Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [182]
Tonight, I would sleep and be grateful for the profound gift I had been given.
And so I did, deep and dreamless, wrapped in the lingering grace of Naamah’s approval… until I awoke in the small hours of the night with my diadh-anam blazing like wildfire, and a shadowy figure in the bedchamber with me, the length of a staff strapped across its back.
I sat up and stared. “Bao?”
SIXTY-FOUR
Shh!” In the space of a heartbeat, the shadowy figure crossed the room and fell upon me, pinning me to the bed and clamping one callused hand over my mouth, setting the point of a dagger at my throat.
Bao.
It was Bao.
I stared up at him, scared and bewildered. I should have known. I should have felt him coming; but my awareness had been too entangled, first by Kamadeva’s diamond, then by Amrita’s loving kindness and Naamah’s grace.
“I need to know!” Bao hissed at me, his eyes wild and shimmering, his expression desperate. “Who are you? What are you? Why are you here?” He prodded the hollow of my throat with the tip of his dagger. “What happened to Moirin?”
I tried to reply, but his hand muffled my words.
Realizing it, he frowned. “Promise you won’t scream?” The dagger prodded me again in warning.
I nodded.
Bao removed his hand from my mouth. “Tell me.”
I took a deep breath, and then another. “Gods bedamned, Bao!” I hissed back at him. “It’s me! And if you will not believe the proof of your eyes and the proof of my diadh-anam inside you, I do not know what else to say! I’ve spent the last year of my life following you halfway around the world, while you’ve been marrying Tatar princesses whose fathers betrayed us both, and falling under the spell of the bedamned Spider Queen, and do you know what? I’m very, very tired of it, you stupid, stubborn boy!”
He blinked. “Moirin?”
“Yes!”
Bao stood, swaying a little. “How…?”
I sat up and kindled a lamp. “I told you, it was the Vralian priests. They had chains that bound my magic. It took me a long time to escape.”
His throat worked. “I thought…”
“I know,” I said softly. “But it was a lie. It was always a lie. I’m here. It’s me. Do you understand?”
“Uh-huh.” Bao glanced around, still swaying; and I realized there was something wrong with him beyond the influence of Kamadeva’s diamond. He blinked at me again. “Moirin, why does it smell of sex in here?”
And then he collapsed, sparing me the need for a reply.
Much of what passed immediately afterward is blurred in my memory. I know I went to the door of my bedchamber, rattling Ravindra’s warning bells and summoning guards. The palace roused quickly, already on high alert. A pair of guards shifted Bao from the floor of my chamber into my bed.
He was weak, sweating, and racked with tremors.
Nonetheless, Hasan Dar insisted on questioning him. “Did you come as one of Tarik Khaga’s assassins?” he asked in a hard voice. “Did you come to kill her highness the Rani Amrita Sukhyhim?”
“No.” Bao shook his head, lolling it from side to side. “No, I said I would, but it was a lie. I do not wish your Rani or anyone else dead. I only wanted to find out about Moirin.”
“How did you gain entrance to the palace and Lady Moirin’s chambers?” Hasan Dar demanded.
“Vaulted the wall.” Bao made a listless gesture in the direction of my balcony. “Climbed a tree in the garden, tied a rope, swung, and jumped there.”
“He trained as an acrobat for many years,” I murmured.
Bao nodded, closing his eyes and shuddering. It must have taken almost all of his flagging strength to accomplish the feat.
I could feel his diadh-anam inside him, and it was stronger and clearer than it had been, calling to mine. Whatever ailed him, it was an affliction of the body, not the spirit. I felt at his brow. Despite the sheen of sweat, his skin didn’t feel fever-hot. “Are you ill?” I asked him. “Is it the mountain-sickness?”
“No.” He gave another lolling shake of his head. “Opium.”
“Opium causes this?” I was