Kushiel's Mercy (48 page)

I did.

I didn’t need to look in the mirror. I saw it in her face, eyes wide and awestruck. Neither of us spoke. I kept my promise and stood where I was. It was Sidonie who rose and came to me, slowly and wonderingly.

“Imriel,” she said softly, as though hearing the word for the first time.

I nodded.

“I know you.” She splayed her hand on my chest. “I don’t . . . I don’t remember. But I
know
you.” She gazed at the pink furrows that raked my flesh. “There was a bear.”

“The bear that killed Alais’ dog.” I covered her hand with mine. “Yes. It did this to me. That’s why you can’t remember it clearly.”

She raised her gaze to mine. “And this spell . . . you think what’s stolen my memories is the same? That it’s bound into everything I possess?”

“I do,” I said.

Ah, Elua! I wanted to hold her so badly, but I didn’t dare. I stood there, watching the thoughts flit across her features, watching her come to a decision.

“Very well.” Sidonie pulled away from me and began untying the sash of her robe. “Let’s find out.” Beneath the robe, she wore only a thin shift of sheer linen. She’d already prepared for bed. Her hair was loose, all her jewels removed for the evening. I held my breath as she pulled the shift over her head and dropped it atop the robe.

“Sidonie?” I whispered.

Her jaw tightened. She shook her head in wordless denial, embarrassment and despair in her face. My heart sank. Sidonie averted her face, then bent over to pick up her discarded clothing, her hair falling forward over her bare shoulders.

That was when I saw it.

“Oh, gods!” I blurted.

Her head came up fast.
“What?”

I closed my eyes briefly and swallowed hard. “Oh, love. I’m so sorry.” Moving gently and carefully, I touched her arm and turned her, then gathered her hair and tucked it over one shoulder. Lightly, lightly, I touched the spot between her shoulder blades where the falcon insignia of the House of Sarkal had been tattooed indelibly onto her fair skin. “It’s here.”

Sidonie shot me a single stricken glance, then crossed over to the mirror, craning her head to peer over her shoulder. When she looked back at me, her expression was adamant. “Cut it out of me.”

“I’m not sure—” I began.

Her eyes flashed.
“Cut it out of me.”
She scrabbled on the top of the dressing table and came up with a sharp little knife for paring nails
. “Now.”

I took the knife, feeling sick. “Do you have any idea how much this is going to hurt?”

“Yes,” she said shortly, retrieving her robe and tugging the sash loose. She folded the sash into a thick wad. “Just do it. Please.”

I nodded, willing my hands to stop shaking. “Brace yourself against the table and try not to move.” Sidonie shoved the wadded sash into her mouth and obeyed. I tried to swallow, but my whole mouth had gone dry. “Arch your back,” I said thickly, and she did. “All right,” I whispered. “I’ll do this as quickly as I can. And please don’t ask me to stop, because I’m not sure I’ll have the nerve to try it twice.”

She made a muffled sound of assent.

My stomach roiled.

The tattoo wasn’t very large, not much bigger than the engraving on Astegal’s signet ring. It was stark and black against her skin. I laid the blade alongside it, breathing slowly and deeply. I could do this. I
had
to do this. Before I was born, the Skaldi warlord Waldemar Selig had attempted to skin Phèdre alive on the battlefield of Troyes-le-Mont. If a man could do such a thing for spite, I could do it for love.

I cut into Sidonie’s flesh.

Her entire body jerked and she uttered a stifled cry that brought tears to my eyes. Blood flowed, making the hilt of the little blade slippery. Cutting and cutting, all the way around it, shaking my head to clear my eyes of the tears that blurred my vision. Gods, it was awful. It was the most awful thing I’d ever done.

But I did it.

I set the paring knife and the bloody disk of skin and flesh on the table. “It’s done.”

Sidonie spat out the sash, but her hands remained braced on the table, knuckles white. For a long moment, she didn’t move or speak, only breathed hard, her ribcage heaving. Blood trickled down her spine.

“I’m going to kill him,” she said at last in a low, savage voice. “Kushiel bear witness, I swear, I’m going to kill him myself!” She straightened and turned so quickly I had to step back. I saw the full helpless fury of the knowledge of what had been done to her written in her face. Everything, every violation.

Every night in Astegal’s bed.

And then her expression changed.

“Imriel,” Sidonie breathed, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Blessed Elua! How could I forget you? In a thousand years, how could I forget you?”

“You didn’t,” I said, my heart aching for her. “Neither of us did. Sidonie, you found me inside Leander when I didn’t even know myself. And I fell in love with you all over again. All the magic in Carthage couldn’t stop us from loving one another, any more than all the politics of Terre d’Ange could. You were right when you said Blessed Elua must have some purpose for joining us, because here I am—”

She reached up to me and stopped my mouth with a kiss, with a dozen kisses. I groaned aloud and gathered her to me, sinking one hand into her hair, wrapping my arm around her waist.

“Erase him from me,” Sidonie whispered against my lips.

“You’re hurt,” I murmured.

“I don’t care.” She shook her head. “I need you.”

I slid both hands down to grasp her buttocks and lifted her gently. She clung to me, legs wrapped around my waist, arms twined around my neck, kissing my face as I carried her to the bed. I found clean towels by the washbasin.

“Every trace,” I promised, bathing the blood from her skin while she knelt on the bed. The wound was still seeping, but slowly. I’d made the cut as shallow as I could. “Every trace of him, gone.”

“You promise?” Sidonie whispered.

“Always.” My throat was tight, my heart overflowing. “Always and always.”

There was no part of her I didn’t touch that night. I kissed the top of her head, the nape of her neck. Behind her ears, and every inch of her face. I laid a trail of kisses down her spine, blowing softly on the raw wound where Astegal had laid his mark on her. I kissed her throat, her arms. The insides of her wrists, the palms of her hands, every fingertip.

With every kiss, I willed her to be whole.

I kissed her breasts, and the valley between them. I kissed her belly. I knelt beside the bed and kissed her feet, her calves. Her inner thighs. Whole and healed.

All of her.

It hadn’t begun as desire, not truly. It was a more complicated need. But with every kiss, it grew simpler and simpler. Kneeling between her thighs, I tasted her desire, feeling it echo through my own body, sweet and insistent.

Sidonie tugged at my hair. “Come here.”

I rose and shed my breeches. There was a trace of uncertainty in her eyes, a lingering fear.

“Imriel,” she said hesitantly. “Does it trouble you . . . ?”

“No.” I took her hand and guided it to my erect, aching phallus, curving her fingers around it. “I’m yours, Sidonie. I love you. You belong to me, and I to you. Every part of me. I won’t let anyone take that from us. Not Bodeshmun, not Astegal. No one.”

The last uncertainty vanished.

And . . . oh, gods.

It was everything, everything. All at once. Sidonie shook her head impatiently, straddling my lap with an inarticulate sound. My phallus throbbing in her fist. She fitted me to her.

Everything.

I felt the impossibly glorious glide of entering her, slick and tight. And I felt . . . ah, Elua! I felt
everything
. All of it. I felt myself entering her, a wanted invasion. Full and stretched and welcome.

“Name of Elua!” I whispered in awe.

There was no end to it.

It went on and on, pleasure doubled and redoubled. Mirrors reflecting mirrors. Bright, dark. Which was which? It didn’t matter. Sidonie rocked atop me, rising and falling, her breasts pressed hard against my chest. I clutched her shoulder blades, struggling to be mindful of the wound between them. I captured her mouth with mine, my tongue seeking hers. I felt her pleasure rise and spiral, felt her breathe my breath. I felt the core of her. I felt myself inside her. Fullness. Opening, opening, convulsing. Over and over.

So good.

I cried aloud at the end. Sidonie’s eyes widened. What I felt, she felt. The drive, the need, the acute, prolonged spasm of release. Still, she had the presence of mind to clamp one hand over my mouth.

I collapsed onto my back.

“Imriel.” Still straddling me, Sidonie leaned on my chest. Her black eyes gazed intently into mine. “How do we save Terre d’Ange?”

I started laughing.

“I’m not jesting,” she said.

“No, I know.” I sank my hands into her hair. “It’s just . . . I was afraid. Afraid of how you’d react once you knew. Afraid of the damage done.” I stroked her hair, winding it around my fingers. “Heart of my heart, I didn’t expect you to emerge from this ready to kill Astegal, make love to me, and rescue the realm.”

Sidonie smiled ruefully. “I may well fall to pieces later. If I do, I pray you’ll be there to gather them. But for now—”

“Talk fast?” I suggested.

She nodded. “Please.”

Fourty-Seven

I
sat on the bed cutting Sidonie’s shift into a long strip of bandage and told her everything I knew that had passed since the night of Carthage’s spell, including my month of madness. She listened in horrified wonder, but she didn’t comment until I mentioned seeking Barquiel L’Envers’ aid.

“And he
gave
it?” she asked in amazement.

“Seems he loves Terre d’Ange more than he hates me.” I told her the rest, tearing the linen carefully. Cythera, my mother. Ptolemy Solon. The details of the spell—the
ghafrid-gebla
and Bodeshmun’s talisman.

“Your mother and my uncle,” she mused. “Elua have mercy, I never thought I’d have cause to be grateful to either of them, let alone both at once. You’ve no idea what’s happening in Terre d’Ange?”

“No.” I shook my head. “There’s been no word for weeks. I don’t know if L’Envers found the gem that holds the
ghafrid
. I don’t know if he got the rest of the country to rally behind Alais. I’ve no idea. Lift your arms.”

Sidonie obeyed. I wound the long strip around her body, covering the seeping gouge between her shoulders. I had to crisscross the bandage between her breasts, wrapping it around her twice before I tied it.

“It’s lucky you’re handy with knots,” she observed. I glanced up to see a faint spark of the old humor in her eyes.

“Indeed.” I finished and went to rummage in her clothes-press for another shift. “It’s going to be a problem hiding that from your attendants, love. And it really ought to be dressed by a proper chirurgeon.”

“I know.” She frowned in thought. “There’s nothing to be done for the latter, but I can hold my attendants off for a time. They’re fairly well convinced I’m deeply distraught. They’ll leave me to bathe and dress myself in peace if I insist on it.”

“Girom thinks you might be with child,” I said softly, holding out the garment. “Lift your arms again.”

She didn’t protest, letting me help her on with the shift. “What if I am?”

I sat back on the bed and looked into her eyes. “I had to answer that question for someone else, once. Lucius Tadius, you remember? Sidonie, I’m the child of two traitors, and I’m the man I am because Phèdre and Joscelin loved me despite it. Any child of your blood, I will love.” I paused. “Are you?”

“No.” Sidonie smiled wryly. “I married Astegal in Carthage. The rites were all Carthaginian. There was no invocation beseeching Eisheth for fertility.” Her expression turned quizzical. “And I never said a word about it. I must have known, somewhere deep inside me, that I didn’t love him.”

I laughed humorlessly. “So Astegal’s efforts to get an heir were all in vain?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded with bitter satisfaction. “Though considerable.”

I took her hands in mine. “Did he harm you? Because I swear in Kushiel’s name, if he did, it means the difference between Astegal dying and Astegal dying slowly.”

“No.” Sidonie gave her head a little shake, her gaze sliding away from mine. “No, he wasn’t cruel and he didn’t force me. He didn’t have to. I was willing.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “That’s what sickens me the most.”

“You
weren’t
willing.” I squeezed her hands. “Sidonie, they took your will away and turned you against yourself. It’s not your fault. None of it.”

She glanced back at me. “I can get to Bodeshmun.”

I opened my mouth to say it was too dangerous, then thought better of it. “How?”

“The same way I dealt with the guards.” Sidonie nodded at the door.

I did say it then. “It’s too dangerous, love. The Amazigh are going to be on alert after tonight. And Bodeshmun’s twice as suspicious as any desert tribesman.”

“The guards won’t talk,” she said. “After the incident in the gardens, Bodeshmun put the fear of whatever gods they worship into them. I wouldn’t risk it twice, not with them, but I’d wager anything that they’ll cover for one another rather than admit to Bodeshmun that they fell asleep on duty.”

“What if he sees that the spell’s broken?” I asked. “Ptolemy Solon told me he’d see through a mere semblance.”

Sidonie shrugged. “He didn’t notice when you broke the first half. Mayhap it’s not the same. After all, I’m still myself. I was all along. And Bodeshmun doesn’t
look
at me, Imriel. I’m just a necessary nuisance to him. I was a bored, pestering nuisance, and now I’m a dithering nuisance.”

I considered it. “And you actually believe he’d drink a toast at the request of a dithering nuisance?”

“I do,” she said. “If I brought him the great good news that I was carrying Astegal’s heir, and that in the absence of the father, it was D’Angeline custom that his nearest kinsman drink a toast to the health of the babe . . . yes. Particularly if I threatened to get hysterical if he refused.”

“Let me think on it for a day,” I said. “If you’re sure of it, then I believe you. But I still need to find a way to get you safely out of the palace and onto Deimos’ ship. You’re a bit hard to disguise.”