Naamah's Kiss

There were times when I didn't.

There was Jehanne—always Jehanne. The three of us existed in an uneasy truce. The City thrived on discussing it. But it seemed for the moment that she tolerated me and was issuing no ultimatums.

There was Thierry.

He was stubborn and persistent, wooing me with a mix of patience and humor. And he was good company. During those times that Raphael was either attending the Queen or occupied with his duties, I accepted Thierry's invitation to escort me to various functions.

I attended the theater for the first time with him.

I heard my first harpsichord concert.

These were wondrous and magical things to me, and Thierry reveled in sharing them with me. I liked that about him.

I just didn't love him.

But for the most part, I kept up my lessons with Master Lo Feng and I spent as much time as I could with my father.

He liked to walk the City and I liked to walk it with him. I loved seeing that mantle of grace that spread in his wake. He went to the richest and the poorest quarters. It made no difference to him. From time to time, bold strangers, men and women alike, would approach him, fingering the folds of his robes.

"Will you invoke Naamah's blessing for me, Brother?" they would ask.

When he was with me, he always shook his head. "Today, I can give you only my own good wishes."

"What's the difference?" I asked him the first time it happened.

My father smiled at me sidelong.

I understood. "Oh."

I thought a lot about that—the act of love as a benediction, a physical manifestation of divine grace.

It was a lovely notion.

It was a very D'Angeline notion.

And it was something I yearned for. I understood it in the marrow of my bones. It was the source of the infinite brilliance behind the bright lady's smile. And there was passion and compassion and glory and wonder in it. And there was nothing in it that brought sorrow to the magnificent gaze of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.

One day, I thought, I would know it.

I learned the last of the Five Styles of Breathing—the Breath of Wind's Sigh. For this, Master Lo Feng held the lesson in a bell tower at the Academy. Its arched windows were open to the winter winds. Bao spread our mats on the narrow walkway. A great bronze bell hovered above our heads, the pull-rope dangling into the tower's void.

Gusts flickered through the open tower. It was cold, and I breathed the Breath of Embers Glowing until I was warm enough to concentrate.

"Feel the wind." Master Lo Feng inhaled deeply through his nose. "Draw it into you. Up and up and up." He tapped the space between his eyes. "Here."

I breathed.

Up and up and up.

I felt very sharp and keen, my thoughts focused.

"Let it go."

I let it go.

Another tap. "Take it back."

I took it back.

Like everything Master Lo Feng had taught me, it was the same and different all at once. I breathed in and out. The wintry wind played over my skin, tugged at the folds of my cloak. The space behind my eyes expanded and contracted. I felt weightless and airy, as though I could leap from the tower, take wing and soar.

It was a good month.

It came to an end when another set of troubled lovers came to the temple to ask for aid—a pair of young Azzallese noblemen who had sworn an eternal lovers' oath in defiance of both their families. In turn, their families had disinherited them.

"I don't care about wealth or estates," the older of the two said fiercely, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. He had coal-black hair and an imperious manner. "But I'm a scion of House Trevalion. I want my name back."

"Armande….." the other said soothingly. "Be nice. He's trying to help."

My father spoke to them at length in private and agreed to speak to the families.

I wished he weren't leaving again so soon. "Do you have to go? A little humility might do that prickly fellow good."

He laughed. "Azza's line doesn't humble easily. And yes, I have to go. It's in keeping with my vows and the tradition of this temple."

"Why don't their families want them together?" I asked. "Is it a matter of status?"

"No, but it's a matter of inheritance," he said. "Their families expect them to carry on their bloodlines one day. The oath they've sworn binds them to each other alone until death parts them." He smiled at me. "Young men can be extreme in their passions. Nine times out of ten, it mellows with age. They change their minds when they begin thinking about heirs of their own."

"But not always," I said.

"No," my father agreed. "And if they don't, it means Elua's hand truly joined them. Either way, I'm sure I can convince the families to relent for now."

"I'm sure you can."

He cocked his head at me. "Would you like to come with me?"

My heart leapt—and my diadh-anam flickered, dimming. "I can't," I said sadly. "I don't think I'm meant to."

My father shook his head. "You and your destiny."

"It's very inconvenient," I said.

He kissed my forehead. "I'll be back before the Longest Night. Do you think you might manage to stay out of trouble until then?"

"I'll try," I promised.

Things changed once my father was gone. Exactly why, I couldn't have said; it wasn't as though he did anything specific to ease life's travails. But his presence was a balm in my life, oil spread over troubled waters. Once he was gone, the stormclouds gathered and the waters roiled.

First, I quarrelled with Thierry.

It was entirely by accident that I overheard him in the Hall of Games, bantering with Marc de Thibideau—whose broken leg was quite well healed—and Balthasar Shahrizai over a dice table. For once, I wasn't eavesdropping. We'd made an appointment. I'd just misgauged the time and arrived early.

"—passel of little witchling babes," Balthasar was saying in a teasing tone. "Do you suppose she'd want to swaddle them in bearskins?"

"Name of Elua, man!" Thierry laughed. They all laughed. "Have you lost your mind? Don't be absurd. I'd never wed Moirin."

I froze.

Marc de Thibideau saw me first. A flush of hot blood stained his fair cheeks. He'd begged me not to leave him a cripple, and I hadn't. Balthasar Shahrizai raised his brows and fell silent.

Thierry turned and stammered my name.

"You know," I said to him, "it's not as though I had the slightest interest in wedding you. And yet to find you speaking so dismissively of the notion among your companions hurts nonetheless. I thought we were better friends."

I walked out.

He let me go.

And then there was the Circle of Shalomon.

Denis de Toluard called for a meeting at his country estate. Insofar as such events had gone, this one at least began pleasantly. We had a lengthy and extensive meal with course after course, and a different wine served with each one. Member after member offered toasts to knowledge and their pursuit. Afterward, there was pungent cheese and perry brandy.

"Moirin." Denis leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Raphael said you promised to hear us out. Will you?"

I glanced at Raphael. "I also said you would be wasting your breath. But I will keep my promise and listen."

Denis nodded at Claire Fourcay. "Go ahead."

Her eyes shone. "Orien and I have dug deep into the archives, and our thought is this: We aimed too low. We've been wasting our time summoning the lesser spirits. Of course they've played childish tricks on us. Of course they've done their best to fob us off with foolish gifts." Her nose twitched and she rubbed it unthinking. "We need to cease wasting time. We need to summon one of the greater spirits."

"Who?" someone asked.

"Focalor," Orien de Legasse announced. "Focalor, who wields power over wind and sea." He inclined his head toward Balric Maitland, his spectacles flashing. "Of course, we'd depend on you to forge a silver chain capable of binding him twice over."

"Of course," the silversmith agreed.

There was a good deal more: arcane arguments backed up by citations of arcane texts as to why this time it would succeed, this time they had found the means to circumvent any trickery. When it was finished, they all looked at me.

I stood. "I have listened. My answer is no."

"Moirin." Raphael rose, his hands gripping my upper arms. Where he touched me, irresistible warmth suffused my skin. His grey eyes pleaded with me. Memories surfaced behind mine. Cold, cold water dragging at his clothes. A white hand sinking below the waves. A pair of strong arms keeping him afloat. His father's ragged voice at his ear. Raphael's gaze was insistent. "Please?"

I closed my eyes and breathed. "No."

He was angry.

They were all angry.

Well and so, I was angry, too. Angry at them for using me, for blaming me when I refused to let myself be used. Angry at myself for agreeing to listen to them in the first place. I should have put my foot down earlier, but I'd been tired and vulnerable.

"I'll take my leave in the morning," I said to Raphael when we returned to the townhouse late that night. "I'll find lodgings elsewhere."

He didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was low. "Let's not make any decisions tonight. We're both out of sorts. Sleep on it."

It was too late to argue. "We'll talk on the morrow."

Raphael nodded and turned away, then turned back. "I don't want you to go, Moirin."

"You never do. And yet….." I shrugged. "We'll talk."

"All right."

The morning brought two things. The first was a letter from Prince Thierry, filled with apologies and self-recrimination. The tone was genuine and heartfelt, unlike his usual cheerful correspondence. Even the very words etched on the page looked as though he'd labored over them. He reminded me that I'd promised to attend a ball that Jehanne was hosting in three days' time and begged me to send word that I'd keep my promise.

I mulled it over and decided to forgive Thierry. He hadn't meant to hurt me. He was young and had responded thoughtlessly to Balthasar Shahrizai's teasing; and I'd already seen how well that one prodded at sore spots. And I hadn't been entirely fair to Thierry myself. At the least, he deserved a second chance.

Besides, he'd promised to teach me to dance, which I very much wished to learn.

So I penned a swift letter accepting his apology and confirming my plans to attend the ball with him. I dispatched one of Raphael's manservants with it, feeling good about the decision.

Mayhap it was a good day for decisions, I thought.

And mayhap it would have been, were it not for the second thing. I'd risen early. Raphael had only just emerged for his morning cup of kavah when an acolyte from the Temple of Eisheth called on the townhouse.

"Tell her I'll see her in a little while," Raphael muttered. "After I've broken my fast."

The servant hesitated. "She's very distraught, my lord."

"How distraught?"

"Very."

"Elua's Balls." Raphael drained his kavah and rubbed his hands over his face. "Eisheth's servants aren't readily distressed," he said in reply to my inquiring glance. I was waiting patiently to talk with him. "Send her in."

The acolyte was very young, very pretty, and very distraught. She wore the sea-blue robes of Eisheth's Order and her pretty face was flushed and tear-stained. She flung herself on her knees before Raphael and babbled incoherently.

"Slow down!" he pleaded. "I can't make out a word."

"Breathe," I said to the girl. "Deep, slow breaths."

She obeyed and managed to gasp out a coherent sentence. "It's her ladyship. She's dying."

Raphael turned pale. "Sister Marianne?"

The girl nodded and looked back and forth between us. "Is it true that Eisheth's granted you the power to work miracles?"

"Someone has." Raphael glanced at me. "Moirin?"

I couldn't refuse. "Let's go."

The young acolyte—whose name was Gemma—had run on foot all the way from Eisheth's temple. Raphael sent for his carriage. While we waited on the front steps, he gently pried the details from Gemma. It seemed the Head Priestess at the Temple of Eisheth had been bitten on the hand by a rat in the granary. The wound turned septic and refused to heal despite being drained and poulticed. Now it was poisoning her very blood.

"You know she might have to lose the arm," Raphael said gently. "I can't promise a miracle and I'm not a chirurgeon."

"I know." The girl swallowed. "It's too late to amputate."

"How high has the red streak climbed?" he asked.

She touched her armpit. "Here, when I left."

Raphael swore violently. "Why did you wait so sodding long?"

Gemma flinched. "Her ladyship….. she hid it from us. She tended it herself. By the time the fever and chills took over, it was too late. And you….." This time she avoided looking in my direction. "There are rumors. The others are fearful."

"Because of me," I said.

She nodded. "They say better a clean death than an unnatural compact with a witch. But I came anyway."

The carriage pulled into the outer courtyard. We scrambled inside and Raphael ordered his driver, Nevil, to make haste for the Temple of Eisheth. In a trice, we were clattering swiftly down the streets of the City. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">