Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [77]
I grinned at him. "Even foolish young women are right sometimes."
Thus passed a pleasant autumn, sliding into winter; and I found myself a different person than I had been a year ago. It is passing strange, what a fluid thing is one's own identity. I did not think mine could change more than it had, from a goat herding ward of the Sanctuary to a barbarian's slave to a Prince of the Blood.
And yet it did.
It was only a year ago that I had been an undersized stripling, shrinking under the news of my mother's disappearance, brooding over Maslin of Lombelon, despising the Queen's Court. Now I was becoming someone new; someone tall for his age and strong with it, able to engage in light banter with friends, envied for his fine spotted horse, his rhinoceros-hide belt, and the stories that accompanied it.
I liked it.
I liked it enough that I forgot, sometimes, it was only a portion of the truth. And then Mavros would catch my eye in the Hall of Games, and smile his knowing smile, and I would remember. Or I would see Phèdre with Lady Nicola… That happened, once.
It was at a small salon gathering in the L'Envers quarters at the Palace. I knew Joscelin would not be in attendance. And I shouldn't have gone; I didn't intend to go, but I was with Bertran de Trevalion, and he had a mind to coax Raul to join us in the Hall of Games. Because we were who we were, the footman manning the door of the L'Envers quarters admitted us without question.
In truth, it was nothing. A handful of guests lounged on couches in the salon, conversing. And Phèdre was there, kneeling gracefully beside a couch; abeyante, they call the pose in the Night Court, except that her head was leant against the Lady Nicola's knee, and I could see Nicola's hand entwined in Phèdre's hair in a caress that was not quite a caress.
"Imri?"
I was already backing away as Phèdre rose, leaving Bertran to make our apologies. Gilot, who was attending me that evening, caught up to me in the hallway outside, putting his hand on my shoulder.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine!" I shook him off. "Elua's Balls, stop being such a nursemaid!"
"Fine," he said dryly. "Stop being such a child." I rounded on him with a glare, clenching my fists. Unimpressed, Gilot crossed his arms. "Well?"
I sighed, unclenching my fists. "It's just… never mind."
"You know, Imri, it's no concern of yours," he said. "They are all adults, and they have the right to enjoy one another's company without you having tantrums over it." He shrugged at my expression. "What? I'm not stupid, you know. Why does it bother you so?"
"I don't know," I murmured.
"Well, Raul's escorting the Dauphine and the young princess to the theatre," Bertran said cheerfully, emerging into the hallway. "So we're on our own. Why the sudden dash, Imriel? Do you need the privy?"
"He needs to get bedded, is what he needs," Gilot said. "Right and properly bedded."
"Gilot!" I Hushed.
"What?" He eyed me. "It would do you a world of good, if you ask me."
"There's a thought!" Bertran fingered the purse at his belt with a rueful expression. "My father's allowance doesn't stretch far enough to cover the Night Court, not unless I have a lucky night in the Hall. But mayhap if we pooled our monies on Imriel's behalf… You've not turned sixteen yet, have you? Well, we could go to Night's Doorstep—"
"No!" I cut him off, feeling my face grow warmer. "No Night's Doorstep, no bedding."
There wasn't; not that night, nor any other. We returned to the Hall of Games, where Bertran lost a portion of his father's allowance at dice, and I mulled over Gilot's words.
It wasn't that I lacked desire.
If anything, I had a surfeit of it. I thought about it all the time. I remember how Phèdre laughed when I asked her if she thought about my Shahrizai kin, about Mavros. A belly full of a seventeen-year-old's desires. What were those? She made them sound simple and urgent. And yet I was fifteen, and mine weren't. They were deep and awful. At fifteen, it seemed there should