Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [232]
Above all, I dreaded to hear word of Melisande Shahrizai. Though she was reported to be in Kusheth-one of the cousins, Fanchone, came bearing flowery condolences on the part of House Shahrizai-it was within the Palace walls that I had last encountered her, and it preyed on my mind in that place. I fingered her diamond that lay still at my throat, a talisman of vengeance, that somehow I dared not discard, and thought of her, too often. Survival in a hostile land takes up all of one's thought; now, I had too much time to think, and remember. I had withheld the signale, it was true, but with Delaunay's blood as good as on her hands, I had given up everything else. She had played me like a harp, and I had sung to her tune. I could not forget, and it sickened me.
It was Joscelin who found a way out for me.
He knew; he had walked with me into her hands, and been there when I'd awakened from it, retching and soul-sick. And he was that thing I ever forgot with Cassilines: A priest. What he said, he said somberly, not quite meeting my eyes.
"Phedre, you give Elua his due, and Naamah, whose servant you are. But it is Kushiel who marked you, and Kushiel whose will you challenge when you despise what you are." He looked at me then, expression undecipherable. "You will break, to challenge the will of the immortals. I know, I have been at the verge of it, and it was you who drew me back. But I cannot help in this. Beg leave to attend the temple of Kushiel. They will accept your atonement."
This I did, and Ysandre de la Courcel granted me leave, provided I went hooded in the attendance of her personal guard.
Of that, I will say little. Those who have had need of Kushiel's harsh mercy know; those who have not, need not know. Of all of Elua's Companions, Kushiel's disciples can be trusted beyond death with their vows of secrecy. Were it not so, no one would atone. Even his priests wear robes and full bronze masks, so that their identity cannot be discerned, nor even their gender. They looked at my face through the eyeholes of their masks when I raised my hood, saw the mark of Kushiel's Dart, and took me in without question.
It is a terrifying place, though a safe one, from all but the evil that one carries within oneself. I endured the rituals of purification, and then, cleansed and purged and stripped naked, knelt at the altar before the great bronze statue of Kushiel himself, serene and harsh, while two priests bound my wrists to the whipping-post. There I made my confession.
And was scourged.
I am what I am; I can say now without shame that I wept with release at the first blow of the flogger, the iron-tipped lashes searing my skin. Pain, and pain alone, pure and red, flooded me, washing away my guilt.
Before me, Kushiel's stern face swam in the blood-haze of my vision; behind me, the same face was echoed in the bronze mask of the priest wielding the flogger, with a cruel and impersonal love. My back was ablaze with agony, awful and welcome. I do not know how long it lasted. An eternity, it seemed, and yet not long enough. When the priest stopped, the leather straps of the flogger were wet with my own red blood, and drops of it spattered the altar.
"Be free of it," he murmured, voice muffled behind the mask. Taking up a dipper, he plunged it into a font of saltwater, pouring it over my flayed skin. I cried out as the pain multiplied five-fold, salting my open weals; cried out and shuddered, the temple reeling in my vision.
Thus did I make my atonement.
When I returned to the safekeeping of the Palace, I was calm with it, empty of the terrible sickness that had eaten at my heart for many days, suffused with the simple languor of childhood after the Dowayne's chastiser had done with me. Joscelin glanced at my face once, then looked away. At that moment, I did not care. I was content.
"News," Hyacinthe informed me; it wasn't news that would wait. "The Dauphine . . . the Queen, I mean, has given out that she's