by Rachel White
"I can't kick you out of your bed."
Lieutenant Taarq bowed. He was drunker than he realized and pitched forward, only Rallis's hands on his shoulders keeping him from tumbling head over heels. For a few moments, it was all they could do to lean against one another and laugh. Lieutenant Taarq's shoulder, braced against Rallis's chest, was hot as a brand.
"Exalted," he said, clapping his hands on Rallis's shoulders to push himself upright, "ignore that. Pretend that I bowed. I…"
He looked up and trailed off. Their gazes locked and lingered. It occurred to Rallis that they were very close, close enough for him to feel the gusts of Lieutenant Taarq's breath against his own mouth. When he licked his dry lips, Lieutenant Taarq's silvery eyes followed the movement with a strange intensity. It seemed almost like anger, though Rallis knew it wasn't. Lieutenant Taarq's hands were still resting against his shoulders, while Rallis's own hands had somehow found their way to Lieutenant Taarq's waist.
"You…" Lieutenant Taarq began. Rallis could smell the scent of his skin. He could feel the flex of Lieutenant Taarq's muscles against his palms.
"What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
But he hadn't pulled away, and neither had Rallis. Nur's heart, he felt as though he was having some kind of fit: his heart was pounding in his chest and his face and neck felt feverish. Though Lieutenant Taarq's skin was too dark to flush, Rallis had no such luck, and the high color filling his cheeks had to be visible. Lieutenant Taarq's body was firm beneath his hands, warm and solid even though the slick cloth of his Adesi shirt.
Lieutenant Taarq cleared his throat. "You're not kicking me out of anything. I'm offering. It's—it's gracious. I'm gracious."
He stepped back, his hands falling away as he moved. Rallis quickly withdrew, tucking his arms uncomfortably around himself for lack of anything better to do with them. "Very gracious. I'm not going to argue. Just let me lie down somewhere before I collapse right here."
"This way."
As he guessed, the dark doorway led to a sleeping chamber with two pallets, one neatly made and the other a mess of crumpled blankets. Lieutenant Taarq guided Rallis gently toward the neater pallet, then stepped back into the doorway while Rallis sank down and crawled into bed.
"Let me know if you need anything," said Lieutenant Taarq.
"I will." For a moment, a wild impulse overcame him, the desire to invite Lieutenant Taarq to—
But he cut the thought off before it could take root. It didn't matter, anyway; Lieutenant Taarq had already disappeared to the front room. Through the open doorway, Rallis could see him settling onto the couch.
"You really don't mind?" Rallis called.
"I don't mind," said Lieutenant Taarq cheerfully. Vekk and exhaustion made his accent much thicker—his words had gained a rolling cadence, like a song. "I endured far worse in Academy."
"Still…"
"It's not a problem."
He seemed decisive, and Rallis was too tired to protest further. If Lieutenant Taarq wanted to be gracious, as he had put it, let him. Rallis would just ensure he took the couch next time.
But as he drifted into a vekk-soaked sleep, he couldn't shake the thought that lingered on the edges of his mind, winding its way into his dreams: he should have been a little brave, and offered the compromise that had occurred to him. He should have invited Lieutenant Taarq to share the bed, should have thrown back the sheets and pulled Lieutenant Taarq down onto him in the darkness.
Instead, he was sleeping alone, with nothing but the memories of Lieutenant Taarq's easy smile and the momentary warmth of his body against Rallis's to keep him company through the night.
Chapter Eight
"Master Rallis. You called for me?"
Rallis, alone on a couch on the veranda enclosing the inner courtyard, turned at the sound of the voice. Iayan, one of the motherhouse servants, was waiting patiently in the doorway, watching Rallis with level, unreadable eyes.
"I did." He set aside the book he was reading and beckoned Iayan forward. "I wanted to speak with you. You can sit."
"Yes, sir." Iayan sat, a hint of discomfort crossing momentarily over his face. Like the other Adesi-ren employed by House Yy, he wasn't quite sure how to treat Rallis.
They had hardly ever spoken before. Iayan was a relatively new arrival to the motherhouse, a southerner about Rallis's age whose contract had been traded to House Yy as part of a larger deal with House Sesseta three years prior, and most days he was busy obeying Naravi's every command—because, Rallis knew, Naravi thought Iayan was handsome and it pleased him to have an attractive servant at his beck and call. But Iayan was more than a pretty face: canny and watchful, aware of politics, he knew better than anyone what Naravi might be up to.
And Rallis needed to know. He had already let it go far too long; in doing so, he had endangered both Naravi and House Yy. If Naravi had become a rebel, it fell to Rallis to drag him back before he got himself killed. According to Lieutenant Taarq—told to Rallis in confidence, murmured over a recent khas game—Jev intended to move against the rebellion in the next few days. More bombs had been discovered, hidden beneath three landing platforms at the airfield outside of Kavck. Primed to explode under pressure, they would have destroyed the platforms—and the enormous, thirty-person shuttles that touched down on them. The death toll would have been in the hundreds.
That was the breaking point. Jev had no patience left for revolutionary sentiment. Rallis could only do his best to keep Naravi from the hammer blow that was set to fall.
"I wanted to speak to you about Naravi. Do you know where he is?"
It was only because Rallis was watching him intently that he saw it: Iayan's eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down, just for a heartbeat before he regained control. Worry, or frustration, or some measure of both. All he said, however, was, "I don't know, sir."
"Please look at me."
Adesi-ren almost never heard the word please, especially not from members of a House. It was probably surprise alone that drew Iayan's head up. "Sir?"
"I know he's probably ordered you to stay quiet," Rallis told him. "I won't make you disobey him. But if he's doing something dangerous, I need to stop him. It's not just him who will suffer if he's caught by the Jevites—it's all of us. If you know something about what he's doing, I need to know too. Tell me what you can within his orders."
Iayan frowned. His eyes, so flat and cold, seemed to be looking at something far away. He was probably weighing how much he could tell Rallis—or how little.
"I know almost nothing," he finally said. "Hand Yy hasn't been very forthcoming with his actions. He started to meet with Master Faida from House Tlirr quite regularly. They go out at night."
Faida Tlirr again. None of that was new information, though it disheartened Rallis to hear it confirmed. "Where does he stay when he goes out?"
Iayan pressed his lips together and said nothing, but his silence was its own answer. "He makes you open the gate for him before curfew is over," Rallis said, not asking. Though Iayan remained silent, his eyes flickered away.
So he had been coming and going even more than Rallis realized. Likely he was out most nights. "Which gate?"
A pause. "The back gate, sir," said Iayan finally. "He goes out through the garden."
"Where does he go?"
"I don't know more than that, sir," Iayan murmured. "He…tells me very little."
"Is he going out tonight?"
"I don't know, sir."
But he was lying. He had reacted again, another twinge of discomfort flickering over his face. It would be unfair to push him further, so Rallis didn't try. "That's enough. You're dismissed. Thank you."
Iayan rose immediately and bowed as quickly as he could without appearing disrespectful. "Yes, sir."
But as he started for the motherhouse, Rallis spoke again: "Tonight…"
"Sir?"
"I'm going to follow him," he told Iayan. "I'll leave after he does. If you lock the gate
after him when he goes out at night, wait and lock it after me instead. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Iayan muttered. Though his face was level and flat as a mask, displeasure radiated out from him in waves. Not loyalty to Naravi, Rallis didn't think—Iayan just found the subterfuge tedious. It was a balancing act, following Naravi's orders without openly disobeying Rallis's, and no doubt he wished he didn't have to do it. Normally Rallis would have mercy on him, but this situation required drastic measures.
He let Iayan go and leaned back in his seat, weighing his options. According to Lieutenant Taarq, the revolution might shatter to pieces any day—tensions from within, coupled with the pressure Jev was exerting on Adesa, had brought things to a breaking point. If Naravi were there when that happened, he would be arrested and imprisoned or worse. Talking to him in the daylight was doing no good. Rallis needed to see for himself where he went and whom he met with before he could plan his next step. If Naravi was going to go out that night, Rallis would go too and see what he could learn.
*~*~*
That night, Rallis dressed in dark clothes and waited until the temple bells rang twenty before carefully making his way to the garden on the west side of the outer courtyard. It was a cool evening. The late summer air had gained a bite of autumn, and the moon was only a sliver in the heavy blue-black sky. Lamps framing the back gate bathed the paving stones of the garden walkway in weak orange light, but the road beyond was shadowed and still. Rallis found a spot against the wall where he could see the gate clearly and waited.
It couldn't have been ten minutes before stirring near the far side of the courtyard caught his attention. He squinted at the formless shapes, deeper black shadows against the black of the stone, and after a moment they transformed into recognizable figures. Naravi, all in black, and in a hurry; unhappy Iayan accompanying him with a lamp.
"Lock it when I leave," Naravi told him in a hissing whisper that carried far more than if he had just spoken normally.
Iayan bowed. "Yes, Hand Yy."
"I told you not to call me that."
"Yes, Ha—sir."
Naravi snorted and indicated the gate. "Well? Open it."
Iayan set the lamp down on the paving stones with a soft clink and approached the gate. From somewhere on his person he withdrew a ring of keys—the keys to the motherhouse gates. Only the head servant, Emarei, was allowed to touch them.
No wonder Iayan was so skittish. If Miana found out what he was doing, he could be expelled from House Yy ves vosye: the cutting off of all memory. Not only would he not be allowed to continue to work, but Miana wouldn't acknowledge that he had ever been employed in the motherhouse. The loss of one's position in disgrace meant an absolute loss of all future opportunity in any place of respect. Adesi-ren expelled ves vosye from their Houses were consigned to whoring or begging or crime. For many, it was akin to a death sentence.
Rallis wanted to throttle Naravi. He hadn't considered for a moment the position he was putting Iayan in. It was all great fun in his mind—sneaking out, joining the revolution, throwing scornful looks at Jevite legionnaires as he walked arm-in-arm with Faida Tlirr—and it didn't occur to him that anything could possibly go wrong, for him or the people whose lives touched his.
He hadn't always been like that. Once, he had been a sweet boy—a little languorous and distractible, a little caught up in himself, but gentle. Empathetic. But his mother's teachings had soured him and Hesse's death had twisted him and now he was blade-sharp and venomous. He sailed through the gate with a regal air and disappeared down the dark side street toward the main road.
Iayan watched the place where he had been. His hand around the gate was white-knuckled, visible even in the wan light. Rallis moved quietly forward and joined him at the gate. "What time did he say he'd be back?"
"Five, sir," said Iayan, who had nearly jumped out of his skin when he'd realized Rallis was beside him. "I'm to meet him here."
"I'll be back just before five."
"Yes, sir."
Rallis slipped through the gate into the alleyway, picking his way through refuse. At the mouth of the alley, he looked down the road just in time to see Naravi disappear down a bend to the west. House Tlirr was east, so that couldn't be his destination.
On silent feet, he trailed Naravi west and north and west again. A mile and a half from the motherhouse, in the middle of a small, downtrodden area that he probably wouldn't be caught dead in during the daylight, Naravi paused in front of a sagging stone building, looked hastily over his shoulders, and then lifted his hand to knock.
He had meant to linger in the shadows and observed, but sudden claws of panic seized his mind at the actual sight of Naravi participating in the rebellion, even in such a mild way. What had previously been only a fearful fantasy became nauseatingly real. Rallis closed the distance between them and seized his wrist before he could make contact. "Naravi."
With a thin cry, Naravi swung around. "Who's—Rallis? What are you doing here?"
"I should ask you the same question. What's going on?"
"Did you follow me?" His fear already dissipating, Naravi was moving into outrage. "How dare you follow me? Who do you think you are, half-breed? You—"
"Be quiet."
Anger and fear gave Rallis's voice a harsh edge. Naravi blinked, but obediently closed his mouth and kept quiet as Rallis pulled him toward a shadowed alcove near the mysterious building. The last thing they needed was a legionnaire noticing them during a patrol.
When they were safely out of sight, he rounded Naravi. "You will explain to me what you're doing. Now."
Naravi's chin rose. "I don't need to explain myself to you."
"You do and you will."
"I'm Hand Yy. You're just a branch cousin, and a half-Jevve at that." Naravi sneered at him, all vicious contempt, but Rallis had known him since he was a boy and couldn't be intimidated.
"You're not Hand Yy," he said calmly. "You're not of age. Until you turn nineteen, you're just a younger son, and you will do as you're told."
It was unfair and inaccurate, and Rallis knew it would make a mark. A part of Naravi still craved to be a younger son; he wouldn't have the strength of will to refute the argument. Sure enough, he flinched. "That's—"
"I'm ordering you to tell me exactly what you're doing. You are behaving like a child. Creeping out at night? Disobeying Miana's direct order? Bringing the servants into your schemes? And for what? Tell me what you're doing that will make this worth it."
Naravi's proud posture was drooping. He said, mulishly, "I'm part of the revolution."
"There is no revolution."
"Yes, there is. And we're meeting tonight. Hivaar is speaking."
"Have you been to meetings before?"
"Yes," Naravi muttered.
"How many?"
The silence that followed was long enough that Rallis wondered if Naravi had decided to try not answering at all, but finally he said, "Three."
More than enough for the other revolutionaries to recognize and remember him. Rallis was already too late. He should never have let things go on so long.
"Why?" he demanded. "Nur's heart, you've endangered everyone. Why would you be so stupid?"
"I endangered everyone?" Without warning, Naravi's hands lashed out. He shoved Rallis hard enough to send him stumbling a half-step backward. They both seemed shocked at the action, though Naravi recovered first. "You endangered all of us! You stupid half-breed, you brought that fucking—that fucking—you brought him to the motherhouse."
Sickness churned in Rallis's stomach. "Are you talking about the Festival?"
Moonlight caught Naravi's eyes, highlighting the tears that threatened to fall. "You knew what he did! You knew, and you still let him inside!"
"I didn't—I didn't know it was him," said Rallis, helplessly. He had known it was a miscalculation to let Lieutenant Harn into the motherhouse as soon as Naravi had reacted, but he hadn't realized it was such a miscalculation. It wasn't nearly as
personal to him as to Naravi.
Miia Yy's death was a source of great controversy in Rallis's heart, and although he missed Hesse and regretted his fate, Hesse had been trying to kill civilians—including Adesi civilians—when Lieutenant Harn had shot him. But to Naravi, the Jevites had murdered his mother and brother and Rallis had opened House Yy to them. He may as well have sent Naravi to the rebellion wrapped in a bow.
"Go home," he said, seeking to salvage the situation, knowing it was pointless. "This is far more dangerous than you know. Jev—"
"I don't care about Jev. After what they did, I'm going to destroy all of them."
"Listen to me, Naravi, Jev knows of the rebellion. Do you understand what I'm saying? They know. They've known for months. And they're just waiting until the right time to come down and shatter the rebels."
Naravi's eyes were wide, glowing white in the darkness. "How do you know?"
"I just do."
"You heard it, didn't you? From your Jevve lover."
Lieutenant Taarq had asked for discretion, but there was no room for discretion then. "Yes," said Rallis shortly, ignoring the lover comment. "He told me that Jev intends to move against the rebellion. Nur's heart, Naravi, someone set bombs at the airfield. Is this what you've come to? Innocent civilians use those shuttles. Adesi civilians, even."
"If they're traveling to Jev, they're traitors anyway," Naravi hissed. "Besides, that wasn't us. It's all just Jevve lies."
"What do you mean?"
Naravi make a harsh noise. "They're lying. They're saying that it's Adesi rebels planting those bombs and attacking the legionnaires, but it's not. No one I know has done anything like that."
"It might be people you don't know."
"You don't understand, do you?" Suddenly all of Naravi's sullenness had vanished. He was calm and confident, meeting Rallis's gaze levelly. Even in the dimness of the night, Rallis could read the contempt and pity in his eyes.
"Understand what?"
"Jev is doing this. They're making it look like the rebellion is violent because it gives them cause to crush us. If they can accuse us of planting bombs and attacking Jevites, they don't need to listen to our demands. The only violence is coming from Jev."