23

  When the Sanguine Siren finally limped into the harbor at Alexandria a full day later than expected, Sabina was very ready to put her feet on land again. It seemed that most of the crew, trained sailors all, were as well. Gleb didn't even seem to care that he was still naked when they all piled out of the rowboat at the Siren's moorage.

  "Thank you for giving us passage, Captain," Dalibor said to Volusa, shaking her hand. "I'm very sorry for the damage to your ship."

  "Don't be," she said. "You heard that monster. He wasn't going to stop with us. I'm glad I was there to help put him down."

  "Not for good, though," Dalibor said. "Stay vigilant out there."

  Volusa barked a laugh. "I'm not going anywhere soon, snaggletooth," she said. "My ship's full of holes and I'm short three crewmen. You looking to take up sailing? I could use a warlord as skilled as you."

  Dalibor chuckled. "I have other responsibilities, Volusa," he said. "And unless you suddenly decide to start wearing clothes, I wouldn't sail under you anyway."

  "Fair enough," she said. She looked over Dalibor's shoulder and addressed Simend. "What about you, yellowbelly? Want to work with Marcos and me a bit longer?"

  Simend's entire body tensed up, and he grabbed his bristling tail. "Sorry," Edric said for him. "We need him still. He's contracted to a job out of Meleko."

  "Pity," she said. "He'd be fun to have around. Especially if he managed to keep his voice."

  "I want to thank you as well, Captain," Sabina said. She held a hand out to Volusa. "And to apologize for any trouble I've caused you. You were an excellent hostess, and I hope we can meet again under less contentious circumstances some time."

  To her surprise, Volusa yanked on her hand and pulled her into a hug. "Let me know when you decide to stand up to your father," the lioness whispered in her ear. "I would not miss that for the world." Then she pushed away and began bellowing to her crew. "Marcos! I want my ship repaired yesterday! See to it while I go recruiting."

  "Aye, Captain!" the bull called back. "Men, to me. Our first task is to get the captain's cabin cleaned up. We should be expecting visitors."

  Sabina and the others left the ship behind and sat down to take their midday meal of bread, salad, and thick Aegyptian beer at the first tavern they found. They ate on a covered veranda overlooking the ocean.

  "Pretty much the only way to Meleko is by sea," Simend said, gesturing with a celery stick.

  "That's a problem," Edric said. He didn't touch his salad. Sabina wondered if his teeth could handle vegetables. "We don't know when or if Sara's going to start glowing, and if Navius finds us again, we might not get away so easily."

  "Especially if he goes for a surprise attack next time," Dalibor added.

  "And what about the others?" Simend asked. "We dealt with that skeleton, but there's still two others out there somewhere, and they have to be after you too."

  "I don't know," said Sabina. "We know Navius was disobeying the orders from the Star Cult. Maybe the others are too."

  "If that's the case, then I'm worried about Papa," Dalibor said. "Given their interaction on the ranch, I'd expect their dancer to go after him instead of us, and he doesn't stand a chance if she does."

  "I'm sure he's fine, Dalya," Sabina said.

  "Thank you, but I'm not sure at all," Dalibor said, rolling a date around his plate. "I'd feel better if I knew where their warlord was. Their attacks have been distressingly uncoordinated so far."

  "Even discounting the monsters that may or may not be after us, any overland route to Meleko is miserable," Simend said. "We either ride west to Sala then head south across Sahara or sail south on the Nilus to Mero? then ride west along the southern coast from there. And remember, it's close to a month's journey by sea. It's going to be three times that if we go by land."

  "If it's possible to avoid traveling through Mauritania, that would be my choice," Dalibor said.

  "Why?" Simend asked. "I know Mauritanians are a bit weird, but there's a lot of cool things to see out that way." Dalibor's ears flicked at that, but he said nothing, scowling at his food.

  "We're going to see the Pharos while we're here, right?" Sabina asked.

  "Of course! It's amazing," Simend said. "Say, do you know where in Aegyptus your mother was from, Dalibor? Maybe it'll be on our way."

  "She's not…" Dalibor said, but his voice died away, even as his mouth continued to try and form words.

  "Dalya?" Sabina asked. "What's wrong?"

  "I…" Dalibor stuttered. "I… Uh…" He took a deep breath and pushed his plate away. "I do know where my mother is from. Same place as my father. And me. We're all from Mauritania."

  Sabina felt her blood go cold, and Edric and Simend exchanged a look. "What do you mean?" the princess asked. "I thought Rasha was from Armenia."

  "Rasha is from Armenia," Dalibor said. "But Papa adopted me when I was an adult. When I was born, my parents named me Garai. They were both Sabwan, and they raised me in the Aldin family's business."

  "Hold up," Simend interrupted, leaning forward over the table. "You're an Aldin? No wonder your fur's so amazing. You're from one of the oldest families in the entire Southern Ring!"

  "I am an Aldin, yes," he said with a nod. "Eldest son, even. Heir to a trade empire. When I was nineteen, my parents helped me buy a ranch of my own outside of our hometown, and the girl I'd always thought I should marry, Jadia, finally decided to pay attention to me. She told me about a ship looking for soldiers that was paying enough to afford her entire bride price for just two months of work."

  "Bride price?" Simend asked, disgust obvious in his voice. "Who buys women these days? Rich people are an Aspect all of their own."

  "Volusa said the same thing ten years ago when I told her about Jadia," Dalibor said with a sigh. "And yeah, the bride price thing should have been a warning sign. But Jadia had set it for herself, and I wanted to marry her, so I packed up, left her in charge of my ranch, and headed out. Didn't even tell my family where I was going since they'd have tried to stop me. That voyage is where I met Myrddin and Volusa. And Papa."

  Sabina wanted to say something. Anything. Dalibor looked so small while he told his story. He stared at his splayed hands, the fingers taut and claws digging into the tabletop. But Sabina said nothing. Instead, she placed her hand on his, and he let her weave her fingers between his. She could feel him trembling.

  They sat there for a moment before Dalibor continued his story. "Turns out, Myrddin was searching for active Astral relics, so he had to pay obscene wages, with bonuses to family in the event of death or curse, to get anybody to volunteer at all. But nobody knew that Myrddin was a luminary. Gods, nobody back then knew luminaries could even exist. But he was a luminary, and that meant we all ended up being just fine. Well, other than the one mutineer, I guess. Wanted the relics for himself. But I made it back home safe and headed straight to my ranch. Jadia was there, wearing a tunic that was unbelted and too big for her. I thought it was adorable. She was wearing my clothes. So I called out to her, but she just looked at me like I was a ghost. Then she asked me why I wasn't dead. Accused me of not going on the voyage at all."

  "She wanted you to go because she wanted you dead," Simend growled.

  "That's monstrous," Sabina whispered.

  "Yeah," Dalibor agreed, staring at their joined hands. "I didn't have a chance to answer her before Taher, the hottest idiot in town, came out of my bedroom because of her shouting. That was when I realized that she wasn't wearing my tunic, she was wearing his, because he was wearing nothing. I should have realized sooner. I would never wear a tunic of that cut and in that pattern."

  "She was sleeping with another man in your own house?" Edric asked. "That's low." Simend grimaced, and his ears folded back before he nodded in agreement.

  "The two of them got into a shouting match right there about that very thing," Dalibor agreed. "And I'm just standing there trying to breathe because it was getting very hard to find air." It looked as though it were hard for him to find air even now. "And then she told him to just kill me there. Taher balked. He wasn't going to do it. Partially because he was naked and I was armed, but still. He didn't want to. He said no. But it didn't matter. I was so angry. I drew my sword, and Taher tried to stop me, and…"

  Everyone remained quiet when Dalibor broke down into quiet tears. He clutched Sabina's hand the entire time. Before long he collected himself and continued. "Papa had followed me home on the promise of work as a caravan guard for the Aldins. After I killed Jadia and Taher and... When I needed to disappear, he helped me. His own son, Dalibor, had died years before, so he gave me his son's name so that nobody would be able to find me. Then we fled north to Aquitania, used the money from the voyage to start a new ranch outside Massilia, and we lived there until Sara convinced me to kidnap her."

  "Do you want us to call you Garai?" Sabina asked. "Since that's your real name?"

  Dalibor shook his head pulled his hand away from her. "My real name is Dalibor," he said. "Garai is dead. I'm glad you know my whole story now, but I don't go by Dalibor because I'm trying to hide something. Well. Not anymore, at least."

  "We'll go south along the Nilus then," Simend said, looking at Edric. The shark's expression turned sour, but he nodded, and Simend continued. "Not only will we avoid any ghosts from Dalibor's past, we'll hopefully avoid these radiance-cursed monsters from Sara's present."

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  "Are you okay with that, Sara?" Edric asked.

  "It sounds reasonable," she said.

  "Thank you," Dalibor said, sniffling. "I feel bad for making you take a more dangerous route for my sake."

  "How long will it take us to get to Meleko by land?" Sabina asked.

  Edric and Simend looked at each other. "I've no idea," Edric said, and the jackal just shrugged.

  "Meleko is on the west coast, right?" Dalibor asked.

  "It is," Edric answered. "Right on the mouth of the River Daras."

  Dalibor folded back his ears. "I don't know what the terrain is like south of Sahara," he said, "but I know it takes a caravan just under three months to make the trip from Memphis to Sala, so it has to be around that."

  "Thunder's stones," Edric swore. "That's four more months on the road if you count the trip south along the Nilus. Binta's going to kill me when we get back."

  "Who's Binta?" Sabina asked.

  Edric's piscine eyes grew wide enough that she could nearly see the white around his silvery irises. "Did I never mention my mate?" he asked in a small voice.

  Simend wasn't paying attention to them though. "Four months?" he groaned. "Praise the Son of the Sun we're in Aegyptus and I can restock my eyeliner, because I definitely don't have enough to last four months." He gave Dalibor a sly smirk. "We can get you some too, you know. You'd look fabulous with your eyes done." Dalibor bared his fangs at Simend just enough for Simend's ears to droop. "Oh, balls, you just told us your family's Mauritanian, didn't you?"

  "I am not painting my face like some pampered Aegyptian poof," Dalibor said in a very level tone, and Sabina couldn't help but chuckle. She laughed harder when Edric did the same. "Some of us had real things to worry about growing up."

  "Don't give me that nonsense, rich boy. You already admitted you're an Aldin," Simend said, starting to laugh as well. "Besides, you're Sabwan. Your family had to be from Aegyptus or Kush initially. Ooh! Did you used to wear those little hats the horses wear?"

  "Oh, gods, I miss caps," Dalibor groaned. "I haven't worn a cap since I went into hiding. I had ones to match almost every one of my tunics and shendyts. Ugh, now I miss clothing with patterns too."

  "You used to wear patterned clothes?" Sabina asked, wrinkling her nose.

  "Have you not seen the clothes the Sosym wear?" Simend asked. He clasped his hands to his muzzle. "Love's tits, Dalya, you would look so good in those fancy getups. We have to go clothes shopping."

  Dalibor glared at Simend. Sabina expected him to correct the dancer on the use of his pet name, but, to her surprise, Dalibor just rolled his eyes and turned away, a small smile crossing his muzzle. "As much as I'd enjoy that, no, we don't," he said. "What little money we have left has to last for another four months, and we're going to have to buy horses at some point. We can't be spending it on fancy clothes for me." Then he sighed. "Maybe a cap if we can find a cheap one, though."

  "Yes!" Simend hissed, and Sabina knew his joy was as much about Dalibor considering him a close enough friend to call him Dalya as it was about the shopping trip.

  Later that evening, Sabina watched Dalibor sit on their shared bed and turn his new cap in his hands, over and over. It was a short, flat-topped conical thing dyed bright orange with a tasseled black topknot. A trio of interlocking black lines ran all the way around its brimless bottom. "Did you have fun shopping?" Sabina asked as she undid her sandals.

  "I did, actually," he said. "It's odd. I only ever visited Aegyptus briefly when I was younger, so I'm not used to being surrounded by people who look like me. Out in Mauritania it's mostly Sosym and Behiak, and the past ten years in Aquitania it's been almost exclusively Homines. It's…" He turned his cap in his hands and left his sentence incomplete.

  "Do you like it?" Sabina asked.

  "I do," Dalibor said slowly. "And that surprises me. I've always been odd, you know? Distinctive. Here I'm just one of a hundred other Sabwa wandering the markets of Alexandria. When people look at me they don't see an outsider. Or an invader. Or a pet. They see a person. I've never really felt that before."

  "I've always thought of you as a person," Sabina said.

  Dalibor glanced up at her, eyebrow raised. "You mean after you kidnapped me because you wanted to pet a jackal, right?" he asked.

  She could feel herself blush. "Okay, yes, after that," she said. "And taking your tunic off behind the villa didn't help." He shuddered, and she sighed. "I'm sorry. I know that makes you uncomfortable. I shouldn't have said it."

  "It's the truth, though," he said. "I know it is. It's that way with you and Simend both. It's been really nice having another Sabwa around, don't get me wrong. He understands, and we honestly had a really good time out in the markets this afternoon. I just… I wish it were anyone but Simend, you know?"

  "Do you wish it were anybody but me too?" Sabina asked.

  "No," Dalibor said, his ears drooping. "You know that's not what I meant. It's just that I know you both see me as someone I'm not. Someone attractive. Someone desirable. A potential lover. And I don't want to be those things. So it's hard."

  Sabina looked at Dalibor for a while in silence. Her brave jackal. No. Not jackal. Man. This brave man. She had always found him attractive, and she knew from Simend's fawning that he was objectively handsome by Sabwan standards. He was driven, intelligent, and so affectionate to the people he cared about. So why could he not be affectionate with her? And what had he been going to say before Navius attacked?

  A thought occurred to her, and she almost didn't act upon it. It was something her father would do, a bit of hard diplomacy that was as likely to sour relations as achieve its goal. But, though she was loathe to admit it, her father was the Emperor of New Rome, and he had kept that title through skill and cunning, not the privilege of his birth. So she disrobed for bed, this time removing her strophium and subligar as well. Once she was entirely naked, she addressed her companion once again. "Dalya, look at me."

  "No," Dalibor said, his ears even farther back than before. "You're naked, Sara. I shouldn't."

  "Am I that ugly?" she asked.

  "No!" Dalibor said, but his eyes remained fixed on his cap. "You're not ugly at all."

  "Then why won't you look at me?"

  "Because," he stammered. His fingers clutched the cap nearly tight enough to rip it. "I don't… You want…"

  "You would think to tell me what I want?" she said. They were her father's exact words. She'd heard him give this speech to one of his advisors. She felt slimy using her father's tricks, but if there was one thing both the emperor and Dalibor had taught her, it was that sometimes you had to march through sewage to get what you wanted. "You would use your warlord's analysis on me? Tell me, do you think you and I are at war?"

  That stung him. He looked up at her, fangs bared, only to look straight back down. But after taking a deep breath, he looked up again, lip caught on his fang, and did not look away. "I didn't think we were at war, Princess," he snapped. He hadn't used her title since the day after they'd met. "But you're making me reconsider that. Which is unfortunate, because we seem to be fighting on terrain that favors you for a change."

  She arched an eyebrow and let only the slightest glimmer of a smirk cross her lips. Losing her clothes had indeed been an excellent way to stop Dalibor from overanalyzing everything. She spread her arms. "Inspect me then, warlord," she said, turning a slow circle. "Am I a threat?"

  This bit was improvised. Her father hadn't stripped naked in front of his advisors, but Dalibor wasn't wrong. She'd been trained for this exact sort of situation. Maybe in a gown instead of bare skin, but she felt comfortable that she knew her opponent well enough to come out with what she wanted. Dalibor looked her over slowly, taking in each bit of her. Her face, her breasts, her hips, her lack of tail, her legs. She watched him, looking for any sign of his feelings for her. She saw his anger fade. She did not see his desire rise. He instead looked sad. "You are not," he said. "But I still feel threatened."

  She walked up to him, swaying her hips as she went, put a finger under his muzzle, and tilted his gaze up to meet hers. "Tell me what you were going to say on the ship before Navius attacked," she said.

  His eyes darted away from hers, but he did not break away from her touch. "Can you put your clothes on first?" he asked.

  "No," she said. "I'm going to be a Sanguine dancer. You need to get used to it."

  He shuddered again, and his gaze came back to hers. Her hearts leapt a bit. His golden eyes really were gorgeous. "I love you like a sister, Sara," he said. "I love you with the same fierce, enduring love that I hold for Papa. I would do anything for you. Give anything to protect you. I want to laugh with you, I want to hug you, I'm even okay with sleeping beside you. Even if you're not wearing clothes. You and Papa both, I swear."

  They shared a giggle at that, and she took her hand away from his muzzle. He clenched his jaw and looked her over again, and she finally understood that he had to grit his teeth and force himself to look at her not because he didn't want to look at her, but because he did. He wanted to overcome his own revulsion about sex and be able to look at her without hesitation or regret, to be able to see her with the same casual love and tender familiarity that he held for Rasha's naked form. And with that realization, her heart fell, because she knew what his next words were going to be before he said them. She considered trying to stop him, trying to keep the words unsaid, to keep things between them the way they had been for so long. But just as with Simend's ice earlier, the spell was already broken, and all there was left to do for the icy stasis that had gripped their relationship for the past several months was to shatter.

  "I don't want a romantic relationship with you, and I definitely don't want to have sex with you," Dalibor said. "You are family to me."

  "You said before you were willing to wait and see what might happen," she said. She wouldn't cry. She honestly wasn't even sure that's what she wanted to do right now. Or even what she was feeling. Heart-broken? Relieved?

  "It's been nearly a year now, Sara," Dalibor said. "And I have grown so close to you. I can't imagine losing you any more than I can imagine…" He broke off and looked away, blinking back sudden tears. "Losing you would hurt me as much as leaving Papa did." He wiped his eyes and looked back at her. "But whatever love I hold for you isn't romantic. So I'm sorry if you were trying to seduce me, because it's not going to work."

  "I wasn't," she said. "I was trying to distract you. Has anyone told you that you think too much?"

  He laughed with a true, happy laughter. Her heart warmed. It wasn't broken after all. The ice between them had thawed, not shattered. "You have no idea," he said. "I'd swear it was every other word out of Papa's mouth while we were trying to set up the ranch."

  "I believe it," she said. They smiled at each other. Then she sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you, Dalya. I am hurt and more than a little sad. Part of me really does want to have sex with you. Right now, if I could. And that part is willing to wait a bit longer to see if you change your mind."

  His smile fell and he fixed his lip. "Are there other parts of you?" he asked.

  "There are, and they want to be able to hug my big brother again," she said. "I've missed that since the attack in Byzantium." With a broad smile, he leaned in for a hug, but she put out and hand to his chest and stopped him. "Oh no, brother. I'm naked. If you want a hug, you take your tunic off."

  He pulled back and glared at her. "Well, if you want a hug, you can put your tunic back on," he said.

  She glared back at him. "I'll put my subligar on if you take off your tunic."

  "And your breastwrap."

  "It's late and I'm not sleeping in my strophium. It's uncomfortable."

  He glared at her for a moment longer, then groaned, rolled his eyes, and peeled off his tunic. She let herself giggle with joy and jumped up to tie her subligar back on. Then they hugged, and his warm fur felt amazing against her bare chest. "I missed this," he said. She could feel his hips sway with the wagging of his tail.

  "Me too," she said. "This is weird though, right? Siblings hugging each other naked is weird?"

  "I don't know, maybe," he said. "Should we ask Papa?"

  "No," she said. "I don't trust his judgement on the subject."

  Dalibor chuckled. "Nor should you."

  They laid down together like that, Dalibor on his back with Sabina's head on his shoulder. She idly traced a finger through the fur on his chest while she waited for sleep to claim her. What were the two of them to each other? They weren't actually siblings. She knew well enough from what ballads and stories she'd heard that the two of them were acting like lovers without the actual romance or sex part of the relationship. Was that normal? She didn't know. There was so much she didn't know, so much they hadn't taught her back in New Rome. She knew she was happy like this with Dalibor right now, but would she remain content with only this? She felt an itch somewhere deep within, remembered the low tingle that came with seeing Edric wet and topless, and she knew that no, she would not. Would admitting that she needed more from Dalibor break what peace they had just found? Would he abandon her if she decided to try to find whatever it was she was missing elsewhere? Could she stand to get it anywhere but from him?

  The thoughts swirled through her head without cease and threatened to consume her entirely until Dalibor, more than half asleep, pushed her off his shoulder, rolled over to face her, and very gently licked her nose. She was certain that he hadn't meant to do it, certain that he'd just been going through his reflexive fixing of his lip, but she nearly melted right into the bed regardless. She somehow managed to hold herself together long enough to roll over so her back was to him, scoot right up against his chest, and pull his arm around her.

  Whatever else she needed could wait. He was more than enough for tonight.