Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [180]
Golden hair, spread on a pillow.
A golden cord, knotted.
A knot of gold on my finger.
Images crowded me, changing and mutating. I shook my head, trying to dispel them. My heart ached, and I had to struggle to draw breath.
"Let her go," Morwen said unexpectedly. "Look to the stones.”
As though her words had given me permission, I was able to break the chain of my thoughts. I breathed slowly and deeply, gazing at the standing stones. They seemed immensely tall and powerful. When I blinked, I thought I could see runes and markings carved on them; whorls and spirals and crosses. Although I couldn't read them, it seemed they whispered a story to me. And then it seemed the stones were moving in a slow, endless dance.
Morwen drew a long, shuddering breath. "Now you see.”
The moving runes made pictures.
The stones were telling a story.
A boy. There was a boy. I saw the stamp of House Shahrizai on his face; in his dark blue eyes, the full curve of his lips. And Cruithne blood, too. Images flickered. Clunderry, and Dorelei. Laughter. Dorelei lying motionless in a bed, and old Cluna drawing a sheet over her face. Me, and the boy clinging to me. Me, setting him down gently and prying loose his grip.
The boy, with Alais. Tending the shrine of Elua.
The boy, older, flushed with anger, shouting at Urist.
And then he was gone. The dance faltered and the world lurched.
"What?" I whispered. "What happened to him?”
"He left Alba." Morwen's voice was low. "Wait.”
The dance resumed, and the boy was back. My son; a young man, now. Shrewd and beautiful, with calculating eyes and a charming, indolent smile that masked ambition and complicated desires. I remembered somewhat Phèdre had said about my mother. In a roomful of people, she shone.
So did my son.
I watched him grow to full adulthood. I watched him plot and scheme. I watched him smile to himself as quarrels broke out across Alba. I watched quarrels escalate into war. I watched him acquit himself well in a losing battle. I watched him crowned Cruarch in a hasty ceremony when Talorcan was slain.
I watched him appoint D'Angelines to office.
I watched him lead an army composed of as many D'Angelines as Albans sweep across the land, crushing all resistance. He was a fearless leader, and a ruthless one. I watched him turn women and children from their homes and torch their houses. I watched him kill a wounded man begging for mercy.
I watched him ride in a victorious procession.
I watched him issue decrees.
I watched D'Angeline architects swarm over Bryn Gorrydum. I watched as the last of the Maghuin Dhonn were hunted like animals. And I watched as all across Alba, my son ordered the oak groves burned, the standing stones lashed round with chains and dragged down by teams of oxen.
I watched until I could no longer bear it.
"Make it stop." I raised my voice. "Make it stop!”
Morwen released my hands with limp, sticky fingers. The visions faded, although the world was still strange and pulsing. I felt sick and disoriented.
"Your son is a monster, Imriel," Morwen said quietly.
"You don't know it's true!" My voice was thick.
"I do." She sat quiet and still, her hands resting atop the boulder in a puddle of her own blood. A lot of blood. "There were other visions around you, before; a confusion of them. At first you departed and he wasn't there. Then there was our daughter to balance him. But one by one, they all went away. This is all that's left.”
"Why? " I whispered.
"I don't know." She sounded sad. "It seems his mother lost a second child before term and died. What happened to you, I cannot say, save that you never set foot on Alban soil again. And it seems your son conceived a powerful hatred of the Maghuin Dhonn.”
A mad laugh bubbled out of me. "And why do you think that might be, woman!" I shouted at her. "Name of Elua! You've done naught but plague and torment me since I came to Alba! Elua!" I ran my hands over my face, forgetting they were sticky with her blood. "Did you ever think,"