by R. Cooper
Taji gaped at the two IPTC soldiers and the Inri dressed as one, then stared up at Trenne.
Trenne continued to talk with his team, switching between his comm and the others in front of him. “He will have to be moved. The situation now may change at any time. Markita will be ready.” Markita lazily saluted. “Lin will assist and—” Something cut Trenne off. “Understood.”
Trenne turned toward Mos, gesturing to get her attention, which was when Taji realized that Mos’s ears looked off because she had what appeared to be cloth or bandages stuffed into them. The sonic weapon must have caused damage. It was likely the same for Lin. No wonder Trenne was communicating with Nev and not his second-in-command.
Taji gave her a wave, then frowned. “But Mos was taken.”
“We thought her transport was yours.” Rodian made a rueful face. “She’s been doing all right, though.”
“You took down her transport?” Taji demanded in disbelief. Trenne began to pet his neck; Taji leaned into it.
“We thought it was yours,” Markita echoed Rodian. “Even you might get combat pay when this is over, Mouth—Taji, uh, shehzha.” He studied Taji without allowing his gaze to get anywhere near Trenne. “You look okay. I told them you’d be fine. You’re too scary.”
Rodian sighed and smacked Markita’s bicep. “Stim pills and adrenaline have him excited. How are you really, Taji shehzha?”
“You guys can go back to calling me Mouth.” Taji needed that to end right now. “Please.” He swallowed. “How’s Lin? Is she mad? Wait. I am having trouble focusing. Sorry. Nadir is good? Did you see him? I didn’t get to see him. How did you find him?”
“We hunted for you.” Mos still wouldn’t look at him. “I have some knowledge of the Olea estates. We hunted in the cells first.”
“Took some time,” Markita added. “Trenne is careful and we were trying to be slick. Get in, get out, get the fuck off this planet. But, uh, it was easier than we thought.”
“Which made us more nervous, him most of all. And it was a lot of places to search. Even in this one house.” Rodian ran his fingers over the hilt of his knife. “Once we saw Nadir…any noble we saw after that deserved what they got.”
“Koel Talfa,” Mos interrupted out of nowhere, turning toward the outer doors. “Taji shehzha was where you said he would be, on this floor.”
“Talfa?” Taji jerked out of Trenne’s arms in surprise. “Where are the Imperial Guard?”
“Gone.” Talfa’s voice drifted to him. “You should not be surprised, after what happened.”
Taji burrowed into Trenne’s arms and didn’t look up. “I am a tired, scared shehzha. Someone please explain.”
“The Guard have vanished from these halls.” Trenne resumed petting him. “Nev and Lin are going to get Nadir out of this place. The ambassador’s residence still has the pre-C bed, and Nev believes that will help Nadir heal more than Shavian medicine. Markita will go with them—now.” Markita grunted agreement. “We do not have a way to manufacture human blood here and Markita is Nadir’s type. The rest of us searched for you after we found Nadir.”
“Your wounded soldier insisted we find Koel Talfa first, and it was fortunate we did, as they had knowledge about your location that we did not.” Mos was a touch too loud but no one commented. She was also delicate. “They seemed to believe Larin would have you very close. And they were correct.” She wasn’t asking, but her words still held a question.
“Are you well, Taji shehzha?” Talfa sounded closer. “I could not stop him.”
Trenne, mid-answer to Nev, went quiet.
Taji’s stomach swooped and went cold like he was in a flier.
“Taji shehzha?” Talfa prompted. “You have the right to my life. I am still Sha, even if others are not.”
“Stop,” Taji ordered thickly. His hands were fists in Trenne’s shirt but he didn’t want to hit anything. He wanted to never speak of it and never hear it mentioned. It made him feel trembling and helpless. Every person there was big and armed. They wouldn’t understand. “It does not matter.”
“What does not matter?” Trenne asked, with care.
Taji raised his head to stare pleadingly at him. They could talk about it later, or not at all.
Trenne’s ears went flat.
Talfa start speaking faster and louder, shocked. “You did not tell him?”
Taji didn’t look away from Trenne. “It’s not important.”
Trenne blinked twice. “Did he hurt you? Taji?” he prompted gently when Taji wouldn’t go on.
Taji was human. None of this should even matter to him. But it meant something to them, to Larin, and maybe that was why Taji was ashamed.
“Larin touched me,” Taji admitted at last. “I did not want him to.”
He had expected silence from Trenne, but not from the others. Only Talfa continued to talk, to whom Taji couldn’t say.
“I protested, but I was bound, and Larin sent me back to the cells. Olea Rinnah did as well. You should know. I do not think she is free, here.” Talfa’s voice was barely a murmur. “It was honorable, what Taji shehzha did. Others might not understand, but I saw. I do not believe I was the only one.”
Trenne’s gaze stayed on Taji. “What did Taji shehzha do?”
Taji desperately shook his head to keep from answering.
“He spoke the truth and made Larin show what he is,” Talfa explained with the same excitement that they used to describe a vid to Nadir. “It was witnessed,” they pronounced with proud emphasis. “Even if Larin does not yet realize, although he must if the Imperial Guard are gone. What he did to his own, the Guard would forgive. No one else can truly know what happens between eshe and shehzha. People will make excuses. But this? Larin should not have. Not ever, but not in public. He should not.”
“Yes,” Trenne agreed. The others were still silent.
“I didn’t ask him to,” Taji said in Anglisky then switched to a clumsy ‘Asha. “I did not try to be his shehzha. I tried to see if I would be safe, if I could be what you thought I was. The kind that could control emperors. So I pushed. I pushed him to be like you, and he…I thought the rules would hold.”
“Nev.” Trenne activated his comm again after the pause when Taji couldn’t go on. His voice was husky. “Once Markita arrives, leave. Make sure Nadir gets to the bed. Lin will know what to do.”
Mos spoke up. “Taji shehzha should go with them.”
“What?” Taji ducked away from Trenne’s heavy stare to look at the others. Markita was gone. Rodian and Mos and Talfa formed a wide triangle. Talfa was still in their stained soria, but also clutching a very large knife. Where Talfa had gotten it was probably something Taji didn’t want to know. He glared wildly between them. “What’s going on? You’re not leaving with me?”
“Washing up to do,” Rodian was cryptic. “You’ve been here long enough, Mouth. You should know that by now.”
“He still experiences the longing,” Mos said to Rodian. “His thoughts are not clear. That is why he should go.”
“Without Trenne?” Taji turned back to Trenne. His hands were still tight fists in Trenne’s shirt. “Do you not want me anymore now that you know? I’m not the shehzha you thought. I know. I knew it before, but I thought I could…live, like you said. That’s all.”
“You wound me again.” Trenne cupped Taji’s cheek. “My shehzha, who believes he did not control an emperor.”
“I didn’t,” Taji insisted.
“You taunted him as no one else could, drove him to forget himself, and the Sha. He put you here,” Trenne continued, “when he should not have. You took his empire, Taji Ameyo. Do you truly believe with your human heart that you could not be important to me? Worth my blood and my life?”
“Trenne,” Taji whispered, clinging to him like the needy shehzha he was. “Trenne, you are the best person.” Suddenly, Taji knew no words. “The greatest being I know. Brave, and smart, and kind. You are honor. You don’t have to worry about me—how I feel for you. Y
ou don’t need to say those things. IPTC left me on a moon. I’m not special like you.”
“Special,” Trenne said, low and sad, and brushed two slightly rough fingertips over Taji’s mouth. He took a deep breath. “Koel Talfa, I would ask that you keep him safe.” He didn’t wait for Taji to stop squawking or Talfa to do more than stutter that it was their honor. “Taji Ameyo.” Trenne killed Taji with just that. “I have no empire. No family name. No history. But all that I am is yours, if you will have it.”
“Ah,” Talfa murmured, though Taji himself had no air in his lungs.
Trenne’s ears flicked in several directions, uncertain or listening to sounds Taji couldn’t hear. When Taji only stared at him for too many long moments, Trenne put his hands on Taji’s shoulders to gently set him aside. He turned to look at Rodian and then Mos. “Lin will be upset but not surprised,” he announced, before pulling his knife. “You do not have to,” Trenne said to Rodian alone.
“It’s a thing to see, isn’t it?” Rodian returned. “More than a scrap in the woods. And Lin would want one of us there.”
Mos straightened up. “I will witness and finish it if you do not,” she told Trenne. “The pale one would insist, as does honor.”
“What?” Taji demanded at last, catching on too late to what was happening but hoping he was wrong. “Trenne, you can’t! It’s dangerous!”
Trenne was already halfway to the shutter doors, steps silent and sure, knife on display. He turned long enough to face Taji. “I will decide what to give my life to.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry.” Taji tripped over his tongue. “But I would never ask you for that, Trenne. I prefer you alive. You know that,” he finished in a small voice.
“He assaulted you,” Trenne replied, neatly shutting Taji up. “I would offer my blood to right that. It is my honor to do it, Taji Ameyo.”
Taji shook his head. “What does that even mean when the wolves are already at his door?” Taji left wolves untranslated and unexplained, though to be honest he wasn’t entirely sure if all his words were in ‘Asha anyway. “We are so close to leaving and being alive, and we never have to speak of this if you don’t want to. Honor is just an idea. A thing. He touched me, yeah, but I am not mourning some idea of stolen virtue!”
“Did you believe you lost it?” Trenne stared at Taji with shock and outrage openly on his face and that was enough to leave Taji frozen. Trenne took a breath and wiped his expression free of everything. He made his voice deliberately gentle. “Did you think he took your honor from you? He could not. You do not control your face or your words, you do not keep your emotions private, but those are not the core of honor.”
Vatli’ie. One of many words Taji’s predecessor had never gotten a chance to investigate and had left at honor like the translator before him. And Taji had assumed… Taji had assumed a lot of things.
“Oh,” Taji exhaled softly. “If the core of honor was emotions kept to private spaces only, a shehzha would have no honor to give up in the first place.”
“Those things are done…because they are done.” Talfa’s tone said no explanation should have been required. “Those things are done because they must be if we are to function.”
“For the sake of the Sha,” Mos added. “To keep the empire. So the people are contented. So there is calm.”
“Composure and control and dignity…” Taji trailed off, not that everyone there understood his rural Anglisky mutterings. He had once thought robbery was beneath the dignity of Shavians. He had almost been right. “They don’t have courts. They have honor. And everyone acts that way…to think of others? Not in a giving way but in…to lose control is to be selfish or self-serving—or it can be, so it must be avoided? More so for the nobility than…or…that is the most confusing…”
He went silent again, only to raise his head to glare at Trenne. “How is my honor great? That doesn’t make sense. No, never mind that. When you say ‘it is your honor’—when you say that to me in that way, what does it mean? Honor is law that is public behavior and private feeling, which the emperor should have demonstrated and failed to. And then you tell me that it is your honor to bring me snacks…I can’t think right now, Trenne. Please. Tell me.”
Trenne hesitated, holding still like he did when trying to think of words to explain something to clueless humans, how to translate the untranslatable.
“My public life…” Trenne started, then stopped to begin again. “The person I show to them, that I was trained to be, was for their good, not mine. I lived here. I was taught their ways, but their peace was not meant for me. My honor then was the person I became for them and was used to being, but I did not understand what my honor truly was until I left them. When I found my people, all the way through the stars, I saw how my honor would at last serve me. It is my honor to protect my team, and you. You have this, peha, my service, in public and in private, in all things small and great. Because in your honor, you believe that things can be changed or remembered. Your honor goes far beyond the rings, but you have always been careful with mine, even when you did not know you had it. You should never be surprised at what I would give to you.”
With a few steps, he was out the doors.
Rodian followed him, expression as serious and focused as Taji had ever seen it. Mos showed no sign of her injury as she went after them.
Taji kicked himself into motion. “Trenne?” he called out. He received no answer, although Trenne would have heard him. Taji stormed past Talfa, hobbling only slightly, and yelled it again. “Trenne! I know you can hear me!” He didn’t care about Trenne’s service, or this. He cared about Trenne, alive and well and not here.
But Trenne cared about this. It mattered to him so much he’d said no to Taji in order to do it.
Taji was shaking.
“Trenne!” he tried again anyway.
“I believe I am meant to stop you.” Talfa held out one arm in front of Taji then withdrew it when Taji stopped. “Apologies.”
Taji turned and looked up to consider Talfa. He was too agitated to be quiet. “He will kill Larin.”
“He will try, yes,” Talfa agreed. “It is his right. Larin knows that, although I do not know if Larin is aware your hu—Trenne is here. That is the choice Larin made when he touched you. He supposed there would be no consequences, but he was wrong.” Talfa swung their knife, which was more of a short, serrated sword, down toward the floor. “I am not certain when the Imperial Guard removed themselves either, if they would have left us in the cells forever. They have made their judgment.”
Taji blinked and lifted his gaze from the sharp end of Talfa’s sword. “Nadir.” For a second, maybe two, Taji’s mind could focus again. “Did you see him before you came here?”
Talfa startled, then settled, their head up. “Yes. He was not…aware of me. They tell me this ‘C-bed’ will help.”
“Pre-C,” Taji corrected shortly. “It is a joke. Gallows—um, soldier humor. It means pre-coffin—which is a thing some humans are put into when they die.” Talfa’s ears flew straight up. Taji put out a hand. “They call it that because you only use it when you have to.” Explaining medical comas was beyond Taji’s current capabilities. “It helps heal.”
“Human bodies incur much damage without immediate death.” Talfa was subdued but kept their head up. “Even so, you have no place in front of a knife, Taji shehzha. You still do not have one?”
A response to that was a waste of Taji’s limited energy. Speaking in ‘Asha was exhausting enough. “I will not leave without Trenne. You will have to carry me if you want me to go, and to do that, you will have to touch me.” Trenne hadn’t gone after Mos for touching Taji to save him and wouldn’t have gone after Lin for it either. Taji was reasonably certain there were exceptions to the rule that included both exigent circumstances and the will of the shehzha. Anyway, Trenne wasn’t doing this out of possessiveness, something Taji couldn’t begin to imagine. But Talfa might not know that.
Talfa rega
rded Taji with an air of confusion. “I was asked to keep you safe, not to take you anywhere. I do not think your Trenne expects you to have reason or to do what is safest or wisest—apologies.” Talfa scratched one ear. “Apologies,” they said again. “I mean only the longing. Not that you are foolish.”
Taji ignored all of that. “He is going to do it.” IPTC had every confidence in Trenne. Taji had no doubt Trenne was capable. But… “The Guard are really gone? Whose blood is—”
“Most chose to be in that room with Larin.” Talfa’s interruption was soft. “Some, I am sure, were slow to leave his side even after what they witnessed. Others wanted to be there and did not mind what they saw. But all of them know it offers no honor to mock or hurt a shehzha with no protection. It gives the Sha nothing to watch a helpless human struggle to breathe. It would have had more honor if they had killed him outright.”