Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [288]
I shut my eyes, not wanting to see how her beauty shone like a torch behind the veil, and then opened them again, not trusting her out of my sight. I could hear, beyond the crowd, a shift in the deadly music of swordplay. Now it was the offensive strokes that rang measured and true, a steady, patient stalking, counterbalanced with desperate, clashing parries. "If I must."
"Then do it," she said simply, and took a step forward.
I was already trembling before she did; I have killed one person only in my life, in my own defense, and he was not Melisande. She reached out one hand, caressing the naked steel of Joscelin's dagger, fingers sliding up to cover mine where I clutched the hilt.
"Will you?" she asked again, glorious eyes grave behind the veil as she twisted the dagger in my grip, turning my strength against me, my knees weakening at the touch of her hand. My breath came in white flashes and I felt my heart beating overhard and cursed my own ill-starred birth that shaped me to give in to the will of Kushiel's most splendid scion. "Will you truly?"
Somewhere, on the Temple floor, Joscelin was pressing his attack. I knew it, knew the sound of his blade-strokes, quickening toward victory. But it was very far away and my world had dwindled to the scant inches that separated me from Melisande Shahrizaí. His dagger rose between us, her hand guiding mine, the dagger no longer pointed at Melisande. My limbs did not answer to my wishes, surrendering to hers with a languor against which I struggled in vain. Gently, inexorably, the dagger rose, gripped hard in our linked hands, until its point rested beneath my chin, pricking the tender skin.
"Yes," I breathed, somewhere, distantly, appalled at my own response. Her scent surrounded me, rousing my desire, the warmth of her body devastatingly near. I raised my eyes to hers, feeling the dagger's prick, promise of the final consummation between us. I thought of Anafiel Delaunay, lying in his own gore; of Alcuin, raised as a brother to me. I thought of Fortun and Remy, Phèdre's Boys, slain for their loyalty. And though their shades cried out for vengeance, I could not strike. Not her, not Melisande. In the end, I was what I was, Kushiel's Chosen. Strength was not my weapon; only surrender. Was Melisande's freedom worth Kushiel's torment to her? I tightened my grip on the dagger beneath her hand, raising my other hand to cover hers, forcing the sharp tip hard beneath my chin, willing to complete the terminus begun so long ago on the fields of Troyes-le-Mont. "Will you?"
It only took a moment's hesitation.
Melisande hesitated.
"Immortali!" The name of the nobleman's club rang like a battle cry, and I knew the voice that uttered it; Severio Stregazza, bursting through the gathered ranks of Serenissimans to enter the antechamber with a grinning Ti-Philippe and several of his fellows in tow, swords drawn. "Drop the dagger," Severio said grimly, "and step away from her, Principessa! You have dealt enough poison to my family to last a lifetime; sully it no further."
At the same moment, a wild-eyed Ricciardo Stregazza convinced the Serenissiman Guard to admit him through the Temple doors, backed by an army of tradesmen....
... and somewhere, at the rear of the Temple, a great cry arose as Joscelin Verreuil's sword entered David de Rocaille's flesh, making an end to a battle I have always regretted missing.
With a gesture of infinite grace, Melisande loosed her grip on the dagger and took a single step backward.
It left me, terribly obviously, holding a dagger beneath my own chin. I cast it down hastily. Mercenaries and rioters fled, an assassin thwarted, allies rallying, Benedicte defeated and Marco turned. I drew a long, shuddering breath. "Thank you," I said to Severio. "I am in your debt,