Three
HONOVI
The Gilded Songbird wasn’t gilded, and certainly anyone singing there would be singing off-key. The pub was located in an outer neighborhood of Amari, popular with airfield workers, and just the place Honovi wouldn’t be looked askance at as he rendezvoused with his husband. It helped that the pub wasn’t anywhere close to where the revenant incursion had occurred, even if it was all anyone could talk about.
“Not E’ridian whiskey, but it’ll do,” Siv said as she came back from the bar with four pints in hand.
She set the glasses on the rickety round table they’d been able to lay claim to after a group had left. The tabletop was sticky from spilled beer, and crumbs from the fried food the kitchen offered were mushed into some cracks. Someone had set the phonograph to play, but either the record was poorly made or the machine was, because the music coming out of it was choppy at best and utter noise at worst.
Honovi lifted his glass and hid his grimace behind a swallow of slightly too-sour beer. “Next time, find a better pub.”
Siv tipped her head in Honovi’s direction but didn’t promise anything. The younger woman was a member of Clan Mountain and an aide who Honovi had relied on since taking over the ambassadorship. Trading with Ashionens on a business level was a far cry from negotiating on a national level with politicians and a prime minister who couldn’t exactly commit to deals without the approval of King Bernard. The puppet government E’ridia was dealing with meant any new deals were slow to form, and nothing had been agreed to yet.
Perhaps his predecessor would have settled for something more than the nothing they currently had, as Siv had so tactfully explained after one brutally long negotiating session with Honovi’s counterpart. But Honovi was ajarl, and he knew intimately what theComhairle nan Cinnidheanwould and would not accept in a trade treaty.
Two years of a careful political dance, hoping for better terms, had gotten them nowhere. Honovi had a sinking feeling, growing worse over the last season or so, that it wasn’t so much his and his country’s demands holding everything up. The Ashionen government was focused on whatever Daijal wanted these days, and Crown Princess Eimarille was known to favor laws that went against ones already on the books in Ashion.
Honovi had done a deep dive into Ashion’s political history of the last decade when he first arrived in Amari. What he’d gleaned from it all had guided his hand in negotiations for the last two years. Expansion of debt bondage requirements, granting legal authority to the Collector’s Guild to do business in Ashion, interference in Ashion’s army recruitment process, and other laws that sought to transfer power west had crept through Ashion’s parliament.
All at the behest of Crown Princess Eimarille.
Oh, it was King Bernard’s signature approving those laws, but the authorial sections of the bills all had Eimarille’s name on them.
It painted a picture that left a hum of disquiet in the back of Honovi’s mind. He’d noted his concerns to theComhairle nan Cinnidheanwhen he’d send his quarterly reports back by way of a diplomatic messenger on an E’ridian airship. Some information could not be safely discussed over a wire, and a diplomatic telegram written in code was the only option.
Honovi leaned back in the wooden chair, staring out at the crowded pub filled with off-the-clock workers, half of whom were E’ridian. Honovi had left his ranking hair adornments at the embassy, keeping to a simple braid. He wore the flight uniform of an aeronaut captain rather than clan-affiliated plaid, the marriage torc around his neck something he never removed.
They’d chosen this pub because of its mix of people, making it less likely anyone would think it odd that an Ashionen professor and an E’ridian aeronaut would run into each other. The pub had a few side rooms used for card games and illicit meetings everyone pretended weren’t happening. The Gilded Songbird wasn’t a brothel, but that didn’t stop people from finding a little pleasure in the shadows.
Normally, Honovi would have met Blaine at the embassy after hours, where they were assured a modicum of safety they couldn’t find anywhere else in the capital city. With the revenant incursion two days ago, that area of the city, which included the E’ridian embassy, had been restricted for investigation purposes and cleanup.
Blaine had sent a message through Lady Brielle Auclair during Honovi’s official office hours within parliament. Their pleasantries had happened under the guise of politics. The folded letter she’d left behind on his desk from Blaine had been burned after the message was read.
Which was how Honovi had ended up here, waiting for his husband to arrive, flanked by E’ridians he’d grown to trust while in Ashion. The diplomatic corps was insular in the way an airship crew could be, but they’d welcomed him with open arms regardless.
Honovi kept drinking, kept chatting, exchanging his beer for a whiskey on the next round. The dregs had settled at the bottom by the time he caught sight of Blaine.
It was always a shock to see his husband with short, unbraided hair. It fell to Blaine’s shoulders these days, barely long enough to tie back in a queue—certainly not long enough to showcase clan braids. His casual trousers and button-down shirt were a far cry from the suits he normally wore when visiting the embassy. The outfit replaced the flight leathers with its plaid panels and shirt that kept them warm in the high altitude or the kilts when on the ground at Glencoe. Everything about him screamed Ashionen, and Honovi supposed that was the point.
It didn’t stop him from wanting to bring his husband home.
Blaine took his time getting a drink at the bar, chatting with some of the men and women crowding the counter. Honovi kept half his attention on Blaine, the rest on everyone else, occasionally interjecting a comment in the conversation happening at his own table.
Eventually, Blaine headed toward the back of the pub, slipping down the narrow hall that led to the private rooms. Honovi shoved his chair back, nodding at those with him. “I’ll return shortly.”
He made his way through the crowd. The music wasn’t as loud in the back, but the smoke was thicker, the smell of cigars heavy in the air. Honovi squinted against the haze, seeing Blaine at the far end of the hallway, waiting at the door which led into the alleyway between two buildings. He slipped through it, and Honovi lengthened his stride to join him.
Outside, the muggy evening air smelled worse than the cigar smoke–choked pub he’d left. Garbage and other refuse was piled against the walls, waiting for the trash pickup later in the week. Honovi breathed through his mouth and tried not to let it bother him as he turned to where Blaine stood in the shadows.
“Honovi,” Blaine said quietly, already reaching for him.
He let himself be drawn into a tight embrace, holding Blaine close. Honovi tucked his nose into Blaine’s hair, drawing in a deep breath. The cologne his husband wore wasn’t a scent he recognized.
“I’m here,” Honovi said.
Blaine nodded, hands digging into Honovi’s back. Meeting like this—in secret, in the shadows—for the past two years was wearying. Honovi’s bed felt empty every morning he woke up alone. He missed flying with Blaine by his side, missed their language, their food, theirhome.
“We don’t have much time,” Blaine said after a moment, pulling back enough that Honovi could just make out his face. It was difficult to read his expression in the darkness between buildings. Light from the streetlamps didn’t penetrate this far.
