Chapter Three

I watched Jysel pace around the living room, his expression intense but otherwise unreadable. Rel had come and set down drinks for us but had left again while murmuring something about making breakfast for us. My protests had been halted by my growling stomach.

I almost told Jysel he was going to wear out the floor, then thought better of it. He seemed genuinely worried for me, so the least I could do was try to be more friendly toward him. Even if we had been greatly at odds for a while now. “Jysel, are you alright?”

“No,” Jysel stated simply. He continued to pace, then slowed to a stop and glanced toward me. “…you aren’t angry with me at all?”

“I’m a little annoyed you pushed me into the kuhir-dal state during our fight,” I informed him wryly, leaning back in my seat. “But I’m not angry, no. I’m sure it was more convincing for any onlookers with me being in that state, anyway.”

“I thought I would learn something by pushing you, or perhaps create some entertainment, at least, but…” Jysel seemed to struggle to find words for a moment, as if the human tongue didn’t have a word for what he wished to express. “I caused you physical harm, and I could have caused you psychological harm if I hadn’t been strong enough to contend with you. Treating someone who may become my…queen, in such a way, is—”

“Please. Don’t cripple yourself with what sounds like an outdated sense of honor.” I sighed at him, crossing one leg over the other.

Jysel whipped around to face me. “It is no such thing! The human tongue simply… It doesn’t have a way for me to properly and platonically express my concerns or apologies.”

“Try,” I mused. “Take a deep breath, calm down, and try to think about it with less emotion.”

Jysel sighed in aggravation before doing as I’d recommended. He was silent for a short while, then spoke more confidently, “Harming you, especially so gravely, is a type of betrayal in our culture. The closest human comparison I can find would be if a dominant romantic partner failed to take the proper precautions before engaging in potentially damaging ‘play.’ Such risk and damage would not only cause harm, but a loss of trust.

“I’ve failed to protect you from my mother, from the human government…and from me. By all our customs, my life should be yours to do with as you see fit.”

“And I’m telling you that, in that situation, our only choice was to nearly kill each other.” I narrowed my eyes at him, then pointed at the seat to my left on the couch. It took most of my self-control to refrain from telling him outright to sit. “And for the Resonance Weapon, that isn’t your fault. I’m not going to hold you responsible. As far as I’m concerned, the one responsible has been dealt with and it’s in the past.”

Jysel mouthed a few times, his glow wavering between yellow and light pink with a blue aura, before promptly sitting to my left and clasping his hands into fists in his lap, his glow settling on a ‘stealthy’ silver.

I sighed softly and shifted to look at him. “Do you need my verbal forgiveness?”

“No…but I…I would like it,” Jysel answered quietly, averting his gaze, his fists clenching tight in his lap. His skin flushed a darker blue, even to the tips of his ears.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected the answer to be, but at least I had one. Concern lingered in the back of my mind, telling me that his desire for forgiveness might be driven by the wrong motives, such as my status as an iri, or the queenlike powers I had.

But…it wasn’t my place to deny him forgiveness either, even if I thought I’d already expressed that I held no grudge.

“Jysel, I forgive you—and commend you for doing what needed to be done,” I finally spoke up, keeping my tone level and gentle, attempting to keep any commanding qualities out of my tone just to be safe. “One or both of us would be gone if you hadn’t shown the proper resolve in that moment. Instead, you dealt with me as necessary and bought your team time to disable the resonance weapon. You should be celebrating your success.”

“That’s…” Jysel’s eyes ticked back and forth rapidly as if processing what I said, his jaw growing slack. “You mean it.”

“That I do.” I leaned forward a little and tilted my head, trying to get a better gauge of his expression. “I take it you’ve met little-to-no ‘nice’ iri.”

“Jysel has spent most of his time around queens and…” Rel trailed off in thought as he carried two platters into the room. “…ah. The closest translation is ‘nobles.’ Upper class citizens? Something of that sort. The rich and the powerful…which admittedly means something quite different on Syldra. Jysel has had little interaction with iri who aren’t raised in the upper echelons of society.

“Iri who are more reasonable, such as yourself, usually belong to the ‘common’ class or were born off-world. Culture on Syldra and culture on exploratory vessels are similar. It’s the ships and fleets belonging to the problematic minority of queens that have the less welcoming cultures.”

Jysel let out a grumpy ‘humph’ before asking, “Can we save telling her my life story for some other time? We have more important—”

“Letting our future queen get to know us is important as well,” Rel interrupted as he placed the platters down on the coffee table. When he straightened, a devious smile came to his lips and he made a motion with one hand. My body lifted a few inches off the sofa cushions, startling me, and he dropped me so that I was hip-to-hip with Jysel. Then, he took a seat to my right, just as close, and began preparing a plate of food. “Now then, since we have you here—”

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“What do you mean by ‘future queen?’” I demanded. “And, you could have asked me to move.”

Rel caught me by the jaw with his free hand, that same alluringly devious smile spreading across his face again. “Or I could make certain you’re where you’ll behave yourself…and perhaps we enjoy watching you squirm.

“Now then. As I was saying, we have decided that, should Citomy offer us to you again, you should accept.”

“What? What?” I exclaimed. “I don’t want you two to be forced into—”

“We would have you claim us right now if you could control your power,” Jysel stated quietly, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall instead of me, even as his hand slipped over and wrapped gently around my arm. “We…”

“We decided that we quite like you.”

“…and that you wouldn’t strip us of who we are. We agreed that—”

“—you would allow us to continue our respective missions as well as our joint one. And, if you become our queen, that provides our clan a degree of safety we cannot.”

“And…we would have an easier time protecting you if you became our queen. We wouldn’t have to worry that…that one of your enemies might take us first.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked between the two. “Do you always do that when you’re together?”

“Only when we’re around someone we’ve decided to trust.” Rel lifted the plate in his left hand and a fork in his right, then gave me an amused look. “You need to eat. Shall I feed you?”

“That isn’t—” I started to protest.

“Hey. I want to feed her too,” Jysel interjected, abruptly pulling me closer to him.

“We can split the work, of course,” Rel stated calmly. He promptly stuffed a biscuit in my mouth when I went to protest again. “You caught our attention, Elara, and we’ve decided to treat you accordingly. If we’re making you uncomfortable, then of course we will stop.”

I can feed myself and I prefer to, I shot back mentally, hoping one or both were listening in, as I could only chew so fast.

“Ah…but we like showing care instead of speaking it. Hmm…” Rel murmured distractedly, his gaze drifting away from me while he thought.

I managed to finish chewing, so I spoke up, “I would like an explanation of the whole…speaking together? Thing you were doing.”

“When around people we trust, we let down the barriers that keep our thoughts fully separate. Syldrari twins are deeply connected—we can ‘think together,’ process that information and our counter arguments, settle the argument, and then choose which one of us speaks. All in the time it takes an individual to process their comments for a normal conversation.” Rel shrugged and gave me a small, crooked smile. “You insist you won’t let us take care of you?”

“I don’t need to be…babied,” I grumbled. There was something appealing about the idea of having them dote on me, but I didn’t want to listen to that part of myself.

“Give in,” Rel spoke by my ear, his voice rumbling through me. When I glanced at him, I spotted an inviting smirk on his lips. “You should be resting, after all.”

“Let us take care of you,” Jysel murmured, lifting my left hand to his lips, his eyes fierce but otherwise unreadable.

“I think you deserve some pampering after everything you’ve dealt with while working for the humans,” Rel added, lifting the fork again and giving me a pointed smile. “And, you shouldn’t deny yourself just because you’re suspicious about what part of yourself is telling you to accept our offer.”

“The ‘queen’ part of you is dormant right now,” Jysel spoke into my skin, his lips drifting toward my wrist.

With the new intensity of sensation I felt through my Syldrari skin, I couldn’t hold back a shiver when Jysel’s lips traced over the sensitive underside of my wrist. His eyes flicked up to meet mine, a triumphant smirk spreading across his lips.

“Well, Elara?” Rel prompted with a smirk of his own as Jysel carefully placed my hand back in my lap.

“…fine. Just this once,” I grumbled, feeling my face heat up, and catching that my glow had turned a veritable monochromatic rainbow of pinks.

“As for what we were saying about trusting you,” Jysel began as Rel proceeded to feed me cut up bits of a Syldrari crepe-thing, “twins aren’t common in our species and we have just as many myths about twins as humans do, if not more.”

“Which results in people becoming quite uncomfortable around us if we choose to express ourselves in this fashion, even if it is the most honest representation of ourselves,” Rel continued, before tilting his head faintly and studying me. “Slow down, Elara. I won’t have you choking because you decided to inhale your food.”

“See? Letting us feed you was a good move after all,” Jysel remarked dryly.

Rel chuckled. “Anyway, since we have decided we trust you and want you to be our queen, we felt it important you begin to learn the quirks that come with us being twins.”

“Sometimes people struggle to keep up when we talk like this, in which case we will find a middle ground that works for that individual,” Jysel added, rubbing his chin in thought. “It’s important to us that we maintain separate senses of identity, and that the people in our lives can keep us separated too.”

Without saying anything to each other, Rel handed the plate and fork across me and over to Jysel, who took it but hesitated to check if I was ‘following along.’

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Rel remarked, readjusting to lean into me and rest his head sideways onto my shoulder. “You haven’t lost track yet, have you, Elara?”

“I don’t think so?” I murmured, glancing between the two briefly. “I think it’d be a little too arrogant of me to claim for certain that I didn’t lose track, even if I’m fairly confident I didn’t. After all, I can see whose mouth is moving.”

“Enough talking. Eat.” Jysel pouted at me and lifted the fork, his cheeks flushing again. “You need to regain your strength, and I don’t trust those damned human…things to give you the nutrition a Syldrari needs.”

“Hmmm… I wonder if we can coax that power out of you…” Rel murmured, his fingertips trailing along the top of my thigh. “In a small, controlled manner…”

“It might be enough to ‘bind us’ without any of the negative effects that can be caused by lacking control,” Jysel suggested but, as I chewed, I shook my head in response. “You have a better idea?”

“I’m trying to get my other abilities under control, so I can have a better understanding of…ahn… Rel, stop that!” I shuddered, feeling his sharp nails trace down the underside of my forearm, his breath a little too close to my neck. Sure, it felt incredible, but I wasn’t there for the teasing they seemed to want to doll out.

“Mmm? Your skin is that sensitive?” Rel traced his fingers carefully from my Syldrari skin to my human upper arm, his intense gaze studying the way my physical reactions changed.

“Interesting… Your human skin is accurate in its lack of sensory feedback,” Jysel remarked tilting his head to study me briefly, before giving me a small smile and offering me the final bite of food. “See? Letting us take care of you now and then isn’t so bad… Right?”

Jysel looked so damned happy and hopeful that I couldn’t bring myself to even feign displeasure with the situation. Or tease. I didn’t want to somehow hurt his feelings or crush his mood by attempting to be playful or sarcastic.

“It isn’t ‘bad,’ it’s just…new. And I still don’t have a grasp on how to tell when one of you truly wants to do something instead of…” I trailed off and gave them a sheepish look.

“Sometimes it’s healthy to indulge,” Rel remarked, giving me a mysterious smile. “Now then, why don’t you regale us with what your current orders are, and we can teach you how to deal with Citomy when she offers us to you again.”