Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [95]
To impart suffering without compassion . . .
"You cannot." My voice was shaking. "I have done all I might. The debt between us is cleared."
"No." Melisande shook her head with terrible gentleness. "It will never be cleared, Phèdre nó Delaunay. We are bound together. Have you not realized as much?"
I looked away, remembering my dream, the boy who cried out with Hyacinthe's voice, Imriel's face, remembering the children in Amílcar, feral and half-blinded by torchlight. "What I may do for your son, I will, my lady. I would do as much for any child. Beyond that, I make no promises. The matter is out of my hands."
"And in the Queen's," Melisande murmured. She laughed. It was an awful sound, like glass breaking. "Who shall claim him in the end, my Imriel, and teach him to blame the mother who doomed him to such a fate. It is a bitter piece of irony that it is no fault of my own."
"I know," I said, holding her gaze. What else could I say? I did.
"Let him live to hate me, then; only let him live." The fear was back, naked and vulnerable. "I gave you a patron-gift to secure your marque. Will you not swear that much?"
"You are Kushiel's Chosen," she said abruptly. "This is his doing. Am I mistaken, Phèdre? You did not think so. Kushiel chooses to punish his scion. So it may be. But whatever I have done, my son is innocent. I ask only your aid in seeing him restored. You have a gift for such matters, as require the arts of covertcy. Is it so much to ask that you find it in your heart to ensure he does not suffer further for my sins?"
"No," I whispered.
Melisande's voice was quiet. "It is a small thing to ask."
And because I could summon no argument against her, because the pain of her loss was heavy within me, because I had seen the children we rescued in Amílcar, I swore it, like a fool, my heart filled with aswelling agony; though I still believed, then, that it was only a matter of overseeing the plans of Lord Amaury Trente, of ensuring that the boy Imriel was restored with Pharaoh's compliance to his proper place in the annals of House Courcel. I gazed into Melisande's deep-blue eyes and swore it. "So be it. In Blessed Elua's name, I promise. I will do what I can."
"Thank you," she said simply. "I will rest easier for it." She paused; her voice changed. "I wish you luck, Phèdre, in your own quest. The Tsingano lad . . ." Melisande shook her head. "He stumbled into an ancient curse. Even I could not have foreseen it."
"He did," I said, the words raw with emotion. It did not sit easy with me that she had exacted my promise when Hyacinthe's fate hung in the balance. "Hyacinthe saw his end. And he went to it unflinching; for me, for all of us. You set us on that path, Melisande, whether you knew it or no, whether you intended it or no. And you would have used him, if you could. The scroll, the guide ..." I raised my hand, clutching the scrap of vellum. "You've had it all along."
"Not always." There was a curious frankness to her words. "I have few weapons left to me, Phèdre; what would you have me do? I did not make the curse."
I looked away, shaking my head. I would never, so long as I lived, understand her. "Nor did you make the slave-traders, my lady. And yet they have taken your son."
"Yes." The word dropped like a stone from her lips. I looked back at her, seeing her pale and steady. "Do not mistake me. I played a game and lost, and Kushiel has called the reckoning. Would you have me say it?" The awful knowledge was still emblazoned in her. "I will. I was a fool. I never believed Kushiel would exact his payment in innocent blood."
"No?" There were tears in my eyes; I blinked them away, laughing mirthlessly. "Oh, my lady, your games have always ended in the blood