Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [179]
I’d thought to do battle for Bao.
Instead, I was at war with myself.
“Hush, young goddess.” Amrita stroked my hair, my head pillowed on her lap. “It is not your fault.”
“I should have known,” I murmured.
“How could you?” she asked quietly. “None of us expected it.”
I sighed. “No, but at least you were not vulnerable to it. And it is probably best if you do not touch me so, my lady.”
Her hands went still. “It troubles you still?”
The incessant pulse of desire beat in my veins, timed to the flickering glow trapped in Kamadeva’s diamond. “Yes.”
Amrita shifted gently away from me. “Very well.”
In the morning, Hasan Dar and our company of archers returned, grim-faced and defeated. Once again, he knelt before the Rani and bowed his head in abject apology. “I’m sorry, highness, but I have failed you in truth. We killed several of their men, but Tarik Khaga and his cursed Queen escaped.”
“Ah, no! How?” Amrita looked dismayed.
“They had weapons and armor cached along the path. One of their men held a narrow pass long enough for them to cause a rockslide above it,” he said dully. “It must have been rigged to fall beforehand. We worked through the night to clear it, but by the time we succeeded, they were long gone.” He glanced at me. “Your young man was with them. I do not think he was injured.”
I nodded, grateful for the confirmation. I wasn’t sure I could trust my desire-snarled diadh-anam at the moment.
“Well, then.” The Rani Amrita’s slender shoulders slumped. I wished I dared to comfort her, but I was barely managing to contain the maelstrom of desire raging inside me. “What do we do now?”
“We go home,” Hasan Dar said in a grim voice. “And brace ourselves for assassins.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”
“It was not your fault.” He turned his weary gaze toward me. “All of us thought the attempt worth making, and all but one of us failed in the face of Kamadeva’s diamond. If her highness had not been with us, you and I would be on our way to Kurugiri, Lady Moirin.” He shivered. “Willingly.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t let you talk me out of coming, then, isn’t it?” Amrita observed with a faint spark of her usual good humor.
With an effort, I summoned a smile for her. “You were heroic, my lady. Truly.”
She shook her head. “I was fortunate. Kamadeva’s diamond cannot compel false desire.”
It was a somber procession that made the journey back to the meadow where we had made camp the first night. We had lost five men in the effort, hewn down by the Falconer’s assassins. I was afraid to ask if Bao had killed any of them, but in the end, I had to know.
“No, I don’t think so,” Hasan Dar said in a tired tone. “He was guarding that cursed Jagrati with some sort of fighting-staff. It must have been hidden in their caches.” He rubbed at his face. “He’s good, that one. I’ve never seen a man quick enough to bat arrows out of thin air.”
“Aye, that would be Bao,” I murmured.
Our somber procession met a somber welcome in the base camp, news of our failure spreading quickly. Hasan Dar posted every man he could spare around the perimeter, wary of assassins. Everyone not on guard slept fitfully that night, though perhaps none more so than I did.
The desire hadn’t faded.
It didn’t seem to have taken anyone else the same way, and I did not know whether it was because Jagrati had targeted me specifically, touched me and kissed me, staking a claim on me; or if it was because of Naamah’s gift, sparked into unrelenting flame by the shifting fires of Kamadeva’s diamond. I only knew that it racked me mercilessly, filling me with wanting, until I literally shook with it.