Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [298]
"Some, yes." Freeing one hand, she touched my bruised cheek, a touch as delicate as the brush of a moth's wing. "You wouldn't be here if you hadn't saved me, would you? I heard about what Valpetra told the D'Angelines who came for you."
I shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
"It does to me." Her face was grave. "I'll try to be worthy of it."
We gazed at one another a moment too long.
Long enough for me to realize I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss away her tears, to soothe the ache in her heart with gentle words. To let her know that love is a trust, a sacred thing, that no debasement can besmirch it, that no betrayal can destroy it. To give her a haven, to offer her protection. Ah, Elua! I yearned for tenderness.
"I should go," I murmured, pulling away.
Her voice broke. "Please, don't!"
"I have to." I stood up, and she followed. "Helena…"
"I know. It's just…" She scrubbed away the marks of her tears with fierce determination, though a fresh onslaught stood brimming in her eyes. "What was it you said about a stunted tree?"
I touched her hair. It felt as silken-fine as it looked.
"Asclepius came to me in a dream," I said to her. "At his temple. We spoke of wounds. He told me to bear the scars with pride. He told me, 'Even a stunted tree reaches toward the sunlight.' You shine very brightly behind your tears, my lady. But I fear this is the only gift we are meant to give one another."
She closed her eyes, new tears falling. "It's enough."
I nodded. "It is."
I felt lighter when I left the Correggio household; all at once melancholy, yet lighter and strange within my own skin. Peace. I was at peace with myself. I hadn't felt that way since I'd left Balm House, healed of the aching wounds of my adolescent desires. The rain-washed streets of Lucca seemed uncommonly beautiful to me. All throughout the city, people were going about their daily chores, striving for normality. They were cold and hungry and frightened, but they were surviving as best they might, quarreling and living and loving. I wished I could protect them all, fold them all within my arms.
A vast tenderness filled me.
I have been blessed in my life, I thought. For as much darkness as I'd endured, there had been brightness, too; brightness beyond telling. If I died here in Lucca, my life would not have been lived in vain.
In the central square, I dismounted. Heedless of the curious glances, I stooped and touched the cobblestones. I bowed my head, my damp hair hiding my face. "Blessed Elua," I whispered, "I am in your hand. If you have sent me here for a reason, let me serve you well. Mighty Kushiel, accept your reluctant scion's prayer. If I may serve as the instrument of your justice, wield me as you will."
There was no answer, only a waiting stillness. Rising, I gazed at the scorched bell-tower. In all the days I'd been here, I'd never dared enter it.
Today, I did.
There wasn't much to see. The interior was gutted by fire with only the remnants of a stair winding its way up the inner walls. The outer walls rose around a hollow shell. There were a few blackened timbers at the roofless top where the bell had once hung. A handful of roosting pigeons took flight as I entered, the clap of their wings echoing in the empty tower.
In the center of the floor, half-hidden by rubble, was the mundus manes.
The circular slab of marble that covered it had cracked in half. No one had disturbed it since the fire. The gap between the two halves was slight, no more than a few inches at its widest. I stood before the mundus manes, gazing at the dark, jagged crevice, trying to imagine what lay beneath it.
An earthen pit or a portal to hell?
If I'd had a torch, I might have dragged aside one half of the broken slab and cast light into that darkness. And I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, what I would see. An earthen pit, dug by human hands. Crawling segmented bugs, scuttling away from the light on a multitude of legs. That, and nothing more.
And yet the hair at the back of my neck prickled.
True and not true.
A thing