CHAPTER 23
Planet Calluvia
Harry had wondered where Ksar would even find a mind adept willing to restore Harry’s bond and keep his mouth shut, but that question was answered when Ksar did it himself as soon as they arrived home, with ease and skill that made Seyn scowl at Ksar suspiciously. The fact that Ksar hadn’t even needed Leylen’shni’gul’s presence to do it was certainly eyebrow-raising, but Harry didn’t really feel like questioning his brother. He wandered away from Ksar and Seyn, leaving them to their argument.
Having the bond back felt... strange. It felt off, like an uncomfortable, tight shirt he’d worn for years and had been okay with because he hadn’t known better. But now he did, and the sense of wrongness was maddening, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch.
Harry had half-hoped the bond would make him incapable of missing Adam, but now he realized how ridiculous it had been. He had started having feelings for Adam long before his bond to Leylen’shni’gul had broken. It seemed it was entirely possible to feel romantic love without the ability to feel sexual attraction. Even with the bond blocking the parts of his brain responsible for attraction, Harry’s love for Adam still wasn’t at all like his love for his family. It was tinged with raw need and hollow longing for something, but it was like there was a disconnect between his brain and his body. It felt like the feeling of thirst that he couldn’t satisfy because he no longer had a mouth to drink. It was immensely frustrating.
Harry hastily blocked Leylen’shni’gul out of his mind; otherwise she would guess that there was something wrong with him. He also didn’t want her to sense the resentment he felt toward her. None of this was her fault. Harry knew that. He shouldn’t take his frustration out on her. She didn’t deserve it.
With that in mind, Harry even managed to smile at Leylen’shni’gul when he met her and her parents during the formal dinner that evening.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, smiling at him across the table.
Harry stared at her. She was beautiful and soft-spoken. They’d had an amicable relationship all their life. Comfortable. That was what they had been. Harry tried to imagine touching her and being intimate with her. He couldn’t. In fact, he felt rather nauseous at the prospect.
Eventually, Harry gave up and focused on the food, barely registering the conversations around him. He could barely hear them anyway. For a moment, he wondered if there was something wrong with his hearing. Every sound seemed muffled and distant. But then, as he put a spoonful of soup in his mouth and barely tasted it, Harry remembered the reason: the bond was suppressing all his senses, not just the ones responsible for his telepathy or his ability to feel arousal.
Harry sighed. That would take some getting used to.
* * *
The fatigue and apathy started one month after his return home. Harry had never been a sickly person, so his lack of appetite surprised him a little, but he figured it was inevitable since he could barely eat the bland food. He tried not to let anyone notice that he wasn’t feeling all that well. He didn’t want his family’s scrutiny.
Harry still had no idea what his parents knew. They hadn’t spoken to him in depth about his unsanctioned trip to Earth. To be fair, neither had Sanyash: his sister had just shaken her head and said she was glad he’d come to his senses. But then again, Sanyash wasn’t around much, since she lived with her husband on a research space colony a few light years away. His parents didn’t have that excuse. Harry could sense his mother’s disappointment and disapproval every time she looked at him, but she had said very little to him on the matter. His father had jokingly told him not to be a brat and warn them next time he decided to disappear.
The lack of punishment had surprised Harry, but he had shrugged it off. He still didn’t know what Ksar had told their parents—and he didn’t care much. In fact, Harry found that it was difficult for him to care about much of anything. He felt apathetic. Numb. Everything seemed dull. The world was dull. The food was tasteless. The colors were colorless.
Rationally, Harry understood that it must have been the bond messing with his perceptions, but it did nothing to change how he felt. Rationally, he might have understood that he had lived with the bond for most of his life and had been just fine, but after learning how much better and sharper everything could be, it was hard to get used to the blandness of everything—of his life. The bond just felt wrong. He felt as if he was put together wrong, too.
Therefore, considering the general state of his mood these days, his fatigue and apathy didn’t worry Harry. He was probably just acclimatizing. It would get better.
It had to.
* * *
Months passed. The feeling that he was put together wrong only increased, the vague longing turning into a full-blown ache. Something hurt deep inside him, twisting him into knots. His lack of appetite was impossible to hide now, and Harry couldn’t quite summon enough energy to pretend that he was fine. He wasn’t fine.
“I think I’m dying,” Harry said one day when Seyn asked why Harry looked so pale and sickly. Harry wondered if he had caught something on Earth and it was killing him slowly.
Seyn looked horrified to hear that, for some reason.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he said, smacking Harry on the head. “How can you just say it like you don’t care?”
Harry stared at him and realized with some surprise that he really didn’t. He didn’t care whether he lived or died. It was probably bad. Was it?
“I don’t even recognize you anymore!” Seyn said, jumping to his feet. “You used to be the most positive person I’ve ever known, always so nauseatingly optimistic about life, and now you’re—” He cut himself off, his green eyes narrowing. “Of course. Ksar must have fucked up when he restored your bond.”
Before Harry could tell him that he was wrong and the bond was perfectly functional, Seyn stormed out of Harry’s room.
Harry sighed and wondered whether he should go after him, but it would require too much energy, energy he could no longer summon.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before the door opened again.
“Just look at him!” Seyn said. “It doesn’t even look like he’s moved from that couch since I left him in the morning! Can’t you see it’s not normal?”
Ksar followed him into the room with a decidedly unimpressed look on his face. Harry was somewhat surprised Seyn had found Ksar at all. Harry had barely seen Ksar lately. Ksar was always busy, which was hardly surprising, considering his countless duties.
“You shouldn’t have messed with his mind,” Seyn said. “You’re not a professional mind adept. No doubt you fucked it up and now he’s all weird and sickly!”
“I didn’t ‘fuck’ anything up, as you so eloquently put it,” Ksar said, but then he frowned, looking at Harry. “Harht?”
It took Harry a few moments to realize he was being asked something. “What?” he said belatedly.
“See?” Seyn said.
Ksar’s silver eyes narrowed. He studied Harry carefully.
“Borg’gorn, run a full medical scan on Prince Harht,” Ksar said.
“The scan is initiated,” the AI said.
Harry shrugged, feeling vaguely bothered that his opinion wasn’t even asked, but deep down, he knew it was probably a good idea. Something must be wrong with him. Lately he felt like he’d been... fading out of existence.
“Well?” Ksar said, eyeing Harry intently as Seyn paced the room.
The palace AI replied, “Would you like to hear the results now, Your Highness?”
“As soon as Seyn’ngh’veighli leaves.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Seyn walked over to Harry, sat next to him, and put an arm around his shoulders.
Harry tried not to cringe and shy away from the touch. Physical affection was uncharacteristic for Seyn—for their entire race—and yet recently Seyn had been touching him so often. It made Harry feel a little humiliated. He didn’t want anyone’s pity.
He didn’t want anything.
He wanted everyone to leave him alone.
Harry winced, trying to shake off the moodiness. Seyn was right: this was so unlike him. He wasn’t this moody, subdued person.
“You may proceed, Borg’gorn,” Seyn said.
“I apologize, Your Highness, but I cannot take orders from you. Only the Crown Prince has clearance to access medical records of the members of the Second Grand Clan besides the Queen and King-Consort.”
Sighing, Harry rubbed at his face. “Let Seyn stay, Ksar. Borg’gorn, go ahead, tell me what’s wrong with me.”
“With your permission, Prince Ksar?” Borg’gorn said.
Ksar shot Seyn a displeased look but nodded. “Go ahead.”
“There are no foreign viruses in the prince’s system. He is suffering from severe malnutrition and depression.”
“So I’m okay?” Harry interrupted the AI. He wasn’t all that fond of the intrusive nature of the AI’s scanners.
“I would not say so, Your Highness,” the AI said. “The malnutrition and depression are merely symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself.”
“What do you mean?” Ksar said.
The AI replied, his voice careful, “Judging by his brain activity and hormone levels, it appears Prince Harht’ngh’chaali’s condition stems from the fact that he is a throwback.”
Seyn stiffened against Harry.
Ksar’s brows furrowed. “Pardon?”
Harry frowned, confused. Of course he’d known he was a throwback, but it had always been a useless fact rather than something relevant.
It wasn’t well known that a small percentage of their race shared biological traits with the surl’kh’tu, their primitive ancestor that lived around a million years ago. The throwback gene first manifested after the same genetic experiments that caused telepathic mutations, but unlike telepathy, physiological changes could not be changed by bonding the person’s telepathic core, so everyone just pretended the problem didn’t exist. What being a throwback entailed wasn’t something discussed in polite company, and for a reason. Harry knew about throwbacks so much only because he was one.
Biologically, throwbacks were quite different from modern Calluvians. The surl’kh’tu had been intersex, and although throwbacks weren’t intersex, they retained the ability to produce natural lubrication when they were aroused. It had always been just an irrelevant little fact to Harry. He still didn’t understand what it had to do with anything.
“I fail to see how it’s relevant to the subject at hand,” Ksar said, as if reading Harry’s thoughts. For all Harry knew, he could well be.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Seyn murmured, his body very still against Harry. “It’s been scientifically proven that the surl’kh’tu were very selective. They had a single mate throughout their life. Scientists think that’s why they eventually went extinct—they were too selective. If their mate died, they didn’t take another mate.”
Harry’s heart skipped a beat. He blinked, his ears ringing as he stared at Seyn. He didn’t understand.
“Indeed,” Borg’gorn said. “Moreover, it has been proven by the Rivixu Institute scientists that after the first act of mating, a surl’kh’tu’s body produced a certain hormone that made them… physically need their mate.” The AI actually sounded awkward. “A most fascinating biological mechanism that ensured reproduction and survival. It has been theorized that this evolutionary trait was formed as a response to a rapidly growing population of the derv’kh’tu, a telepathic subspecies of archaic Calluvians, moving into their habitat. But it wasn’t enough—as we all know, the derv’kh’tu eventually displaced the surl’kh’tu. It was thought that the surl’kh’tu were out-competed and became extinct before the derv’kh’tu evolved into modern Calluvians, but the existence of throwbacks suggests that the two subspecies interbred to some extent.”
Harry shook his head, his mind reeling. Borg’gorn’s words didn’t make sense. “But he wasn’t—he’s a Terran.” He couldn’t even say Adam’s name.
Borg’gorn said carefully, “I do not think it matters, Your Highness. Although there have not been precedents of crossbreeding between Terrans and Calluvians, crossbreeding should be within the realms of possibility.”
Harry licked his lips, for a moment allowing himself to imagine children with Adam’s smile and dark eyes. His chest hurt, because it would never happen.
“Surely you don’t believe it has anything to do with Harht?” Ksar said sharply. “My brother isn’t a surl’kh’tu. They’re long extinct. He just happens to have a few common traits with them.”
Borg’gorn said, “We know that the surl’kh’tu traits are not equally strong in all throwbacks. Some throwbacks are barely different from most Calluvians while others share unusually many traits with the surl’kh’tu. It is not impossible for His Highness to share that particular biological trait with your ancestors—”
“Nonsense,” Ksar said. “The surl’kh’tu might have literally needed their mates, but there is no scientific proof that throwbacks share that trait with them. There have been no precedents.”
Seyn scoffed. “Of course there have been no precedents. Unlike us, the surl’kh’tu actually chose their mates. Throwbacks never had the same opportunity, because the Bonding Law was introduced soon after the first throwbacks were documented.”
“No one asked for your opinion,” Ksar said.
Seyn flushed with fury and glared at him. “I hate you so much,” he said with feeling. “Can’t wait to be free of you.”
For the first time since his return home, Harry remembered about the one-sided state of Seyn’s bond to Ksar. Since Seyn hadn’t told anyone about Ksar’s telepathy, they must have come to some sort of agreement. Probably. Harry wasn’t sure. He hadn’t cared enough to ask, and that spread the feeling of cold dread through his body. If he didn’t care even about his best friend and his brother’s future, what did it say about the state of his mind?
“But Seyn is right,” Harry said, trying to think. It was difficult. Thinking was difficult. It was so hard to focus. “What are the odds of being bonded to the person you would have chosen if you weren’t bonded? Probably extremely slim.”
“Maybe,” Ksar conceded, not even glancing at Seyn. He looked at Harry. “Let’s return to the subject at hand. Am I supposed to believe Harht can’t live without that Terran?”
A searing ache burned Harry’s insides at the mere mention of Adam. Harry struggled to focus on the conversation.
“As there are no precedents, I can only hypothesize,” Borg’gorn said. “But Prince Harht’s readings are most worrying. He may not necessarily die, but I do think his physical and mental health will keep deteriorating.” A pause. “May I speak freely, Prince Ksar?”
Ksar gave a clipped nod.
“I was going to inform you this evening that I had concerns about Prince Harht’s health. I have taken the liberty of observing the young prince since his return from Sol III. I have noticed that his concentration has been deteriorating at an alarming rate. Yesterday he spent six-point-three hours without moving, staring at nothing I could see. I had to say his name seven times to make him react. If the prince’s awareness of his surroundings keeps deteriorating at this rate, it is very likely that he will eventually fall into a comatose state, perhaps with a very limited awareness of his surroundings. I recommend daily injections of the surl’kh’tu hormone suppressants to make him more alert and focused, but it cannot be a long-term solution. Eventually they will stop working.”
Seyn squeezed Harry’s shoulder, worry rolling off him in waves. Harry was more concerned by the fact that he didn’t feel very concerned.
“And you’re absolutely certain that the cause is the throwback gene?” Ksar said.
“There is always a margin for error, but I am ninety-nine-point-two percent certain,” the AI replied. “Besides the aforementioned hormone in his system, there are significant changes in the young prince’s herovixu, the area of the brain that is specific for throwbacks.”
Ksar’s lips folded into a thin line before his eyes fixed on Harry. “Talk to me, kid. Is it really that bad?”
Harry moistened his dry lips. “I—I don’t know. I haven’t even noticed that I zone out for hours. But I feel...” He struggled to explain it. “I feel like there’s a hole in me that’s sucking me in from the inside out.”
Ksar’s face was grim. “And that’s because of him? The Terran?”
Harry flinched, curling into himself. He didn’t want to talk about Adam. Even thinking about Adam hurt. He wasn’t sure he could talk about Adam without breaking down and begging Ksar to let him go back to Earth. He couldn’t be so selfish. He wouldn’t be so selfish. He wouldn’t ruin his family with his selfishness. It would be pointless anyway, because Ksar had been right: the Council and the Ministry would never let him live on Earth, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—keep dicking Adam around when he couldn’t stay on Earth permanently. It would be selfish. Adam deserved better. Adam deserved someone who could make him happy. Someone who could be honest with him.
So what was the point in talking about it?
“Does it matter?” Harry said, barely moving his lips.
Ksar’s eyes narrowed. All it took was one look, and Harry’s flimsy mental shields collapsed, allowing his brother in. Harry didn’t resist. He didn’t think he could even if he wanted to.
Finally, moments or hours later, Ksar left his mind.
Ksar’s jaw was clenched, his expression vaguely sick. “Your mind is a mess. Some parts of it don’t react to stimuli at all. Borg’gorn is right. Your mind is dying, Harht.”
Harry stared at his brother blankly.
Seyn pulled Harry closer, projecting comfort and protectiveness. “You are going to do something to help him, right?” he said, looking at Ksar.
Harry shook his head. What could Ksar do? Ksar might have been the Crown Prince of their grand clan and the Lord Chancellor of their planet’s branch of the Ministry, but he didn’t have the power to protect him from the Council or the Ministry. No one did.
The legal troubles aside, the scandal alone would destroy their family if other Calluvians found out about Adam.
“Don’t worry about me,” Harry said. “I won’t disgrace our family.”
Ksar closed his eyes for a moment. “Harht—”
“I know,” Harry said, biting his lip to keep it from trembling. He was a little afraid of dying, after all, but he almost welcomed the fear. It was better than the dull apathy and hunger without a name.
“But can’t we just smuggle him to Earth?” Seyn said. “Like I did?”
“And then what?” Ksar said coldly. “It’s impossible to delete the teleporter’s history. Sooner or later, Harht would be found, and the consequences would be much worse. And even if he wouldn’t be found, he’d never be able to step foot on his home planet and see his family. Is that the sort of life you want for him? Do you think he would be happy to live like that, with all his familial links gone? Telepaths are not meant to live without thelepathic communication for long stretches of time. He would be miserable.”
Seyn’s chin lifted. “At least he would be alive and sane. We must do something!”
Ksar went very still. “We won’t do anything,” he said testily. “You will go home and keep your mouth shut about everything you’ve heard.
“How can you be so heartless?” Seyn exclaimed, getting to his feet. “He’s your brother!”
“Yes,” Ksar said. “He’s my brother, and this is a family issue. You’re not family. Leave. You overstayed your welcome a long time ago.”
Seyn flushed with fury and humiliation before storming out.
“Why are you always so nasty to him?” Harry murmured.
Ksar’s face closed off. “That’s irrelevant. We have more important things to discuss.”
“What important things?” Harry said, looking down at his hands. What was there to discuss, really? He was dying or going to become a vegetable. Harry almost hoped he would die; that seemed to be the better option. He didn’t want to be a burden to his family.
He would never see Adam again, anyway. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye to him in person, and now he never would. Adam would never know that Harry was gone. Adam probably wouldn’t care, anyway. Adam probably hated him. Of course Adam hated him. Adam had probably forgotten him already. Adam had probably fallen in love with someone else. Someone human. Someone normal. Someone who—
“Harht,” Ksar said. “Breathe. Harry!”
The command in his brother’s voice made him realize his lungs hurt. Harry opened his mouth and closed it. He breathed. He tried to.
Ksar’s expression softened. In a few long strides, he was by Harry’s side. And then his arms were around Harry.
Harry clung to his brother, his eyes squeezed shut. Ksar hadn’t hugged him in years.
When Ksar pulled back, his expression was grim and hard. He tipped Harry’s face up and looked him in the eye.
“I can’t promise you that it will be easy, Harry,” Ksar said. “It won’t be. But I promise you that I will find a solution.” Something cold and ugly flickered in his eyes. “By any means necessary.”