by R. Cooper
Larin’s head went back as though Taji had caught him by surprise. Then someone—drunk Gia, perhaps—gasped.
Next to Talfa, Nikay glanced between Taji and his emperor before drawing himself up.
“I understand,” Rinnah said quietly, almost to herself.
Taji had been somewhere between teasing and serious when he’d made the request. He wasn’t really a shehzha, wasn’t a trained courtesan. He barely knew how to flirt. But he learned systems, and the rules said Taji was to be given whatever he wanted, especially by someone trying to woo him.
The fact that Taji didn’t want to be wooed, and that Larin probably only meant it as an insult to Trenne or IPTC, didn’t matter. He had to say yes.
Somehow, Taji was still shocked to hear him say it—in an indirect, Shavian way.
“Talfa’s presence tomorrow does not concern me. If Talfa wishes to be stubborn, then let their safety rest with the Koel.” Larin’s gaze was as sharp as his tone. “The Koel seem to have an excess of honor. The hunt is a better use for it than entertaining offworlders in my place.”
“We would be delighted for more talks with Larin Emperor,” Tsomyal interjected.
Larin ignored that as much as he ignored the restless wariness among the Koel, or Nikay’s watchful stance.
“You, little human shehzha. Little Taji from beyond the rings, from the stars themselves.” Larin bestowed the titles with an edge in his voice. “You will not hunt. I will bring you prizes, and you will eat with me and tell me if the honor of the Pride of the Olea compares to your distant worlds.”
Taji shook his head, the first reaction he could manage that wasn’t stepping back or running away. Dozens of blank faces watched him, measuring, or disapproving, or feeling sorry for him, but none of them did anything about it, whatever they felt. Whether that was because he was human, or because they were scared of the emperor, it didn’t matter. Taji was shehzha, powerful and helpless, and no one was going to help him or tell him what he ought to do. Not even Tsomyal.
His breath rasped in his dry throat. “It will compare. Everything in the universe is different. Everything is worthy of interest and study. It does not make any one thing better than any other. Not unless you mean personal preference, my personal preference, and you cannot possibly care about that. No one cares about that.”
“Mr. Ameyo,” Tsomyal chided him.
Taji put his fingers to his bottom lip, thick with shimmer. “Except Trenne.”
“Only one, in all of your vast universe?” Larin was soft, or mocking, Taji couldn’t tell.
Taji shook his head firmly. “It is not my universe and I have not seen all of it, but I could spend my lifetime talking about what I have seen. I could spend my lifetime just talking about your moon. That is where I was before I came here. I spoke their ‘Asha before I spoke yours.”
Several Shavians raised their heads to the sky. Taji did too, and was taken aback at the clear view after the clouds that morning. The rings brilliantly, vividly violet, shining with the reflected light of their moons.
Taji lifted his hand to put it against the rings, which looked close enough to touch, to drag his fingers through.
That’s what Trenne had said, the way some humans made jokes about reaching for the stars or catching comets in their palms. Taji from beyond the rings, Larin had named him. As if Taji’s very existence was too impossible to imagine.
“The shepherd moon is filled with miners,” Taji remarked while attempting to run his fingers through rings that looked mysterious but were nothing more than cosmic dust held together by gravity. “Most of the mining infrastructure is underground, although there are above-ground communities. You can stand in them and look out—look down to this planet.”
Taji dropped his hand. “The first time I left my home—when I turned and saw it as one planet among many, surrounded by so much space—I almost cried.” He had cried, in fact. “It was nothing. I was nothing in all of that.” He lowered his head to face everyone again. “Do you know how many empires have risen and fallen and have yet to exist? How much we do not know about them? Or could ever possibly learn? That is what haunts me—all the things I will never know. We want to think we are special, but no. We are not. I learned that before I ever left my planet. No one gets everything they want. But at least I get to study what I please, and do something to memorialize the things that came before us, and leave something for those who will come after.”
He realized his voice was trembling. “It is frightening, but it is not the end. I will compare what is out there to what is here, but there is also no comparison. It is all different. It is all interesting. Some of it is wonderful and some of it is not. But whichever it is, learning about it, that is amazing. That is my preference. So it will not be forgotten.”
“Mr. Ameyo,” Tsomyal warned on an exhale as if Taji had gone too far. No one else seemed to be breathing.
In contrast, Taji’s chest was heaving.
“Forgotten?” someone echoed, a small cry in the silence.
Larin turned toward his guests but angled his head to stare at Taji. “You can always rely on a shehzha for honesty,” he remarked lightly. This time he wasn’t praising. “Even when they are mistaken.” Larin rested his hand on his belt, as if Taji wasn’t already frozen. “Our history is older than your I.P.T.C. and you insist you cannot compare them? Your empire spans systems but all they send here are a handful of you, most too weak to survive.”
“It is beautiful here,” Taji blurted. “That is what I was trying to say. It does not take away from that to say this is not the only planet—”
“You are very smart, little Taji, but you do not yet appreciate all that is at my command, and what the Sha have done for you.”
The ‘yet’ sent Taji’s heart pounding.
“Yes, this posting has been difficult for many I.P.T.C. members in the past, but here we are in your exquisite garden.” Tsomyal’s throaty rumble was placating but the words themselves were scathing. The translators in use probably didn’t do them justice.
Tsomyal had their head up, their eyes on Larin, but Larin took about as much notice of them as he did of his sister’s careful, “Larin.”
“Your words and deeds are established tradition the moment they are done,” Taji said quickly. “No one here doubts that.” A lie in a truth. The others might not doubt their history, but they doubted Larin. The Koel had all but announced it. “It is the emperor who keeps the country stable.” By controlling the nobles, and by being an example of whatever the Sha needed their emperor to be: smart, brave, and honorable.
“According to you, the empire is nothing.” Even when quiet, Larin was aware of his audience. “But you worry. Are you afraid of me?” The softer Larin got, the more certain Taji was that Larin wanted everyone to hear, to have them leaning forward and straining to catch every humiliating word. “There is no need for that,” Larin scolded almost tenderly. “I have ensured your safety. Even with your animal, the Guard will be nearby to save you if necessary. Do you think I would harm you? Not even the Koel would accuse me of that.”
Taji shook his head. “I am sure your shehzha is honored.”
Larin assessed Taji with a long look and then angled his head higher. “Would you like to see for yourself?” he offered, and the noblest of the Sha forgot themselves as his words rolled through the crowd.
“You cannot.” Eriat was the only one there who would try to command the emperor.
Larin grinned to show both sets of fangs. “Tradition is established by the emperor, as Taji has said. And a shehzha stands among us now, far, far away from his eshe. But which one should I call?” After a moment of what had to be feigned internal debate, Larin looked at Mos. “Tell Elii I wish to see him.”
“Elii?” Rinnah’s voice broke on the name. “You made Elii…Elii, Larin? For how long?”
“Not long.” Larin took a step toward his sister, but stopped when she visibly stiffened.
“Elii?” she demanded again, f
irming her voice. “How could you, knowing that he—?”
“That is exactly why, Rinnah, as you would understand if you were ever to become emperor.” Larin gentled but only for a moment. “I asked you to summon my shehzha, Inri.”
Mos moved without a sound, speeding through the garden to the buildings beyond.
“It fades. It always fades, until there is only the schemer beneath,” Larin told Rinnah. “Unless there is feeling first. That works best, as you will someday see.”
Rinnah clenched her jaw. “If the bond is new, he should not be out. You cannot do this, Larin. Not even you.”
“What a thing to say to the emperor,” Nikay commented, low-voiced but pointed. “You need someone to care for you, Rinnah.”
“And that is you, Nikay?” Talfa asked, with a nervous hitch in their breathing.
“How many?” Taji shut all of them up. He faced Larin. “How many do you have?”
“At this moment?” Larin asked in return, delighted at the question. “Three.”
Talfa made a wheezing, gasping sound. Or maybe that was Taji, he couldn’t say. He slipped his hand back inside his soria and clung to the one thing he was sure of—the comm unit, and Trenne.
“Three,” he repeated. If he was dazed, he couldn’t imagine how the more respectable nobles around him felt. The rumors about the emperor had never given a number or said anything concrete about how he had behaved. Taji jerked his head up. “Elii liked you—held you in high regard. Nikay said so. You chose him because he loved you? And the others…‘feeling first’ you said. You make them love you?” Taji forgot for a moment that Shavians had no word for or concept of romantic love, but he left it untranslated. “But you knew him. You knew him when you were children, so why would you—? Oh. Oh, that’s why.”
Schemer, he’d said.
“Because you can rely on shehzha for honesty.” Taji tried to focus. “What age did you become emperor? Were they all like Nikay, all your new friends? Every important person I have seen has been surrounded by followers and people who wanted things from them. So you could not trust anyone? So you—? I…” Taji’s voice seemed to get thin. “Do you honor them?”
“Smart, little Taji.” Larin gave Taji a new name with pleasure. “You are not being honored enough if you can still think that quickly.”
Air caught painfully in Taji’s throat, but no one noticed him choke. Their attention went as one to the figure trailing uncertainly after Mos. And then, also as one, many of them suddenly found something else to look at—the moons and the rings, the cups in their hands. Anything and everything but the shehzha approaching them.
Others looked, though. Rinnah, her eyes wide, and Talfa for another moment before also turning away. Nikay’s gaze was steady, curious.
Taji looked, had to, at the Shavian with a long, shadowed torso and thick waves of unbound hair.
Elii balked at seeing the assembled nobles but his eyes never left Larin. “Larin,” he called from a distance. His voice was hoarse. “Larin, please.”
“You should not do this to him.” Eriat was being rigid and old-fashioned again but Taji had never liked him more. “The human is different. He asks for this. Shyril Elii does not.”
“He is not Shyril now. He is shehzha.” Larin dismissed Eriat, then raised his voice. “Elii, taffi, do you hurt?”
“I missed you.” Elii was shaking, Taji realized. It could have been with cold, since he only wore a pair of loose pants, but Taji didn’t think it was.
“Then will you come to me?” Larin coaxed him forward with a mild tone and three words. “To touch me?”
“Yes!” Elii answered, already moving. He made straight for Larin, and even the Shavians not looking at him were quick to step out of his path. His chest was bare, and he wore no belt or knife. Only Larin’s clothing prevented more of their skin from touching when Elii immediately pressed himself to Larin’s body. His shudders were violent. “I need you. Please. Please, Larin. Haven’t I waited long enough?” He buried his face against Larin’s neck, then licked a stripe along Larin’s throat.
Larin put a hand to his back to pull him closer, and turned Elii’s body. Taji abruptly had a full view of the line of Elii’s cock straining against his dampened pants, and the tiny beads of sweat dripping down Elii’s shoulder. Larin met Taji’s stare and raised his head, allowing Elii to continue nipping and licking at his neck.
“Please,” Elii begged, so needy Taji finally lowered his gaze to the floor. Elii had dark skin and a full mouth and the sounds he made had Taji aroused and then sickened at himself.
“You cannot control yourself, can you?” Larin cupped the back of Elii’s head and fondly ran his fingertips along the edge of one of Elii’s ears. “You will do anything for me, taffi?”
Taffi, an especially sweet green fruit, soft and messy to eat.
“Yes.” Elii answered. “Yes. Yes, Larin. You know that. Even this. Please, eshe, I ache.”
Taji made a fist around the comm unit.
“Those chemicals,” he said, grinding out the words and surprising himself with the force behind them, “will wear off eventually. But his shame will remain forever.”
Shehzha was something beautiful that Trenne had dreamed of. Shehzha was supposed to be give and take, and maybe sequestering shehzha altogether was wrong, but this was worse. This was public. These were Elii’s peers and friends, and when the flurry in his brain had faded he would still remember this. “He trusts you.”
“And I have honored him.” Larin stroked Elii’s back, his hand splayed wide. “I will give him everything he wants.”
“He does not want this.” Taji felt as if he was vibrating. His skin was hot but inside his stomach was cold.
“He wants what I decide he wants,” Larin countered, composed again, half-focused on calming Elii as if his touches weren’t making Elii shiver more.
A commotion to the side brought Taji’s eyes up. Eriat was leaving, Gia with him.
“You can say anything you like here, Taji shehzha, speak your defiant words. But when you are alone with your hurat, you are nothing but this.” Larin eased his head back and Elii whined at the distance this created. “Needy and weak. Aching and ever-lonely.”
Talfa raised a shaking hand to cover their eyes.
“Trenne would not do that to me.” Taji glared at Larin, at Rinnah, his two Guards. “And if he did, I would leave.”
Rinnah opened her mouth, but if she had something to say about tradition, Taji did not want to hear it.
“Yes, it is a shock to the body. And yes, I bet everything about severing a connection like that is hard on the brain, if not damaging.” Taji let himself shake because he couldn’t stop. “I bet it hurts. I bet he is in pain right now and you are letting him be in pain. But pain is livable.” Taji briefly closed his eyes. “Do you think I do not know about spending days in agony, wishing I was dead so the pain would be over?” He gestured furiously at his leg. “Do you think this is the worst I have ever had? Do you think shehzha are honest? Truly? Or do you know deep down that fear of pain is what keeps them with you when it could have been something else?”
“One hurat in your bed makes you an expert?” Nikay sneered. “He is not Sha.”
“Perhaps one more tradition will need to be changed for the human shehzha to understand what I mean by honor.” Eyes still locked on Taji, Larin slipped two fingers into Elii’s mouth. Elii moaned, pleased and frustrated. Taji stared for a moment, lips parted, then turned his head away again.
“That is…” Tsomyal didn’t seem to know what to say.
Not that Larin cared. “Would your hurat like to hunt among real Sha, little Taji? Perhaps his soldiers too, if they would not be too frightened.”
Taji resolutely shook his head. Trenne wanted nothing to do with Larin. “No, but—”
Tsomyal interrupted him. “If the emperor wishes it, they will be happy to join your hunt.”
Where Trenne would be in danger, with no allies but his own soldiers, who
would be in unfamiliar terrain, hunting who knew what kind of creature.
Taji swung around to gape at Tsomyal and tried not to see Larin out of the corner of his eye. But of course, Larin had positioned himself to be seen.
“Then tomorrow Taji will discover what honor means.” Larin announced. He traced Elii’s open lips with wet fingertips.
“This is the sacred bond you all treasure so much?” Taji’s voice cracked. “This is—”
Tsomyal was suddenly in front of Taji, reaching out without touching. “Perhaps, Mr. Ameyo, you should go and find the sergeant major.”
“Yes,” Larin agreed, while Taji’s skin burned with humiliation. “Let him calm you, if he can. See him tonight, before the hunt takes him tomorrow.”