From Ruins (Princes' Game 6)

A spy dying on the wall of a palace.

An Emperor turned rebel through the power of a psalm.

A shapechanger on the cusp of an enormous discovery.

A woman riding to battle in the vanguard of her enemies.

The known worlds are about to convulse in a cataclysmic war; time is running out. Can the Eldritch, the Chatcaava, and their Pelted allies turn the tide? Or will it all go up in fire?

Is there hope in ashes?

The sixth and final installment of the Princes' Game series brings the threads from five epic novels to a stunning conclusion that will change the shape of the Peltedverse forever.

 

Genre (setting): space opera (Pelted)

Tags: psychology, high stakes politics, pirates, galactic war, ensemble cast, dragons, elves (space)
Rating: R for violence, abuse, adult situations

 

Excerpt from Chapter 3

Despite the evidence that suggested the results would be unremarkable, the Emperor was dreading his follow-up examination: he knew it was unlikely the physician would find anything, but the thought of physical relapse distressed him, nor did he want to discuss his emotional state. The Emperor presented himself to the Seersan medic in the clinic and sat on the bed as directed. To focus his thoughts productively, he watched Dellen Crosby moving, with special attention on how he placed each footfall, and how his tail moved to balance the legs. The medic’s pace was more deliberate than Laniis’s. Perhaps age? Personality? Different training? He wondered if he could ask.

“You’re looking good,” Crosby said, studying the read-outs as Andrea waited on the other side of the bed. “How do you feel? Headaches? Dizziness? Any strange spells?”

“None,” the Emperor replied.

Crosby nodded. “How’s your mental health? Need me to set you up with Dominika?”

“I… am managing. For now.”

“There’s no shame in asking for help,” Crosby said. “I won’t belabor the point, but I don’t want you to stumble through your recovery alone out of some sense of misplaced pride.”

The Emperor exhaled, lowering his head. Bow it. Bow it, unworthy thing. “Pride is not a problem.”

“Shame, then,” Crosby said, a glint in his eye as he glanced at the Emperor, who grimaced. “I’ve been doing this a while, alet. There isn’t a reason in the book I haven’t heard.”

“I’m keeping an eye on him,” Andrea offered.

“Oh are you.” The healer snorted. “I believe it. Well, you look fine for now. You have any questions?”

Would now be the time? What better time would there be? “Are Seersan legs stronger than human ones?”

The data tablet in Crosby’s hand sagged. Behind the Emperor, Andrea laughed. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you at a loss, alet.”

“Yes, well, it’s the first time I’ve been asked the question by someone who might be able to evaluate the difference first-hand.” Crosby eyed him. “I assume you know both shapes?”

“I do, yes. The leg configuration on your body type strikes me as… peculiar.”

“It strikes us as peculiar, too.” Crosby set aside the data tablet and folded his arms. “Can you show me?”

“Us,” Andrea said. “I’m here too. But I can leave, Survivor, if you’d rather I did.”

She did that, sometimes. Calling him by whatever name or title seemed appropriate to her at the time. Never his name, though. Maybe she sensed names for Chatcaava were fraught.

“It’s fine,” he said, and pushed himself off the bed, pouring himself from the dragon body into the one Laniis had taught him. Fur was a relief; the clinic was cold, and he hadn’t noticed. Too accustomed, maybe, to ignoring discomfort as a Chatcaavan? Strange thought.

“God above us,” Andrea breathed.

“Were you always able to make the change so quickly?” Crosby asked, walking in an arc around the Emperor, who turned obligingly so he could see the back as well as the front.

“No. That was a matter of practice. And willingness, I think. To be subsumed.”

“What fascinates me is how closely your physique seems to have been duplicated.”

“Other than the color,” Andrea said.

Crosby waved that off, irritable. “The color is immaterial. Or rather, it is, but only as a data point for how the shapechange expresses minor traits, like pigmentation. It’s the musculature that interests me.” He stopped beside the Emperor, eyeing his hips. “Do you tip forward?”

“I find balancing in this shape… challenging.”

“You have the thighs and calves of a plantigrade body,” Crosby said. He hiked his uniform skirt up and wiggled out of his pants as both Andrea and the Emperor watched, bemused. “Look at my thigh here. See the development? That’s from a lifetime of walking on what a humanoid body would perceive to be its toes. You don’t have that. Or rather, you have more of it than you did as a dragon, but not as much as you should as an adult Seersa your age.”

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” Andrea said. They both looked at her, so she continued, “Well, it’s an action that requires practice, right? From what you’ve said? Maybe you didn’t take enough of the shape? Like you didn’t realize the leg muscles mattered so you didn’t pay attention to that part?”

The observation struck him powerfully. “I don’t perceive any choice when I actually Touch. In what I take.”

“But?” Andrea asked, hearing it in his voice.

“But perhaps careful observation of the differences prior to taking the pattern would help inform it better?” The Emperor looked down at himself. “I have also wondered if building my strength in a particular shape will cause that strength to appear in my first body.”

Andrea nodded. “The priest at the Source wasn’t really clear about that.”

“So many questions,” Crosby said. “Fascinating ones, though. You’re sure there’s no medical literature?”

“None that I know of,” the Emperor said. “We should probably begin some. If you wish to be involved.”

Crosby’s ears splayed. “I assumed that was something you wanted to keep in-species.”

The Emperor spread his arms and looked from one unfurred palm to the other, then raised his head to meet Crosby’s eyes. He lifted his brows.

“Fine, you look like a different species, but you’re still a dragon,” Crosby said, dryly. “And you knew what I meant. Culture transcends race. Culturally the Change is… what. Forbidden? A religious relic? Unusual?”

“I think it will become something embraced initially by those who are open to amity with other species,” the Emperor said. “The males who would wish its secrets withheld from aliens are also the least likely to use it.”

“Good point.” The Seersa tapped his fingers on his arm. “Fine. I’ll make a run at it. Just observational data, mind you. One test subject does not a study make. And I haven’t done research in long enough that I wouldn’t trust me to put together a real study anyhow.”

“Observation is the beginning of anything,” the Emperor said. “It will do. Will you meet me in the gym today?”

“Sure. Ping me, I’ll come by. Otherwise, you’re good to leave. Your health’s as good as it’s going to get, outside a therapist’s couch.” The Seersa nodded to him and added to Andrea, “I’m in my office if you need anything.”

After the male had vanished into his room, the Emperor said, “Does it make you happy? What you are doing here.”

Andrea laughed. “It’s certainly the most relaxing job I’ve had since I graduated from medical school. Right now I’m going through requisitions, checking to see how low our supplies have gotten. The computer indexes all that, but sometimes people don’t put things back in the right trays and the count goes off.” She offered him his pants. “Do these fit in that shape?”

“No.” The Emperor took them anyway.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, wistfully. “Was it… was it Lieutenant Baker?”

“It was,” he said.

Andrea sighed. “What a mess.”

“Is it?” he asked, because he honestly no longer knew how to categorize his relationship with Laniis Baker. He only knew that one existed.

“Yes,” she said firmly. And then, sheepish, “You look so huggable like this.”

That stopped him short. “What?”

“I think that about all the Seersa and Karaka’A,” she confessed, blushing. “I know it’s awful, but they all tend to be short and soft and plushly furred and whenever I look at them I have to sit on my reaction to think that they’re adorable.”

The Emperor stared into space, imagining it. “Even Crosby?”

She started laughing. “Especially Healer Crosby! He’s so grumpy. I imagine hugging him and he’s wearing that scowl and it gets even cuter somehow.” She grinned at him. “I would never suggest it, of course. The last thing any Pelted wants to hear is ‘you’re cute and I want to cuddle you because you remind me of a pet dog except better.’” Her smile faded. “I guess that’s how we planned it, actually. When we first made them back on Earth. Like a pet dog but better.”

“I am not a Seersa,” the Emperor observed.

She looked up. “Of course not.”

“So you could hug me,” the Emperor said, careful of the words. “And not fear offending a real Seersa.”

She stared at him. “You… would let me hug you?”

“I let the Ambassador do so.”

“Yes, but he’s your lover!”

“And you are… my friend. I believe. Yes?” The concept was tender in his head, like a wound. But he couldn’t refute the truth of it. He had trusted Andrea with his body and sanity in the Worldlord’s harem. He trusted her now with his doubts and questions. That was, by alien standards, the definition of a friend.

It was the Chatcaavan definition as well. No matter how they dismissed it, or denied it.

“I think of you as a friend,” she agreed. “I think. I mean, it seems a little disrespectful to say so.”

“Because I am the Emperor of the Chatcaavan Empire?” he asked.

“Because you’ve been through so much,” she said. “You deserve the ability to decide whether someone is your friend or not, without them deciding for you, even in their own head.”

He tried to work through that, and thought he could understand. “This is about consent, again.”

“And agency,” she agreed. “If two people don’t agree on what they are to one another, that’s not good. That’s your problem with Lieutenant Baker.”

Such an elegant summation. It felt right. How easy these aliens were with concepts that the Chatcaava needed. “It is not our problem, however. I agree with your assessment, Andrea, though I don’t know how I have deserved it.”

She shrugged, her smile helpless. “Why do we like the people we like? Do we ever really know?”

“Maybe not,” he said, and spread his arms again. “But right now I am a Seersa, so you should take advantage of this opportunity.”

That made her laugh, as he suspected it might. She also stepped into him, slowly: so that she could stop if he flinched, he thought. When he didn’t, she finished her advance, close enough that breathing made her breast brush against his.

And then she buried her head in his shoulder and hugged him tightly with a gleeful sound that tore him open because its happiness was so innocent. When in his life had he ever inspired so clean and uncomplicated an emotion?

He rested his arms around her back, his cheek against her head. It was utterly unlike embracing the Ambassador, whom he loved and wanted. There was no passion driving him. He felt no impetus, save that to savor the moment: its strangeness, its unexpectedness, its perfection.

Stepping back, Andrea sighed with evident happiness. “That was wonderful. Everything I ever imagined.”

“Furry?” he suggested, curious how it had seemed to her.

“Fluffy!” She laughed. “But better, because it was like a layer of plush over something you could squeeze and squeeze and it would never break.”

Struck, he said, “You thought this?”

“Isn’t it true?” she asked. “You haven’t broken. And you’re not going to. You’re the Survivor, alet.”

“Arii,” he said. “Alet imposes a distance.”

She blushed, but she was smiling. “Arii, then.”

He slipped back into the dragon’s shape, dressed, and took his leave of her, wondering how it was possible that he had acquired a human nestsister. Would she object to the characterization? He doubted it. And yet, how bizarre, to have an alien lover and an alien friend?

He thought of the Knife calling Laniis his huntsister. Well. Perhaps not so strange after all, anymore.