Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [283]
He awoke when I touched him, breathing hard and rubbing his face. "I was dreaming."
"I know." I smoothed his tangled hair and settled myself, tucking one leg beneath me. "Daršanga?"
He nodded. "From before."
I tugged the sheets loose where they'd enwrapped him. "Before what?"
"Before you came." His face was ghostly in the starlight.
"Ah." I got the sheets unwound. Imriel's gaze was fixed on me, his eyes dark as holes in his pallid face. "It's over, you know. It will never happen again."
"I know." He swallowed. "He did things to me."
My hands stilled. "The Mahrkagir."
Imri nodded.
"Do you want to tell me?"
He nodded again, his expression rigid with fear.
"All right," I said gently, my heart an agony within me. "Tell me."
He did.
And I listened as he told me, stroking his brow when his voice faltered, closing my eyes in pain when he continued. If the Mahrkagir had spared him the worst, still, he had been ingenious in his torments, and there are sins against the spirit more dire than those against the flesh. Many of the punishments he described, I have known at the hands of other patrons, and called it pleasure — but ah, Elua! It was Imriel it happened to; Imri! A boy, a child of ten, enslaved, and terrified. So I listened, while silent tears stung my eyes. All I feared in a child of my own blood, every pain and humiliation I knew I could bear to endure, but not to behold — it had already befallen him.
At last, he finished.
"Imriel." I cupped his face in my hands, and he watched me fearfully. "It's not your fault, do you understand? None of it. What the Mahrkagir did to you was done against your will. It is a grave wrong, and you were not to blame."
"But he did worse things to others." He looked sick. "Because of me. He told me so."
"No." I shook my head. "He lied, Imri; ill words. He said it only to hurt you."
"There were things he made me do." His voice was faint. "He said if I didn't. . ." He swallowed. "He made me plead for their lives. He promised to spare them, even though he didn't. And I did. I did what he told me."
"And lived," I said fiercely. "Never be ashamed of that! Kaneka is right, where there is life, there is hope. You were right, to survive. You did right, Imri. You tried to protect others. It's not your fault he lied. The Mahrkagir did wrong. And he has paid the price of it."
"You killed him." It was not a question, not quite.
"Yes." I nodded. "Blessed Elua set his life in my hand, and I took it. He is dead, Imri. No one will ever hurt you like that again."
"Do you promise it?"
I looked into his haunted eyes and thought about Anafiel Delaunay's vow, that he had sworn to Prince Rolande so many years ago, about Joscelin's vow, and how it had shaped his life; impossible vows, warping the fates of all around them. And I thought about Imriel de la Courcel, who hated for anyone to see him cry, for whom the night held such terrors. In the broad light of day, he would never ask such a thing. "I do," I said, kissing his damp brow. "I promise it."
Imriel sighed and I felt some of the fear leave him. I held him close.
"Imri," I said to him. He lifted his head sleepily from my breast to gaze at me with his mother's eyes. "Imri, if you hadn't acted as you did, on Kapporeth, things would have gone very differently. I want you to know that."
He smiled. It was his own smile. "I didn't want them to hurt you."
"So I gathered." I raised my eyebrows. "Mind, if you ever try the like again, I'll have Joscelin sit on you." It made him laugh. I kissed him again. "It was well done, love. It was a greater gift than I have ever received, and one I pray is never repeated. Now go to sleep, will you? We have to meet the Ras on the morrow."
He did sleep, soon enough, his breathing growing slow and even, his limbs going lax. I lay awake for a long time, gazing into the darkness and thinking. I meant to leave Imriel's bed for my own, but at somepoint, I passed unknowing from wakefulness into sleep, for the next thing I knew, it was morning and Joscelin was shaking