“It would have to be cold, wouldn’t it,” she said.
“The summers are nice, I hear,” Malia said. “But it’s no Harat-Sharii.”
Reese snorted.
Several hours later, the Earthrise achieved orbit around a world with cobalt-blue seas and pale green and sandy brown continents, swirled with glittering clouds. Hirianthial did not have to see it to remember it, but the sight of it when he stepped onto the bridge to find Reese arrested him. Sascha was the only one on watch, sitting once again in the pilot’s seat with Allacazam on his lap.
“They’re all in the cargo bay,” the Harat-Shar said before he could ask. “Malia’s setting the Pad up for you. Apparently they have limited coordinate sets for it, and they haven’t said why.” He lifted his brows, aura simmering with barely contained sparks.
They were all insatiably curious, and while Hirianthial couldn’t blame them he could not feed them either. He had no idea what his cousin intended, bringing them here; he would have to know her mind before he could share his. “I’m not familiar with her protocols in regards to the Pad.”
“Mmm,” Sascha said. “Nice dodge.” He shook his head. “And no, I’m not going to push you about it. But you know, if ever we needed information, arii, now would be the time. Before we walk into a completely foreign situation—“
“You’ll have some time to become accustomed to it,” Hirianthial said, “as I’ll be hosting you initially.”
“You—what?”
“You will be staying with me,” he repeated. “And there will be few people there to see you, or react to your initial attempts at orientation.”
Sascha’s eyes narrowed. Then he said, “You have a minute? They won’t be sending anything down for a bit, not until Malia’s done configuring the thing.”
“Of course?” Hirianthial said. He took the seat across from Sascha’s and waited.
Sascha ran a hand over Allacazam’s fur, a pale beige frosted with white. “You listened to me when I told you about the problems I had with my own home. That conversation... it was the first time anyone had really heard what I was saying, really understood it.” He smiled, self-conscious, showing a touch of his fanged eye teeth. “So you know if you ever need anyone to listen to your problems, you have more than one person who’ll pay attention.”
“Thank you—”
“But,” Sascha said, and the earnest warmth in his aura stiffened into an abrupt ferocity. “You need to promise you’ll never abandon us like that again, without warning. You want to leave? Fine. Go. But not like that, with us wondering if you’ve been kidnapped or killed or if you hate us or what have you.”
“Sascha,” Hirianthial began, startled at the anger he could sense just beneath that drum-taut surface.
“You think I’m kidding? You should know better. You know how many people are on your tail,” Sascha said. “And that’s you personally. You, generically, an Eldritch? Quadruple that number, because every slaver in the galaxy wants one of you people.” His ears flattened. “Maybe you don’t believe it, but we’ve got your back here, all right? But we can’t do our part if you don’t do yours.”
In some other universe, one where his Butterfly had lived and he’d remained the true head of Jisiensire, he would have taken a man like Sascha to squire and brought him up to guard captain one day...had Sascha been Eldritch, of course. But Sascha was Pelted, and Hirianthial was no longer the head of Jisiensire no matter what Araelis might hope, and his Butterfly was long gone. Still, the blazing brightness of Sascha’s anger had led him to the source of the flame, and it was loyalty. He felt it anew in the dangle he still wore woven into the hair at his neck, with its echoes of the Harat-Shar’s feelings as he assembled it. Hirianthial could not turn his back on such a thing without dishonor. So he did what he so rarely allowed himself—and made a vow, hoping he would not be forced to break it—or worse, keep it, when the keeping of vows so often led to heartache and bloodshed. “I promise.”
Sascha searched his face. His ears slowly eased from his skull and perked up again. “Thanks,” he said, finally.
Hirianthial inclined his head. “Unless there’s anything else?”
“No,” Sascha said. “Have a safe trip down.”
Hirianthial stopped for his case on the way to the cargo bay. He also unpacked the coat and scarf he’d bought offworld and a pair of gloves he’d brought with him from home: pale tan leather, soft still despite the years. He smoothed the fingers out, running a short nail along the raised embroidery stitched between thumb and forefinger: a curling vine, complete with pale silver flower. As the culmination of a culture such flourishes had power...but as a symbol of all they’d lost, it was merely pitiable. And as beautiful as the gloves were, the Alliance’s coat was as comfortable and had been far more affordable. He wondered what he had become, to have such thoughts, and to wear such a hybridization of cultures without fanfare.
Whatever the case, he was glad of the clothes when he reached the cargo bay, having forgotten how cold Reese kept them. His breath was leaving his lips in wisps.
Malia was the first to look up as he advanced on them. She said, “My lord. The Pad is ready for you.”
Bryer was examining some reading on the Pad’s base, but Reese straightened when she saw him. When he was close enough, she held out a data tablet, careful to keep her fingers on the edge.
“What’s this?”
“Malia says you need to send up coordinates for any place indoors you might want us to be able to go to. That’ll let you get them to her.”
“Ah,” Hirianthial said, tucking it under his arm. “Thank you.”
“Which leads me to ask,” Reese said, eyeing Malia, “Just how will people be able to get back up here once they’re down there?”
“There’s a Pad on-world,” Malia said, which both surprised and did not surprise Hirianthial. He’d had no idea Liolesa had one, but knowing Liolesa it was also an inevitability. She kept secrets well; in many ways, she was the most Eldritch Eldritch Hirianthial knew. Would that her detractors understood that. Malia continued. “Barring that, there’s a landing field large enough for the Earthrise within a day’s riding distance from the palace.”
“Blood and freedom.” Reese rubbed her forehead. “More horses.”
Bryer stood, chuffed. “Is ready from our end. You?”
Malia tapped in the coordinates and the Pad light flicked blue, registering an open tunnel. “My lord. You may step through when ready.”
“Call us,” Reese added.
“I shall,” he said. “Thank you.” And he stepped over the Pad and into a wall of visceral memories. The smell of the sea, of autumn leaves gone long since to mold, of the dampness of a recent rain—the color of twilight, that pale gray purple sky seen beyond the silhouettes of the distant buildings—the utter silence that wrapped around him on this world absent modern technology. He had become so accustomed to the boom and bustle of the Alliance, of the sound of passing transport, of people living elbow to elbow....
He stood in that silence until the cold wind lifted just enough to break it, soughing around his shoulders and hips, ruffling his hair away until it exposed the dangle. He twitched as if it had nicked a nerve. In the distance, a night loon crooned, raising the hair on the back of his neck.
He was home.
He was also standing in a field not far from his destination, and he was already too aware of the chill; winters often seemed mild on the coast, but the damp winds off the ocean could be cruel. Flexing his fingers against the case’s handle, he set off for the capital. He was approaching it from the wilderness near the sea cliffs, where no one dwelt; it was as discreet a route as he could have chosen without the ability to Pad directly into his own townhouse, something he couldn’t do without coordinates... and also without warning the caretakers. It would have been cruel to surprise them by appearing in their midst.
So he walked, and in time found himself on the edge of Noble’s Row. Jisiensire’s townhouse was the las
t in the road, nearest the cliff; it was not difficult to skirt the drop and become another pedestrian on his way home. The calling hours had concluded much earlier and he hadn’t expected much traffic this early in the month; it struck him as strange that so many of the townhouses were lit in a manner suggesting occupation. The winter court technically convened at the season’s opening, but in practice most people didn’t make the journey until several weeks later. Their houses should have been boarded still, or lit to reflect a minimal occupation, by servants or staff.
Allied to the royal family through family ties as old as the Settlement, Jisiensire always left a presence in the capital to support the Queen. When Hirianthial stepped up the stone stairs, the lamp leading to the door was lit and there were candles burning in the windows. He glanced at the bell-pull and steeled himself. Once he passed over this threshold, there would be no returning. All that he had done, all that he was capable of, and all that had happened to him would be addressed, for weal or woe.
The bell sounded. His hand fell from the chain and he waited, resigned. God and Lady succor him, for he knew not what the weeks to come would hold—
The door opened on the saturnine countenance of one of Jisiensire’s oldest senior servants, and even among Eldritch who held strong displays of emotion in contempt there was no mistaking the joy that leapt into the man’s eyes, one that lit his aura on fire.
“Neren,” Hirianthial said, remembering in time to trade tongues for the baroque flourish of the language he’d grown up speaking, so different from the more utilitarian Universal he’d been using now for decades. He shaded the words silver for gentleness and pleasure. “As you can see, I have come home.”
“Oh my lord!” Neren said, hushed. “Please. Let me take your case.”
Hirianthial set it down for the servant to carry, reserving the data tablet, and let the man precede him into the central hall. The townhouses on the Noble’s Row had been designed to receive guests and allow the family to conduct their business during the seasonal courts, and the door opened directly onto a vast space, with a tall desk overseeing the bottom floor and the two groupings of furniture arranged around the front windows, and two sets of stairs leading to a balcony overseeing the interior. The private rooms were on the second floor. All of it had been meticulously maintained, but Hirianthial expected no less. The smell of the place, of wood polish and candle wax, was like an incense, and made him abruptly aware that he no longer worshipped the gods it pertained to.
Several more servants had appeared at the bell, and Neren gave the case to one of them to carry upstairs before shooing the rest back to their dormitory. Hirianthial waited until he’d finished before speaking, and all the mood modifiers and intricacies of their grammar returned to him as if he’d never left, colors to shade the words with nuance, silver, gold, white and gray. Not for his house the shadowed and black and carnal modes, not here, among kin and retainers. “Neren. You look well, and it is good to see it.”
“You are kind to say so,” Neren said, aura flushing with the pleasure he kept off his face. “My lord! I scarcely believe your presence. When I received the message from the Queen’s Tams, I was afraid to hope they were correct. How greatly you have been missed! The lady Araelis will be gratified to have you home.”
“That may be,” Hirianthial said. “But tonight I am the Queen’s, and I must go to Ontine forthwith.”
“Of course,” the man said. “I have set out your court coat in the master suite, sire. I would be delighted to attend you.”
Somehow the man still had clothing to fit him. How long had someone been maintaining it here in the hopes of his return? “Thank you,” Hirianthial said.
Upstairs, Neren set to the duties of a valet with his usual aplomb. He’d been in service to Sarel Jisiensire for so long he’d overseen the outfitting of Hirianthial’s nursery, and there was little he could be taught about the staff roles in a noble House; it was why he’d been made castellan of the principle estate. To have him here was a puzzlement, and as Neren stood waiting with the coat over an arm, Hirianthial asked, “Have you retired then?”
“Ah? Oh, that I am here, you mean, my lord?” Neren approached with the coat once Hirianthial had finished buttoning the vest. “Lady Araelis requested it not long after your departure, sire. She wanted someone here to listen for news.”
News had been spoken in the shadowed mode, hinting at uncertainties and unease. Hirianthial held out his arms as Neren straightened the coat, gloved hands carefully never touching skin. “Has it been so dire, then?”
“Dire is perhaps a poeticism, sire,” Neren said, stepping back and offering him a sword belt. “But the unrest has only been mounting, and rumors have been thick on the ground.”
Such old and familiar movements, leather tongue through the buckle, moving the frog over his flank. Hirianthial opened the case, bringing out the sword. “Anything true?”
“No one knows,” Neren said. “But the heir has been little seen of late, and there is concern there. Also, there was a rather significant event with the heir to the Seni involving the induction of a mortal into their family. That was some years ago, but it is still much discussed.”
Hirianthial froze. “For sooth?” he asked.
“Verily, sire,” Neren said. “And a strange beast it was, from all accounts. Four feet and wings and a tail and another half a body at that, and black and white all over.”
“A Glaseah!” Hirianthial exclaimed. Who was the current heir to the Seni? A man, he thought, Jeasa’s eldest son, but he couldn’t remember the name. What courage, though, to do such a thing; he would have to ask Liolesa for the full story, if she was disposed to talk to him. Taking the peace cords from Neren, he bound the sword and sat on the padded bench, acting now on habits so old he no longer remembered their formation; after dressing, one sat to have gemstones braided into one’s hair. A nobleman’s hair should be as long as his years, the saw went, an expression of the family’s wealth and the luxury of displaying it. “I assume that went over poorly.”
“Fortunately, most people gave little credence to the story,” Neren said. “It being so outrageous as to seem unbelievable. Even I had some trouble with it, particularly given the description of the creature.”
“You shall not find it so unbelievable soon,” Hirianthial said. “While I am gone, I would be pleased if you would prepare the house for the receipt of my guests: six, possibly seven, though you will need five bedrooms at most. I am not certain if we will be hosting the Queen’s woman, but if we are, then five.”
“Six guests, sire,” Neren said, opening a small wooden box and sorting through the selection of jewels there. “Very good.”
“They are all aliens,” Hirianthial said. “And one of them…is human.”
Neren’s fingers paused. “Human.”
“Yes, I know,” Hirianthial said. “But the Queen herself has asked for the human, so as a courtesy we are hosting her until Liolesa decides what is to be done with her.”
“I see,” Neren murmured. More distinctly, “It will be done. When shall I expect them, sire?”
“I’ll call before I leave and see,” Hirianthial said. “But within an hour. Best to have them here at night, when people are less likely to notice the activity. Unlike me, they will be arriving by Pad, probably in the main hall.”
“Of course,” Neren said, and then, diffident, “Very unusual times, these, sire.”
“And about to become more so,” Hirianthial said. He dipped his head as Neren lifted a chain of rubies and opals. The lamplight flashed off the metal fittings, and he saw—felt—the hand reaching toward his hair. The flood of panic was so abrupt he inhaled sharply.
Neren paused. “My lord?”
Hirianthial held up a hand, hoping its tremor was not as obvious to the servant as it was to himself. “I shall forgo the ornamentation. It is a private meeting, and my cousin knows how I feel about such displays.”
“Of course.”
Hirianthial stru
ggled with his composure as Neren turned from him to put the chain away. If the man had touched him, would he have lashed out, without thought, without the chance to quell himself? Could he have killed his family’s oldest servant... by accident? Even now his heart was racing and there was sweat chilling his palms, though he hadn’t moved.
Neren was speaking. “...horse brought ‘round the front for you, sire.”
“Ah? Thank you, Neren. That will do nicely.” Hirianthial rose. “Tell my guests I’ll be with them shortly, if they arrive before I do.”
“I shall do so, sire.”
Without allowing himself to look back, Hirianthial left for his meeting with Liolesa. If anything, his errand had become more urgent.
“You all have everything you’ll need for a few days?” Reese asked. “Remember, we’re not going to be able to come back up here until we’re sent back by the Queen, and it’s hard to know when that will be. Plus, this world doesn’t have Pelted, so none of the clothes are going to fit and who knows what they’d use to groom a sapient’s fur.”
“Probably one of those brushes they use on their horses,” Kis’eh’t said, pursing her lips.
“Ugh!” Irine wrinkled her nose. “No thank you.”
“We’re good, Boss,” Sascha said. “Honest. We thought of everything. Did you?”
Reese checked herself. Duffle bag filled with clothes and horse sales materials. Telegem and tablet. Round fuzzy alien, who murmured a sleepy chime in her head in response to her itemization. “No, I’m good.” She glanced at Malia. “Everything arranged on this end?”
“Looks like it,” Malia said, double-checking the coordinates between Pad and tablet. “You should show up in the lobby, and the people there are expecting you.” She looked up, ears perked. “And I’ll take good care of the Earthrise for you while you’re gone. Anything starts making you nervous, just tell me and I’ll set her down at the royal landing field.”
“Thanks,” Reese said.
“You sure you want to stay here babysitting by yourself?” Irine asked, ears sagging.
her instruments 02 - rose point Page 12