Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [7]
Melisande.
She bore the unmistakable stamp of House Shahrizai. I bear it, too. The blue-black hair that grows in ripples, the deep, deep blue of the eyes. It was a good portrait. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with untold secrets and her generous lips were parted slightly, as though in the next instant she might laugh or smile, blow a kiss. I touched my lower lip with two fingers, thinking of the portrait I'd allowed the artist Erytheia to paint of me in Tiberium, lounging in the pose of Bacchus. Same mouth, same shape.
There was a click-clicking sound. "Imri?”
I tensed at the intrusion and turned my head to see Alais, with her pet wolfhound padding beside her, nails clicking on the marble. A pair of the Queen's Guardsmen hovered discreetly in the doorway behind her. I relaxed. "What are you doing here, villain?”
Alais pulled a face at the nickname. "I come here sometimes. But I heard you were here. You know how it is in the Court, everyone keeping track of everyone else's comings and goings. What did Lady Bernadette want of you?”
"Oh, she was hoping that Bertran and I would make up our quarrel now that I'm back," I said casually. "We never really did, you know.”
"Well, it might help if he apologized for the way he behaved to you!" Alais came alongside me. "Your parents?”
I nodded. The wolfhound Celeste pushed her muzzle into my hand. I'd known her since she was a pup. She had been my gift to Alais. I scratched absently at the base of her ears, watching Alais contemplate the portraits. She'd grown up while I was gone. A little lady, now, almost fifteen years old. Her small face was dark and intent. Alais took after her father, Drustan mab Necthana, the Cruarch of Alba. Mixed blood. There were those in Court who still thought as my father had done.
"What do you think?" I asked her.
"Of them?" Alais tilted her head. "He looks …uncomfortable. Like his skin's too tight. That's what I always thought. And she…" Her expression turned wistful. "I never dared look at her before. But she doesn't, does she? The world fits her just right.”
"I read her letters," I said softly.
Alais shot me a startled glance. "What did she say?”
"A lot," I said. "A lot that added up to nothing."
She nodded somberly. "Adults talk that way, don't they?"
I nearly laughed, then thought better of it. Though I was an adult now, we had been children together. Alais was wise beyond her years, and she had dreams that came true sometimes. She'd dreamed I met a man with two faces and it came true, in Lucca. "Yes," I said. "They do.”
Why?
You asked me, and I will try to answer. It is a child's question, the first and last and best of all questions that may be asked. Why? Why did I do what I did? Did I know it was treason? Yes, of course.
So …why?
Ah, Imriel! Son of mine, I will say to you what I have said to others: Blessed Elua cared naught for crowns or thrones. It is a human game, a mortal game. I imagine you will say it was not worth the cost of innocent blood spilled in the process, since it is what Phèdre nó Delaunay once said to me. Mayhap it is true. And yet, countless numbers of those she would deem innocent never hesitated to engage in a death-struggle for these things, these mortal tokens of power.
What does it mean to be innocent? It is impossible to move through this life without making choices that injure others. My choices were bolder than others'; and yet. If they had not chosen as they did, they would not have suffered for it. We are all driven by desires, some simple and some complex. In the end, we all make choices.
In the end, no one is truly innocent.
I shook my head to dispel my mother's words. Her betrayal of House Trevalion was the least of her sins. Long before my birth, her machinations had brought Terre d'Ange to the brink of conquest. Thousands had died fighting against the