Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [332]
That time, he heeded me.
It went no further than a kiss, an unspoken promise, a bittersweet farewell. I would not have repented it if it had. Mayhap, when we were younger, it would have; but there were too many considerations, and we were too conscious of them. I let him go, and watched the solemn mantle of power settle back upon him as he gathered up the case that bore the pages from the Lost Book of Raziel.
"There is nothing else you want from this place?" I asked, glancing around.
"No." Hyacinthe shook his head. "Let it go to the folk of the isles, if they wish it. Those who were born to the Three Sisters have suffered as long as he or I, under this curse." He hesitated. "Is there aught you desire, Phèdre? There is treasure aplenty, and you welcome to it."
"Only the library," I said, remembering how I had passed many hours in this tower reading the works of a Hellene poetess long believedvanished to the world. "There are lost stories in it. I would see them restored."
"Lost stories." He smiled. "They are yours, if we survive this. I will order it so. Well, then, that's it. Are you ready?"
"Are you?" I studied his face.
"Yes." He took my hand, gripping it hard, the colors in his eyes shifting like the changing hues of the night sea when a cloud passes over the moon. "I won't falter if you won't."
He had the power to command the waves to rise and the winds to blow.
The Master of the Straits was afraid.
"I won't," I vowed, and prayed it was true.
NINETY-SEVEN
HYACINTHE CALLED the isle-folk who attended him into the reception chamber in the tower. They crowded around, cooks, scullery-maids, foot-servants, laundresses, servants of all ilk, whose lives for countless generations had been spent doing the bidding of the Master of the Straits, maintaining the tower, purveying food, cleaning and restoring treasures brought forth from the bottom of the sea.
They murmured among themselves in an archaic dialect of D'Angeline, forgotten on the mainland for eight hundred years, stealing fearful glances at Hyacinthe as he stood on the curving stair above them, waiting. Ancient Gildas and Tilian, who was no longer young, were among them; for days on end, they had made the arduous trek down the stone stairs to fill the basin of the sea-mirror at sunrise and sundown. How many years? One might suppose they would be glad of their freedom, but they looked dismayed.
"My people." Although he spoke quietly, Hyacinthe's words encompassed the tower. "This day, I go forth to break the geis and leave the island. If we succeed, I will not return. Know that all things in this tower are yours, to distribute as you choose, saving only the contents of the library, which shall be held in keeping for Phèdre nó Delaunay of Montrève. Although this exile has been bitter to me, you have served long and well, and I am grateful for it. I leave you with my thanks."
"Fair my lord!" Old Gildas' voice emerged choked. "Surely, thou hast need of thy sea-mirror—aye, and thine acolytes to attend and fill it!"
"No, Gildas." Hyacinthe shook his head. "It was wrought on Third Sister, and will open its far-seeing eye nowhere else in the world. Elsewhere, I must needs construct a sea-mirror anew, in its own place of vision. Let this one remain here, as a reminder.”
"Prithee, how shall we conduct ourselves?" someone said wondering, setting loose a flurry of anxious queries. "What shall become of us? What shall we do?" The questions fluttered around the stone walls of the tower, beating on nervous wings. Hyacinthe's brow darkened, storm clouds gathering in his eyes.
"Live!" The word fell like a thunderclap, silencing them. I shuddered at the power that emanated from him in waves, a charged odor like the air after lightning has struck. "Live," he repeated, more gently, in his echoing tone. "Live free of this curse, fish and hunt, grow crops