Amulet Rampant

by M. C. A. Hogarth

Vasiht’h set his second set of bags down and went to sit at the table with its legend of nicks and scrapes. “He’s off losing his virginity to a friend.”

  Sehvi looked over her shoulder at him, incredulous.

  Holding up his hands, Vasiht’h said, “Goddess’s own truth.”

  “I’m not sure what’s more astonishing,” his sister mused. “The fact that he’s probably older than our great-grandparents and he’s still a virgin, or the fact that after staying a virgin so long he’s losing it to a friend. He doesn’t seem the type to hand something like that away on a whim.”

  There was a small fat sugar bowl shaped like a whale on the table. Their parents had always had a sugar bowl at the table, but that one had been a plain battered pot. Vasiht’h wondered at the whimsy of this one, where it had come from, what the story was. Everything in this kitchen suggested a story. Turning the bowl in place to look at the tail, he said, “It’s not a whim on his part. Just complicated.”

  He could practically see her rolled eyes. “Of course it is.”

  “Eldritch,” he said, and she laughed. Having heard about Jahir since the moment Vasiht’h met him, Sehvi didn’t have to be told anything else. That was part of the ease of being with her, he realized: that she understood the relationship that defined his adult life better than anyone else he knew. He’d always been able to relax around Sehvi when they were growing up. That hadn’t changed, even now, and he was grateful as the tension shed from him like water from a shaken coat.

  It was a sunny day, one of those days balanced perfectly between summer and fall in places with temperate climates, where the light falling through the flexglass doors to the patio had a golden clarity. Kovihs was only a semester from finishing the work that would confer a doctorate in genetic engineering research; Sehvi had graduated earlier as a fertility specialist. The demand for that job was so high she could have lived anywhere, but she had stayed on Tam-ley, where she’d met her husband, so he could finish his degree. It really was a beautiful world, from what he’d seen of it, and Sehvi’s salary had netted them a beautiful parcel in a small rural community, along with the Pad she used to commute to work. Looking at the large, open great room with its high-ceilinged kitchen and soft, well-used furniture, Vasiht’h couldn’t believe his little sister had grown up, and so completely. That they both had, really. When had that happened?

  The smell of cinnamon and cassia wafted to him on a cross-breeze from the open window over the sink. Sehvi brought an entire pot of kerinne, along with a tray of assorted sweets: tart berries, true-almond cookies, meringues, little cracker rounds with white, sharp cheeses. “Pour for us,” she said, leaving it on the table, and as he did she returned to the kitchen for a chocolate cake. At Vasiht’h’s stare, she said, “You have no idea how many calories small growing boys go through.”

  “No,” Vasiht’h said. “But I will soon.”

  To her credit, Sehvi didn’t drop the cake. But she did gape at him over it.

  “That’s where I’m going after this,” Vasiht’h continued, sounding far calmer than he felt. He spooned some of the berries onto his plate. “I think it’s time.”

  “What prompted this?” Sehvi asked, still staring.

  “Why are you acting so surprised?” Vasiht’h sipped from the cup. “You knew it was a matter of time before I made the decision.”

  “Yes, but… I’ve been waiting so long that I’m suspicious. And you admitted to Jahir being off having sexual adventures too easily, so that’s not what’s bothering you.” She eyed him. “So confess already, ariihir. Why are you suddenly concerned with your biological legacy?”

  Was he? Vasiht’h toyed with his cup. He’d never thought of it in terms like that. More like… he didn’t want to miss the experience of being a parent. “You’re right. I don’t care why Jahir and I are apart right now… in fact, I think it’s a good thing, what he’s doing. He was wound too tight. But….” He drew in a breath. “I do care that we might be apart in the future for other reasons, and I’m trying not to go magnifying my worries until they poison everything.”

  Sehvi paused in the act of reaching for the cake server. “Goddess,” she said. “This sounds serious.”

  “I’ve seen the Chatcaava,” Vasiht’h said abruptly.

  His sister withdrew her hand. Folding it and the other on the table, she said, “When was this?”

  “Just a few weeks ago.” He dragged in a breath. “I met them, and they’re terrible.” He thought of the Slave Queen, twitched at characterizing her that way. But he’d never met her. And Aksivaht’h knew her own people had mutilated and lacquered her wings. “Jahir owes fealty to his Queen, Sehvi, and he might be obliged to fight them.”

  Sehvi exhaled in a hiss and pulled her hand over her brow, mussing her forelock. “Goddess Almighty, ariihir.”

  Vasiht’h took another sip of the kerinne. His sister served it with water and made it nearly thick enough to stand a spoon in, so he dipped one of the almond cookies in it. He could feel her eyes on him as he ate.

  “So, he’s going to war, and you have to stay home,” Sehvi said, quiet.

  “Maybe,” Vasiht’h demurred.

  “Maybe?” she repeated.

  Vasiht’h rolled his lower shoulders, at the wing joint. “It’s not like a formal military. He has a choice. I think, anyway. And I don’t know if he knows what he wants. He hates violence, but he feels strongly about his duty. If he thinks he can do good fighting, he’ll want to fight. But hate it.” He took one of the meringues and broke it in half, brushing the sugar crumbles away. “If you ask him you’ll get a different answer depending on when you ask.”

  “But?”

  “But—” Vasiht’h thought of Jahir’s eyes, remembered him standing, bloodied, bearing up Lisinthir’s slack body. “He’ll go. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Sehvi shook her head. “No wonder you want kits now. At least they’ll give you something of your own to concentrate on while he’s away.”

  “That’s the thing,” Vasiht’h admitted, quieter. “I’m not sure that he should go alone.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I wonder myself.” He managed a wan smile. “But I managed to survive two fights against the Chatcaava, so maybe I could survive twenty or thirty? How many fights do you need to win a war?”

  “A war the size of the one the Alliance and the Empire would have?” Sehvi asked sharply. “A lot more than twenty or thirty. You’re not a soldier, ariihir. What business have you got on a battlefield? Or a ship fighting another ship?”

  “I don’t know.” Vasiht’h pushed the plate away as his stomach knotted. “That’s… that’s one of the reasons I’m here. Sehvi, I feel lost.”

  She studied him, then said, “Well, then, we’re in the wrong place. Come on.” She stood and tugged on his arm until he followed her to the soft bag couch. Pushing him down onto it, she waited for him to settle before she wound herself around him. Vasiht’h knew many people who were unable to imagine how Glaseah managed to cuddle as much as they purportedly did, given their number of limbs and the awkwardness of their centauroid configuration. But his brothers and sisters had been cuddling so long, and he and Sehvi in particular, that they just fell into it as if they were still children. Vasiht’h inhaled the tart lemonpeel smell of her fur and shuddered.

  “Now,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “You’ve met Jahir,” Vasiht’h said, low. “You know how he is.”

  “Gallant. Noble. Self-sacrificing to the point where you want to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him.”

  Vasiht’h huffed a laugh. “Yes, that. Anyway. We were sent to pick up his cousin from the Empire’s border, from a Chatcaavan ship delivering him. His cousin was the ambassador.”

  “An Eldritch,” Sehvi said, dubious.

  “You’d believe it if you met him.” Vasiht’h inhaled, found the warm skin-smell of his sister beneath the fur now that he’d had his nose pressed up against her cheek for a w
hile. “Anyway. I had… I had a complete meltdown on that ship, ariishir. I didn’t want to be part of the war.”

  “And you think Jahir will want it. Or at least, that he’ll figure it out.”

  “Jahir has to do it. It’s a… a feudal promise thing. And of course he said that he’d love me no matter what I decided, but he had to say it to me because I was exploding and it was… it was awful. I wasn’t what he needed me to be while facing what we were facing, and we might have died. It was bad.”

  She pulled her head back just enough to be able to stare him in one eye.

  “It was bad,” Vasiht’h repeated. He flinched, remembering. “But we made it home, and now… well. The war’s coming. No, I’ll be honest. It’s probably already started. And I still don’t want to be part of it, but I failed Jahir once already by coming apart on him on the shuttle. I don’t want to suck the strength out of him when he’s going to need it. And I don’t…” He hesitated.

  “You don’t want to be the cowardly partner, either.” She fanned a feathered ear. “I could say that plenty of people say goodbye to their Fleet spouses while those spouses go to fight, and that doesn’t make them less worthy. But I’m guessing that wouldn’t help.”

  “No,” Vasiht’h said. “I know I’m not a coward. It was hard for me, but I managed both fights. I was even useful. I guess that’s the problem. I know I can do it. But I still don’t want to. Not really.”

  Sehvi didn’t answer immediately, and that more than anything made him feel better. If she’d had some glib response to his troubles, that would have proven they were petty. And the solid weight of her against his side was more comfort than he’d had in longer than he could remember. It wasn’t that Jahir didn’t give him everything he was capable of… but he gave… everything he was capable of. And an Eldritch, even as forthcoming an Eldritch as Jahir, couldn’t give his body freely, even in the most casual way. Every single one of Jahir’s touches was freighted with enormous meaning. It couldn’t be comforting because it was too busy being momentous.

  But Sehvi’s hug was just a hug. It didn’t cost her anything to give it. And there was something wholesome about accepting it, knowing that.

  Maybe, Vasiht’h thought, that was the instinct that had spurred him to detour here before continuing to Anseahla. For years now he’d been living on the terms he and Jahir had reached after compromise, and unavoidably those terms meant there was a dash of high-minded Eldritch poetry to his life. That there was a sense of great deeds and grand designs to it. He loved that about Jahir, that the Eldritch brought that romance to his life, and he knew Jahir needed the mundanities Vasiht’h offered in trade. Needed, and valued them. It was the best kind of compromise, because it gave so much to its participants.

  But the Chatcaavan war and the Galare part in it was too much poetry. He needed to bury his nose in fur that smelled familiar, watch Glaseahn kits tumble over one another and get into too much trouble, and carry picnic hampers strapped to his back rather than medpacks. He needed grounding, and he was grateful beyond words that Sehvi had encouraged him to stay as long as he needed.

  “You haven’t said anything,” he said at last.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to say.” Sehvi shifted against him, and for once she sounded grave. “Whatever happens, you’re going to make the choice you can live with at the moment. Until the moment comes, you won’t know what it is… and no advice will prepare you for it. Prayer, maybe. But advice?” She shook her head. “I can’t give it to you. I’m not that wise.”

  He slid his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly. “Would it be cliché to say that’s one of the wisest things you’ve said?”

  She sighed. “Figures. The only time I can be accused of wisdom is when I’m busy denying I have it.”

  Vasiht’h grinned.

  “You’ll stay a while?”

  “I’m in no rush. He won’t be back for two weeks.”

  “Good. Because if I’m not mistaken…” Sehvi trailed off, ear fanning. They both heard the sound of a door opening. “…those are your nephews, and I haven’t told them you were coming.”

  Which was all the warning Vasiht’h had before all three of them spilled into the room, saw him, and uttered shrieks of delight. The dense body of his first nephew bowled him over the couch, and then he had his arms full of exuberant children, all competing with one another for his attention and, apparently, his judgment over which of them could talk the loudest and fastest. He laughed through it and as he tried to calm them down he thought of the road he’d decided to walk. This was what he could expect at the end of it.

  He found he couldn’t wait.

  Many factors might have conspired to trouble Jahir’s sleep. The agitation of travel, certainly. The nagging guilt over having pushed Lisinthir into deflowering him ahead of schedule—could he laugh about the term now? And the astonishing revelation that he was apparently some sort of Church-damned mind-mage, who might also be unable to continue the work he’d devoted himself to in the Alliance without poisoning his own clients.

  Jahir had expected to suffer a stream of nightmares. It would have been appropriate. But he woke instead beneath the arm of his cousin after a blameless night, refreshed in body, and before he could consider the state of his spirit the kiss on the back of his neck sucked all conscious thought to the skin beneath his cousin’s lips. Would he ever stop being so dazed by carnal distraction? Would Sediryl find it charming, if she decided to wed him?

  Why was he so calm about all this?

  “My cousin wakes,” Lisinthir said. “And I am grateful, for I have an errand to run and it will take me a little time.”

  “An errand?” Jahir swam through the last ripples of desire toward clear-headedness. He thought his confusion might resolve into… offense that he was being abandoned so quickly? The idea amused him. “I am so easy to leave.”

  “You are impossible to leave, which is why I haven’t yet.” A husky chuckle. This time it was not lips on the back of his neck, but teeth, pulling the skin over the vertebra away from it just enough to splash sparks across Jahir’s vision. “But I find I must arrange for our late morning and early afternoon. We have a great deal to do.”

  “We do?”

  More sober. “We do. There is the small matter of these unexpected talents we’ve manifested, which need testing.”

  That doused the fire under his skin handily. “I see.”

  “You do, yes. So I must make arrangements. While I am gone, you should call your beloved.”

  The suggestion—command—caught him off balance. “I… thought you would have had other plans for our morning.”

  “Like continuing your sensual education?” A hint of amusement leavened by affection. “I won’t lie… I was so tempted. But you need to talk to Vasiht’h, and I must run my errands and—” A pause then, and a firmer, quieter tone, “We will not have a repetition of yesterday’s precipitousness. I would like the next time I have you to be less fraught. And for that, we have a great deal to discuss.”

  Jahir could almost hear Vasiht’h’s comment in his mind: something about relationships requiring communication to thrive. He sighed. “I don’t suppose I could seduce you into skipping the difficult parts.”

  Lisinthir chuckled. “That, I judge, was a joke, which means you are well enough for me to leave.”

  “Perhaps,” Jahir allowed. “Will you be gone so long?”

  “I don’t think so. I have done some preliminary research already, and I think I know what I need. But you have time for a longish talk with your beloved and a shower, or bath. You will want the latter badly.”

  Hearing it made him realize how very true that was. “And then?”

  “And then dress as you usually do, and we shall have an adventure.”

  The ripple of merriment Jahir felt through their skins made him smile despite himself. “You are enjoying yourself.”

  “I am, a little.” Another kiss, this one small and apologetic, on the back
of Jahir’s shoulder. He would almost have called it familial, except that there was no escaping the carnal promise in his cousin’s touch. “Ere you leave, my cousin, I will have made sure that you are as well.”

  “Enjoying myself?” Jahir managed a lopsided smile and looked over his shoulder to share it with Lisinthir. “God and Lady, I hope so.”

  “Then we’re decided.” Lisinthir kissed him between the eyes then, a whimsical kiss. “You to your errand and I to mine. Yes?”

  “I suppose you have my leave to go, Imtherili.”

  “So gracious, Galare. I’ll remember that next time I have you under me.”

  Jahir shuddered and shoved an elbow back until it hit something. “If you aren’t going to tumble me, don’t tease.”

  “I hear and obey!” Lisinthir laughed. “No, no, not the elbow again. I’ll be good, I promise.” He rolled out of bed, all liquescent grace. “And eat breakfast, cousin my dear. You’ll want it.”

  When had he become not just cousin, but ‘dear’? But then, was that really unexpected given they’d been lovers? They had been… God and Lady. He was no longer an innocent. He couldn’t tell if he was glad, relieved, or appalled. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, vaguely aware of his cousin’s movements into the bathroom, out of it, dressing.

  Lisinthir reappeared above him, hair spilling over one shoulder: once again the Eldritch prince, from the velvets and the sapphires braided into the hair alongside one ear to the faint scent of ambergris, sweet and musky and somehow erotic.

  His cousin searched his eyes. Jahir let him look. Whatever he betrayed in that gaze moved Lisinthir to cup his jaw.

  “All right?” he asked, quiet.

  “I think,” Jahir answered in kind, but he was grateful to be asked. He felt seen again, and that comforted. Perhaps Lisinthir understood, because his cousin’s dark eyes softened, and that kiss was tender. There was something exquisitely vulnerable about accepting that sweetness, delivered while he lay bruised and naked beneath his cousin, with the knowledge of all they’d done together implied… and all there was to come as well.