Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [182]
"It sustains and cleanses us, does it not?" he continued. "And yet we may drown in it." He wiped his hands. "What else is like water?"
"Fire," someone said. "For it, too, sustains us; and it, too, can kill."
"Earth," another voice offered; Akil, the Umaiyyati. "All things grow from it, but in my country, a man may be buried alive in the sifting sands."
"In truth, all the elements, Master," Lucius observed. "For without air, we die, but we starve on a steady diet of it."
"So." Master Piero smiled at him. "When the elements are in balance, there is life. Where there is imbalance, there is death. Is this a true statement?"
I stifled a yawn and struggled to focus on the conversation. Like as not, I should have pleaded illness that day. But I'd barely made it back to the insula before Gilot awoke, and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of chiding me. So I'd saved the tale of the murdered cudgel-wielder for later, poured a bucket of water over my head, put on a fresh shirt, and gone to Master Piero's lecture.
It felt strange.
I felt strange.
I felt like a man caught in someone else's dream. The sunlight, the fountain, the conversation of Master Piero and the students… all seemed unreal. Even the dead man in the empty street seemed unreal. There was a bottomless black well of profound exhaustion inside me, and at every instant my awareness threatened to succumb to it.
And there, beyond the brink, a bedroom lit with a hundred candles awaited, and Claudia, Claudia, Claudia. Kneeling, lips and hands devouring me. Naked, her breasts swaying as she crawled. Beneath me, astride me, taking her pleasure. Her yielding flesh, her avid mouth.
Uttering words, ripping my world asunder.
A room like a temple, a bed like an altar. But ah, Elua! No love. There was no love between us. Nothing sacred, not even pride. Only dark intrigue and desire like a conflagration, desire deep enough to drown. I wanted to put my hands around her throat and choke her until she gasped out the whole truth. I wanted to take her until she begged for mercy.
"Imriel."
I caught myself with a jerk, shaking my head to dispel the images in it. "Master?"
"We have spoken of the physical elements," he said patiently. "But in what other elements does imbalance bring about harm?"
"And don't say 'love,' D'Angeline," Aulus muttered.
I scrubbed my face with my hands. "Why not?" I asked. "After all, it does. A love that is not reciprocated in equal measure may hurt and breed bitterness."
He flushed and looked away.
"Wherein lies the fault if it breeds bitterness?" Brigitta challenged. "If you were to draw your dagger and prick me, it would be your fault, and I would be angry. But to love without being loved in turn…" She frowned, thinking through her logic. "It would be as though I thrust myself upon your dagger and blamed you for it."
Someone made a lewd comment. "Yes," I said, ignoring it. "But people do."
"Should we seek, then, the root of this impulse?" Master Piero asked with interest. "Should we seek to overcome it within ourselves? Or should we seek to redress the balance, that all people might love one another in equal measure?"
"Ah, now, here's a trick!" Lucius commented.
I closed my eyes, soaking in the sun's heat, listening to water splashing and the ebb and flow of discussion. Behind my closed lids, Claudia Fulvia awaited. There was so much we had not yet done. In my mind, I saw her cupping her breasts, holding them forth, nipples ripe as plums. Smiling over her shoulder, offering her haunches. Myself, lashing her buttocks with the flat of my belt. A gaping smile carved into a dead man's throat.
What do you want with the Unseen Guild?
Tizrav, son of Tizmaht.
"Imri?" A strong hand gripped my shoulder, shaking it.
Even dozing,