Naamah's Kiss

"Trees breathe," Master Lo Feng said to us. "Standing in one place, they breathe. They breathe in water and sunlight, and they breathe out air. Breathe through your mouth deep into your lungs. As you breathe in energy, be mindful of how your blood carries it from your lungs throughout your body and to your limbs, even as a tree's energy flows upward from its roots and downward from its leaves, carrying it to every part."

This one came easier than the first two. I would have liked to think it was because I was gaining skill, but I suspect it was because I already had an affinity for trees. I sat and listened to the beech trees for a long while before I began, drinking in the sense of how energy flowed through them.

Then I emulated it.

It made me aware of my body in a new way—of my torso echoing the trunk of a tree, my limbs its branches, my fingers and toes its outermost twigs. I breathed inward, aware of the blood circulating to every part. I breathed outward, aware of my lungs expelling air that no longer nourished me.

"The energy of trees and all green, growing things complements our own," Master Lo Feng said in his tranquil voice. "The air that they exhale is depleted of energy they can use, but it is healthful to us. The air that we exhale is depleted of energy we can use, but it is healthful to them. Think about the beauty of this cycle."

I did.

Once again, I was sorry when the lesson ended. Master Lo Feng complimented me and said I'd done well.

"I suspect the Breath of Trees Growing lies nearest to your own natural gifts." He paused. "And I suspect your gifts should be used in the manner that is natural to you, not a manner that suits Raphael de Mereliot's goals."

I fidgeted. "Even if doing so might result in great good?"

He looked troubled. "I am reluctant to disagree. You did a very good thing helping that young man's leg to heal, and Raphael tells me you helped him save a man's life. But I am reluctant to agree. Nothing good comes of going against nature."

"It's only for a little while," I assured him.

Master Lo Feng sighed. "I am an old man and you are something new under the sun. Who am I to advise you?" Bao snorted. His mentor ignored him and waved one hand at me. "Go, and come again tomorrow."

It was two weeks before the Circle of Shalomon met to make another attempt. I had a lesson with Master Lo Feng every day, concentrating on the three Styles of Breathing I had learned thus far and beginning to learn to alternate between them. It would get harder, he said, when I attempted to master and incorporate the last two.

For his part, Raphael alternated, too—alternated between being attentive to me and answering Queen Jehanne's summons.

At least for the first week.

The second was another matter.

I knew that he'd been with her, because I could smell her on him— her perfume and her. And I knew that they'd quarrelled because he was storming around the townhouse in a towering fury.

"What is it?" I asked him.

Raphael turned a glowering stare on me. "Nothing that concerns you, Moirin."

"Oh, of course not," I said wryly. "Why ever would it?"

He flung himself onto a couch, blew out his breath, and stared at the ceiling. "She asked me to give you up."

I felt an obscure pang of betrayal. "Why? I mean, why now?"

"Because there are rumors about the Circle and your involvement in it," he said grimly. "Because nothing, no matter how significant, is ever allowed to be more important than Jehanne. She's testing me."

"Does she know about the Circle?" I asked.

Raphael made an ambiguous gesture. "Not exactly. She knows I have certain esoteric interests."

I bit my tongue on a few hundred questions and picked one. "What do you mean to do?"

"What?" He gave me a startled look. "Name of Elua! I'm not letting you go, if that's what you're asking. That's why I said it's nothing to do with you. No, no. We've quarrelled before and we'll quarrel again. Jehanne needs to know I'll not be led around like a bull with a ring in its nose. I'll make it up to her in the usual way." He swung his feet off the couch. "I'm off to the jeweler's to commission a suitable gift."

He sent her a choker of pale blue topaz.

Two days later, I saw it in the Hall of Games, where Prince Thierry was teaching me to throw dice. Jehanne strolled through with an entourage in tow.

I hadn't seen her since the day of the hunting party. And before that…..

My skin got hot all over again.

"Lady Moirin." The Queen paused beside our table. She held a little silken-haired dog in her arms. It wore a choker of pale blue topaz around its neck, echoing the hue of her eyes. Her gaze rested briefly on me. Whatever it held, it was more complicated than simple jealousy and animosity. "I see you're being corrupted. Do you enjoy games of chance?"

"Oh," I said uncomfortably. "Only a bit, your majesty."

Thierry gave her a brittle smile. "Do you mean to take a turn, Jehanne? If so, put up a stake."

"Why not?" She unlatched her lap-dog's choker and tossed it atop a pile of coins on the table. "Marcel?" She beckoned to one of the courtiers attending her. "Throw for me, will you?"

He threw two sixes and a five.

Neither Thierry nor I came close.

"Bad luck." Jehanne smiled sweetly as her courtier swept up her winnings—and then her smile faded, leaving that complicated something in its wake. "You're looking a bit peaked, Moirin. You oughtn't play games you're bound to lose."

"Can we not—" I began.

She shifted her lap-dog into the crook of one arm and touched my face, her fingertips lingering. "Think on it." I flushed, and Jehanne patted my cheek. "Anon."

Well and so, that was that encounter. What it meant, I couldn't say. Only that Jehanne had lost none of her ability to discomfit. Thierry was wroth at her interference, and Raphael was wroth to learn that she'd relegated his gift to a lap-dog's collar and wagered it so carelessly.

Me, I was just discomfited.

At the end of the second week, it was with a mixture of dread and relief that I retraced my steps once more and descended into the subteranean chamber of the de Toluard estate, donning the white robe and silver medallion and taking my place beside Raphael. As much as I feared the toll the night's proceedings would take, I hoped this would put an end to it. One gift, Raphael had promised.

I meant to hold him to it.

In the dim, flickering chamber, Claire Fourcay uttered the first invocation. I saw the doorway, summoned the twilight, and pushed.

When the crimson light faded, there was a lion with a black mane in the center of the six-pointed star.

I let the twilight go, curious.

Still a lion, only its mane was tawny. Its jaws were parted as if in a smile. Members of the Circle argued with one another. Orien de Legasse began uttering an injunction in a faltering voice. No one was looking at me.

I shifted back.

Moirin.

"Marbas?" I asked hesitantly. "If so, well met."

The black-maned lion paced the confines of the innermost segment of the star, its tufted tail lashing. Valac said you were polite.

I laughed. "I've seldom been accused of it."

To us. The lion sat on its haunches. What is it you want?

"Can you not give them one small gift?" I pleaded. "It would make an end to this, or at least my involvement in it."

Unless they can compel me to take human form, I am not compelled to speak in a human tongue. The lion looked smug. They failed to prepare for that possibility.

I sighed. "So that's the trick this time, eh?"

Yes. The lion Marbas regarded me with vivid yellow-gold eyes. However, you may ask me. You hear me. You are part of the summoning circle.

My heart skipped a beat. "Me?"

You.

I shuddered and didn't respond for a moment. I didn't want this responsibility—but I feared it might be wrong to refuse it. "I suppose…. Raphael would be content with one cure. A cure for a single disease."

It's not so simple. The lion's eyes glowed. To learn the charm to cure, you must first learn the charm to cause. Leprosy, typhoid, pneumonia, plague….. I can teach you to invoke and banish any one of these. Would you possess such knowledge? Would you put it into their hands?

I glanced around at the shadowy figures a half a world away. "No," I said at last. "No, I would not."

The lion's jaws parted, revealing enormous teeth and a bright red tongue. I have another gift to offer to you and you alone. We have studied the Maghuin Dhonn since you summoned Valac. You were once shape-changers. I can teach you that art.

I drew in a sharp breath.

It tempted me.

With a typical man's self-absorption, Raphael had assumed that whatever destiny brought us together, it would ultimately serve his purposes. But I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn. My people had expected great things of me, had hoped I would show great promise. Even my name was a badge of hope.

What if this was what I was meant to do?

The lion waited patiently, only the tip of its tail twitching.

For the span of a few score of heartbeats, I hungered for the gift it offered. But there was a burial mound in Clunderry where the skull of the last great magician and shape-changer of the Maghuin Dhonn was buried a hundred years ago. He had sworn an oath on behalf of all our people and broken it. The Maghuin Dhonn Herself had taken away this gift. It was Hers and Hers alone to restore.

I bowed my head. "Thank you, but I cannot accept it."

Wise child. For that, I give you a gift unasked. The black-maned lion stretched its jaws wide and roared.

It was a roar without sound—and yet I felt the waves of it beating against my skin. Something settled into my thoughts like a bright topaz jewel and made a home inside my mind, and I cried aloud at the strangeness of it.

The charm to reveal hidden things. The lion Marbas looked smug again. Yours and yours alone. The words will be there if you need them.

"I didn't….." I couldn't finish the sentence. Dizziness was beginning to overwhelm me—whether from the prolonged encounter or the charm the spirit had placed in my thoughts, I couldn't say.

I know. The lion showed the tips of its incisors. You'd better go while there's still some of you left. Tell your comrades not to bother summoning me again. I'm not bound to answer as a man queries I've answered as a beast.

Marbas roared again and cast me out of the twilight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I didn't tell Raphael about the gift Marbas had given me. I couldn't.

For one thing, I was days in recovery this time and lacked the strength to talk. Raphael tended me himself. I woke a few times to see his worried face, then drifted back into sleep. When I finally woke for good, I felt a hollowed out shell of myself. Raphael sprang to my bedside.

"Moirin?"

"Aye." My voice was raspy and frail.

He gave me water and felt at my pulse. His hair hung lank and unwashed, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and he looked nearly as bad as I felt.

That's when the guilt hit me.

I'd been offered the gift he wanted so badly and I had refused it. I'd refused it because it came with a poisonous taint, and I didn't trust the Circle of Shalomon with such deadly knowledge. Not even Raphael.

I couldn't tell him.

"No more." Having satisfied himself that I wasn't about to expire, he gave my hand a firm squeeze. "I've told the Circle that we'll have to continue without you."

A topaz jewel nestled in my thoughts. I took a sip of water. "How do they mean to proceed?"

Raphael stroked my hair. "You needn't concern yourself."

I pushed myself upright and drank more water, clearing the hoarseness from my throat. "Just tell me."

He hesitated. "We're of two minds. Some want to try to summon Marbas again, reckoning it will be easier since he's already been bound once. Claire and Orien are working to perfect the conjuration to force him to take human form. Others among us want to summon the lesser spirit Caim."

"Marbas has already answered you as a beast," I said. "He's not bound to reply a second time as a man."

Raphael nodded. "I suspected as much. So did Lianne. It's much the same trick Valac played. Cairn's gift is the speech of birds and beasts and all living creatures." A spark lit his tired eyes. "'Twould be a wondrous gift."

"And one that once mastered would prevent them from tricking you thusly again," I observed.

"Exactly." He refilled my cup with cool water and handed it back to me. "But you're not to take part in it."

"I'm not a child, Raphael." I sipped the water slowly. Relentless guilt gnawed at me. I was keeping too many secrets from him. "Give me one more chance. If I could win but one gift for you, to my way of thinking this would be a passing fine one. The world would be a kinder place for it." I gave him a weary smile. "Although D'Angelines might cease to hunt for sport if they knew their prey's terror."

"That wouldn't be such a bad thing," he murmured. "Moirin….. you're sure?"

"I am," I said with as much firmness as I could muster.

Raphael knelt beside my bed and lowered his head like a penitent, lashes veiling his eyes. "I should refuse you."

I touched his strong jawline. "But you won't."

His lashes swept up. His gaze was filled with weariness and hope. "One last attempt. After this, no more."

"No more," I agreed.