Of course then Rahat remembered his shyness, with an embarrassed glance at Kamil. But Kamil thwapped him with his tail, and lifted Sahar out of his lap despite her irritation.
“Don’t let us stop you,” Kamil said, scooping Nehal onto his shoulder as well, even though he winced when Nehal began to gnaw on his ear again. “I’m your bodyguard, and I’m a tomcat. I’ve seen it all before.”
“Um. That’s… not exactly helping.”
Kamil thwapped Rahat with his tail again, then turned toward the window in a cat’s most ostentatious ignoring. “Go on.”
Rahat looked at Ashar, shy and soft and blushing like the rose-sweets he’d named him for. But Ashar’s eager, hopefulanticipation clearly surprised him—surprised him, and pleased him, too. He took a steadying breath and reached up to cradle Ashar’s cheek.
And then Rahat kissed him again. Tender, soft, still a little shy, but not ashamed of who he was, or how he was, or what he wanted.
It wasn’t all that often that kisses changed the world, Ashar thought, and he ought to know, given his own expertise in the area. But just this once… just this once, maybe this one might.
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 hadabsolutely neverawakened 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 thehaveli, 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 stillhad 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 amoment to chew a pinch of sugared fennel against morning-breath; but of course, he was very,verygood 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 haveguests,Hira!” Master Asharan called back, entirely unashamed.
