Chapter 1
The Morning After
RAHAT
His Imperial Highness Nur-ul-Shuruq Faraj al-Nadhir had never previously awakened at the first gleam of dawn with a cat walking across his face and meowing into his ear.
“Wha — huh —? Ow—”
A cat’s paw could apply an astounding amount of pressure to a very small point, when it chose to lean all its weight into one paw on his forehead. It meowed again.
“Why?” he managed, blinking his way through the morning’s tangle of foresight-visions to try to focus on the present world.
“I think she’s hungry,” a warm velvet tenor said from directly beside his other ear, so close his breath tickled Faraj’s throat, and suddenly he remembered everything in a rush.
His Imperial Highness Nur-ul-Shuruq Faraj al-Nadhir had absolutely never awakened beside a breathtakingly handsome companion who smiled down at him with shining jade-bright eyes and bed-rumpled sable-dark curls, amid a pile of disheveled pillows and blankets, in a jasmine-and-incense redolent bath-house in a questionable neighborhood of the Catsprowl.
He was not at all sure what to do with himself.
Fortunately, Master Asharan had a great deal more experience with mornings-after than Faraj – no, Rahat; Master Asharan had called him by the name of Rahat, his sweet comfort, who wore no Imperial titles and carried no Imperial duties.
Rahat was someone he would very much prefer to be, while he still could.
And, apparently, Master Asharan also had a great deal more experience with being awakened by familiars walking upon one’s face and volubly demanding their breakfasts.
He scooped Sahar up with a confident affection; then he set her beside a teacup of water and a tea-saucer with a piece of fish, despite her grumbling.
Master Asharan’s own familiar was a soot-black huddle of bleary glaring, hunched over a different cup and saucer as though expecting any of them to take his fish at any moment.
In his own defense, Rahat had never had a familiar of his own, or even a housecat of his own, until the previous night.
He had known Kamil for years, but Kamil was much more like the great hunters of the desert, and in the court Kamil always used his taller, more human-like form because of the Imperial prohibitions.
The small cats were strictly forbidden in the haveli, and had been ever since the Empire laid claim to it.
Humans could recognize a human-like catfolk in the taller form.
But small four-legged cats might be ordinary cats, or they might be shapeshifted Basteti spies or infiltrators — or assassins, as Master Asharan had feared when Kamil leapt through that window in his small four-legged shape and then changed.
That prohibition was a problem he couldn’t bear to think about yet; those looming shadows would be Faraj’s problem to face, not Rahat’s. In the meantime, Rahat suspected he still had a great deal to learn about the smaller, more demandingly domesticated cats’ whims.
The tea-wares of the House of Jasmines were simple in comparison with the exquisite riches of his brother’s palace, of course, but some local artisan had made them with attentive pride: pale porcelain glazed with cobalt blues and delicately inset with a jasmine-blossom motif, so that the rich blue glaze puddled in different layers of translucence and the blossoms shone white amid the darker-blue inset vinework.
Master Asharan’s bathrobe wasn’t quite the same shade of blue; cobalt glass and indigo dyes handled the light differently.
But the same jasmine pattern twined around his collar and cuffs, until the fabric spilled off one golden-bronzed shoulder and Rahat’s mouth went entirely dry.
“Good morning, ya rahati,” Master Asharan said, with a smile that did entirely unfair things to Rahat’s faltering self-control. “Break your fast with me?”
“Um,” Rahat said, because he was almost ready to believe that was an invitation to share tastes which were not entirely food.
From where he lay sprawled across the door frame so that no one could open the door in the middle of the night, Kamil cleared his throat to remind him of his presence, and his catfolk-keen eyes, and the lynx-pointed ears that didn’t miss a sound. Rahat buried his face in his hands, shame-scalded.
“I dreamed — I don’t dare mention what I dreamed — and I don’t know whether to hope some of it was more than dreaming, or whether I have been entirely improper—”
“You have been my delight and my treasure,” Master Asharan said, which did not exactly reassure Rahat’s concerns about propriety and Kamil and all the rest. And then he leaned forward to kiss Rahat, slowly, sweetly.
He’d even found a moment to chew a pinch of sugared fennel against morning-breath; but of course, he was very, very good at his work.
“Ashaaaaar! Where’s the chaaaaai?” another catfolk yowled from outside the door, because apparently some larger catfolk wanted their breakfasts just as bright and early as the small cats did.
“I have guests, Hira!” Master Asharan called back, entirely unashamed.
“Then you should be making chai for them too! Unlike some people, I can’t just snap my fingers and boil the water!”
“Coming, coming.” Master Asharan tied his bathrobe more securely, then ran both hands through his hair.
(Rahat thought it was monumentally unfair that he clearly woke up already looking that gorgeous.) But then he stroked his hands through Rahat’s hair too, more attentively, with a light in his eyes that spoke of how sincerely he was enjoying the chance to pet Rahat while also grooming him.
No wonder he established his bath-house in the Catsprowl, Rahat thought. For all that Master Asharan was clearly human, he shared some very catfolk-like tendencies around grooming and petting and cuddles.
“If you’d like to rest more, of course you’re welcome.”
“I’d rather come with you,” Rahat said, and bit his lip before he could ask anything more.
Because Master Asharan sold a very diverse array of services, and he hadn’t allowed Rahat to offer him so much as a single coin, and it would be selfish to ask for more of his time.
Even if Master Asharan had been so very careful not to ask his name, a prince knew that his wish was very often someone else’s command.
And he didn’t want to command Master Asharan in …
whatever this was between them, new and fragile and carefully unnamed.
But Master Asharan grinned at him, brighter than the still-rising dawn: “You want to learn the secrets of my chai masala recipe, don’t you! Come on, then.”
Hira was already in the kitchen by the time the three of them arrived, taking apart a fish with her bare claws. She was a sable-pointed warm cream with vivid green eyes, and her whiskers flicked when she saw Kamil’s tall, striking figure behind Master Asharan and himself.
“Both of them? Now I’m jealous.”
Catfolk didn’t blush, but Kamil’s tail fluffed in startled embarrassment. “That’s not — I’m his—” He clearly stopped himself from saying his Highness’s by main force. “I’m his bodyguard.”
“You’re delicious, is what you are.” Hira held out the plate of fish she’d been deboning, and offered, “Share a treat?”
“I’m on duty, miss.”
“We’re still under my wards,” Master Asharan told him helpfully, taking a date from a bowl to chew while he filled an enormous cauldron with milk and water.
Hira started purring.
Looking a bit like a spooked rabbit unsure which way to dash, Kamil edged toward the kitchen door and put his back to the wall for either defense or support. Hira followed, hips and tail swaying in a definite slink.
While Master Asharan ground the spices and spooned the dried leaves and chopped the ginger and grated the lump of date-sugar — quite a lot of each, it was a large cauldron — Rahat watched his spice-work attentively, so that he wouldn’t embarrass Kamil as Hira fed him fish from her clawtips.
Feeding each other had implications in the court, and other implications among the catfolk, and Rahat thought the politest thing he could do was to pretend not to notice whether Kamil found her offerings of interest.
And watching was easier than thinking of words that were not I’m the God-Emperor’s brother, I think I might love you, please come to the court with me, I could keep you in silks and jewels for the rest of your life, if you would only accept them.
“Do you want my recipe?” Master Asharan asked, amused. With a grin at Hira, he made a pointedly showy performance of snapping his fingers to bring it to a sudden boil. Hira snorted her amusement while he stirred it with a long ladle. “It’s really not difficult. But I sometimes cheat a bit if—”
From outside the kitchen window, three children and two kittens yowled, “Chameli-sahib!”
“—If the various young ones are impatient,” he finished, wry. “It’s still brewing, littles!”
“They call you Chameli-sahib? Should I?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Master Asharan assured him. “I’m Asharan bir Chameli, but even aside from Mother’s name, I often give them little enchanted jasmine blossoms in the mornings with their chai. So that’s why I’m Chameli-sahib to the children. And you’re very welcome to call me Ashar.”
He looked at Rahat again, suddenly thoughtful. “You know, you do need eyes and ears of your own in this city. Kamil is of course wonderfully devoted, but… you are a trader, yes? Perhaps we should suggest some very small trades for some very small hands.”
His Imperial Highness Faraj was only a trader in that the Imperial Ministry of Finance oversaw the tax reports of the marketplaces in addition to the temples and the armies and the vassal city-states.
But Master Asharan… Ashar, he thought, like a secret treasure, shyly warmed by it, though Master Ashar felt a bit silly and Rahat intended to offer him every respect even in his thoughts.
In any case, Master Asharan had suggested that his ‘Rahat’ was a trader.