“This isn’t just about the cat, is it,” Irfan murmured.
“Ofcoursethis isn’t just about the cat,” Najra said, poking him in the shoulder with her silverpoint. “I wouldn’t kick the legs out from under the God-Emperor’s throne for a cat. But I’d do it to defend his Highness’s right to choose his love and his joy for himself, whether or not it’s expedient or charm-suspicious or anything else.”
“You have the delicate political sensitivity of a scouring sandstorm,ya ustadha.”
“Surely that’s notnews.” Najra threw back the last of her chai and thumped the empty kulhad on the table. “If our wants and needs were diplomatically impossible, we couldretire,you and I. But his Highness will nevernotbe the God-Emperor’s prophet. He can’t step down. He can’t push his foresight into a ring or a charm and hand it over and walk away. And that ‘ensorcellment bound to his soul’ is a soft little bit of charmcraft who’s only alive and embodied because she loves him and he loves her.Yes,that’s a hell of a vulnerability. Love always is. That doesn’t mean you get to take her away from him like a toddler about to burn himself on a candle-flame, Irfan. We’re all old enough and tired enough to know how love burns.”
“And you dare to speak of love.”
“I dare to speak ofanything,” Najra said, with a toss of her head. “But I dareyouto tell me I’m wrong.”
With an unsteady waver in his voice, Irfan asked, “Your Highness…?”
He’d really hoped Irfan and Najra would have spent just a couple more minutes arguing with each other.
“Kitten,” he managed, still clinging to the table.
Najra hastily scrabbled among her diagrams for a sheet with a blank back side and flipped it over.
“Tell meeverything,”she said, silverpoint poised at the ready. “Do you get a sense of direction? A distance? You don’t have the same anatomy, so what would you say is?—”
“Not right now, Najra,”Irfan sighed. He moved to kneel at Faraj’s side, and silently offered his hands to hold.
After a moment’s hesitation, Faraj took Irfan’s hands, and held on, and tried to breathe through it.
(The deep rumble of Kamil’s purring was a comfort beyond compare. But even as dearly as he loved Kamil, those claws were much too sharp for soft human hands to cling to.)
Of them all, Shai Vishal seemed to have the most difficulty with quiet and stillness. Najra’s silverpoint was busily flicking away at whatever observations she made of Faraj’s breathing and his posture and any hints of discomfort; Kamil had years of daily practice in silent, watchful waiting; and Irfan could make himself as gracefully unobtrusive as the palace draperies when he so chose. But Shai Vishal was the High Priest of Upaja, and empty cups and neglected bowls clearly cried out to something deep in his soul that needed to nourish people. He topped up each of the kulhad on the table with fresh hot chai, then cut smaller squares from the broadleaf and set sliced rounds of bread-wrappedbaridaand little heaps of almonds and dates and dried apricots and spiced cheeses in easier reach for each of them. Then he folded his hands to wait in exactly the same way Irfan had. Faraj realized that all three of them might have learned from the same instructors in comportment, many years ago.
When he could breathe properly again, Faraj said, “Thank you.”
He’d expected Irfan to pull away and put his poised facade back together, but instead Irfan still held his hands, and bent his head.
“Has that enchanter stolen your heart as well?” he murmured. “Because there were many, many easier ways to come by a cat than this one.”
Faraj couldn’t let his hands tighten, couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t blink.
“Your Highness?”
“You can’t possibly expect him to answer that, given what you’re trying to do to acatthat he loves,” Najra grumbled. “Don’t tell me you’d be happier if he’d brought home a bastard instead of a cat.”
“If you had brought home a bastard, your Highness, I would have known what to do,” Irfan said, with a strained effort at a smile. “Your brothers have set that precedent quite thoroughly.”
“I’m sure many of the court would have preferred that,” Faraj said, but his voice trembled despite himself. “I wish I could have brought you a bastard. I wish… I wish I could be… other than I am.”
Kamil’s purring curdled into a growl.
Najra closed her palm-book with a snap. “I love you exactly as you are,” she said. “I have from the day we met. Kamil loves you exactly as you are. He wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t. Irfan?”
“I love, honor, and respect the man you are, your Highness,” his Chamberlain said. “It has been my life’s privilege to serve you to the best of my ability. I have not set myself against you in this to hurt you, but to protect you. Because I am hardly the only member of your brother’s illustrious court who knows the edicts.”
Shai Vishal asked, “You will not withdraw your complaint, then?”
“I cannot,” Irfan said. “Who am I to question the edicts of my god incarnate?”
“Fortunately, you have me for that,” Najra pointed out. “Don’t your priests have sharp things to say about bastards too? Oh wait, my mistake, they only howl invective against the women who bear them.”
“One revolutionary heresy at a time, please,” Shai Vishal said, rubbing his temples.
