Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [177]
… and Kamadeva’s diamond.
It glowed, filled with dark fire, pulsing in time with the beating of her blood. It was made from the ashes of the Bhodistani god of desire, and it called to Naamah’s gift within me, setting it to rise in an endless spiral, filling my limbs with languor, sapping my will.
I opened my mouth to tell Hasan Dar to sound his whistle, to call the archers from their ambush. No words came.
Even if they had, Hasan Dar and his men were gaping, transfixed.
“So it’s true.” Jagrati’s fingertips stroked my face, and I leaned into her touch, helpless to resist the urge. She pitched her voice low, for my ears only, fond and amused. “I thought you might respond to it. Bao has told me so very, very much about you, Moirin. I think perhaps we are not so different.”
“No?” I asked mindlessly.
“No.” She drew a line from my temple to the corner of my lips. “Your goddess Naamah, when she journeyed in Bhodistan, she made no distinctions when she lay down with strangers. Any caste, or no-caste. No one was untouchable to her. It was only desire that mattered. Desire that made a thing sacred. You understand this, yes? Or else you would not have let yourself love a bastard peasant-boy without so much as a family name.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Come with me, then.” Jagrati’s smile widened, showing perfect white teeth. “Perhaps in Kurugiri, you may convince Bao that you did not die. I did not mean to lie to him at first; it is only that I thought it must be so, that the Great Khan must have killed you. I did my best to help him through his grief, wrongly though I guessed. So, will you come?”
Unsure, I glanced sideways at the Falconer.
“Oh, do not trouble yourself with my husband.” Her fingers were firm on my chin, turning me back to face her. Kamadeva’s diamond and Naamah’s gifts pulsed between us. “He does as I will. I am content to allow him his pleasures while I take my own with others, but he will not trouble you if I do not wish it.” The Spider Queen leaned forward and kissed me, her tongue flickering against mine. “So, Moirin, will you come?”
Yes.
The word was on my lips.
“No!” Amrita’s musical voice called out behind me. She tugged me away with surprising strength, wedging herself deftly between Jagrati and me, her graceful hands raised and crossed before her in an unfamiliar mudra. Power and conviction radiated from her small figure. “I will not allow it!”
Jagrati recoiled with a fierce expression of distaste that turned her striking face ugly. “Who will stop me, little Rani?” she asked with a sneer. “Your men?” She gestured at them, every last one transfixed by Kamadeva’s diamond. “I do not think so. Your pet dakini?” She shook her head slowly, a sensual smile returning to her lips. “She is eager to say yes to me. It may prove quite interesting.”
Desire pounded in my veins, merging confusingly with the insistent call of my diadh-anam. I forced myself to stare at the back of Amrita’s head, clenching my teeth to keep the word “yes” from escaping.
“Nonetheless, I forbid it,” Amrita said firmly. “That is a sacred object you profane, Jagrati.” Her hands shifted into the soothing mudra that stilled conflict. “It is not too late for you to obey your kharma,” she said in a softer tone. “Give Kamadeva’s diamond to me, and I will see it restored to the temple.”
The Spider Queen laughed, a sound like silk tearing; and there was dark humor in it, and hatred and loathing, too. It made my skin prickle, and the blood run cold in my veins.
“Oh, I do not think so, little Rani,” she said in that low silken rasp. “I know your kind, daughter of privilege! You are so very, very concerned with the kharma of the less fortunate, so long as it means we will always be there to tan your leather, bury your dead, and haul away your night-soil.”
“I did not choose the way the world is ordered,” my lady Amrita murmured.
“No, but you are content to live in it,” Jagrati observed. “You command us to carry away the shit squeezed stinking from your