Naamah's Kiss (Moirin's Trilogy #1)

This was not an argument I was going to win.

"So." Raphael cleared his throat, dismissing the topic. "Let me assure you that the Circle will take every precaution. And let's arrange a sign, you and I. I'm not a monster, Moirin. I promise, I'll not trade your life for this endeavor. We do but make an attempt. If you're starting to feel faint, squeeze my hand hard and I'll bid Claire to speak the words of dismissal. All right?"

"As you will," I murmured. "When?"

He rose gracefully. "I'll need to consult with the others. The timing of this will be different. Focalor is one of the greater spirits, a grand duke of the fallen. He's to be summoned between the hours of sunrise and noon. I'll send word."

With a heavy heart, I inclined my head. "I'll await it."

It came on the morrow in the form of a letter.

Come to the townhouse at dawn, two days hence.

CHAPTER FIFTY

On the appointed day, I awoke in the dim hours before dawn. My room, my enchanted bower. It seemed very precious to me. I kindled a lamp and dressed beneath the shadows of a hundred plants, breathing in their scent.

I thought about the task at hand and wondered what trick Focalor would play.

It was always going to be a trick.

I thought about the oath I had sworn—and tricks. And I swore softly to myself, wrenching open the drawer of the desk in my outer chamber and rummaging for paper and ink. I'd sworn not to speak of my bargain with Raphael.

I hadn't sworn not to write of it.

There was no time left to think. Acting in desperation, I scrawled a swift note to Jehanne, telling her where I was bound and why. I kissed it and sealed it, praying she'd have a better idea of what to do about it than I did—or at least the sense to consult with someone who did, like King Daniel. On my way out of the Palace, I hunted down one of her guards and gave it to him.

He eyed me warily, holding the sealed letter as though it were a serpent. "You'd have me wake her majesty at this hour?"

"I would," I said. "Have I ever asked any guardsman for aught?"

The guard sighed. "Never, my lady."

I nodded. "Then you know it's important."

In the royal stables, a sleepy ostler saddled Blossom and led her out for me. The gentle filly Thierry had given me was game for the adventure, ears pricked. I rode her through the empty streets of the City to Raphael's townhouse, praying I'd find him lagging. Every moment of delay would hasten my missive.

But no, Raphael de Mereliot was awake and ready, his horse saddled and waiting in the courtyard. "Best to make haste," he said. "I'll send for the carriage later if it's needed. The rest of the Circle assembled last night."

We made haste—too much haste. The grey air was damp and moist, smelling of fertile soil and new growth, a hovering mist turning golden as the sun rose. Raphael's chestnut horse snorted and stretched its legs. Blossom followed suit, her reaching hooves eating up the road as they vied with one another. The white walls of the City of Elua fell away behind us. I kept glancing backward in the saddle, hoping for signs of pursuit.

There weren't any.

Altogether too soon, we arrived at the de Toluard country estate, the gracious manor house flanked by tall cypress trees. It was like a bad dream revisited. I let Raphael lead me inside. None of the Circle pretended to affection, nor did I. Still, the ritual was observed, the cordial poured.

"To knowledge," Denis de Toluard said in a hard voice, lifting the glass to his lips and tossing back its contents.

The others echoed the toast and drank.

I emptied my glass on the floor.

Raphael's hand closed on my elbow, hard and painful. "Moirin, that is not helpful!" he hissed in my ear.

I shrugged. "Go to hell. You forced this bargain on me, Raphael. You made me buy my father's life with it. I'll keep my oath, but I don't have to wish you well in this. I think you're fools for attempting it."

The members of the Circle stared at me with hatred and resentment. I stared back at them with my mother's best unblinking glower until they looked away.

It was as dark as ever in the underground chamber, all traces of sunlight banished. I went through the familiar movements of preparation as slowly as I dared, donning the white linen robe and washing my face and hands in the hyssop-scented basin. My mind was miles away.

I shouldn't have trusted my letter to the guard. I should have awakened Jehanne myself, but I'd feared I'd violate the terms of my oath if I had to speak to her. Or mayhap I should have dispatched the letter to someone else—to my father, or to King Daniel himself. Thierry—Thierry would have heeded me. Or Master Lo Feng, mayhap. He was so calm and wise, surely he would have known what to do.

But it was too late.

"Lady Moirin." The silversmith Balric addressed me in a dispassionate voice, holding out a silver medallion engraved with a new sigil. "We're waiting."

I took the sigil and hung it around my neck, shivering.

There was one change to the ritual. In the great chamber, Balric produced an enormous silver chain from a leather satchel. Each link was etched with tiny, precise sigils. He wound the chain twice around the center of the six-pointed star, securing the ends with a silver lock.

"That will hold him," Orien de Legasse said in satisfaction. "Well wrought, smith."

Raphael imprisoned my hand in his, holding it hard. "Are we ready?" he asked the room at large. There were nods and murmurs of assent. "Then let us begin."

In a steady voice, Claire Fourcay began to speak the first conjuration in the Habiru tongue. The familiar sense of pressure filled the air. I gave a silent prayer to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself and abandoned hope to concentrate on the task at hand. Claire's voice echoed in the chamber. The torches flickered. The pressure intensified until my head was ringing with it.

In the center of the star, the air shimmered. I fought to steady my breathing, fought to remember my lessons.

A doorway, limned in pulsing flames.

It was vast, vaster than before. The top of it reached for the vaulted ceilings and there seemed to be no bottom. I pulled away involuntarily, not wanting to know what lay behind it, but Raphael's grip on my hand brought me up short.

"You gave your oath," he reminded me in a low voice.

"So I did." I gritted my teeth, a blaze of fury running through me.

I hated him, hated every last one of them. They wanted what I was capable of doing for them—well and so. Let them have it. "So be it."

I summoned the twilight and pushed—hard, harder than I'd ever pushed before.

The doorway flared and a wild wind whipped through the chamber. I let go the twilight. Someone cried aloud. Claire's voice faltered, then took up a new invocation. A vast bank of stormclouds boiled through the doorway, the sense of a great presence encompassed in it. Thunder rolled and lightning forked in the clouds. Claire uttered ringing syllable after syllable. Balric's silver chain rose to encircle the roiling cloud bank, rattling wildly, forcing the presence within to take form and manifest.

The wind died.

A tall man stood in the center of the star, a silver chain wrapped twice around his bare chest and pinning his arms to his sides, so tight the links strained. Immense wings striated like an eagle's sprang from his shoulder blades, free of the chains. Incandescent blue-white sparks flashed in his eyes and a terrible, terrible brightness hung about him.

Everyone was very quiet.

I shifted into the twilight. He looked the same, only brighter. It hurt my eyes to look at him. He glanced sidelong at me and smiled. I shifted back.

Claire Fourcay said something in a tentative tone.

"You may address me in your native tongue," the tall man said pleasantly. "I am Focalor, Grand Duke of the Fallen, not some lesser spirit to play at foolish pranks and pretend to less knowledge than I possess."

Most of the members of the Circle relaxed. I didn't. My fury vanished, giving way to a rising sense of alarm. This spirit was far, far more powerful than any we had summoned before. I could feel my strength ebbing steadily and I could sense the malice in him. I squeezed Raphael's hand hard, remembering the promise he'd made me. "Bid her dismiss him," I said urgently. "Now!"

He hesitated. "So soon?"

"Moirin, shut up!" Lianne Tremaine hissed. "Claire, don't listen to the spirit! It's just another trick. Give the proper invocation and demand his gift!"

Ignoring them, I tried to close the doorway myself.

It didn't work.

Focalor's wings spread open wide with a crack of thunder, shedding droplets of bright light. He was blocking the way, absorbing my efforts. The chains around his torso strained. He beat his wings once and the thunder cracked again. A sense of menace rose from him like steam.

"Claire!" Raphael shouted. "Dismiss him!"

"Too late!" Focalor's voice broke in waves against the walls of the chamber. Lightning flashed in his eyes. With a sharp crack, the chain that bound him burst and fell uselessly to the flagstones. "Ahh." He rolled his shoulders and shuddered with pleasure, smiling beneficently around at the Circle. Everyone stood frozen. I stood, weak and helpless, no more able to move than if my feet had taken root in stone. "You." He pointed at Claire Fourcay. "You mispronounced two words in the spell of binding. And you." He pointed at Balric Maitland, clucking his tongue. "A single drop of solder obscured the sigil on the seventeenth link of your chain."

Balric flushed and muttered under his breath.

"Poor silversmith." Focalor stepped lightly out of the coils of his broken chains, out of the center of the six-pointed star. He towered over the smith, lifting his chin with one hand. "Lucky for you, you're here out of love for your craft." He moved away. "Let us determine who else among you can claim such purity of heart, for you and you alone will enjoy the protection of your Elua and my apostate brethren." Blue-white sparks flickered in his eyes. "As for the rest of you, your gods cannot save you from yourselves."

Orien de Legasse fainted dead away before Focalor's regard. The spirit chuckled. "Silly little scholar," he said in affectionate tone. "Be glad your love for the arcane arts surpasses your gift for them this day."

Focalor paused before Lianne Tremaine, stroking her cheek with one wingtip. She shivered violently, but held his gaze with a measure of defiance. "Ah, poet," Focalor said with false sympathy. "You yearned for great tales and a greater gift to tell them. Be content to survive this one."

He moved on to Denis de Toluard, who squeezed his eyes closed briefly. "All knowledge is worth having," Focalor quoted. "Isn't that what you say, Shemhazai's scion?" He chuckled. "You have learned today that you are foolish. I hope you find it worth the price."

Four reprieves had been granted.

Three of us were left.

I felt Focalor's regard settle on me. He crossed the flagstones, lifting one hand to caress my face. His touch was at once insubstantial and palpable, crackling against my skin. "So this is the bear's child," he said. "Curious." He touched my brow. "I see Marbas' gift here. Have you found a use for it?"

"No," I murmured. "What is it you seek, my lord?"

"Clever child." Focalor smiled at me. It was a smile like a well-honed blade, like the cutting edge of a storm. It was filled with impersonal malice, and there was death and mayhem in it. Tossing seas and staved hulls, an ocean of sinking limbs beneath a raging sky, filled with the sheer joy of destruction. "After so many centuries, need you ask? I seek to take flesh and live in the mortal world."

"I see." I wavered on my feet, the room darkening in my eyes. I gathered my failing energies, thinking it would be a very, very bad thing if Focalor's wishes were to come to pass. I couldn't close the door—but I could cause it to be closed. "Sorry to deny you."

I poured myself into him, emptying every drop I could.

The Grand Duke of the Fallen cried out and thrust away from me, his wings beating in alarm and shedding drops of brightness. I felt my diadh-anam gutter inside me as I sank to my knees. Raphael's arms came around me, golden warmth spilling into me.

"Don't," I whispered. "Stone and sea! For once, listen to me."

For once, he did. Raphael let me go. I slumped onto my side, resting my cheek against the chilled flagstones. The doorway I'd opened began to flicker and fade. In its place, the promise of the stone doorway loomed. On the far side, the Maghuin Dhonn Herself awaited me. In the privacy of my thoughts, I begged forgiveness of those I loved. I apologized for failing them. And then I smiled, at peace with the notion of death.

I'd made so many, many bad decisions. This was not one of them.

"No!" Focalor raged. "No, no, no!"

"Yes," I breathed faintly.

"No." The doorway I'd opened had not yet closed. We were neither here nor there, caught between mortal and spirit worlds. Thunder rattled the vaulted ceiling. "This isn't over yet." The spirit Focalor strode across the floor. With insubstantial hands and the force of his will, he wrenched Claire Fourcay's head upright. Her eyes grew huge and her face paled. "Jealousy and yearning does not true love make," he said brusquely. "I would speak at greater length if there were time. Your motives are tainted."

Through slitted eyes, I watched Focalor cover her lips with his and inhale sharply.

She fell, limp and lifeless.

He strode back across the chamber. Knelt, clasped the back of my neck, and clamped his mouth over mine. Raphael pushed ineffectually at him.