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  Maia grinned. “Just say what you’re really thinking.”

  “What I’m really thinking is that I want to be the one to save them, because the idea that our enemies might have taken people who matter to me—who matter—is infuriating?” Sediryl said, tasting the truth of that in herself.

  Maia met her eyes steadily.

  “Connect me with Lisinthir, please, alet.”

  “Opening the channel.”

  Sediryl waited, fighting impatience and worry. She didn’t think Lisinthir would disagree with her plan, but she could always be wrong. She had been wrong about a great many things in her life, and while she did not begrudge the lessons those mistakes had taught her—eventually—it had taken her a great deal of time to admit to that gratitude.

  “Imthereli here. Cousin, I find you alone?”

  “He’s gone,” Sediryl said without preface, and only barely wondering at how he’d identified himself. “Pirates, or Chatcaava, or both. We’re going after him.”

  She held her breath.

  He nodded, eyes fixed on hers. “Very good. You’ll report back what you find at regular intervals, yes?”

  “I... yes... Lisinthir, really... that’s all?”

  One brow rose. “Did you truly expect aught else?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. And then managed a weak laugh. “Do I at least get some patronizing advice?”

  He snorted. “No. But advice from one Eldritch in a warzone to another, yes. If you are willing?”

  “Please?” she said, surprised that she meant it.

  Lisinthir said, “Yon crew of yours. Ex-Fleet, I am guessing, or they would not have been assigned to a vessel with your armament.”

  “Maia is, yes.”

  “Then let them advise you on how to proceed so that you may succeed in your mission,” Lisinthir said. His gaze met hers, steady. “I went into the Empire alone, thinking that to do so would sharpen my senses, make me less complacent, and it did. But had I not had help, cousin, I would have failed. Don’t make the mistake of believing that augmenting your own strength with the strength of others implies weakness. Use the weapons that you are given. Be wise in their use. Be willing to trust their advice.” A sudden grin. “And your own judgment, above all.”

  “I... yes.” She was startled. “I admit, that wasn’t what I thought you’d say to me.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Come home, or do it the way I did, maybe, but not ‘learn from my mistakes.’”

  “And if someone does not, what profit those errors?” He leaned forward. “Use the resources God and Goddess and Queen have given you, and track down the source of the link between pirate and dragon. Take your time. We will return with the Emperor and make use of all you have discovered.”

  “You’re not... worried? About Jahir?”

  “With such a deliverance at hand?” Lisinthir grinned. “No. You deserve a prince to rescue, Sediryl Nuera Galare. Go carefully, and good hunting.”

  “Lisinthir,” she said. “We’ll keep in touch.”

  She dropped the connection and inhaled. “Well, Maia. How do we do this smartly?”

  “By being careful and making sure someone knows where we are at regular intervals,” Maia said. “Leave that part to me.”

  “Let’s get going, then,” Sediryl said. “Lisinthir might not be worried about what Jahir’s enduring, but I am.”

  “What did she say?” Na’er said as their mounts made their way through the grassland.

  “The passenger liner was attacked by pirates or Chatcaava, or both,” Lisinthir said, “The ship’s missing.”

  As the Aera swore—creatively and in more than one language—Lisinthir raised his head and drew in a long, slow breath. He flashed back to skin on skin, to blood under his fingers and a prophet’s mouth gasping against his.

  All the tools I could give you, he whispered, I gave you, knowing this moment might come. I pray now they were enough.

  “You seem awfully calm,” Na’er said, ears flat.

  “There’s nothing I can do about that situation,” Lisinthir said. “Or rather, all that I could do, I have done, in delegating it to Sediryl and Maia.”

  “Two people and a ship!”

  “I thought,” the Knife said hesitantly, “that you were of the opinion that your technology was sufficient to oppose anything we might send against it.”

  “Maia has the experience. Sediryl has the nerve—and the motivation,” Lisinthir said. “I trust them with the task that they are placed to handle. We have our own work to do. If we are to rescue not just Jahir and the Queen Ransomed, but the Alliance and the Empire as well, we must find the Emperor.”

  “And you’re going to be all calm about that as well,” Na’er said sourly.

  “I am,” Lisinthir said. “I’m also going to push these mounts, so I hope you have a halo-arch on the ship. You will shortly have the blisters to show for it.”

  “I don’t like sitting on these beasts,” the Knife muttered.

  “Too bad,” Na’er said. “You’re a lot more conspicuous flying.”

  “Have no fear, aletsen,” Lisinthir said. “At the pace I’m about to set, you will not be on them long.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The barren, dim room in which the Emperor had returned to consciousness had been misleading. He’d assumed it to be his new quarters in the manor, but it was, in fact, the examination room reserved for the Worldlord’s alien pets, which were sequestered beneath the harem garden in an underground complex that presumably also served the servants and maintenance crews. When next he woke, it was to the ungentle prodding of the same male who’d done his cursory health check, who clipped a leash—a leash—to his collar and dragged him by it to a wire door that only reached his hip. Six such doors were studded into the wall, and as he stared, a sleepy Harat-Shar looked out hers and then turned away again.

  “In,” the male said, and shoved him. Stumbling, he fell to one knee and thought about resisting, except that it was too hard to think through the fog in his head. The tube before him was no worse than the ones Chatcaavan fighter pilots used as sleeping bunks on small carriers. He had slept in such bunks while working his way up the ranks of the military.

  Those bunks didn’t have wire doors, though.

  The second shove almost drove him in face-first, but if he went in face-first he’d never succeed in turning again. The Emperor hastened around and wiggled into the tube, the male shut the door... and locked it.

  That electronic buzz... how many times had he heard it, used it on his own lockers on ships? On his valuables, what few he’d had.

  And then they left.

  “It’ll get better.”

  The Harat-Shar, whom he could no longer see. But the voice was coming from the kennel above him, where he’d glimpsed her face.

  What to say? What could possibly be said? He’d been penned up like an object, without even enough space to lift a wing. If he’d had a wing. And what good would it be to Change here, trapped like this? He would have to wait for the right opportunity. And he would have to seize that opportunity, because he couldn’t allow himself to be imprisoned here, in this shape, in this cage. He could not win back his Empire from the kennel of a slave.

  “I know you don’t want to talk yet,” the Harat-Shar continued. “That’s okay. We all went through what you’re going through, we understand. But when you’re ready to talk, my name’s Dominika. The rest of us are Andrea, who’s the human, Emlyn the Hinichi, and Simone... you probably won’t see Simone, she never comes down anymore. But she’s a calico Karaka’An, in case she does. Andrea and Emlyn are usually out during the day. I’m usually out during the evenings. Simone... you’ll see when you see.”

  As if he cared to learn their names. As if he was going to be here long enough to know their schedules.

  “Anyway, we’re here for you. When you’re ready.” A rustle, as if the alien was turning onto a different side. In a futile a
ttempt to become more comfortable, maybe.

  He would never be ready. And he wasn’t going to sleep. He had plans to make. Preparations...

  The Emperor woke, groggy and disoriented and tired of both states. The buzz of the lock opening should have alerted him but it hadn’t, and it was one of his captors grabbing him by the hair and giving him a rough shake that brought him conscious.

  “Come,” said the male. Exasperated, to someone behind him, “The stage where they don’t know enough of the language to be able to obey their betters is irritating.”

  “Hopefully it won’t last as long with this one as it did with the last one,” said the other male.

  Another shake. “Now.”

  “Her name is Dainty. She’s been told that.”

  “Is it female?”

  “Oh, no, male. I forget. It’s the build and the limbs, they confuse me.”

  “Dainty, come.”

  He would obey because it would get him out of the kennel... and because the fist in his hair made his scalp throb so badly his eyes were watering. Infuriating, that this weakness should show where they would see it. Why had the Ambassador not revealed how tender humanoid skin was? How had the Emperor not noticed during their tussles when he’d been in Eldritch shape?

  “There, they learn.” The first male clipped the leash back on. “Let’s go prepare it for service.”

  “Her?” the second male said, bemused.

  “Definitely not male, no matter what’s between its legs, or it wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

  “At least it tried to run.”

  The first male snorted. “Prey always runs.”

  And he had... hadn’t he. But he’d had no choice. To live to see his Empire saved... the Emperor thought of the Admiral-Offense and his body tightened in pain. The Admiral-Offense had been a friend. He could say that now, having been taught to admit to such feelings by the Ambassador. A friend. And now, almost certainly, dead covering the Emperor’s retreat. So that he could fall into despair in the slave harem of an enemy? No.

  There would be an opportunity soon to escape. He could slide into the wilderness, lose himself there, make better plans. He’d thought being here where he could hide in plain sight was his best chance of success, but he knew better now. He couldn’t survive long mewed like this. His borrowed human skin was constricting around him.

  The two males led him from the kennels and into the room where he’d been sluiced off the first time. They washed him again, ignoring him to chat about inconsequentials he found impossible to concentrate on because cold water hurt, and his head throbbed so insistently he closed his eyes to keep his vision from adding to the disorientation. They must have noticed, though, because they chained him on his toes and returned to their work with humiliating thoroughness. They dried him with towels—“interesting how the skin pinks from friction, the other’s skin color made it less noticeable”—and then brought him to a second room, which was far more ominous for its workbench and soft chairs.

  “Now,” the second male said. “Finally we can work. What do you think?”

  “I think the coloring on this one is dramatic, like that furred one who’s falling apart.” The first studied the Emperor, then reached and took him by the chin, turning his face from side to side. Scowling, he also pressed his fingers alongside the Emperor’s squinting eyes and forced the eyelids apart. “Not sure why the light’s bothering it so much. Didn’t the physician say it was fine?”

  “A head injury, but not serious. The symptoms are supposed to recede at some point. At least if they’re anything like our head injuries.”

  The first sighed. “Well, we’ll make do. It’ll be good once it can open its eyes completely. The color is marvelous. Almost as good as a Chatcaavan’s.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think—obviously—we emphasize the contrast of the mane against the hide.” The first male pinched the Emperor’s skin at the shoulder. “Look at that. Like a morning cloud, pale and bright. Every new mark someone leaves on it will show beautifully, and the old ones fade nicely. I hate having to take care of this many pets, but if we’re going to end up with a new one this is an ideal addition.”

  “Contrast, then,” the second said. “Black and white ornaments?”

  “Piercings,” the first said, pleased. “Black metal. Set out the needle. And let’s go with a taller collar, it’s got the neck for it.” Squinting, it added, “I’m not sure what to do with the genitals.”

  “We could castrate it.”

  The Emperor didn’t twitch only because he’d been following the conversation as if it was being translated several heartbeats after issuing from its speakers’ lips. That saved him, for the second male said, “You’re tweaking its skin too hard, it’s flinching.”

  “Castration is for males who actually might do something untoward with their parts,” the first male said, tapping his nose with a fingertip. “Slaves never manage anything that aggressive. Besides, it looks weak. Surgery might kill it.”

  “That would be a pity, given how much everyone wants to use this thing to taunt Manufactory-East. I wouldn’t want to be the one who accidentally kills it.”

  The first chuckled. “The Surgeon wouldn’t thank us for that, no. So maybe we’ll just wrap its loins and drape a cloth over them. Something flowing and feminine.” It studied the Emperor. “And paint. We’ll seal it so it stays on for a few weeks.”

  “Tattoo?”

  “Too much trouble. At least for now. We’ll see what the Worldlord wants to do with it first.”

  “All right,” the second said. “Let’s get to work.”

  They secured his arms and legs, though he didn’t know if he would have fought them even if they hadn’t. The vagueness in his head was worse, and the light made the throbbing intensify. He suffered himself to have unguents rubbed into his skin, and his blunt little toenails and fingernails filed to points and painted. They left his hair long but trimmed and coiffed it, and took advantage of his closed eyes to paint their lids and do something to the lashes that made them feel stiff and heavy. And they talked the entire time, of ways they’d painted and decorated other aliens, and how doing so differed from painting and decorating female Chatcaava, and what they’d learned from aliens by studying them immediately after capture and seeing what they did to their own bodies. It was suffocating. He’d had no idea male Chatcaava could talk so much about such trivialities. It was easier to ignore it than it was to force himself to participate in it, even passively, by understanding it.

  He was left to that fugue until the first male gathered his lower lip between two fingers, pinching it, and then thrust a needle through it. He jerked away, or tried, but the second male was holding his head.

  “It’s awake now,” the second observed cheerily.

  “And probably won’t appreciate how much we’re improving its appearance,” the first said. “Pass me the first ring.”

  The first?

  “Won’t need a collar leash to make this one obedient after this,” the first said, moving to the first nipple. “Absurdly sensitive, even for a freak.”

  The pain was bad, but not as bad as the memories that accompanied those insistent pinches: confused flashes of loving hands and kisses exchanged in similar shapes, and the Ambassador’s wicked amusement, and apologies tendered with gentle fingertips. The Emperor did not want these males to go where the Ambassador had gone before and overwrite those memories with their clinical attentions. And yet, implacably, they did, and he suffered.

  You told me to suffer the pain of another was far worse than to suffer your own, he thought to the memory of that face. You said nothing to me of the trauma of being violated in your mind, where you should be sovereign.

  They stopped after his navel, not because he was shivering and panting, but because they were interrupted by the male from his first day here, the one who’d served as loyal second to the one who’d decided to keep the ‘runaway’ slave. The Steward, he remembe
red.

  “So, this is where you’ve hidden the new slave?” The Steward leaned forward, scrutinizing him. “You’ve done a remarkable job on her. Him.”

  “It, we’ve decided,” the second male said. “It makes it easier than remembering.”

  “Very striking,” the Steward said, approving. “Very stark, the way you’ve accessorized it. The Worldlord will be pleased.”

  “Thank you,” the first male said, satisfied.

  “Did you beat it, though? It looks sick.”

  “It might be hungry,” the second male offered. “Or traumatized. The freaks always seem to suffer disorientation and denial after being captured.”

  “Make sure you feed it, then,” the Steward said. “Can you get it to open its eyes?”

  The first male tapped the Emperor under the chin with a crooked finger. “Up face, Dainty. Do you understand? Look at me.”

  He pretended ignorance, succeeded until the male found one of the nipple rings and twisted. Then he jerked, eyes widening.

  “Ah!” the Steward said. “So it is how I remembered. The eyes!”

  “Is there something special about them?” the second male asked. “Other than their color, which is remarkable for a freak.”

  “That’s the thing,” the Steward said. “There is a bulletin out about a specific race of freaks, and I think this may be one of them. They are supposed to be very thin, white as salt, and have vivid eye colors.”

  The Emperor could not help but look at the Steward then.

  “This alien is definitely pale, thin, and bright-eyed,” the second male observed.

  “Perhaps this is one of those aliens, then,” the Steward said. “That would be quite a coup. The Emperor himself seeks them as pets, though he wants a particular one, the one that was formerly Kauvauc’s bedtoy.”

  Like being struck. His legs shivered, became uncertain beneath him. Had they… had they used his name?

  “Do you think Manufactory-East was seeking his very own then, to show his status?” the second male asked, interested.