Chapter 10 #5
"Tell me what happened," said Araxis, turning his cup on the table once. "Tell us," he added hastily, an amendment. He glanced at me to check in and shifted his knee slightly so that it bumped mine.
I thought I should probably move it away. I should slide out from under his hand. I should straighten up and stop letting my body curve toward him.
I didn't.
Elethenn was very still, his head tipped forward. His crest, dark, was braided tightly at the back of his head, something that would be easy to do on his own. "Your virra –" started Elethenn.
"You are addressing both of us," Araxis interrupted. "And I know that you know our Sashen's name."
That made Elethenn glance up, startled. His mismatched eyes flicked between us, nervous, uncertain.
He swallowed, almost audible in the thick silence of the dining room, and tried again, this time looking directly at me.
"After you left Andsin Square, I thought I saw someone following you.
And given the – unrest, I was worried, so I…
followed as well. It was not my intention to overstep," he added with a quick glance at Araxis before ducking his head again, "but I felt that I must do what was right. "
So I'd been followed from my apartment and somehow I hadn't noticed.
I frowned, my head throbbing. The lights overhead felt suddenly very bright, although I knew they weren't, and I winced when I looked up.
"Then why didn't you send me a message? You have my ping.
I mean, I'm grateful you helped at all but it might have been nice to have a heads up, even if it was just a suspicion. You know that someone –"
I hesitated. There was a lot I hadn't told Araxis, but he needed to know everything.
I might as well start now. "Someone broke into my apartment.
Turned it over," I explained, watching for Araxis's reaction – which was muted, just a blink of surprise.
"And someone was asking about me at the gym where I'm training.
So it wouldn't have seemed weird," I said to Elethenn, "if you'd let me know that someone might be on my tail. "
Elethenn was quiet, although he risked another quick glance at Araxis, one that felt heavy with meaning.
Next to me, Araxis's features remained very still, and then he rose and walked to the doorway, tapping at the interface and dimming the lights to a low, calming pink.
"Better?" he murmured as he sat down next to me again, hand brushing the curve of my shoulder.
I nodded, just a little. Too much movement made my stomach roil. At least he didn't seem mad at me. But then, he'd said he didn't want secrets or things unsaid between us – except for what I wanted to keep to myself. Maybe he'd really meant it.
"Sashen has asked a good question. The answer will be instructive. Why did you not send Sashen a message, Elethenn?" he asked. I looked back at Elethenn, bewildered.
Elethenn's features immediately tightened, a sharp subvocal of distress sounding in his throat. "It was only a supposition. And I – I could not send a message because it would be – That is –" Elethenn stopped, biting off the rest.
"What would it be?" Araxis shifted his cup again. His tone was mild and measured, but I could feel something else beneath the surface, like the way the air shifted and buzzed around a ship's engine: something impossible to see, but present nonetheless.
Elethenn's gaze jerked up and met mine for a second. "It would be – inappropriate," he finished, his words tight.
I stared, as best I could with my head pounding.
"I'm sorry, inappropriate? To give me a heads up that someone might be following me after everything that's happened this week?
" It didn't make any sense, and I didn't think it was how rattled I was or how much pain I was in that was making his logic impossible to follow. "But why –"
I stopped, chewing it over. I thought about how quickly Elethenn had flown into the fray to help me out. I thought about how good he'd been in a fight. I prefer a protective role, he’d said. I glanced at Araxis, eyebrows raised. "He's sinnenthi," I supplied, and suddenly it made some sort of sense.
Araxis nodded, the tension still pulsing in his jaw.
"I am not," Elethenn said, voice very quiet. "I cannot be. I am skoshas. I have told you this, Sashen."
"You are as you say you are," Araxis said. "I suspect you consider yourself sinnenthi, privately; this is certainly how you have behaved. This is how you sound, when you forget to suppress it. And do I understand correctly that is why you are without a creche?"
"Yes." Elethenn licked his lips, his body radiating tension. "I was raised antali, and then – I changed. My nature is clear, I know that. I would not wish to argue, but this is why I am skoshas, not sinnenthi. Although, of all the roles, that is…" He trailed off, unable to say the rest.
Gender imperialism, I thought bleakly, my head pulsing in time with my heartbeat, despite the dim lights. I pulled the cup of tea toward myself and took a sip: it was bright and sharp, and immediately cut through some of the haze of pain that made it hard to think.
"So it's inappropriate for Elethenn to talk to me because he's… sinnenthi, or sinnenthi adjacent, and I'm virra," I said after a moment. "Even though it could have prevented… all of this."
"Yes," said Elethenn, at the same time that Araxis said, "No."
Araxis fluted out a sound, somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
"Wow," I said blandly, "Really helpful cultural guidelines. So glad I have clear guidance to help me make good choices in the future."
A short, sweet trill slipped from Araxis, before his hand flew up, startled, to press the pale skin of his throat. "Ah," he said, "I do not think it's inappropriate. But Elethenn could not know that. You must not fault him, Sashen."
The tension still stiffening his jaw told me otherwise, insisting that there was another layer to this that I didn't understand, but I couldn't keep up with too many layers of subtext so I decided, in that moment, to just take Araxis at his word.
"Well, thank you, Elethenn. I don't know what would have happened, but I'm almost certain you saved my finger.
" Maybe my life too, but I didn't want to say that because I might start crying again.
I exhaled, trying for a smile. "They were going to cut one off.
I know, lots of people get by without five fingers, but I'm kind of attached to mine.
" I snorted, then, curling my right hand reflexively. "Ha, attached to it."
Across from me, Elethenn had finally tilted his head up again, and he looked stricken; even across the table, I could hear the distressed subvocal humming in his throat.
Next to me, Araxis took my hand and gently turned it over.
He rubbed his thumb over the cut at the base of my finger.
"Yes, and Creche Thiel is very attached to all of Sashen, so you have done our creche a great service by assisting our Sashen.
" He raised my hand carefully and pressed a kiss to the cut, and my skin tingling beneath his mouth.
My breath caught in my throat as I looked at him, bent over my hand, touching me with reverence; I felt a flush of warmth deep in my chest, beneath the ache of a body in pain and the lingering stain of what I'd done.
Beneath it all, there was still affection and the way loving him made me feel: like I was bathed in light, gilded in gold.
A treasure.
"You understand that Sashen is a member of Creche Thiel," Araxis said to Elethenn, settling my hand back on the table and touching, instead, the curve of my shoulder, his hand a steady and comfortable weight.
Elethenn nodded, once.
"And you understand that he has declared for me," Araxis continued. "He is mine for as long as he wishes, and, more significantly, I am his, entirely."
There, in the dim pink light of the kitchen, as I sat with Araxis and Elethenn while pain still radiated through my body and my head still pulsed and ached, the words hit me in a new way.
Heat flushed up my cheeks as I studied Araxis's profile: the line of his nose, the dark sweep of his eyelashes, the gleam of his eyes, the plush shape of his mouth. Mine for as long as he wishes.
In that moment, I was certain he meant it, and some of the resolve I'd been holding with both hands began to give. Or maybe it had already started to slip away from between my fingers. Maybe I'd already started to let my grip soften.
Elethenn still said nothing, although he watched us both, confused.
"Our bond is not like others," said Araxis, quiet and firm, his hand still resting on the back of my shoulder, tracing the shape of my shoulder blade.
Gentle, soft, but not tentative. "It is essential that you understand that, despite appearances, he is mine and I am his.
Do not presume you might take him and raise your status enough to be appealing to another creche.
You have seen now that he is able to defend himself. "
"I –" Elethenn started, and then he stopped. He swallowed again, and he silvered. When he spoke next, it was in abayan and he said something quickly, breathily, like he was forcing himself to get the words out. It sounded like an apology.
"Again, but in Standard," Araxis said patiently.
Elethenn coloured more, his stare darting to me so that when he spoke, he addressed me directly. "I can see that I misunderstood your relationship. I would never presume to –" He frowned, looked to Araxis, and said the word in abayan.
"Hm, it is a cultural word, Sashen, that means something like to poach, intrude, disrupt." The smallest smile caught the corner of his mouth. "It is what Evreni suspected you would do with Avelthe and Yalrinn."