Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [59]
Katherine returned her gaze with mute, sparkling defiancé.
"You see?" Roshana smiled. "She has won a kiss." Rising on her knees, she leaned forward, laying down the quirt. With my mouth agape, I watched her deliver on her promise. It was a real kiss, deep and lingering, and Katherine returned it ardently. I felt a rush of desire so intense I ached. It left me feverish, lightheaded and sick. When they parted, strands of their hair remained caught together, blue-black and honey-brown, shimmering in the sunlight like spider's silk.
"Your turn, cousin." Roshana picked up the grass quirt and placed it in my hand. "You may choose either one of us."
I clutched it hard, feeling the neat plaits press against my sweating palm. I envisioned myself swinging it, the smart snap and the ensuing welt. Both the girls regarded me with amusement. It was true, it was only a game; a silly game. And I, who had reveled in the sense of being suspended between childhood and adulthood only an hour ago, now felt at once too young and too old to play. I couldn't do it. As much as I wanted them—both of them, either of them—I couldn't. Not like this. My mouth went dry, desire shriveling.
"I can't." I tossed the quirt onto the blanket. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
Katherine colored and looked away, and I knew I had embarrassed her. Whatever, exactly, had been offered here today, I had spurned it. She would not be quick to repeat the offer in any form. I wished we'd played the Siovalese game instead. I put my head in my hands and sighed.
"It's all right, Imriel." Roshana's voice was surprisingly gentle. I lifted my head and saw concern in her face. "You know we mean well, don't you?"
I nodded. "I do want to understand. It's just…" I tried to find words that would encompass the enormity of it, that would explain how and why, here in the open air of a flowering meadow, I was haunted by the fetid stench of stagnant water. How plaits of fragrant grass evoked the shadow of knotted leather crusted dark with old blood. "Daršanga," I said.
It was the first time I had said the word aloud to anyone but Phèdre. They exchanged a glance.
"That was the name of the place?" Roshana asked.
"Yes," I murmured.
"I'm sorry, Imri," Katherine said impulsively. "I forget, sometimes. You seem, so…" She shrugged, giving me a sweet smile. "Well, like a brother, only not."
I smiled back at her. "I try to forget, too."
"Try harder," she said, teasing.
So at least a day that bid fair to end in disaster ended in goodwill. We gathered our things and made the long trek down the mountain, arriving at the manor house in ample time for supper. Afterward, Katherine bustled about her duties, while I sat and spoke with my cousins in the great room, as we had done every evening since they arrived.
Nothing had changed.
Save that once again I lay sleepless. And this time it was not the fevered conjecture of my imagination that made me wakeful, but memory, and the piercing desire that accompanied it. When I closed my eyes, I saw Roshana and Katherine, kissing. I sweated and tossed, tangled in my sheets, and cursed myself for an idiot.
Try harder.
Would that it was so simple.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
In the final days of their visit, I quarreled with Mavros. I own it freely; the fault was mine, although Mavros played his part. In truth, after the day at the lake, I was wound tighter than a child's top. Montrève, my respite and haven, had become fraught with tension and desire.
It was not the fault of the Shahrizai. They were what they were; they sought to deal fairly with me. The shadow on my soul was no fault of theirs. I was the one who was unfair. I beseeched them for understanding,