometimes what you need is to be martyred so that you can hearten the people who bury your corpse. If you don’t particularly want to be a martyr that’s not very encouraging.”

“You have to trust in His plan.”

“How’s that working out for us so far? You’ve been here how many years? I’ve been here just as long.”

“I trust His plan,” Andrea repeated firmly. “He hears us cry out from our bondage, Emlyn. You have to believe that.”

“Or?” Emlyn said, tired.

“Or you go crazy. And what good is that, when what He needs is for us to meet Him halfway when He arrives?”

Emlyn bared his teeth. “Too late for that. For me anyway. If I wasn’t crazy, I wouldn’t be able to wake up here, day after day, without having a nuclear meltdown.” He looked at the Emperor. “What about you? Do you have a religion?”

“I think.”

“You think!” Emlyn snorted. “There you go, Andrea. That’s your problem. The dragons don’t have religion.”

“We do,” the Emperor said, low. “We have abandoned its tenets in favor of expediencies that please ourselves better.”

“No, see, that’s the problem.” Andrea smiled a little. “Not that it matters.”

“No?” Emlyn asked, and the Emperor was glad he had, for he wanted to know the answer.

“No,” Andrea said. “Because whether we believe in God or not, He exists. And the only thing a lack of religion does is leave you unprepared for His arrival when He shows up in your life. Usually with a hammer the size of a supernova to use on your head.”

Emlyn stared up at the ceiling. “I’d like to see that happen to the Chatcaava. Except He’s going to need a much bigger hammer than that.”

“It’s coming,” Andrea said, low. “Don’t doubt it, if you doubt anything else.”

“She’s right,” the Emperor murmured. They both glanced at him, wide-eyed, but he had not the heart to say anything else.

The day passed. Andrea was sent for, and then Emlyn. The Emperor slept. He tried the ramp to the gardens and found it barred to him. He returned to the blanket and pillow and slept again. He did not eat; his stomach curdled at the thought of food, at the thought of sustaining himself at all. All his thoughts were in disorder, shot through with anguish and regret. Sometimes he managed rage, but it was rare. He thought of flying and wept in silence, with the side of a hand pressed to his eyes and his shoulders tight and twisted to shield himself from view. He found himself remembering the Queen at her window, forever staring outside, and hated himself for the wings he had ordered mutilated… and then never had fixed. He had asked the Ambassador if the Alliance could do it. Why had he not asked the Surgeon? Why had he decided the Alliance had to be the source of all the progressive acts that he wanted to see happen?

He had come to power knowing how variegated the Empire was, how the Chatcaava were not the monolithic evil Emlyn had referred to, but a patchwork of disparate cultures, most of them sustainable. He’d known it. And yet, even knowing that people like the Knife existed and could love their dams, he had preferred to think of love, of loyalty, of tenderness and compassion as alien concepts. That would have excused him from developing those virtues in himself without external influence, wouldn’t it?

Dying Air—Living Air—how could he have been so wrong? He had begun as one of the disrespected masses. How quickly he’d left all that provincialism behind him. Did it matter that he’d retained those attitudes during his career in the Navy if he’d done so solely to advance his own aims?

Or was that fair? Maybe there had been a kernel in him that had longed for the values he’d heard from his father’s mouth. Maybe he’d simply packed them deep, where they couldn’t hurt him on the way to the throne. But having gained that pinnacle, what had he done with power? Little of worth. Would he have ever reclaimed his heritage—Kauvauc’s heritage—and made it acceptable again? Or would he have languished in the court, involved in the game that had so captivated him once he’d begun playing it at the level of nations?

What would become of him if his head never healed?

He was aware, far too aware, of suffering. Of suffering physically, and mentally… and spiritually. But he didn’t know how to stop, when action had always been his panacea.

The following evening the guards arrived for him, and they were accompanied by the Steward. It was the latter who addressed him. “Dainty. Be obedient. You go to see your master now.”

The Emperor was grateful that it was assumed he did not understand Chatcaavan, because responding to this command would have been beyond him. It was in character for him to stare warily at the approaching guards. One of them was the male he’d bitten, and he was grimly glad to see the resentment in that one’s gaze. He was also glad it was the second guard who leashed him, because he didn’t trust the first not to hit him again. He very much wanted to avoid being hit on the head, if repeated strikes could make his condition permanent.

“So now it’s docile?” the Steward asked, brows lifting.

“It has a very mercurial temperament,” the second guard said. “Particularly when provoked.” He eyed the first guard.

The Steward decided to ignore them. “Let’s go.”

The Worldlord’s suite was at the top of the highest tower. It was fortunate that these towers were not as tall as those on the throneworld; such towers would not have been ideal for a hunting estate, anyway, since part of the pleasure of such estates was the ability to dive on the prey one could see before it had time to flee. But the climb was arduous enough, and the Emperor was disturbed to discover himself out of breath once he reached the top.

Like his own suite in the palace, the Worldlord’s took up the entirety of the tower’s top. The Emperor was led into the first room, which had the largest balcony for receiving guests. There was a selection of chairs and divans, and a table for small food and drinks, a sideboard, rugs. It was an open chamber, and beautiful, and it smelled like the greening things that had been ruffled by the warm breeze on the way here.

The Worldlord was seated on the divan, relaxed, with a cup of tea-wine beside him. He was larger than the average Chatcaavan, with an impressive breadth of chest and wings of a size to bear him up. His face had the blunted end of a traditional axehead, but unlike the Admiral-Offense he lacked the gradual slope of the ideal; still, he had a confidence that lacked the brash edge of so many males. The Emperor had expected to find an angry male, one with something to prove, one worn to bitterness by constant clashes with the Navy for primacy over the system. Perhaps he should have known better, if a Naval contractor like Deputy-East had counted him a friend.

“Worldlord,” the Steward said. “It is good to find you home again.”

“It’s good to be home, though I’m not sorry to have been about my errand.”

The Steward smiled. “And how is your fourth son, then?”

“Doing well. He’s given me a sixth grandson and has established a new estate on the southern continent,” the Worldlord said, pouring a second glass. “He’s found a very lucrative-looking gem mine there. I think that might go well, if the surveys hold true. An additional source of income never goes amiss, particularly with extraterrestrial mines tied up in Naval contracts.”

“Ah,” the Steward said. “That is excellent news.”

“Come,” the Worldlord said, holding out the glass. “Drink. Is that the new alien? Does he need to be tied down?”

“It would be wise,” the Steward said. He tugged the leash and the Emperor followed, resenting the leather and not wanting to be any closer to either of them. He suffered himself to be tied alongside the divan, by the balcony, and watched the Steward accept the glass and sit across from his master the way Second had so often sat across from the Emperor, long ago. When things had been better. Or, not better. Simpler.

“Do we know for certain this alien belonged to Manufactory-East?” The Worldlord’s eyes were on the Emperor now, evaluating him. The Emperor did not know how to read the other male’s gaze: it was not avaricious, or excited, or lustful, or wary. It wasn’t even curious.

“No. There’s no record of him having bought one of these slaves. But there might not be. You know how he likes to obfuscate things.”

“And his servants?”

“Report that many of his slaves run away,” the Steward replied, wry. “Which we already knew. That they don’t recognize this one isn’t evidence; when we found him in the garden, he wasn’t yet collared, so obviously Manufactory-East didn’t have him long. But I have spoken with the Surgeon and we both think he is one of the rare aliens, the ones being sought so assiduously. Given that, I would not be surprised if Manufactory-East had chosen to shroud his acquisition of this creature so devoutly.”

“Mmm. I have seen pictures of these aliens. He does look a little like them. The hair, though?”

“Dyed, we think,” the Steward said. “Perhaps by Manufactory-East himself, to make it less obvious what he had.”

“We are ascribing a great deal of cunning to Manufactory-East.”

The Steward snorted. “We ascribe it because it’s the one thing he’s good at, Worldlord.”

“Yes.” The Worldlord chuckled. “I suppose. How goes everything else in-system?”

The Steward rolled his shoulders, his wings rustling. “You will have to ask Deputy-East. But I am under the impression that more ships are arriving every hour. They will have to be launched at some target soon or there will be significant discipline problems.”

“So long as they don’t have furlough here, that’s not our problem,” the Worldlord said, looking out the window. He sipped from his cup. “The sooner they go, the better.”

“It is a stirring thing,” the Steward said, quiet. “To finally be launching this war.”

“You think so?”

“We could double the size of the Empire,” the Steward said. “Not in space, of course. But in habitable worlds, already developed? And in wealth, and conquered populaces.”

“Conquered populaces are only useful if they stay conquered,” the Worldlord observed. “Somehow I doubt these will. And then they will tie up significant resources as we keep them pacified.”

“One rock thrown from orbit will convince them to obey,” the Steward said.

One rock from orbit, the Emperor thought, would bring them all up in arms. He knew the Pelted a little better than these Chatcaava, now. The only thing an atrocity of that magnitude would accomplish would be to stiffen their resolve.

“Perhaps,” the Worldlord said. “Fortunately the war isn’t our problem. The Emperor and Second can handle it. Tell me the state of the manor.”

“Worldlord,” the Steward said, acquiescing, and from there they moved on to a discussion of the minutia of the estate’s management that the Emperor found safe to ignore. He stared out the balcony, wondering if anything he was hearing would ever matter; if he would live to divulge it to someone who could make use of it, and what use would it be. The Worldlord was reputed to be as close to apolitical as possible in a system supporting a major Naval base… should that surprise anyone? It shouldn’t.

The Usurper was starting the war that would tear the Empire apart. Did he know that end was inevitable? Had he worked through the ramifications? Did he even care?

The sun was low enough that sunset had begun to empurple the clouds when the Worldlord said at last, “Dainty. Look up.”

Shocked, he did, because the Worldlord had spoken in Universal. Badly accented, but intelligible.

They were alone now. When had the Steward left? Did that mean it was time for his torture? He shrank back a little despite himself.

“Did you really come from Manufactory-East?”

The Emperor said nothing. Could say nothing, because he couldn’t guess what answer would give him the advantage. If there was advantage left in his situation at all.

“You cannot expect to escape discipline here,” the Worldlord continued. “I won’t lie. I do not keep unruly slaves. But if you are biddable and do as you’re told, you will be permitted to remain. And lest you think that a minor inducement, I will tell you that Deputy-East has accidentally killed one of his slaves in his distraction, and Manufactory-East tortures his for pleasure, to the point where their bodies are unrecognizable. Here you will not be free, but you will also not be dead.”

“And if to be dead is preferable to being enslaved?” the Emperor said aloud.

The Worldlord’s eyes widened. “Then,” he said, “I fear you have no good choices. But where there is life, Dainty, there is hope of change. If nothing else this is something Chatcaava know and aliens would be well to learn.” He sat up. “Come here.”

The Emperor hesitated, but the Worldlord showed no sign of impatience. Which was worse in its own way. They both knew there was only one outcome to their confrontation, and given that inevitability, the Worldlord could afford to wait. Because to fight that would be to lose, the Emperor went to him, head lowered to hide his expression. His hands on the floor were the wrong shape, the wrong color, too weak, clawless. And yet, they were his, and they delivered him to the Worldlord, who studied him.

“Stand up.”

The Emperor wanted to tell him his accent was execrable and his grammar questionable. That he knew Universal far better than the Worldlord ever would because he’d learned its nuances from a lover’s willing mouth, not from a slave’s. But then... the Ambassador had begun as his toy and would no doubt have remained one, had they not enacted the fateful scene that had delivered the Emperor to his epiphany. Had the Ambassador not had that courage, what would have happened? Would the Emperor still be sitting, secure on that throne... secure, and ignorant of the secrets of a universe he had professed to hold dominion over?

“You are not as tall as I expected this unique race to be,” the Worldlord said. He trailed a hand up the Emperor’s side, and try as he did, the Emperor could not suppress a flinch. “But sensitive. That part they had right. Maybe it’s the skin that does it. The furred creatures might not be able to feel through the pelt as keenly.” When the Emperor didn’t reply, the Worldlord cocked his head. “Not very talkative, are you.”

“No.”

The Chatcaavan snorted. His hand glided up to the Emperor’s chest, found the black ring on the nipple, plucked at it, observed the reaction clinically. From there, that hand skated along the Emperor’s neck, an intimacy he found nauseating. It stopped in his hair, combing out the silk of it, then descended to the point of the Emperor’s chin. The Worldlord grasped it in his fingers, the talons arcing over his cheek to rest far too close to his lower eyelid. If the Chatcaavan put a talon through his eye in this shape, would the injury persist into his true body? If he ever gained his true body again?

The Worldlord tilted his head from one side to the other, watching his face. The Emperor refused to look at him. If that was defiance, then let him earn the beating for it. He no longer knew how to act. Fight and lose his true body, and with it, his soul? Submit and lose his soul before he lost that body? Was there a way out of this that led to wholeness along with survival? He couldn’t see it.

“Kneel.”

His legs trembled. The Worldlord was patient, certain that the Emperor would obey because even if he didn’t, he would be made to. Stay upright and be forced down, and have it demonstrated how easily this body succumbed to violence? Kneel, and surrender? In vain he searched every memory of his conversations with the Ambassador... but they were all the same. The Eldritch had kneeled to him only because the Emperor had held the threat of violence to others over his head. Nothing else had forced him to his knees.

What then was the Emperor’s excuse?

The Worldlord remained where he was, unmoving, even his eyes steady. It was no use fighting him because there was no way of winning. Except to die.

The Emperor sank down, arms sliding onto his thighs like the petals of the flowers the Slave Queen used to tend, falling from their stalks as they wilted. He felt like one of those lilies. Perishable. Disposable. Already dead and not yet aware of it.

“Good,” the Worldlord said. Lifting his voice, he said, “Skein. Send in a guard to take this slave away.” Considering the Emperor, he finished, “I won’t need him again until we host Manufactory-East.”

Useless to pretend then that he was not terrified. He knew his people too well. A highly desired slave, traded to someone a male wanted to manipulate? Why would the Worldlord decide to spare the new slave the attentions of that male when there was something the Worldlord wanted? The Emperor was washed and fed and placed in his kennel to sleep, and then led out to the room again to sit and curl in on himself and curl in and curl in until he thought all the muscles in his legs and arms and back would knot and never slacken. Over and over again, this daily pattern repeated, and the horrible future drew closer, grew fangs, loured over his shoulder.

“What was it?” Andrea asked him finally. “Did he hurt you?”

The Harat-Shar was in the room, for once. The Emperor rarely saw her, save late at night when they were kenneled.

“No.” To say more... could he force it past his throat? When had talking become so difficult? He thought that from the moment he knew himself betrayed on the flagship, it was as if speech had become a mountain, impossible to scale while wingless. But he owed Andrea for the kindness she had shown him, who had done nothing to deserve it. “He said he wouldn’t need me again until he saw Manufactory-East.”

Andrea froze. In her corner, Dominika lifted her head from her pillow, frowning.

“That’s unlike him,” Andrea said. “Threatening you?”

And because she deserved the answer, he said, “It was not a threat.”

After that, though, he couldn’t bear to talk anymore. His throat and mouth hurt too much and inflating his lungs felt like too much effort. It was hard enough to push out his breath against the pressure of this unwanted body without adding the burden of speaking.

By the time they came for him he was almost grateful because the waiting had become unbearable. He dug in his heels but they dragged him, and when he didn’t pick up the pace one of the guards swiped his lower back, opening furrows. Staggered, the Emperor fell forward, distracted by the smell of fresh blood and the heat of it on his too-sensitive skin. When they hauled him up he didn’t fight them, and so they delivered him to the room where the three males were waiting with red streaks interrupting his otherwise perfect monochrome palette.

The Worldlord eyed the guards askance.

“He fought,” was all the second guard said.

“Tie him down, then.”

They leashed him to the loop on the floor, so close that he had to press his cheek to the tiles to keep from being choked. There was no way to sit with grace or dignity: he was reduced to a twisted, half-kneeling pose that left him feeling far too exposed. The new stripes on his back throbbed.

“Your escaped pet.” Deputy-East’s voice, lazy. “As you can see, he is so desperate not to be in your power again he earned himself the first serious punishment he’s needed since fleeing you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

That male’s voice sent a ripple of horror up the Emperor’s spine because he recognized its malice. The pettiness of it. The avarice, and the lust, and the armor that wrapped it with self-awarded legitimacy. Was that what the Chatcaava sounded like to the Pelted all the time?

The Worldlord’s tone dismissed this byplay with its normalcy. “It appears to be one of the special slaves the Emperor is so determined to own. Though I hear he has one now. The former Emperor’s pet freak.”

The Emperor’s breath caught in his throat. No.

“Are you sure?” Manufactory-East asked. “They all look alike, you know. Nothing like this one. Too short. Too dark.”

“Hair can be dyed,” Deputy-East said.

Manufactory-East snorted. “Believe what you want. That is not one of the creatures. A passing resemblance, maybe, but most of these freaks look alike.”

“You would say so, if you didn’t want us to know how much you wanted one of your own.”

“I do want one,” Manufactory-East said. “But I want a real one. That’s not it.”

Deputy-East laughed. “So you would say no to a night with this fake?”

A pause during which the Emperor’s heart accelerated.

“You asked for me to drop by,” Manufactory-East said. “What’s on your mind, Worldlord? I’m a busy male.”

“So are we all,” the Worldlord said. “And yet, we would be well-served by becoming closer associates, yes? The war begins, Manufactory-East, and we will all be instrumental in its prosecution.”

“You are proposing something?”

“Merely that we acknowledge the benefits of working together to ensure the success of this particular endeavor,” the Worldlord said. “The Emperor and Second are deeply invested in the war. The males who help smooth the way for it will be remembered favorably.”

“And the males who obstructed it, not so favorably?” Manufactory-East said. Another snort. “Yes. I hear you very clearly, Worldlord. And it’s true that we have not been on the easiest of terms, have we?”

“For that reason, I invite you to hunt with me,” the Worldlord said. “Stay a few weeks. We will choose the game to harry, enjoy the females in the harem. My table is your table.”

“And you, Deputy-East?” Manufactory-East asked with poisonous sweetness. “Will you also become my huntbrother?”

A pause. Then: “The war with the freaks serves us all. I for one look forward to the plunder that will be streaming back through the base for distribution.” A pause, then a laugh. “Ah, you didn’t know that part, did you? The Navy plans to confiscate all the spoils of the war and hand it out as prizes to the Chatcaava who serve best.”

“Do they?” Manufactory-East said, laughing too. “I am betting the system lords do not know this yet.”

“Even if they do,” Deputy-East said. “What good will it do them to complain? They can either take part in the war and have the chance at something... or go home, and see the riches go to their more pragmatic rivals.”

“Beautiful,” Manufactory-East said.

“I tend to agree.”

“Will you stay, then?” the Worldlord said, voice neutral.

“Mmm. A few weeks... I had not planned to be away so long. But a few days, yes. And I can return. Since, as you say, the war is so important.”

The Worldlord said, “Very good. Would you like the slave for your comfort tonight?”

Say no, the Emperor thought. Living Air, say no.

“I can take him if you don’t,” Deputy-East said. “I hear he’s developed some fight.”

Was that a worse fate? He couldn’t tell. No, all he knew is that the only escape for him from torment tonight was the Worldlord’s intervention—

“Whichever one of you prefers,” the Worldlord said.

Deputy-East’s voice was conciliatory. “Manufactory-East, you may choose first. I can disport myself with one of the others. You are the rarer guest.”

A foot slid under the Emperor’s chin, lifting his face. Stunned, he stared up at the stranger, saw the malignant interest in glowing yellow eyes. “Then... yes. I think I shall enjoy this one. And I will return him to you in one piece.”

“Please do,” the Worldlord said. “And try not to hit his head. The Surgeon tells me he’s already been injured there. I would prefer him not to become dumb.”

“Oh! No.” Manufactory-East leaned down and slowly trailed a finger through the Emperor’s blood, up his back, to his hair. His hand fisted there. “There is so much that can be done without touching the head.”

They dragged him to the guest chamber and this time he fought so hard they had to summon a third guard to force him into the room. There they bound him so tightly he couldn’t move and left him to wait. Until the Chatcaava had finished their hunt. Their meal. Their after-dinner drinks. The sun set before Manufactory-East swooped through the balcony’s open doors to land, talons clicking on the stone. He strode in, grinned down at the Emperor.

“So, pretty thing. Let’s play.”

Had he thought himself equal to these games when his opponent was willing to engage him on a psychological level? Maybe he would have been when he’d first been dragged here. Now? There was nothing left in him now to fight with. He couldn’t think fast enough to manipulate the other male. Couldn’t move past the extravagant pain of violence done to too-thin skin. Forgot how to protest, except to flail and struggle and be overpowered ceaselessly, too easily.

Unlike Deputy-East, Manufactory-East mocked him. Laughed and teased and threatened and waited for fear before striking. And all of it hurt. The Emperor couldn’t even sustain the fantasy of Changing in the middle of this contest and destroying the other male because the smog of panic and revulsion was so strong he couldn’t string coherent thoughts together.

And as the hours dragged by... he gave up.

He gave up. And cried into his arm. Openly, where the Chatcaavan could see him. He could not form words, but he could sob, and he could beg with those sobs for mercy, and received none. Had he thought this skin not sensitive enough when he first inhabited it because of its inability to feel thoughts? He could only be grateful now.

How had the Ambassador lived through this while also accepting the emotions of his rapist? How many violations had he sustained and survived?

How had he done it?

Did it matter?

Because the Emperor couldn’t.