Kushiel's Chosen (50 page)

"Yes," I whispered.

"Ah, but you can guess where he fled. Phèdre." Her voice turned my head. There was pity and inexorable cruelty in her gaze. "Either way, he is gone. What does it merit, this blind and unthinking loyalty?" she asked gently. "To your Cassiline, who left you; to Ysandre de la Courcel, who used you at her need. It is all the same to Elua and his Companions, who sits the throne of Terre d'Ange. Tell me, do you believe I would make so poor a sovereign?"

"No," I murmured, surprising us both with the truth. "What you do, my lady, you make a habit of doing very well. I do not doubt that once you had the throne, you would rule with strength and cunning. But I cannot countenance the means."

If there had been somewhere to flee, I would have. If I could have fought her, I would have. There wasn't, and I couldn't. I couldn't even answer. Her scent made my head spin.

The shock of it went through me like a spear; I think I gasped. A flaw, a weakness; Kushiel's Dart, piercing me to the very marrow. And in the aftermath of shock came desire, a vast drowning wave of it that swept away my will like a twig in a flood, swept away everything in its course. Yearn ing, ah, Elua! This had been coming between us for a long time, and it was sweet, far sweeter even than I remembered. Anchored by Melisande's hands, I swayed, dissolving under lips and tongue, craving more and more. It turned my bones to molten ñre, my flesh shaping itself to the form of her desire. My breasts ached with longing, a rising tide surging in my blood, my loins aching, body seeking to mold itself to hers. All that she asked, I gave. All that I was, all I was meant to be, I became under her kiss.

It felt like coming home.

I took a deep, shaking breath and stepped back... one step, two, her smile turning quizzical... and jerked my head backward with all my might, slamming it hard against the stone wall of my cell.

I laughed as I slid helplessly to the floor, seeing the shock dawn across her lovely face.

Melisande's face and my cell reeled in my sight, swamped by agony. She cared, she really did care about me, and I could not stop laughing at it, having found my own useless triumph in the dazed madness of pain. For all that Kushiel's red haze veiled my eyes, for all the ache in my head, my thoughts were clear. The balance of power had shifted, rendering us, for once, equals. A frown of concen tration creased that flawless brow as Melisande sought to staunch the flow of blood.

"Hold this," she said shortly, pressing my limp fingers about the blood-soaked kerchief. I obeyed, watching her go to the door, knocking sharply for the guard. "Fetch a chirurgeon," she ordered him in crisp Caerdicci. "Or the nearest thing you have in this place."

He must have gone quickly; I could hear his footsteps receding down the hall. Melisande eyed me silently, drawing a dipperful of water from my drinking bucket and using it to rinse my blood from her hands, carefully and thoroughly. I sat with my back to the wall, pressing her kerchief against my head. Already my hair was matted with blood.

"And he named a conspirator, I suppose." I shifted on the flagstone, sending a wave of fresh agony pounding in my head. "How is Ysandre to die?"

"You know enough." A key in the door; Melisande stood back to admit the warden and a guard. He looked expressionlessly at her and came over to examine me, drawing my head forward and parting the blood-damp locks. I felt his fingers probing my wound.

"A gash to the scalp," he pronounced, rising and wiping his hands on a towel. "It is not serious. Head wounds bleed. It is not so deep that it must be stitched. Already, it begins to clot." The warden turned his flat stare on the guard. "Let her rest undisturbed for a day. Principessa." He inclined his head briefly to Melisande. "Is there aught else?"

"No." Her tone was unreadable. "Give me a few more moments with the prisoner."

He nodded again. "Knock when you are ready."

Melisande gazed at the door as it closed behind them. "The tradition holds that a member of his family has served as warden of La Dolorosa since Asherat-of-the-Sea first grieved," she remarked. "They first guarded the body of Eshmun, after Baal-Jupiter slew him. So they say. And they say he is incorruptible, having been appointed by the goddess." She looked at me. "But you already learned that."

I shrugged. "Would you expect me not to try?"

"Hardly." She glanced around the barren cell. " 'Tis a dire reward for his ancestor's service. It seems to me a dubious honor, to win a god's favor."

"Mayhap. They are not like us, who cannot forget." Mel isande made a simple, graceful gesture. I met her gaze with out speaking. "Two years ago..." she nodded toward the wall, "... you would not have done that."

"I was a child then, my lady," I said softly. "My price is higher now."

For once, I did not fear her; I was safe in Kushiel's dread ful shadow, and the sick, throbbing ache in my head pro tected me still. Melisande simply nodded, accepting my reply. "I will give you a day," she said. "On the morning after tomorrow, two of Benedicte's guards will come for your answer. They will speak to you in person. If your answer is yes, you will leave with them. If it is no..." She shrugged. "You stay. Forever. I will not ask again."

"I play the hand you dealt me, my lady," I replied.

"Do you?" She looked curiously at me. "I wonder, sometimes."

To that, I had no answer. Melisande gazed at me a moment longer, then knocked on the heavy door for exit. Once more the key snicked in the lock, the hinges creaked open. I watched her go, taking every ounce of color and beauty with her.

I opened my hand, revealing her wadded, blood-soaked kerchief, folds already beginning to stiffen until I smoothed it open. It was fine cambric, trimmed with lacework, with the swan of House Courcel embroidered small in one corner. A suitable lover's token, as matters stood between us.

Hyacinthe had used the
dromonde
to read the past, and stolen my doom.

And now I faced it once more.

How had he stood it, I wondered. How did he fare now? The Master of the Straits had warned it would be a long apprenticeship. Ten years? Fifty? A century? I had sworn to do all I could to free him. Instead, I was imprisoned, and all my efforts had done was guide Joscelin to the Yeshuites so I might lose him. Now, I peered out the narrow window at the maddening sea, and wondered if there was any way Hyacinthe might free me. I had wondered, idly, aboard the ship from Marsilikos, how far the domain of the Master of the Straits extended.

Would that I'd come to some other conclusion. But his reach had never gone more than a few leagues beyond the Straits, and I was far, very far, from there.

And very, very alone.

And Melisande was capable of much, much more than that.

I knew; I remembered. I remembered altogether too well. An
anguissette
is a rare instrument; most of my patrons lacked the art to sound all my strings. Pain and pleasure, yes, of course, but there are others, too. Cruelty, humiliation, dominance ... and compassion and kindness. It took all of these, to make truly exquisite music. That was the part so few understood.

It was my bane with Melisande, always the potential key to my undoing. No matter how much I hated her—and I hated her a great deal in a great many ways—there was a part of me that did not, nor ever would. Waldemar Selig had been a formidable foe with the advantage of owning me outright, but no matter how many times he mastered me, nor how many ways, I never risked losing myself in him. I had not been at least a little bit in love with him.

Melisande knew it.