Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [274]
"Sidonie understood it," I murmured.
"Apparently." Maslin took another swig, then passed me the wineskin. "Didn't stop me. I told her it was obvious I cared more for her than you did. That I'd never have left her. And she gave me one of those looks …you know those looks, Imriel? And said if I really loved her more than you did, I'd prove it by going to help you.”
I tried not to smile. "You reckon it will work?”
"You know, appearances to the contrary, I'm not a complete idiot." Maslin took the skin back and regarded it before drinking. "It doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter what I feel, or what she thinks about it. There hasn't been anything between us since you were nearly killed in Alba. It's you she loves, not me.”
I didn't say anything.
Maslin smiled wryly. "It's been a long journey. I've had a lot of time to think.”
"Why did you do it, then?" I asked. "If you knew it didn't matter whether you proved yourself to her or not?”
"I think I needed to prove it to myself." He passed the wineskin. "That I truly loved her.”
"Did you?" I asked.
He looked at me sidelong. "You do, don't you? Love her?”
"Unfortunately," I said. Maslin narrowed his eyes in suspicion. I sighed. "Yes. Absurdly, horribly, gloriously, yes, I do. Maslin, this journey has been hell in more ways than I can name. A few days ago, I was so damn tired, when I got stuck in a snowdrift, I was ready to give up and die. And the only reason I didn't, the only thing that made me keep moving …Elua, it wasn't the thought that it would break Phèdre and Joscelin's hearts, which it would, and I owe them the sort of debt no one could repay in a dozen lifetimes. No. It was because I promised Sidonie I'd come back to her. So, yes. I love her.”
"I thought I did," he said softly. "I truly did." He gazed past me at the distant glow of the pyre, little more than embers. "Sidonie said once that I didn't love her so much as I did the idea of her. Of us.”
"The beautiful princess and her heroic Captain of the Guard?" I asked.
"Don't laugh." Maslin took back the wineskin. "You never felt that way?
"Not about Sidonie," I said. "Mayhap we knew each other too well. And for the first five years of our acquaintance, she looked at me like I was dirt on the bottom of her shoe.”
He smiled a little. "You do know the look I mean, then.”
I laughed. "Oh, yes. And I know what it is to yearn to be a hero, too," I added more gently. "Name of Elua, Maslin! Remember who raised me.”
"I never thought about it that way." He rubbed one hand on his knees. "Only about how cursed lucky you were." I raised my brows. "Oh, I know, I know. They rescued you out of slavery. But that just always seemed like something from a poet's tale.”
"It wasn't," I said. "Believe me, I'd rather spend the rest of my life wandering the Vralian wilderness on foot than another day in Daršanga.”
He drank, and passed the skin. "That bad?”
I drank. "Yes.”
"Oh." He shook his head when I offered the wineskin and sat for a moment, arms wrapped around his knees, looking out at the night.
In the flickering light of our campfire, he looked so unsure and vulnerable, it touched my heart with tenderness. "Is that why you did it, Imriel? Came here? To be a hero?”
"No," I said even more gently than before. I could see the fault-lines in him, the same ones I'd seen when he was a proud lad of sixteen. I could see how they'd shifted and changed on this journey, beginning to heal. And I could see that while an unkind word would crack them open, honesty and compassion would bring greater healing to him. For the first time, I understood that Kushiel's gifts held mercy, too. "No, I came here because I loved my wife, too, Maslin. Not the way I love Sidonie, but as much as I could. Dorelei was a good person. And for many reasons, I needed to avenge her, or at least I thought I did. In the end…" My voice trailed off. I didn't know how to speak of it yet. I'd spoken more tonight than I had in months. "I don't know.”
"A long story," he said.
"Let's