“It can’t be because you like me,” Laniis said, ears flattening. “And it can’t be because you want to find some information you can use against me, because Speaker-Singer knows you raped all the information out of me that you could possibly want. What else can you be hoping for, except forgiveness?”
“That presupposes a personality that values forgiveness,” he said, low. “Doesn’t it?”
She froze. Then all her fur stood on end and she hissed, pointing at him. “Don’t think that the only reason people seek forgiveness is because they feel regret. You might be hoping for it so you can get something out of me.”
“And what would that be?”
She hated that he sounded curious. Not just because it made him seem interested in her ideas, but because it suggested he wasn’t sure of the answers, and if that was true, was she wrong? But she couldn’t be wrong. “So that I’ll help you do what you want, which is to get power again. And so that the people watching you try so hard to atone for your sadism can say ‘look, he’s changed’ and feel more inclined to help you.”
“Will it work?” the Emperor asked.
She’d been expecting outrage, or denial. His honest curiosity, so patently revealed by the body he couldn’t possibly know how to control yet, shocked her out of her self-righteous wrath. “What?”
“Will that work?” the Emperor repeated. “The tactics you explained. I do not always guess correctly how altruism will motivate people, particularly when paired with motivations I do understand.”
“What motivations do you understand?” Laniis asked, wary.
“That those people who want to help me regain my throne might wish it because they think of me as easier to control, and so a better choice for the Alliance’s security than the Usurper,” the Emperor said. He twisted to look over his shoulder. “This tail is heavier than I thought it would be.”
“The tail’s for balancing when you walk,” Laniis said dismissively. “Are you accusing us of using you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t understand your motivations. But I am coming to suspect they are more complex than you admit to.” One of his ears sagged.
“You’re really worried about that? Our motivations?”
“Not at this moment,” he said, and his ears colored. “Right now I am concerned that if I step forward, I’ll fall.”
“You’ll fa—you haven’t ever been digitigrade, have you.”
“Is that what this configuration of leg is called?”
“Yes,” she said. “Just don’t think about it and I bet you’ll be fine. The Knife was.” And saying it, wondered if she hoped he would trip.
The Emperor set out one foot, toes spread, and stared at them. He tried pushing out the claws on those too. “You have beautiful feet.”
“Is that what you were thinking when you tortured me?”
She was grimly pleased to see his ears fall and his tail droop—pleased, and disturbed, because it made his shame obvious. It was easier to accept the premise that he might be dissembling in a body unlike hers. He couldn’t possibly be controlling his tells in an unfamiliar shape so quickly, could he? He didn’t even know how to walk properly, as he demonstrated by hopping and stumbling through a few steps, awkward as a new fawn.
“No glib reply to that?” she asked.
“No. And isn’t that the crowning irony, Lieutenant. I did those things because I could, and out of curiosity. But I learned less about you in a year of such cruel experiments than I have in a few minutes in your body.” He shook his head. “Turning our backs on the Change did not remove our thirst for the knowledge the Change brought us, and so we sought it elsewise, and it twisted our spirits.”
“If you’re excusing yourself,” she murmured.
“I excuse myself nothing, Lieutenant. Before the Ambassador changed me, I did not excuse failure, or obscurity, or weakness. Now that he has, I do not excuse myself my… sins.” Carefully spoken, that word, as if it was new to his Alliance lexicon. He looked up at her and for the first time since she’d been pushing herself on him, she saw anger in his eyes. “You know how well I wield a whip. I now have a more proximate—and appropriate—target.”
Laniis refused to feel guilt. She was feeling guilt and she hated it. She didn’t deserve to feel guilt for abusing her rapist. She opened her mouth to say so and what came out instead was, “There, you’re walking the way you should now.”
He looked down and immediately tripped, and watching him fall, all awkward limbs and tangled toes… she thought of him, stripped and pierced and weeping in the Worldlord’s harem, and her shame redoubled. Even if he didn’t deserve to be forgiven, she was better than this need for vengeance. She pushed herself off the couch and strode to him, extending her hand. When he eyed it warily, she said, “I’m not offering another pattern. Just help up.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, very low, “All the help up I can find, I will take. Thank you, Lieutenant.” As she hauled him upright, he added, “And for the shape.”
“After months of you leaving yourself in me,” she said, holding him in place by her grasp on his forearm and staring him in the eye, “I’ve finally left myself in you. And unlike all the filth you forced on me, my offering will never wash away.”
“Because mine was violence,” he said. “And yours was a gift.”
“Now,” Laniis said slowly. “Now, we’re done, you and I.”
“Save the war.”
“Except that.” She nodded and backed away from him. He watched her for a few steps, then turned his face from hers and began practicing anew the mechanics of walking. At the hatch she stopped to glance over her shoulder: still with that hesitant lift of toe, flex of thigh. It was her body, and he was treating it with all the reverence she could have asked for. It hurt that he hadn’t treated her body with that same reverence when it had solely belonged to her; it hurt her that she still didn’t feel whole, or as if she’d achieved any closure. But as she walked away from the observation deck, she thought that she’d made a better attempt at it this time.
The Seersan shape was his first Pelted body and with every breath he breathed in it he knew it as the body of someone he’d abused. At least the Ambassador’s body had become one he’d caressed and held as a lover, not as a rival or a slave. There was no reprieve in Khaska’s gift, save that she’d given it, and he could not begin to understand why. That he doubted she did either didn’t help.
It was such an extraordinary body. The ears… the ears defied description. The softness of the fur over his skin astonished; the claws, so versatile, begged contemplation and experimentation. Even the teeth—he licked them carefully with his short tongue and found little points. He’d never noticed Khaska’s fangs. Only in comparison with human and Eldritch norms did they feel similar to his draconic teeth.
The Eldritch body had taught him empathy; the human, suffering. Looking at his unfurred palms, the Emperor wondered what the Seersan one would teach him, and suspected it had something to do with how he had earned—or rather, failed to earn it.
“Exalted?”
His ears twitched toward the source of the Ambassador’s transmitted voice, and pinpointed it to three separate speakers by swiveling. “Here.”
“We’re approaching the drop now.”
“I am on my way.”
So tempting to stay in this body, but it was too much of a distraction. He shed it for his Chatcaavan form and draped the abandoned sweatshirt over his arm as he headed for the conference room.
Uuvek had commandeered one of the Silhouette’s meeting rooms for his efforts. The walls, which doubled as screens, showed maps of the Apex-East system, the Empire as a whole, the throneworld system, and the Alliance border, and superimposed on them were projections of the offensive weight being dedicated to the war on both sides. Columns of mysterious numbers—some unmarked, others timestamps, hovered in ghostly blue near Uuvek’s shoulder where he labored at the end of the table, bent over the embedded console. The Knife was behind hi
m, peering at his tablet with narrowed gray eyes, and the Ambassador was leaning against a wall, arms folded. The ship’s captain was also there, and the Admiral-Offense, and one of the Fleet data analysts was sitting side-by-side with one of the Admiral-Offense’s rescued Chatcaavan ratings.
“We about ready, Shanelle?” the Pelted captain asked.
A transmitted contralto, the female human with the bright hair and dark skin. “Dropping out of Well now, sir. Hitting it up with a whisker—”
“I am receiving data,” Uuvek rumbled.
“….and that’s the whole packet.”
“Confirmed,” Uuvek said.
“Dust us and coast, Shanelle,” the captain said. “Let’s see if we want to talk back to any of these people before we dive again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything interesting, Uuvek-alet?” said the captain, turning to him.
“Looking now…” The male trailed off, scanning. Over his shoulder, the Knife hissed. Uuvek said, “We have data from our connection in the palace.”
“Which is?” the Admiral-Offense asked, testy.
“It’s… a description of a series of movements across a map,” the Knife said, eyes twitching down each line. “A verbal description? An extremely detailed one. And… Living Air! Our contact says Second is pulling out for the border.”
“Already?” the Pelted captain exclaimed.
The Ambassador shot a look at the Emperor.
“Is he taking anyone with him?” the Admiral-Offense said. “It makes no sense. Why is he leaving in advance of the fleet?”
“He’s taking the Eastern naval force with him,” Uuvek said. “In its entirety.”
“What!” The Admiral-Offense reared back, wings sagging. “He’s splitting his forces? Why?”
“You were right,” the Ambassador murmured.
“It happens from time to time,” the Emperor said, but from the dull and clotted pit of his spirit rose a thrill, like an arc of fireworks. How he remembered the exhilaration of making the correct guesses, of being a step ahead of his enemies. It faded too fast, but for a moment, he remembered.
“This is our chance, isn’t it?” the Knife said. “The Eastern fleet is forty percent of the entire Navy. If Second removes it from Apex-East, we might be able to take it.”
“Forty percent of the Navy,” Uuvek said. “But not the system militias.”
“The system militias are too disorganized to trouble us,” the Admiral-Offense said. “They lack discipline, have never worked as a team. Nor are there enough of them to deter us.”
“Our contact says the Twelveworld Lord is bringing a fleet ‘equal in strength to the northern sector’s naval fleet’ to Apex-East,” Uuvek said. “That does not sound too small to deter us.” His talon tips swiped through several of the ghostly displays and brought up a new column of numbers. “We don’t know how many ships we’ll have to bring to a fight yet, either.”
“We can assume that we’ll be drawing some of the naval strength away from Apex-East, though,” the Knife said. “There are loyalists even in Second’s fleet.”
“Most of the support we are certain of will be coming from the Southern and Western sectors,” the Emperor said, drawing the Knife’s attention. Uuvek, as usual, was head-down in his display. “That includes some of the system lords as well.”
“Do you have exact numbers?” Uuvek asked, distracted.
“I do.” The Emperor pressed a palm to the table display and commanded it to send his personal projection file to Uuvek, saw it light up a box amid his floating columns. Uuvek prodded it open and squinted at it, renewed his tapping.
The Admiral-Offense sidled to the Emperor, arms folded and wings lax, his expression puzzled. “It is a good opening. Why would he give it to us?”
“Because, my friend, he does not care if we take it.” The Admiral-Offense’s head jerked upward and the Emperor nodded. “Yes.”
“Then it isn’t a trap.”
“Why would he need to trap us?” the Emperor asked. “He thinks we are dead. The enemies he expects to fight are awaiting him at the Alliance border… or gnashing their teeth in Apex-East, impatient for their chance at the fight.”
“We will have the advantage of surprise,” the Admiral-Offense mused.
“Which will only matter if we have enough ships to win,” the Pelted captain said dryly.
“And?” The Admiral-Offense asked. “Do we?”
The Emperor already knew the answer, felt a great calm in himself as he waited for Uuvek to make it plain to everyone else.
“No.” Uuvek pushed the displays away, dissipating them. “Not yet, at least. There is other mail here to be read. For you, Ambassador. And for the Knife, more messages to decode.”
“A ship here, a ship there…” The Pelted captain’s lip curled. She too had pointed eye teeth, like Laniis’s. “Unless that adds up fast, it’s not going to matter. Especially if Apex-East is getting reinforced by another fleet the size of… how big’s this northern navy?”
“It comprised thirty percent of the remaining total.”
She snorted, ears flipping back. “Great. So you lost forty percent but thirty got put back in? I’m not seeing a lot of opportunity there.”
“If we got in and out before they arrived…?” the Chatcaavan at the side of the data analyst offered, tentative.
“We’d need to have our fleet assembled in time to make it there before they did. Presumably they’re already on the way… what are the chances?” The Fleet captain shook her head. “I wanted that to be our opening, but it’s not.”
“Agreed,” the Emperor said.
“It may be the only opening we would have had,” the Admiral-Offense said to him, low.
“We will have to go where the Air bears us, huntbrother.” The Emperor smiled at him, with teeth. “And where there are no openings, we make our own. Yes?”
The Admiral-Offense snorted, but his wings relaxed. “Yes.”
“Good.” The Emperor met the Pelted captain’s eyes. “How long do we have to read and reply to our messages?”
“Shanelle?”
“System’s clear and we’re making like a hole in it, sir. I’d say we could stay for a few hours. Too much more than that and we’ll be biting into our schedule if we want to make our destination before the war’s over.”
The Pelted captain snorted. “Less editorial, more pith, arii.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
The female sighed.
“A few hours should be sufficient,” the Ambassador said. “We should see to that now.”
“I’ve routed the messages,” Uuvek said. “And copied the contact’s to you both.”
“Thank you,” the Emperor said.
In their cabin, the Emperor settled on the couch with his wings slung over its arm. Few were the pieces of Pelted furniture designed for winged individuals; he could have changed shape, but he wanted to read these messages in the body his subjects would expect him to use to fight the war. Beneath his skin he could feel the Seersa struggling for primacy, demanding he face its challenges, find some meaning in fur and ears that could hear the past. But his future needed him more. The Ambassador walked past him to find a chair, and he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to hear the boot steps with a Seersan’s clarity before putting the distraction away.
Most of his messages were more promises of aid from individuals. Some of them were powerful enough for what they were, but as the Pelted captain had observed such piecemeal promises would not add up to enough weight of metal to fight the Northern fleet alone if the Twelveworld Lord threw his legions behind it. Few were the system lords who could command the obedience of their fractious peers… but the Twelveworld Lord was one of them. How long he could maintain that control was debatable, but he need only hold it for long enough to defeat the Emperor’s forces. Too much risk. He appended his replies to the people who’d send him fresh information and was sorting through the new messages from those on thei
r way to the Source when the Ambassador spoke.
“Well. Deputy-East has been prompt.”
The Emperor looked up. “What did he say?”
“He says he’s ours, and to direct him. And that he’s asked the Worldlord to put his resources at our disposal, which he claims are considerable.”
“And did the Worldlord agree to this?”
“I don’t know,” the Ambassador answered, brow lifting. “Deputy-East’s message contains a note from him, and this message is addressed to you, not me.”
“And yet he did not send it to me.” The Emperor set his tablet down and folded his arms. “Very well. Read it to me, Perfection.”
His Eldritch said, “’Sword. Deputy-East tells me it is time for us to choose sides. Ask your master, this, then: ‘Why you?’”
The Emperor leaned back, staring at the ceiling. He remembered standing before the Worldlord in the helpless shape of an alien, painted and collared. 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 loved that Pelted female, didn’t he.”
“Simone? Yes. Insomuch as I think any Chatcaavan could who was not also willing to admit it.”
The Emperor glanced at the Eldritch, who said, “The Worldlord did not have the benefit of feeling through a porous skin, beloved. It is easier to deny an experience from which you can distance yourself. Having said that…” He lifted his tablet, showing the Emperor its surface. “He did ask for news of Simone, and her prognosis.”
“He released the slaves,” the Emperor murmured.
“He was positively enlightened for a Chatcaavan male of his rank.”
The Emperor snorted and closed his eyes, tilting his head back.
“What shall you tell him?”
But where there is life, Dainty, there is hope of change.
“Tell him ‘I know three alien shapes, and all three of them were gifts. What have you learned? What do you want to?’”
The Ambassador looked up at him slowly.
“Just that,” the Emperor said. “If it does not convince him, there is no point to chasing him.”
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