Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [201]
“It’s not a trick, Raphael.” Jehanne’s voice emerged from my lips, filled with sorrow. “Moirin’s magic creates a doorway. You know that, too. Here before the end, I was allowed to pass through it.”
“You’re dead!” he shouted in anguish. “Name of Elua, Jehanne! I watched you die!”
“I know,” she said softly. “And since that time, I have not been able to move onward because I needed to be here. Here, with you, today. I am your last chance, Raphael. I come to beg you not to do this thing.”
Raphael was shaking. “I cannot believe it. I will not believe it!”
“But you do.” Jehanne approached him. Lifting one hand, she touched his cheek, cupped the back of his neck. “You know me, Raphael de Mereliot. You know my touch.” Stretching upward, she kissed his lips. “You know me.”
With a groan, Raphael sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face against her. “Why, Jehanne?” he asked in a muffled voice. “Ah, gods! Why here, why now? Why did you leave me? Why?”
“Hush.” She stroked his hair. “You know why I am here. I told you. And I never stopped loving you.”
“You died!”
“Yes.” Jehanne’s hand, my hand, went still for a moment. “Believe me, it is not the fate I would have chosen. We cannot always choose our fates. But you can. Here, today.”
“No.” Raphael shook his head. Wrenching himself away from her, he staggered to his feet, wild-eyed. “Moirin, stop it! This is some trick of yours. I swear to Elua, I’ll feed your precious husband to the ants if you do not cease!”
“Moirin can banish me if she wills it,” Jehanne said steadily. “All she has to do is release her magic, and I will be gone from your presence forever. Is that what you will?”
He was silent.
Jehanne went to him again. “Raphael, our deeds have repercussions. If not in this life, in the next.” She gestured at herself. “Or in a limbo betwixt the two. I beg you to heed me, and turn aside from this course.”
Raphael searched her face. “Will you stay if I do?”
She shook her head. “I cannot.”
His expression hardened. “Then you have nothing to offer me. I will take my chances with the gods. What can they take from me that has not already been taken?”
“You would not ask that question if you had children,” Jehanne murmured. “It is my life’s greatest regret that I was taken from mine.”
“Daniel’s daughter!” Raphael shouted at her. “Must you throw it in my face?”
“My daughter.” Her voice was unwavering. “Of whom you spoke great folly. How could you even think it for an instant, Raphael?”
He gave a broken laugh. “Why not, Jehanne? Mayhap it was meant to be. She could give me the one thing you could not. Her whole heart.”
“Because you molded her thusly?” She raised her brows, my brows. “It is a profoundly wrong notion that violates the very essence of Blessed Elua’s precept. Did I not pity you so, I should despise you for it. But I tell you, Raphael de Mereliot, you would never love her if you did. We may have fought and quarreled, you and I, but it was always born of the passion that lay between us. You cannot separate one from the other. It was part and parcel of what bound us together.”
“Why wasn’t it enough?” Raphael demanded, tears of frustration and pain in his eyes. “Why did you choose Daniel over me? Don’t tell me the same passion lay between you! Was it mere ambition?”
It was Jehanne’s turn to laugh, and her laughter was as hollow as his. “Oh, Raphael! Would you stand here on the cusp of seeking godhood and chastise me for ambition? It’s true, in the history of Terre d’Ange, no Servant of Naamah had ever risen to the throne. I wanted to be the first. But I loved Daniel, too.” She paused. “He was a good and kind man who loved deeply. But there was such sorrow in him, such grief. And I was able to take it away, at least for a time. When I did…” She drew a deep breath into her lungs. My lungs. “When I did, I truly understood Naamah’s blessing.”
“How can you possibly think telling me such a thing will sway me?” Raphael whispered hoarsely.
If I could have looked away