Queen of Stars by Dave Duncan Page A

seen a man do that. The body language had all been unconscious.
    “Wait! You invited yourself in. I’m going to be powerfully insulted if you just turn around and walk out.”
    He smiled nervously. “A goodnight kiss, then?” He pulled her into his meter-long arms and kissed her as she hadn’t been kissed since she’d deflowered virgins in middle school. She bit his lip hard and raked his back with all ten nails. He yelled and broke loose, staring at her in dismay.
    “Jesus, lady! What was that for?” He rubbed his back with his hand and examined the smear of blood.
    “For not knowing how to kiss a woman. Come here.”
    He backed off. “I’m sure Tyl will appreciate the lesson more than me.”
    Never mind Tyl. This promised to be fun.
    “Then I’ll answer your personal question if you’ll answer one of mine.” She dragged off her wig to show him the scar tissue around the auditory canal openings high on her head.
    Most men reacted with revulsion, but Rigel just nodded. “I suspected something like that. What did they do to you, for God’s sake?”
    “He cut them off. Every time they grew back, he cut them off again. Later he burned them, and that worked better. My mother held me down.”
    Rigel shuddered. “It’s illegal to make a halfling look like a starborn, but healing injuries is okay. I think magic could make your ears grow back—elf ears, of course, not human. If you decide to stay. We can ask.” He hesitated. “What was your question?”
    She took hold of his waistband. “You’re very tall. I want to see if you’re well proportioned.” She investigated. The bulge already felt promising.
    He detached her hands but did not release them. “I’m sorry. It would be really fun, but I am promised elsewhere.”
    Who wrote his script: Jane Austen?
    “One kiss, I insist! You owe me that much. But dump that bucket first!”
    “Just one. Kissing 101, but no further than—” He removed the helmet. “Oh, hell! No! Sorry, gotta go.”
    Then she saw those celebrated reflexes in action again. Faster than a cat he had unlocked the door and disappeared.

Chapter 9
     
    H e slammed the door on Avior’s spray of abuse. Tyl was still nursing a drink on the patio terrace, halfway up one wall. Giving him a wave to indicate that the coast was now clear, Rigel tore off along the balcony, hoping the gashes on his back weren’t too visible. The alarm ring on his left index finger burned like fire. He gave it a twist to end the signal. When Avior had asked him about his stealth helmet earlier that evening, he had mentioned its name, Meissa, and that had activated it until the moment he took it off.
    Why had he been naive enough to step into Avior’s bedroom without realizing what she would expect? To add injury to humiliation, his frustration was already showing up as a sickening ache in his groin, just like when he’d tried to pass as a human boy with human girls. It had never worked. And although nothing more had happened this time, he felt a barrel-load of guilt. He had betrayed Talitha, despite all his protestations of love. They had sworn no oaths of celibacy, but the understanding was there. Her council was still trying to bully her into pairing with a highborn elf just to quash the rumors. So far she was still refusing, but why should she keep that up if he was going around kissing female tweenlings?
    Avior was seriously weird, but that was forgivable, given her background, and her weirdness was exactly what might make her useful in his campaign against Vildiar, assuming that she would want to help him after tonight.
    He sprinted all the way to the roof exit, which happened to be downstairs at the moment. Out on the roof, the wind struck him like a tsunami. The sea itself was a vertical wall, with waves rushing upward to break on a dark and rocky sky, but the wind at his back swept him along to the corner turret at the far side of the castle in about eight seconds flat.
    The door knew him and opened for