Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [85]
Slept, and dreamed.
I dreamed I was a child once more in Delaunay's household. Alcuin was there, and our old study, in Delaunay's home. We sat across a table from one another, he and I, poring over scrolls, pursuing the mystery of the Master of the Straits. I was near to grasping the key, when an adept of Cereus House wearing a snow-fox's mask poked his head in the door, and I bid him crossly to leave me. "You're late," the snow-fox said, voice muffled. "The joie has already been poured."
With the shock of horror one feels only in dreams, I realized that I was not in Delaunay's home at all, but Cereus House; not a child, but an adept, late for the Midwinter Masque. My costume was unfinished, and I had no mask. Despairing, I hurried to join the fête, thinking I might find Favrielle nó Eglantine and beg her to loan me a mask.
The Great Hall of Cereus House was filled with light and gaiety, and all the adepts of the Thirteen Houses in their finery, and I had come in time to see the Sun Prince revealed. I was laughing, then, thinking everything would be well, and wondering what foolishness had possessed me to imagine I should have been studying with Alcuin, when this, yes of course, this was my life, laughing and cheering as the Winter Queen was unmasked as the beautiful Suriah, who had always been kind to me.
That was when I realized the Sun Prince was Waldemar Selig.
No one else noticed, as he took off his mask, smiling, half a head taller than anyone there; no one noticed, as he ran Suriah through with the Sun Prince's gilded spear and she sank to the dais, mouth open and eyes blank, hands clutching around the haft as a dark stain spread across her breast. Waldemar Selig stepped down, wolfskin cloak swinging from his shoulders, and the D'Angeline revelers smiled and bowed and moved out of the way, while the musicians struck up a merry reel.
My scream caught in my throat, struggling for air; dancers swept past me, bright and glittering—and Delaunay, my lord Delaunay was among them. Almost, I got out his name; then he turned, and I saw he held Melisande Shahrizai in his arms, smiling down at her. And Melisande looked past him, over his shoulder, across the crowded hall, to meet my eyes, and the shock of her beauty turned my knees to water. And she smiled at me.
I knew. She knew. And I was too late.
The voice that woke me, reciting the details of the dream, ragged with panic, was my own. I took a deep, gasping breath, half-choking on it, and knew myself to be awake in the chambers of Gentian House. Like an echo in my memory, I could hear Raphael Murain's soft murmur winding through the dream, drawing the account of it from my unwilling lips. I sat upright in the bed, willing the pounding of my heart to slow and waiting for my vision to clear.
When it did, I saw Raphael kneeling at the bedside, his face quiet and composed. "Do you want me to tell it to you?" he asked gently.
"No." I passed my hands blindly over my face and shuddered. "I remember."
"It is often so, when the dream is caught in the making." Rising gracefully, he turned open the shuttered lamps, letting their soft glow brighten the room, and poured me a glass. "Watered wine. Drink it, it will do you good."
I obeyed unthinking, gulping the cool liquid, which soothed my throat and nerves. Raphael sat back on his heels and regarded me.
"It is an easy dream to interpret," he said in his soft voice. "You are putting off a hard choice, Phèdre nó Delaunay, and only ill can come of it. If you wish, we may explore this dream together, and learn what is this choice you fear."
"That won't be necessary." I laughed shortly, and felt myself tremble a little. "I already know." It was not so much easier, after all, to face it waking. I did, and knew fear, smiling crookedly at Raphael Murain nó Gentian. "You see, I have to go to La Serenissima."
TWENTY-FIVE
Though I did not think I would