Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

Melisande took a step, two steps. One hand reached out, entangled in my hair, wrenching my head upright. My neck straining, I stared upward, meeting her blazing eyes. I felt my breath shallow in my lungs, my heart beating fast and hard. I should have withdrawn from her, pulled away. To save my life, I couldn't do it. She had been my patron, once; the only one to whom I ever wholly surrendered. In a way I shuddered to acknowledge, Melisande's very touch was imprinted on my soul, and I felt her pain as my own. "You are sure?" she asked softly, searching my face. "You are very, very sure of this tale, Phèdre nó Delaunay?"

"The Carthaginians were put to torture," I whispered. "My lady, I watched it. I asked the questions myself. I'm sorry. But I am very, very sure."

She let me go and turned away. Bereft of her grip, I wavered on my knees. I gazed at her back, heard her murmur a single word. "Kushiel."

"Yes." My voice was hoarse, my throat thick with desire and compassion.

Melisande's head bowed. Whatever else one may say of her, she never lacked for courage. I knelt in silence, knowing what she knew. I have lived through the thetalos in the cavern of the Temenos. I know what it is to confront blood-guilt.

Never for a child of my birth. That I will never know.

"They will pay." Her voice was flat, her hands fisted at her sides. "The Carthaginians, the ones who began it ... they are dead men."

"My lady." I cleared my throat, found my voice. "It is done. Their heads were adorning spikes in the Plaza del Rey ere we left Amílcar."

"So." Her shoulders slumped; only a fraction. It was enough. I saw. Straightening, she crossed the room and opened the coffer, the same one that had held the Jebean scroll. "I promised you the name of a guide."

I rose to accept it, unfolding in the single, elegant motion I was taught in the Night Court. Our fingers brushed as she handed me a scrap of vellum. I glanced down to see an unfamiliar name, an address.

"He hires out to guide caravans from Menekhet to Jebe-Barkal," Melisande said without inflection. "I am assured that he knows where to find the descendents of Saba. I cannot swear it is true, but my in formation is good. There is only so much I can do, here."

"Thank you." The words sounded stupid. I felt stupid. She gave a bitter smile.

"You have done what I asked, Phèdre nó Delaunay. I was not wrong to choose you." Her eyes searched my face again. "Tell me about the Queen's delegation to Iskandria."

I told her, and watched her pace, watched life return, her mind working as the first shock diminished, calculations moving behind her features. And Elua help me, but I loved her for it, a little bit. Even so ...

"Melisande.”

It stopped her. She turned to look at me.

I shook my head. "You cannot do it. I know how loosely this prison holds you; believe me, I know. It gives me nightmares. If you go to Iskandria, if you leave this place ..." I paused. "I will know it. I am here against my Queen's wishes, against everyone's wishes. There's a death-sentence on your head, Melisande, should you abandon Asherat's protection. And if you do, I will be honor-bound to do what I may to see you thwarted."

"He is my son!" she spat, features contorting.

"I know." Although my voice shook, I stood my ground. "And I am Kushiel's Chosen, and in liege to Ysandre de la Courcel. I will go to Lord Amaury Trente, in Iskandria; I will go to Pharaoh, if I need. What can you do, now, that they cannot? Your resources are spread thin, and they will be spread thinner if you must needs evade capture. We have played this game before, my lady. Do you wish to set yourself against me?"

Melisande flung back her head, her bright, restless gaze raking the walls of her salon. Blessed Elua, even in despair she was splendid! I had not seen, until then, that it was a prison. I saw it, then, the subtle, gilded bars that confined her. She shuddered and grew still, contained. "You break my heart, Phèdre."

"Yes." A strange, dispassionate sense of calm overtook me. For once, at last, we stood upon even ground. I gazed at her, thinking on it. "You broke mine a long time ago, my lady."

"Kushiel's Dart." She came near and laid her hand against my face. "Naamah's Servant." Her touch was cool, her expression unreadable. "In the beginning, I thought you were a toy, no more; a dangerous plaything. I daresay even Anafiel knew no different, though he taught you well enough. Later. . . later, I knew better. A challenge, mayhap; a gauntlet cast down by the gods."

"And now?" I asked.

"Now?" Something stirred in the depths of Melisande's eyes, behind her face, beauty honed by grief, a vengeful cruelty. Our history was written there in all its betrayal and hatred and violent ecstasy. Dispassion shattered, a momentary thing, transitory and fragile. Her voice lowered, honey-sweet; how had I forgotten its power? "Now." My blood leapt in answer and my cheek blossomed with heat where she touched me. A familiar ache squeezed my heart, beat like a pulse between my thighs. I felt my lids grow heavy, my lips part. To feel it again, the heat of her, the press of her body, her breasts against mine, that cruel, expert touch; ah, Elua! I fought to keep from swaying forward. Melisande took her hand away. "Now, I don't know, Phèdre."

This time, her withdrawal hit me like a void; I nearly staggered against it, yearning toward her, the ache in my heart keening like a winter wind. I had done her a kindness, leaving Joscelin behind. She did me a kindness now and turned away, speaking over her shoulder.

"I never wanted a conscience. And yet it seems our lord Kushiel has seen fit to give me what I lacked at birth. If I have such a thing, it is embodied in you, Phèdre." Melisande turned back, her features composed, hands folded in her sleeves. "I have heard tell of Lord Amaury Trente. A capable man, it is said, and loyal to the Queen, but not, I think, a clever one."

"Clever enough," I replied unthinking.

One corner of her mouth curled. "He would have gone to the Duke of Milazza to raise an army if Ysandre had let him. It was you who suggested the Unforgiven, was it not? I heard they knelt to you."

It was true enough that I could not deny it. If Amaury Trente had had his way ten years ago, we would have led a foreign army onto D'Angeline soil. The Unforgiven . . . yes. It had been my idea. And they had knelt. I shrugged with a stoicism I did not feel. "They gave fealty in Kushiel's name. They have much for which to atone."

"Enough that the Royal Army let them pass unchallenged." Melisande's face was still and calm, a cameo carved of ivory. "You threw coins," she said. Her brows quirked, a distant note of bemusement in her voice. "Coins."

We had; silver coins, bearing the profile of Ysandre de la Courcel, clean and fresh-minted. They'd arched in showers from the slings of Amaury Trente's men, fallen like silver rain. I remembered the soldiers' perplexed faces, staring, glancing from the unprecedented bounty grasped in sword-calloused hand to the woman who parted their ranks, her face in calm profile, riding inexorably toward the walls of the City of Elua. "Yes," I said softly. "We threw coins."

Melisande nodded, as though I'd said somewhat more. "And that was you, too."

No one else had drawn that line, made that connection. It was not a part of the stories, to credit me with the idea. I gazed at her. "In Illyria," I said, "it is unlawful for a coin to be cast bearing the Ban's image. I remembered. I have you to thank for my time as a hostage there, my lady."

"I thought as much. Kushiel uses his conscience hard." Melisande's regard was unchanged. "You are bound for Iskandria. The Menekhetans are subtle, and Lord Amaury Trente is not. You have a gift for knowledge, and are skilled in the arts of discretion. Whether or not you bear me hatred, my son is innocent of it. If you are bound to see me rot in this gilded cage, then I charge you with his welfare."

To impart suffering without compassion . . .

"You cannot." My voice was shaking. "I have done all I might. The debt between us is cleared."

"No." Melisande shook her head with terrible gentleness. "It will never be cleared, Phèdre nó Delaunay. We are bound together. Have you not realized as much?"

I looked away, remembering my dream, the boy who cried out with Hyacinthe's voice, Imriel's face, remembering the children in Amílcar, feral and half-blinded by torchlight. "What I may do for your son, I will, my lady. I would do as much for any child. Beyond that, I make no promises. The matter is out of my hands."

"And in the Queen's," Melisande murmured. She laughed. It was an awful sound, like glass breaking. "Who shall claim him in the end, my Imriel, and teach him to blame the mother who doomed him to such a fate. It is a bitter piece of irony that it is no fault of my own."

"I know," I said, holding her gaze. What else could I say? I did.

"Let him live to hate me, then; only let him live." The fear was back, naked and vulnerable. "I gave you a patron-gift to secure your marque. Will you not swear that much?"

"You are Kushiel's Chosen," she said abruptly. "This is his doing. Am I mistaken, Phèdre? You did not think so. Kushiel chooses to punish his scion. So it may be. But whatever I have done, my son is innocent. I ask only your aid in seeing him restored. You have a gift for such matters, as require the arts of covertcy. Is it so much to ask that you find it in your heart to ensure he does not suffer further for my sins?"

"No," I whispered.

Melisande's voice was quiet. "It is a small thing to ask."

And because I could summon no argument against her, because the pain of her loss was heavy within me, because I had seen the children we rescued in Amílcar, I swore it, like a fool, my heart filled with a swelling agony; though I still believed, then, that it was only a matter of overseeing the plans of Lord Amaury Trente, of ensuring that the boy Imriel was restored with Pharaoh's compliance to his proper place in the annals of House Courcel. I gazed into Melisande's deep-blue eyes and swore it. "So be it. In Blessed Elua's name, I promise. I will do what I can."