Kamil sighed, shifting Sahar’s basket in his arms. He was far better at controlling his thoughts than Rahat was.
Shame and embarrassment are two different things,he said.I would be embarrassed to have kittens petting me in the marketplace. But I wouldn’t be ashamed that kittens felt safe enough to run up to me with smiles on their faces.
Oh, if this is a walk of embarrassment, that makes SO much more sense,Rahat said, rueful.I’m much more used to embarrassment. I can embarrass myself for hours?—
Shahzada.
…yes, Kamil?
I would be embarrassed to have kittens petting me in the marketplace. I am supposed to be menacing. You are not. Just because I would be embarrassed, it doesn’t mean that you should be too.
Sometimes, Kamil wasn’t quite as disciplined with his thoughts as he meant to be. That particular thought brought with it a visceral sense-memory of what it felt like to have claws, and to flex them, when you wanted to claw the face off a witty courtier declaiming his latest couplets about royal largesse and royal largeness while your prince-and-ward-and-friend shrank into a gilded chair trying desperately to be smaller.
Don’t get me wrong,Kamil added swiftly.Your rose-addled enchanter is an idiot for a thousand other reasons and I owe him months of payback for encouraging every last stray kitten in the city to dash up to you out of nowhere. I may need him to henna me just so my pelt doesn’t go entirely white from the stress. But there are two things he got absolutely, perfectly right.
That’s extraordinary praise, coming from you,Rahat said wryly.
Yes, and that means I expect you to listen,Kamil told him, tail twitching.The first is that he adores you. No one could taste a bite of his rahat al-hulqum and have any doubt of how he feels. And the other is that he taught every child in that neighborhood to take delight in you, body and soul, exactly as you are.
Rahat had to stop to swallow hard around the sudden lump in his throat.
That’s… that’s not… something I’ve ever…
I know,Kamil said, and it came with that sense-memory of claw-flexing again.Shahzada, I’m not here to tell you how you should feel. But I myself would feel a certain vindicated pleasure if you were to walk into that marketplace without either shame or embarrassment. If you could simply enjoy their attention. Not as a prince, not as the face of the Empire, not even as a human holding power over the city of the cats. Just enjoy these little ones’ happiness to see you, as yourself. Fat, smiling, generous, kind, and celebrated for every part of it.
“Oh,” Rahat said, and his voice was breaking. “Oh, Kamil, I — I know how you feel about hugs?—”
Kamil’s ears flattened sideways, but he put his arm around Rahat’s shoulders, standing close enough that Rahat could feel the thrum of his soft purr despite the noise of the marketplace. Rahat touched his side and petted him, careful not to restrict his range of movement, and the thrum deepened.
Sahar peered out of her basket, then stretched up to plant her paws on his chest. She began to lick them both impartially, both Rahat’s softly bearded cheek and Kamil’s sandy-pelted arm around his shoulders. Rahat laughed despite himself, still a bit tearful, and smoothed her fur as well.
“I am somehow insufficiently groomed, my beauty? We shall have to share your exacting standards with Master Asharan, when your kittens come.” He scratched under her chin, and she shoved her face into his hand, rubbing her cheek against his fingers to mark him as her own.
“Are you ready?” Kamil asked.Because if not, and I’m just observing, we could duck back into Elder Sister’s kitchen and you could change in her pantry while I sent for a palanquin with a team of guards.
I think I would like to walk the Basteti marketplace for myself, on my own feet,Rahat said.I never have before. And I think I would like to be seen in the marketplace for myself. I never have before, either. And you and Master Asharan have offered me such a precious gift, it would be a dreadful shame to waste it.Aloud, he added, “Are you ready?”
Kamil snorted. “Not in the least.”But even if this is next door to my personal notion of hell, shahzada… where you go, I follow. Even if you might not appreciate me following you into a bath-house. Wherever you go, I will follow.
Rahat petted him vigorously, and said with a rueful smile, “Sometimes you are not terrifying and dangerous at all, you know. That was positively sweet. We may both need to beware of kittens.”
“You’ll live.”I’ll make sure of that.
2
Hand-me-downs
ASHAR
When Hira caught Ashar staring out through the dawn-gildedjali’sintricately carved stone lacework in the direction of the cliffs that rose from the floodplain and supported the walls of the Imperial fortress, she reached out and batted him across the nose as though he were a misbehaving kitten.
“You’re not as subtle as you think,” she told him. “More particularly, you’re not as subtle as you’re going to need to be, if you want the aunties and the children to keep calling him Rahat.”
Ashar blinked, and put down the cup he was holding very carefully. Then he took a breath and said, “You’ve realized his other name?”
“Obviously.”
Ashar ran both hands down his face. “I’m sorry. That knowledge is a danger I hadn’t meant to snare you in. When did you realize? How did I betray…?”
