/It is their best chance, they say. With the Twelveworld Lord gone. And if they cannot find enough Chatcaava, they hope to entice the Alliance into fighting at their side./ Oviin’s great aquamarine eyes blinked once, steadied. /We have made a difference, Ambassador. Maybe the difference./
/If the pirates divert the Twelveworld Lord./
/Yes./
/But we have not heard from the pirate contact./
Oviin hesitated. /No./ He started laving Jahir’s shoulders, careful of tender skin.
Jahir did not doubt that if it was within Sediryl’s power, she would deliver the pirates in the right place at the right time. But that didn’t change that it might be beyond her powers. Her continued silence could be a sign that she was on her way and too busy to coordinate with them… or, more likely, a sign that something had gone wrong.
The Chatcaavan poured warm water over Jahir’s head, and under that stream he closed his eyes.
/You think she might have failed,/ Oviin murmured.
/It is possible. It was always possible./
Oviin paused, one hand on the Eldritch’s wrist. /What will you do?/
Jahir said, quiet, /What I must./
The following morning, Jahir watched the Usurper enter his office and said, “Do your lords tell you the truth?”
The Chatcaavan snorted as he sat behind the desk and called up his displays. “Of course they do. They know the penalty for treason.”
“So it is treason, lying to you.”
“I am the Emperor, freak. You will have noticed.”
“Then if, hypothetically, one of your lords was failing to report the proper position of one of your military assets….”
The Usurper slowly craned his neck around the floating display in front of him and narrowed his eyes.
“Hypothetically,” Jahir said.
“You are making another attempt to instill doubt in me,” the Usurper said. “Why do you bother? What good will it do you?”
“In this case,” Jahir said, “I’m actually trying to help you.”
“This is rich.” The Usurper was once again reading his displays, his mind settling into its customary grooves, rigid and narrow and direct. “Go on. Entertain me with your suppositions.”
“I was thinking, you see… there are many males who might benefit from your death.”
“Obviously. I am the Emperor.”
“But few of them could hold the throne,” Jahir continued. “Second, perhaps, but he has removed himself from the area. He could hardly depose you from several sectors away.”
The Usurper huffed. “Again with Second’s illusory treachery.”
“But there is someone closer who could make the attempt.”
“And who now should I be fearing, according to the logic of aliens?”
“The Twelveworld Lord.”
“Ah, I see,” the Usurper said. “Having lost Second as a convenient villain, you are casting his replacement. You think I am easy prey to paranoia?”
Jahir did, but did not say so.
“But now I am curious.” The Usurper peered at him through the displays, his face cast in green and yellow light. “Exactly how is the Twelveworld Lord going to enact this treasonous ploy?”
“Perhaps he has more pirates in his employ than he’s said,” Jahir replied. “I was intimately involved in the efforts to document the extent of the pirate threat, you understand, and I believe there are more non-Chatcaavan pirates than the Twelveworld Lord is reporting.”
“Oh, do you.”
“It makes one wonder where these extra pirates are, that the Twelveworld Lord is understating the numbers of.”
The Usurper snorted, pupils constricting as he focused on the display in front of him again. “I am not concerned about a handful of pirates.”
“But several hundred?”
The Usurper’s freeze was so swift Jahir would have missed it had he not been waiting for it. The Chatcaavan’s voice was even as he replied, “Even if there were several hundred pirates, they would not be any danger to the fleet.”
“Of course not,” Jahir agreed. “But the fleet is at Apex-East.”
“And shortly to be at the border of your nation, yes.”
“Which means they are not here. In orbit over you.”
The Usurper shoved back in his chair and rose. “You want me to believe that the Twelveworld Lord is bringing pirates here to help him depose me? It’s ridiculous!”
“If it is ridiculous, why are you angry?” Jahir asked.
“Because you are an insolent and obnoxious wall hanging,” the Usurper snarled. “And I should have had you muzzled when I came in!”
“You should have,” Jahir said. “As it would have prevented you from hearing this. But you didn’t, and now you know.” He smiled. “Maybe you should thank me for warning you. It would only be fair.”
The Usurper lunged over the desk, wings spread. His tablet clattered off it, and the Galare dagger, and then the dragon was in front of him with lifted hand, swiping—
They both halted in the wake of that blow, shocked that it had finally arrived.
Bloody prophet, born in seeping wounds
Jahir opened his eye, cautious, felt relief that he could. His cheek was streaming; hot blood dripped on his chest, stark contrast against goose-rashed flesh. The Usurper stared at him, hand still up, panting. Stared at the slashes on the Eldritch’s jaw. Turning from him abruptly, he called, “Guards!” As they arrived, he said, “Bring the Twelveworld Lord.”
Would this be what it would be like when Lisinthir flogged him? Jahir wondered, breathing through the pain and finding it less troubling than the sense that his flesh had been violated. He knew the hot droplets should distress him, particularly since there were enough of them to drizzle down the channel of his collarbone, but the warmth was welcome. Time became diffuse, made the pain distant. But he heard the Twelveworld Lord’s arrival, and that was not a dream.
“Exalted. You sent for m—Dying Air…!”
“The freak required discipline. As you can see, I am not incapable of meting it out.”
“No one thought otherwise, Exalted.”
The Usurper’s sneer narrowed his voice around the words. “Yes. Well. Tell me, Twelveworld Lord. These pirates of yours. Have you heard from them?”
“I have reports from them every week, Exalted. They tell me about their activities at the border.”
“And you’re sure they’re there, and not somewhere else.”
“Why would I think otherwise?” The Twelveworld Lord frowned. “Did Second tell you something in his scouting reports that contradicts what I’ve heard?”
That pause was sudden and thoughtful. “I don’t know. Stay.” Footsteps. Jahir heard the Usurper sit, then a few moments later, the Twelveworld Lord, the chair scraping back from the desk.
“Hmm,” the Usurper said at last. “Second only occasionally mentions your pirates. Weren’t they supposed to be wreaking sufficient havoc to be noticeable?”
“Certainly,” the Twelveworld Lord said. “For a force of their size. Recall they’re not a large group, Exalted.”
“You’re certain of that.”
“Exalted… why do you think otherwise?”
“The freak seems to believe that the piracy on the border prior to the war is suggestive of a force several hundred ships stronger than the one they’ve reported to you.”
The chair creaked. Jahir opened his eyes and found the Twelveworld Lord staring at him.
“Disinformation, Exalted?”
“Only if it’s false. Is there a way we can discover whether it’s false?”
“Why would we bother?” the Twelveworld Lord replied, puzzled. “What difference does it make if they are underreporting their numbers? So long as they’re attacking the freaks and the freaks are disturbed by those attacks, they are serving their purpose.”
The Usurper said nothing, but his thoughts shouted their alarm because this explanation sounded far too convenien
t for a male who was secretly planning a raid on the throneworld. What he said aloud was, “But if the freaks have numbers that lead them to believe that some of those pirates are missing, they may decide piracy is decreasing, not increasing, and that they can afford to fix their attention elsewhere.”
“If they know we’re coming—”
“They know you’re coming,” Jahir murmured. “I told them.” They fell silent and he finished, “After your failed attempt to stop me at the border. When I escaped back to the Alliance, I told them there would be war. They know.”
“Ridiculous,” the Twelveworld Lord muttered. “You did not strike him hard enough, Exalted. Allow me—”
“No. I discipline the freak.” The Usurper’s voice was clipped. “Anything else is a privilege I will extend to those who’ve earned it.”
“Exalted…” The Twelveworld Lord sounded astonished. “Surely… are you… you’re not intimating anything about my loyalties? On the basis of a wingless freak’s poisoned words?”
“Of course he’s not,” Jahir said, eyes closed. His head was beginning to spin. “He’s evaluating all the possibilities raised by my suggestion, which also include the possibility of the missing pirates targeting you, Twelveworld Lord. After all…” He opened his eyes and managed a hazy smile, “you’re not home to watch over your fiefdom either. And they know you’re gone.”
This silence was electric, and tasting the shock in it Jahir felt some tension finally ease from his shoulders.
“How many ships does this freak think have gone missing?” the Twelveworld Lord asked, voice low.
“He claims ‘several hundred,’ a number we both know to be ridiculous. Pirates cannot organize on that scale.”
“Of course not,” the Twelveworld Lord said, but he meant the opposite. More confidently, “He strives to unsettle us, Exalted, knowing that we will soon destroy his nation. That is all.”
“Yes,” the Usurper said. And added, “You may go. I must discipline this creature a little more.”
“A little,” the Twelveworld Lord said, rising, and there was amusement in his voice that hid the unease Jahir sensed shrouding him like a cloak.
“Too much more and he’ll die of it,” the Usurper said. “Such fragile creatures, Twelveworld Lord. They will die beneath our ships and our claws.”
“And in our beds?”
A pause, but the Usurper said, “And in our beds.”
“Exalted,” the Twelveworld Lord said, bowing, and turned, coming face to face with Jahir. Their eyes met.
He is weak, Jahir thought, whispering the words.
The Twelveworld Lord hesitated.
Second left. Second plans this Emperor’s demise.
“Twelveworld Lord?” the Usurper asked, irritated.
He allowed Second to leave because he is weak. And if you leave, and take your legions with you… could you not come back and seize the throne for yourself?
The pupils in those magenta eyes contracted to slits.
The pirate threat is the perfect excuse. Leave. Take all your ships. If he does not stop you, that is proof enough, isn’t it?
“I beg your pardon, Exalted,” the Twelveworld Lord said, voice husky. “The blood is… very striking. Against white skin.”
“I suppose it is.” The Usurper sounded surly. “Go now.”
“Yes, Exalted.” But as the male passed, Jahir felt the brush of his thoughts. They had tightened from their diffuse unease into a hunger streaked black and eager red. It blended into the pain and the weakness, and Jahir allowed himself to sink into it.
“Send for the Surgeon,” the Usurper said to someone else, and Jahir no longer cared enough to see whom. “And have someone clean up the mess. He’s… dripping.”
Dripping. Still dripping?
It didn’t matter.
The Surgeon’s touch next, piercing his fugue. /Are you trying to kill yourself?/
/He struck me./ This seemed important. Jahir struggled to communicate why, could not.
/He nearly took your cheek off,/ the Surgeon replied. /Your blood’s not doing enough work as it is, you can’t afford to lose any of it./
Something about that… alarm briefly dispersed the fog in his head. /Don’t try to replace it!/
/What would I replace it with? I don’t know the first thing about synthesizing replacement blood for aliens./
Jahir let that go, then. The roquelaure repeated its piteous noises in his head, and he drifted. Oviin’s touch now, and the Surgeon’s. Their concern. The removal of the latter’s aura, like a cloud shadow gliding from a field, leaving it exposed to the sun. That was Oviin: that sense of gentle golden light. /You are badly ailing./ Oviin sounded aggrieved. /And your skin! It tears so easily./
/Talons,/ Jahir murmured, sensing that he was being guided into the bath.
/Was it worth it? What you did to earn this?/
/Yes,/ Jahir said. /Even if Sediryl can’t send the pirates, he’ll still leave./ He exhaled. /Worth it./
/Then rest. You have done too much./
/All that I could have done would have been as nothing,/ Jahir murmured. /Without you. You made it possible, alet./
He felt Oviin’s flush of pleasure before he lost reality, and this time he let it escape.
Recovery was achingly slow. His skin didn’t want to heal the Usurper’s scratches, and the roquelaure’s warning chimes came interspersed with constant verbalized messages about its malfunction. Every half hour now, he thought. He was forced to stumble to the wall in the mornings, but once he reached it, hanging was almost a relief. The ache in his joints seemed remote, though now and then he felt the streaking of blood traveling the underside of his arm and was transfixed by the vivid and sensual heat of it.
He developed a fever. The Surgeon suggested gel healing, but the Usurper refused.
“Your investment may die.”
“He’s not an investment,” the Usurper said. “He’s a decoration. That’s all.”
But he did not die, and a few days later the fever subsided, though the crust on his wounds often broke and resumed running. Oviin found it distressing in the extreme and forced him to lie down with a compress against his face after he came off the wall. /You must rest, Ambassador. The Twelveworld Lord has been making many calls and sending many messages. We have seen it, we who serve and clean and cook. Whatever you said sank deep in him. It won’t be long now. But your part is done./
Jahir tried to tell the Chatcaavan that he would be fine, no matter what happened, but Oviin wouldn’t hear of it. Nor would he accept the gift of the Eldritch shape. /Not yet./ Or /Not now./ And finally, softly, /You hear my thoughts, Ambassador. I find… that is enough for me./
Sensing what rested under those thoughts, Jahir bowed his head and accepted.
Night brought no surcease, for his sleep was restless on the stone floor. But solitude had become a blessing, and the Usurper’s interruption of it distressed him. He no longer remembered how many days had passed since he’d been scored by the claws: enough for the cuts to once again be stiff, but what did that mean when they never closed? Days? Weeks? Not weeks, surely. He could not fit time into discrete pieces. If this continued, he would seep into the Pattern and there would be no gathering him back without Vasiht’h, or Lisinthir, or the hand of a god or goddess.
The Usurper was staring at him.
Jahir’s unease grew the longer the Chatcaavan remained there, unmoving. The pulse of the dragon’s thoughts had become more ordered, not less, but the channels ran scarlet from end to end, as if poured with blood. It made the air around the Usurper look like a red mist, pulsing with menace.
“The Twelveworld Lord has left with all his ships. He says…” A long pause as if to gather thoughts, but the Usurper was staring at him with all the focus of a predator. “That he’ll be back. As soon as he’s sure these rumors aren’t true.”
Jahir said nothing.
“All his ships,” the Usurper repeated. “Thousands of ships. To assess the threa
t of a few hundred pirates. A probably illusory threat.”
Still, he could not speak.
Seer, bloody-mouthed seer
where are your words now
“I didn’t call him back,” the Usurper said. “Because if he had disobeyed me, then it would have exposed me to those who thought me weak. But the fact that he has left has already done so. So I have lost either way.” He slowly canted his head, so slowly Jahir heard the vertebrae pop. “Second said you were dangerous. I thought that peril was all in your flesh. But it’s not, is it. It’s in your mind, which you speak through your mouth. So I ask myself… what is to be done with a mouthy alien? I could gag him. But then everyone would know I could not control him without external aid. It has to be done willingly. You must be forced to comply. And how does one make an alien comply?”
Sounds from the corridor. Dragging noises. Muffled whimpers.
“Fortunately, you yourself have shown me how one controls an alien,” the Usurper said. “It is all in the records of your stay here.”
The guards entered and threw Oviin to the ground between the Usurper and Jahir. Golden hair spilled over the dark stone, shining in the moonlight let in by the door. There were splotches all over Oviin’s body, and thin cuts that seeped, constant and thick and black.
Jahir cast his blankets aside and reached and his hand grazed the Chatcaavan’s shoulder as the Usurper raised a gun.
“NO!”
A shot, echoing in the chamber.
Blood everywhere. It was over so quickly. Jahir rolled Oviin into his arms and the light had already died in those gentle eyes.
“The Surgeon next, I think,” the Usurper said.
“The Surgeon is Outside!”
“But you like him,” the Usurper said. “So the Surgeon is next. Unless you shut up.”
Jahir stared up at him, unable to speak.
“Do we understand one another, Ambassador?”
“Yes,” Jahir whispered.
“Good.”
They left Oviin with him there, left the mess of his body, ungraceful in death, deprived of dignity. Jahir cradled the narrow head in his hands and pressed his brow to the Chatcaavan’s. There would be no teaching of the Eldritch shape. Oviin would never know the Change. Jahir’s body was failing around him, starved and fevered, but somehow he was the one who lived and Oviin had died, and not even because he’d been caught relaying messages to the Emperor. The Usurper had killed him only because he thought—thought—that Jahir cared for him.
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