Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [287]
We would endure.
The Medal of Valor was likewise presented to Barquiel L’Envers, who received it with a modesty I didn’t think was feigned. This ordeal had altered him, as it had all of us. He looked tired and relieved, a man spared a dreadful burden. But Alais . . . when Alais turned to face the crowd, she gave a smile so bright and dazzling, so utterly genuine, that I felt myself smiling in reply.
We would heal.
The ceremony was concluded. I watched Hyacinthe pay his respects to Drustan and Ysandre. There was somewhat reassuring about his presence there, a reminder that there were benign forces in the world able to match Carthage’s magic. I thought about the mysterious journey that Phèdre and Joscelin had undertaken at his behest some years ago. Somewhere, I suspected, the pages of the Book of Raziel from whence his arcane knowledge came lay hidden and guarded. Mayhap they would vanish forever, or mayhap they would become a thread in someone else’s tale.
I didn’t know for sure.
I didn’t want to know.
All that I wanted, I had. I glanced sidelong at Sidonie and caught her doing the same. She laughed.
“What are you thinking, Sun Princess?” I asked.
Her eyes sparkled. “Guess.”
I smiled. “I think I can.”
“Likely.” Sidonie reached up to kiss me, and there were no murmurs of disapproval from the slowly dispersing crowd, no underlying current of suspicion, only quiet smiles and nods. The fact that we were together had become emblematic of the fact that all was well in Terre d’Ange. Our love had been woven into the fabric of the realm.
My arm resting around Sidonie’s waist, I watched Hyacinthe approach Phèdre and Joscelin.
“Tsingano,” Joscelin said in greeting.
Hyacinthe nodded at him. “Cassiline.”
He didn’t speak to Phèdre, only folded her in his arms. I watched her cling to him, holding him hard, taking solace in his presence. He was the Master of the Straits, but he was her oldest friend, too. Their story reached back a long, long way. Across the crowd, I met Joscelin’s eyes. He shrugged, the hilt of his sword rising over his left shoulder. Joscelin understood.
Everything was intertwined.
If Phèdre had never cared so deeply for Hyacinthe, she would never have set out on a quest to free him from his curse. Never have found herself in Menekhet, where the threads of our stories intertwined. Never have gone to Daršanga to free me. And if Joscelin hadn’t loved her beyond all reason, he would never have accompanied her. Never have defended us all in a dark and terrible hall that stank of death and ran red with blood.
None of us would be here.
“Imriel.” Sidonie’s voice broke my reverie. I realized that the official participants of the ceremony were waiting on us. They wouldn’t leave before we gave the signal. That was something else to which I’d have to grow accustomed, a taste of the future to come. Sidonie’s regency would end in a month, but I had fallen in love with the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange, heir to a throne that my mother had coveted and I had never wanted. One day she truly would rule in her mother’s stead, with me at her side. “Are you ready?”
“No,” I said. “But I will be.”
Eighty-Seven
The month passed swiftly.
There was an endless amount of work to be done, but the arrival of Alais and L’Envers and their shadow Parliament was a great help. With their aid, we were able to assemble a Court of Assizes willing and qualified to review the multitude of petitions. There were a handful of cases in which Alais admitted to questioning her own judgment—she knew a great deal more about Alban law than D’Angeline—but many could be dismissed out of hand by the Court. The rest, Sidonie agreed to review herself.
The moon waned and waxed. The trade routes grew busy. Life in the City began to resume some of its normal rhythms.
Alais met with her royal parents to speak to them about her desire to end her betrothal to Talorcan and pursue her studies to become an ollamh. Sidonie and I attended the meeting. They heard Alais out in silence.
“I am willing to give my blessing to this plan,” Drustan said when