Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [71]
He exhaled hard. "Good."
"Are you?" she asked him.
"Nearly." Joscelin traced a line on her cheek beneath her dart-stricken eye. "Very nearly." He nodded toward the stairs. "Go on, Clory's drawn you a bath."
I got out of the way fast, and stayed out of her way. I could not help it. Something in me shrank from seeing her thus. A bright mirror, Mavros had called her; but Phèdre was a dark mirror, too, as surely as the Shahrazai. And although I scarce admitted it to myself, I was afraid of what I might see in it. It was easier to hate it.
It was a piece of irony that she warned me of it herself. It was a day etched on my heart, one of the happiest I had ever known. We were aboard a ship sailing from Iskandria to La Serenissima when Phèdre granted my heart's desire and told me that she and Joscelin meant to adopt me into their household. I remembered the warning she gave, taking my hand, revealing the underside of my wrist where the blue veins throbbed, pulsing with the blood of Kushiel's lineage.
Betimes you will despise me, like you did in Daršanga.
I had denied it with all the fervor of my eleven-year-old soul. Now, four years later, it was true, and I had to learn to live with it. In some ways, it was a matter of honor.
One day I took my courage in both hands and marched into her study.
"I have a question," I announced.
"Imriel." Phèdre looked up from the strange alphabet she was studying—somewhat that Hyacinthe had sent her some time ago. She wore her faraway look, and focused slowly on me. "Yes? What is it?"
"Are you going to return to Naamah's Service?" The question came out abruptly. "It's just…" I sighed. "I'm tired of being the last to know."
"I see," Phèdre said. "Are you angry because of Nicola?"
"No." I looked away. "Yes, a little."
"She is a friend of long standing," Phèdre said gravely. "And I am very fond of her."
"I know that now!" I heard my own voice rise, petulant.
"Come here." Phèdre beckoned. I went with reluctance, then gave myself over with a certain relief, sinking to my knees and laying my head in her lap, letting her stroke the hair from my brow. "Imri, I'm sorry. I should have told you."
"You know why," I whispered.
"I know," Phèdre murmured. "But, love, I promise you, this is nothing like Daršanga. Do you know about the signaled"
I did, only because I had read the Trois Milles Joies. It was the password established when violent pleasure was in play, overriding all false protestations. It meant, on pain of heresy, stop. "Yes," I said. "I know it."
"It exists here," she said. "There, it didn't."
"Ill thoughts," I said, remembering. "Ill words, ill deeds."
"Yes." Phèdre's hands went still. "I would have spoken it were there ears to hear."
I raised my head from her lap, peering at her. "So?"
"So." She smiled, one of those irresistible smiles, filled with all the impossible, enduring love and unlikely merriment that was part and parcel of her nature. Once again, it made my heart overbrim with feeling. How could anyone endure what we had known and still be capable of so much goodness? "There weren't. And now I am home, in Terre d'Ange, where matters differ. And now I am given to choose, as I have done, but the answer, love, is no; most probably, no."
"What answer?" I asked.
"To your question." Phèdre stroked my hair. "Do you remember how I made the pilgrimage to Naamah's river shrine in Namarre last fall?"
I nodded.
"I may be called," she said gently. "Such a possibility ever exists. But if I am not…" Phèdre shrugged. "I will not answer. I have received Naamah's blessing and her gratitude for my service. Nothing more is needful."
I was glad, fiercely glad. "And Nicola?"
"That is different." Her touch lingered on my brow. "It was a different choice, and one I do not regret. It is Elua's business. But the others…" Phèdre shook her head. "No. Not unless I am impelled. And if I am," she added. "I will tell you. All right?"
"Yes," I said. "Why don't you let it be known at Court, then? It would put an end to the