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  "Goddess!" Vasiht'h said. "What are the rest of the Eldritch like, if they have lost it?"

  "I'm afraid you're about to find out," Jahir said, low.

  For a moment, Vasiht'h said nothing, listening to the quality of the silence between them and finding it unsettling. Then he said, "Well, I'd better clean up if we're going to go see your mother." He started unbuckling his packs. "Will I see your father also?"

  "That would be a trick, since he's been in his grave since Amber was a babe in swaddling clothes," Jahir said, watching him.

  Vasiht'h looked up. "I'm—"

  "—it's an old sorrow," Jahir said. "Very old, trust me. I made my peace with it a long time ago."

  "Probably before I was born," Vasiht'h said, trying for a joke and failing when Jahir answered.

  "Very probably, yes."

  Vasiht'h met his eyes, and Jahir allowed it. The mindline between them was fallow, waiting for one of them to fill it.

  "You wanted me to come here for this reason, didn't you," Vasiht'h said slowly. "So I could confront all these uncomfortable things about what you are and where you came from. It's just like that time you decided we needed to take that first vacation and made the arrangements, just like that."

  "As I recall you brought it up first," Jahir said, leaning against the bedchamber's door frame.

  "Yes," Vasiht'h said. "But you were making plans before I'd even considered the problem. And this is the same thing. You think it's time I knew all these things, and your mother gave you the opening you needed."

  "It was convenient," Jahir allowed, and the taste in the mindline then was bitter like char, and sad like a distant melody. "Arii... I don't think you understand how hard it is for us to stop... obfuscating. We live a long time. We get good at not revealing ourselves, until finally we don't know how to stop. You know how deeply engrained the habits of a lifetime are for one of you. Can you imagine the habits of a lifetime for one of us?"

  "You needed help," Vasiht'h said. "Breaking the Veil."

  "Yes," Jahir said simply.

  Vasiht'h sat, heedless of the dirt on his haunches and the perfect silky rug under his rump. He studied his partner, and was permitted that study, and softened a little at what that permission implied. "Thank you," he said finally. "For wanting me to know."

  "You're welcome," Jahir said, quiet, and through the mindline Vasiht'h felt something like the first sunlight of spring after a long, gray winter. "Now I shall help you with the facilities. Since I doubt you will like them overmuch."

  "Since you had never seen a shower until you left for the university, I fear you're right."

  The salon Jahir's mother had invited them to was something out of a historical drama: a gracious rectangular room with great windows paneled in clear beveled glass, its stone walls were faced with pale wood and large green carpets softened their footsteps. Musical instruments were scattered throughout the salon: a harp taller than Vasiht'h; some kind of instrument with a keyboard, perhaps a piano or another harpsichord; and hanging on brackets on the wall, four stringed instruments of various sizes, bowed or plucked. The mindline brought Vasiht'h a whisper of sensation at his fingertips, strings cutting into tender fingers, and he wondered how many lessons his partner had had. Maybe in this very room?

  The lady Jeasa was seated in one of the elegant, upholstered chairs, her skirts spread gracefully around her and a porcelain cup of surpassing delicacy in one small hand. Jahir bowed to her and Vasiht'h tried the same.

  "Have tea," she said, smiling at them. "It's still warm. And there are scones if you're so inclined."

  "I may be," Vasiht'h murmured, wondering if she minded his informality. From her smile and her easy use of Universal, he guessed not and relaxed fractionally.

  Jahir poured for them both, taking the cups to a low table set in the center of the grouping of chairs. There was enough space beside the one Jahir chose for Vasiht'h to settle, so he did, as neatly as possible, tail tucked around his paws and wings tightly folded. Bad enough that the tea cup felt so fragile in his hands... he'd hate to knock anything over.

  The scone was delicious. Mildly sweet, crumbly, tender. The butter was so fresh it gave him gooseflesh. Vasiht'h applied himself to the food and to looking gracious while eating, as much as possible with a muzzle.

  "Thank you for coming," Jeasa was saying to his partner. "I know you find such things wearisome, my son."

  "I would find them less wearisome if the betrothed were old enough to know their own minds," Jahir said. "You'd think we would have left off with such barbarism."

  "Some things cannot be left to chance, alas," she said. "And this alliance is one of them. We need this wedding."

  "Since when does the Galare need anything?" Jahir asked.

  "Oh, Jahir," his mother said with a sigh. "You have been gone so long. You forget what it's like. Liolesa does not rule by fiat. She can be blocked... or deposed."

  He snorted over his cup. "I'd like to see anyone try."

  "You may live to do so, if things continue as they are."

  "You're talking about... your queen being overthrown?" Vasiht'h interjected, surprised.

  "Yes," Jeasa said. "The very thing, friend Vasiht'h."

  "But wouldn't that mean... a civil war?" Vasiht'h said, wondering how Jahir could be so calm about it.

  "It would, if it were possible," Jahir said. "But a civil war would require many more Eldritch than are truly willing to take up arms against one another and shed blood. We are not great doers of deeds, arii. More dreamers of them."

  "From your mouth to Aksivaht'h's ear," Vasiht'h said. "I would hate to see a civil war, any civil war, here or anywhere else." He looked up from his place. "If I may...what's got everyone so upset at your queen?"

  "That," Jahir said, "would be you."

  "...me?"

  "You," Jeasa agreed. "And others like you. And the Alliance, and what it can bring to us as a people. We are split very harshly on the matter, friend Vasiht'h. Some of us wish to embrace the outworld. We are sovereign allies of the Alliance, and yet we call on almost none of the treaty provisions. We ask no aid. We suffer no trade. We exchange no knowledge. We allow no visitation—"

  "—no visitation!" Vasiht'h exclaimed, wondering suddenly if his presence was somehow illegal.

  "—with some exception," Jeasa finished. "However, we are sorely outnumbered by those of us who wish nothing to do with the outworld, who despise the alien and show contempt for all their works. And even though Liolesa is one of our number," she said, turning her attention back to Jahir, "she is not protected from the will of the majority. If she pushes hard enough, they will push back and we will lose all the ground we've gained."

  "She must know that," Jahir said, setting his tea cup aside. "She's survived this long, more than long enough to know how to gauge the tenor of her people."

  "Mayhap," Jeasa said, but to Vasiht'h's ear she sounded unconvinced. "Even so, there is danger yet. And that is why we have a duty to her, to help her in her aims. Thus this marriage, arranged in the traditional way... so that your cousin has time to affect her betrothed. By the time they're grown, he will have been so exposed to her way of thinking that he will no longer question his own feelings on the matter of the outworld."

  "Assuming he is the one affected," Jahir said. "It's as likely that he'll poison her with his small-mindedness."

  "That I doubt," Jeasa said. "Children love the unusual and the unknown. The Alliance is full of fascinating and colorful beings. It will be enough to learn they exist. Natural curiosity will take care of the rest."

  "You hope," Vasiht'h said, struggling to follow the conversation and not at all liking its gist.

  "We hope," Jeasa agreed.

  "Pardon me for saying so," Vasiht'h said after a long pause, "but this sounds like... a potentially explosive situation. If I understand right, you're bringing a very backward-looking family in to marry to one of your people in the hopes of helping to affect some political change. And you invited me i
nto the middle of it... why? To polarize things? It seems counter-productive."

  "It sounds like a party to me!" said a new voice from the door. "Why, and to think I almost didn't come!"

  The feel of a door slamming came through the mindline so powerfully Vasiht'h braced himself against it, feeling the wind on his back, the sound like a clout to the ears. It had shut on something but not fast enough to prevent the bright wash of scarlet from flooding his spine. It was no hyperbole that led Vasiht'h to claim his species was free of hormones, but even without direct experience he knew from walks through the dreams of clients what arousal was like and that... that was as powerful a brush with it as he'd ever felt—

  —from Jahir?

  Stunned, Vasiht'h looked up at the door to see what had inspired it, and saw a sylph in an orange gown, one scandalously slim, enough to show her narrow ribcage, the suggestion of thin hips, all things he would never have even thought to notice and knew were his partner's observations. Her hair was perilously close to unbound with only a few braids to hold it back from her pointed face... and such eyes...! Large orange eyes, thickly lashed and alive with dangerous passions.

  She was beautiful, and sharp as storms on a horizon, and she took Vasiht'h's breath away through Jahir. He heard the whisper down the mindline.

  /Sediryl.../

  Jeasa was already standing to receive the girl with one of those so-intimate gestures, young hands clasped in old. "Sediryl! How wonderful to have you home again!"

  "You are possibly the only one who could say so and mean it, aunt," Sediryl said in flawless Universal, without even the touch of an accent. She turned those secret-heavy eyes on Jahir—her cousin? Yes, he'd said—and added, "Unless I could count you among them, cousin."

  Jahir had also risen. He bowed, hair sliding over his shoulder to shroud his face. "Sediryl."

  "I had no idea you'd be here," Sediryl said, and looked at Vasiht'h. "And with such interesting company. You are?"

  "Vasiht'h," he answered, near paralyzed by Jahir's reaction, even with that shut door in the mindline keeping all but the smallest of leaks from escaping. "Jahir's partner."

  "You? His partner?" Sediryl said, perfectly curved brows lifting. "Why, cousin! Have you taken an outworld friend? I would hardly have expected it of one so conservative."

  "We've been partners and friends for years now," Vasiht'h said, fighting irritation at her high-handed assumptions. "Many, many years."

  "Oh, I've offended," she said, her facile manner dropping so abruptly he was taken aback. He barely had time to lean away as she dropped to a crouch before him, all her skirts whispering, and said, "Forgive me. And I did not greet you properly either... Aksivaht'h hold you in Her mind."

  "Ah... and may Her thought of you be long," Vasiht'h stammered.

  "Is my apology acceptable?" she asked, a smile quirking her lips.

  "At least you didn't accuse us of being lovers like the first group," Vasiht'h said, exasperation getting the better of him.

  Sediryl laughed aloud. "A Glaseah? More fools they." She straightened, twitching her skirts into order with easy grace. "So, aunt. What are you scheming, then? Wanting to remind the inbred idiots they've betrothed Juzie to that the Galare are hardly the first to host an outworlder?"

  "They're not?" Vasiht'h said, startled.

  "Oh no," Sediryl said, seating herself across from a very stiff Jahir, who did not sit until she'd settled, and Jeasa after her. "No, Jisiensire has that honor. Sellelvi came to Fasianyl lo these many years ago. Rather too many, I think. The memory'll be lost soon enough, especially with that House so reclusive and its recent history so troubled."

  "I didn't imagine you to be so easy with the goings-on here," Jeasa said hesitantly.

  "I had my reasons to learn," Sediryl said, breezily. "But I fear I interrupted your explanation. Why do I find an offworlder here?"

  "Because he is my son's friend," Jeasa said after a moment. "And..." She looked at Jahir, "I am tired of the insult given you. You are the heir to the Seni Galare, Jahir, and to pretend you do not have this relationship is a dishonor."

  "Even if it jeopardizes the wedding?" Jahir asked.

  "Perhaps the wedding is not worth it, if it cannot withstand a single outworlder," Jeasa said, and her silence then had something of resignation, and of sorrow, and Vasiht'h liked it not at all. Liked nothing of the entire situation, really, or the conversation, or anything implied by it.

  Except possibly for Sediryl. She intrigued him, even though her existence betrayed yet another secret his partner had been withholding from him.

  "Well!" Sediryl said. "I have only just arrived, and have not even been shown my rooms. I shall have to repair to them now, and rest from the long ride." When she rose, Jahir did also. "Good evening, my lady aunt, my lord heir." She grinned, all sharp angles and amusement, and curtseyed with exquisite grace to Jeasa before quitting the room.

  Once she had gone, Jahir said, "We should do the same, I think."

  "Will you be down to supper?" Jeasa asked, standing up to take his hands again. Through the slight crack in the mindline, Vasiht'h felt the radiance of their quiet love for one another and let it soothe him.

  "I think that may be... impolitic," Jahir said. "There will be time enough tomorrow to shock the guests, and with the wedding in the evening they will have less time to mull over the insult and perhaps decide it sufficient cause to depart. When is the reception?"

  "In the mid-morning," Jeasa said. "The family still has an informal breakfast in the kitchen, if you're so inclined."

  "We probably will be," Jahir said.

  She nodded. "I'll have a tray sent up for you both for supper. If you need anything..."

  "I'll ring a servant," Jahir said, and kissed the back of her hand. "Gentle night, lady mother."

  "Thank you, love," she murmured.

  Vasiht'h waited until they gained their rooms to fold his arms and look at his partner.

  "Go ahead," Jahir said, tired.

  "I'm not sure where to start," Vasiht'h said. "How about... just how royal are you? I thought you were joking when you told those children in the hospital that you were a prince."

  "Technically I'm not," Jahir said. "I said it to delight them, and because translating the titles into Universal is tiresome and inexact. And while I am related to the Queen, it's a distant kinship, and not one that would make me eligible to replace her. If even a man could; by custom we have been matriarchal since Settlement, and by now custom looks more like tradition, and precedent, and thus to us unchangeable."

  "But you're close enough to the throne that your mother thinks it important to... make political deals to help cement the queen's policies?"

  "My mother," Jahir said, sitting down and beginning to work his boots off, "is making political deals to help cement the queen's policies because without them, we will stagnate and die. We need the Alliance, arii. You have no idea how much."

  The breath that came through the mindline had the damp coolth of a grave in winter. Vasiht'h shuddered, running a hand over his hair. "Right. So... your cousin... knew how to greet me?"

  "She should, since she's been living on an Alliance starbase for decades now," Jahir said, his voice gone neutral.

  "She... what? She has?" Vasiht'h asked, startled. "I thought you all weren't much for wandering, that you were unusual?"

  "I am," Jahir said. "She is also."

  "She's so..." Vasiht'h trailed off, looking for a word. "She seems..."

  "Brittle?" Jahir suggested.

  "Angry," Vasiht'h said. "You said she had no lost love for your kind."

  "She hasn't," Jahir said. "But she had other problems." At Vasiht'h's look, he said, "She loved a human man, who thought her a delightful conquest and spurned her once he'd made it."

  Vasiht'h covered his face, slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And this is the woman you're in love with."

  Such abrupt tension through the mindline. It felt like being stabbed. "Ugh," Vasiht'h said. "Can you s
top doing that? The slammed doors, the knives..."

  "She's my cousin," Jahir said. "It's not done."

  "What do you mean it's not done?" Vasiht'h said. "It's done all the time in the Alliance. Fire and light, arii, the conservative homeworld Harat-Shar mate with their own siblings. It's what we have genetic engineers for—"

  "It's not done," Jahir said, and the mindline exploded with nausea and self-loathing, with sickness and perversion and blooming red roses rotting and half-dead unborn children and Vasiht'h listed to one side, fighting the sudden urge to vomit and a revulsion so strong he almost lost his grip on reality.

  Jahir's hands on his shoulders steadied him. "Sorry," the Eldritch whispered. "Arii. I'm sorry." When Vasiht'h could meet his eyes again, he said, one more time, "It's just... it's not done. Ever."

  "Right," Vasiht'h said weakly.

  "I'm going to have a bath," Jahir said after a long moment. "Do you want one also, or are you going to lie down until supper?"

  He wasn't sure he'd be eating again... at all. Certainly not until tomorrow. "I think I'll lie down."

  Jahir nodded. "There are more than enough cushions and blankets on the bed. Take as many as you need." His smile was wry. "No doubt the servants had no idea how to prepare a place for a Glaseah."

  "I would have been surprised if they had," Vasiht'h said weakly.

  He watched Jahir head to the bathing chamber. For a long time, he couldn't move. What had he gotten himself into, coming here? He had thought it would be a relief to finally know a little more about his partner, about the Eldritch, about the place and circumstances that had forged Jahir before Vasiht'h had met him. Not just a relief... but exciting. He'd always been pleased at having secured one of the rare Eldritch as a friend, at having merited that friendship. He had, occasionally, been proud of knowing as much as he did about one. It had felt good to be one of the few Alliance citizens who could speak knowledgeably about the reclusive species. He had earned no few admiring glances for it.

  Looking back on it now, Vasiht'h could admit to perhaps having been unreasonably smug. Possibly a little vain... maybe a lot vain. He'd been so certain of himself.