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  “And hear us, O God, when we call to You for deliverance, as all who suffer in slavery and exile do—”

  He looked up, tensed with spread wings, and leaped, beating to the top of the wall. No force field to repulse him on the way over—a hunting manor, then. He scrabbled, lost his balance, fell. His landing was poor enough that he lost a heartbeat to it, stunned and breathless. Then he rolled off the shrub that had stabbed him with its thin, hard branches and scanned the enclosure. Typical apron of open grass, leading toward a walled garden, complete with plashing fountain and songbirds trapped by force fields. And kneeling in that verdure was a human female who was turning confused and then shocked eyes to him.

  A human female.

  Now you know me. Now a part of me is in you.

  A way to hide.

  He stumbled to his feet and sprinted for the garden, hoped the force field did not span the garden’s decorative fence. It didn’t, which allowed him to extend a hand through it as he fell to his knees and leaned on the cool metal. “Your pattern,” he said. “Please. May I learn it.” At her blank stare, he switched languages, hearing more voices now, from inside the manor. “Alet. If I take your hand I can learn your shape. Please. Let me.”

  That silence lasted less than a heartbeat but the moment crystallized anyway, so that he had time to watch her jaw tense, her eyes widen a fraction, her chest lift and then freeze there as she held her breath. Then: “Yes.”

  She rushed to the fence to take his offered hand. Not much time now, but he had to do it right, or they would know the pattern for a falsehood. The shape of her fingers: longer than he’d expected, warmer. Callused, but from what he couldn’t tell. The flutter of her pulse in her wrist. The color of her skin, dark beige, more familiar than the Ambassador’s pearl pallor. Her nails… blunt and colorless and kind. His brow sank toward her knuckles, touched them as she allowed him to pull her hand past the picket. He inhaled the essence of Human and on the outbreath Changed, and it was not the rapture of the process he’d learned in the safety of the palace, but an aching, grinding agony that shot off sparkles of pleasure that drowned before they bloomed. He coughed, as if he could expel the pain physically, and shed wings and shed scales and shed horns and shed, shed, shed, until he was bleeding against the fence and he could feel nothing, nothing through her skin. He felt blind and weak. When he opened his eyes, he saw the edge of his own knee and did not recognize it.

  “My God,” the human whispered.

  A short furred form appeared in the door leading into the manor. “Andrea! They’re com—what is that?”

  “I’ll explain later,” she said. “Alet, can you stand?”

  Could he? He must. He pushed himself away from the fence and managed his feet. Was human skin less sensitive than Eldritch? Or was he simply so battered and tired that his senses were dulled? He managed to lift his chin and focus his less acute eyes on the shadowed figures approaching through an arch in one of the towers: not the same egress that had produced the other Pelted slave, but a ground-floor door. A Chatcaavan emerged, a sleek ivory male wearing his dark brown mane in one of the Naval hairstyles, moving with the predatory confidence of someone with a title. The male behind him, silver with silver mane, had a demeanor that hurt the Emperor to perceive: he recognized its long-suffering patience from his prior Second’s personality. An older male, that one, and used to supporting someone he deemed worthy of it.

  “So you were right,” the first male said. “The commotion reported on the skein had some basis in fact.”

  “And the peacekeepers were right also,” the second said, raking the Emperor-disguised with narrowed green eyes. “When they said the commotion led here.”

  “An escaped slave!” The first male ran contemplative fingers over his jaw. “Open the gate, before one of the stalkers follows that blood trail.”

  The gate was not far from where the Emperor was leaning. He watched warily as the second male opened it. “Escape shouldn’t be possible. Not for a slave.”

  “No.” The first went through the gate and reached for the Emperor. Despite himself he swayed backward to avoid the touch. “Well. She fears her betters, as she should, at least. And little wonder… are those scars? And not a few of them. You, Fancy. Where did this new alien come from?”

  The human woman glanced at the Emperor, just a flick of gray eyes with her body rigidly immobile. Then, in badly accented Chatcaavan, “My-better. From the wall.”

  “We can tell that ourselves,” the second male said brusquely. “She broke the bushes and left bloody streaks on the stone on the way down.”

  Twice was not a mistake. They had called him female. Did they not know the differences between male and female aliens? Outrage made his headache worse, made all the open wounds seem to pulse in time with his pounding heart.

  “Did the alien speak to you?” the first male said to the human, and there was no cruelty in the words. He spoke as if to one with poor understanding, though anyone with a shred of sight could see the intelligence in the human’s eyes.

  “My-better…” She hesitated. Then: “This one thinks she heard the alien speak of Manufactory-East.”

  “Did she!” The first male laughed, trailing to a hiss. “Isn’t that interesting.”

  “If you believe the words of freaks,” the second said, frowning.

  “Why not? We know how Manufactory-East treats his possessions, and this creature’s history is written all over her. Well. We shall keep his lost prize until the Worldlord says otherwise. If Manufactory-East comes back to reclaim her, we can tell him… the hunter who deals the last wound wins.” He leaned toward the Emperor. “Did you hear that, slave? You have lucked into a better master. Fancy, tell her since she doesn’t appear to understand a real language.”

  The human woman met his eyes and said in quiet Universal, “The Worldlord is now your owner. By Chatcaavan standards, he is the best you can hope for.”

  The furred male standing on the other side of the door flicked his ears back but said nothing.

  “I’ll have her prepared then,” the second male was saying. “For when the Worldlord returns. Did he say?”

  “A few days.” The first male eyed the Emperor, nodded. “She’s a little less ugly than most of the freaks. Not as gangly. What should we name her?”

  Rage shot through him, warming limbs going cold. They could not be serious—

  “Pretty?” the second male mused. “Or… Dainty. She has the limbs for it.”

  “Dainty,” the first male said. “I like it.” He grinned. “A most excellent catch, this creature. I’ll enjoy having her here, where her presence can enrage Manufactory-East. But have her healed, Steward, and then beaten for fleeing her old house. Discipline must be exerted on these creatures. For form’s sake.”

  “Of course.” To the human, the Steward said, “Tell her to follow. Advise her disobedience is unwise.”

  The human murmured in Universal, “Do what he says. Their claws go through skin like knives through wet paper.”

  “I know,” the Emperor answered in kind, low, trying not to seethe. They had not named him. They had not given him a harem name. A harem female’s name.

  “Come, Dainty. Tell her that’s the name she must answer to now.”

  They had.

  Could the human sense his fury? Was that why she was looking at him so carefully? Or did she understand the insult dealt him, knowing that he was only pretending to human shape? He didn’t know. Only that her voice was neutral when she said, “Go with him. It won’t end well otherwise.”

  He did not ask if they would heal him only to beat him again. Had not slaves been treated thus in his own harem? And if he had not personally tortured them, it had not been out of any moral conviction, but because he’d been too busy with the Navy, the court, and his occasional trips to the harem to care enough to overturn any existing policy on treatment of Pelted slaves. When he’d personally interacted with them, it had been to exercise his curiosity on them, and wh
ile his curiosity had not extended toward killing them for the sake of killing, he had not considered them people. They were wingless freaks. That was all.

  They had named him Dainty.

  His impression of the manor was broken by blank moments, where the fog in his head overcame his ability to concentrate. It was hard to walk, and the guards were not kind about correcting his stagger. He saw walls and couldn’t remember how they connected to later halls. He remembered the tiles under his feet because they were too cold on thin human skin. The cold; that he remembered too. The feel of warm blood seeping from open cuts, down his side… the places it stuck his clothes to his body and then tugged at the skin when they adhered.

  He remembered going down, when what he wanted, desperately, was to go up.

  They administered his physical in a room that looked like something out of a slaughterhouse: white tiled walls, featureless, with steel tables and a drain. A swift check with a diagnostic wand, which they also used to seal his cuts, and then he was handed over to a new male.

  “Standard discipline,” said the Chatcaavan who’d done the exam. “Avoid the head for the next week.”

  They took him to a different room. There were manacles in this one, and a collar. When the male seized his wrist, the Emperor bared his teeth and yanked it back.

  Without even looking him in the face, the male lifted a hand and slapped him with it.

  The Emperor had fought in humanoid shape before. Despite its slightness, this human form was more solid than his Eldritch one. He’d wrestled the Ambassador into submission, drawn blood with blunt nails, bitten and fought and won while shifted. But the Ambassador had been humanoid himself, not a dragon. The Emperor had never fought one of the Chatcaava this way.

  The force of that blow staggered him, and the claws ripped his unarmored cheek open almost to the bone. The pain was shocking—the sense that his integument was so fragile it could lose this much blood from a single blow, appalling. He wobbled, put his hand to his bleeding face, and jerked away from the raw wrongness as his too-sensitive fingertips skidded on wet muscle.

  The male ignored his reaction to take his wrist again and clamp the manacle on it. This time the Emperor didn’t fight him. He didn’t know how to fight him without some advantage that this situation could not possibly convey: a weapon. Surprise. An ally.

  The second manacle. The third and fourth. He wondered when the collar would come. The whip came first.

  Waking disoriented him. His back felt wrong: not enough weight, too much pain. The world scoured his skin and yet he learned nothing from it that wasn’t already in him. He hurt. Everywhere. He should have been in a gel tank; instead he was on some hard, short bunk that ground against his flesh even when he held perfectly still... and he couldn’t hold still, afflicted with this much pain. The noise he made as he tried to curl into a ball was involuntary: a groan he would have never uttered had he had the choice.

  A touch then: cool, wet. A cloth along the side of his too short nose, under his eye. The skin there was tender. Felt bruised. The water seemed to draw heat out of it. He opened his eyes, found his vision subdued by the low lighting. But he knew it was the human woman. What had the second Pelted slave called her? The aliens felt differently about names. She would want to be called by her real name. Andrea. That was it.

  “They let you off lightly.” The female’s voice was low, but not tense. No danger then, not in her judgment. “They say you have a concussion. That’s probably why.” Her fingers lit on his jaw, probed carefully. “I’m going to turn your face. Tell me if it hurts too much.”

  He let her… turning his head hurt, but he wanted to feel the cloth.

  “You did a good job,” she continued. “Your eyes are a little larger than a human adult’s are typically, but it’s subtle. The color’s a little too vibrant too, but enough of us enhance our appearances cosmetically that you could pass for someone who’s had an iris-film. Your skin’s lighter than mine, but that’s within human norm. For the best too, it makes the scarring less noticeable. I don’t want to know what you’ve been through to have so many scars. I think the only part you muffed was your frame. That’s why they thought you were female.”

  His voice felt rusty and strange and too high-pitched, issuing from a narrower throat. “Surely they know better now.”

  “They’ve stripped you, yes.” She was examining his eye. Not looking into it, but studying its corners, its lashes, the shape. “So they know you’re male. But that doesn’t really matter to them. You look feminine and you’re no one who could object to being mischaracterized. As far as they’re concerned, you’re Dainty, the girly freak.” Now her eyes met his. “Expect them to rape you at some point. Or to hand you out to be used by a guest.”

  He couldn’t begin to grapple with that. Instead, he said, “Why are you helping me?”

  “Put your head back down.” She dipped her cloth—he could hear the water in the bowl, though he couldn’t see it—and brought it back to his face to clean his lips. He hadn’t realized there was blood on them until she started softening the crust at their corners. “I wouldn’t have. I have no reason to, as you apparently know. That’s novel enough, since most of your kind… it doesn’t occur to you to think we might hate captivity. But… you spoke Universal to me.” She lifted her gray eyes. “You said ‘please’. You asked.”

  He didn’t need clarification. He knew very well why that would have made him unique among Chatcaava. “Where am I?”

  “This is the manor of the Apex world’s lord,” she said, stopping to squint at a slice on the edge of his jaw. “Do you know anything about this system?” His cautious nod arrested her, and her brows lifted. “Did you get that with the shapechange? The gesture?”

  Memory intruded, poisoned by rage and shock. “No. I learned it from someone.”

  She waited, then shook her head and continued. “Well. Manufactory-East, who’s in charge of the moonbase, is the Navy’s fast ally. The Worldlord doesn’t like him much. Deputy-East, who you’ve met now—he’s the brunet with the ponytail—is friends with the Worldlord, though Deputy-East is also supposed to be a Naval ally. He’s in charge of the solar system. He and the Worldlord are always bickering with Manufactory-East about resources.”

  An image of the system flashed through his mind, emblazoned with the thousands of beads of Chatcaavan warships. “They don’t win.”

  She canted her head. “Not often, no.” Quieter, she said, “Who are you? Why are you running?”

  What to say? What would speech avail? She couldn’t help him and could betray him. It surprised him to realize he didn’t expect her to do so intentionally, but her intentions wouldn’t matter. They could torture her, and he knew now about human flesh and Chatcaavan talons.

  “I am the Survivor,” he said. “And that is all that I intend right now.”

  “I hope that’s the only thing you ever intend,” the human said. “Because that’s the only thing you’ll achieve. There’s no escaping the Chatcaava.” She paused. “Unless you can shift again and go somewhere else?”

  How long before the Admiral-Offense’s messages reached someone who could come? How would they contact him once they arrived? What possible allies could he make here in the stronghold of his traitorous enemies? The Worldlord might not like the Naval functionaries who fought him for money and power, but the Emperor knew better than to think they wouldn’t all turn on him if they knew his identity. The human had been right to characterize their interaction as bickering. It was the squabbling of brethren who would unite in a moment to savage an external foe. And they had surely thrown their lot in with his betrayers. To find the Emperor in their midst?

  He would survive long enough to be delivered to whomever had spearheaded this travesty. His life wouldn’t be worth a spent shell beyond that.

  “I thought so,” the human murmured. And quieter still, “I’m sorry.”

  Lying there, battered and vulnerable, he felt the words as blows.

  C
HAPTER TWO

  “This is your show, Ambassador,” the head of FIA Hold 22 said to him. “We’re here to take direction. What’s your plan?”

  Lisinthir rested his hands on the back of the chair he’d refused to sit in when he’d been invited into the conference room. Not because he was concerned about his newest Pelted allies, but because his anticipation was too great to permit him stillness. He wanted to move, the way the war was moving, the way everything was in motion. “I have one, nebulous though its particulars are at this point. But may I make one request, alet?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I appreciate your deference to my authority,” Lisinthir said. “And I expect to be treated as the head of the mission. But you and your people have extensive experience of your own. Don’t hesitate to advance your ideas to me, even if they contradict mine. I may or may not decide to act on those ideas, but I need to hear them.” He smiled lopsidedly. “It is deeply tempting to attempt to singlehandedly save the universe. But foolish to ignore the aid of allies who are there to keep me from failing.”

  “From what we’ve heard, you’ve already singlehandedly saved the universe,” said one of the Pelted at the table: the surly Seersa medic whose hair was a shorn mane that stood nearly on end. Dellen Crosby. The comment was skeptical, half-growled… but not a challenge. Even without Jahir’s presence to bolster his abilities, Lisinthir could read that off him.

  “It would please my ego to think so,” he said. “But the truth is that I went into a very specific situation, one where acting alone was more efficacious than working with a team. The Chatcaavan court is the hothouse flower of the Empire, aletsen. Now that the situation has grown past the throneworld, we must operate under a different set of constraints.”

  “Sounds like looser ones to me.” The Aera, Na’er, this time, all long ears and sparkling eyes.