Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [325]
In truth, there wasn't much to tell; or at least little I didn't know. He'd known her for months before I arrived in Tiberium and hadn't bothered to court her. It had begun as a whim, spun out of idle intrigue after the day when they'd argued over Waldemar Selig in one of Master Piero's classes. But once it had begun, he found himself well and truly hooked. He began each day yearning to see her, ended each day hating to part from her. While I had been immersed in my affair with Claudia, keeping my secrets, they had spent endless hours together.
"We're a lot alike," he said.
I thought about Brigitta's scowl and ill-temper. "You're nothing alike, Eamonn."
He shot me an unreadable glance. "You don't know her, Imri. Not really."
"So tell me," I said.
The litany of Brigitta's praises was a lengthy one. He loved her fearlessness, her fierce pride, her determined independence. He saw through all the prickly defenses in which she cloaked her true nature, which shone forth to his eyes like a bright flame. She made him want to be a better man. Together, the two of them formed a greater whole.
I listened to his endless litany, to the rapt tone of his voice. And I listened to the hidden meaning, too. There were sides to Eamonn I didn't know; the secret self that lay beneath his cheerful exterior. Although we were as close as brothers and I had risked my life to save his, Brigitta had touched him in a way I never could. It lay beyond friendship.
I wondered what it was like.
Watching the stars, I tried to imagine it. What would it be like to love a woman so? I knew what it was to want. I'd wanted Claudia so badly it was like a fever under my skin. And there were other desires, too; deeper and darker than sheer carnal yearning. I had not forgotten Valerian House. I had known tenderness, too; the healing gift of Emmeline of Balm House. I had even yearned to share it with Helena Correggio. And I knew the compulsive allure of infatuation, ill-conceived and dangerous, complete with attendant jealousy, in the form of my cool and haughty royal cousin, Sidonie.
But love…
There was Alais, of course. The thought of her made me smile. She was the one person in my life I loved with a pure and uncomplicated simplicity. Even during her irritable adolescence, her spirit brought me joy. But that was different. There was no desire there, no hidden undercurrent.
I couldn't imagine all of those things combined into one woman.
And if they could be, it wasn't Dorelei mab Breidaia.
Well and so, I thought. I have made my choice, and I should be content that I'm alive to see it through. And so I listened to Eamonn dream aloud about his love, pushing away my envy and knowing that I would never feel as he did. Perhaps it was just as well. There were women in my life who cast long shadows.
My mother, wrapped in a tissue of myth and lies.
Phèdre.
Better to love a man, mayhap. Half-drowsing, I thought about Lucius' kiss and the unexpected desire it had evoked. I was glad he'd done it. It pitted a spark of brightness against the black tide of horror that was Daršanga. And I had come to love him.
You will find it and lose it, again and again.
Then I thought of Claudia Fulvia in her bedchamber ablaze with candlelight, kneeling on the bed and gazing at me over her shoulder, her heavy breasts swaying. And I knew it wasn't the same. I wanted that. I wanted carnal desire so intense it cleaved my tongue to the roof of my mouth, opened a pit beneath my feet. But I wanted aching tenderness and purity, too.
I wanted it all.
The dark mirror and the bright.
Laughing softly at myself, I drifted into sleep with Eamonn's voice still droning musically above me. I slept, and for the first time since the siege, dreamed of somewhat other than blood and war.
On the morrow, we reached Tiberium.
I had first entered the city as Imriel nó Montrève, impoverished gentleman scholar. This time, I entered it as Imriel de la Courcel, Prince of Terre d'Ange. There was no point in trying to hide it. All of Tiberium