Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [195]
My lady Amrita had teased me once about carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and today it felt like it.
Folk in the street bowed as we passed, low and deep. Some went to their knees, pressing their brows to the ground. Many of them had been afraid for their much-loved Rani the first time.
This time, all of them were.
Beside me, Bao breathed the Five Styles as he rode, his expression at once fierce and calm. His diadh-anam burned as bright and clear as a bonfire within him, calling to mine. I took heart from it. Surely, if the Maghuin Dhonn Herself disapproved of what we meant to do, Her spark would not shine so brightly.
Although we hadn’t done anything yet.
Retracing our steps, we made camp in the same meadow the first evening. I could not help but remember the last time we had been there, all of us defeated and dispirited in the wake of our failure, and me racked with unholy desire, shuddering to the marrow of my bones with it, Jagrati’s predatory face swimming before my eyes.
I was afraid of her, and afraid of myself, too.
In the privacy of the tent I shared with my lady Amrita and Bao, I prayed to Naamah, begging her to have mercy on her errant daughter, begging her to let me keep her gift a blessing, and not a curse.
“I have tried to use it well, brightest of ladies,” I whispered. “I know I have not always been wise or strong, but I have always tried. I am still trying. Please, help me.”
In response, I had a sense of Naamah’s grace enveloping me like a cloak, filled with warmth and love and desire; but there was regret in it, too. Her gift was a double-edged sword that cut both ways. Not even she could make it otherwise.
But there was another offer the bright lady Naamah could make, and I felt it, words rising through my consciousness like bubbles from the eddies of a clear-running stream, each one perfect and glistening.
One by one, the words were strung together to form a single, terrifying query, spoken as clearly to me as Naamah had ever spoken through me.
Do you wish me to take it from you?
I caught my breath, my skin prickling with awe. Tears stung my eyes; and whether they were tears of terror or relief, I couldn’t have said. There was sorrow and curiosity behind the offer, but it was genuine.
Naamah could withdraw her gift from me.
My heart ached at the thought, and my diadh-anam flared in alarm. The Maghuin Dhonn Herself did not wish it so.
Neither did I.
I gazed at Bao, at his familiar face with its high, wide cheekbones, dark eyes glittering above them. And at my lovely lady Amrita, who gazed back at me with worried perplexity. I thought about all the people in my life I had loved and desired, from my lost Cillian slain too soon to my sweet boy Aleksei—and all that lay between them. Even the ill-advised but compelling Raphael de Mereliot with his healer’s hands, and, of course, my beautiful, mercurial lady Jehanne. My valiant princess Snow Tiger, trusting me enough to reveal an unexpected playful streak that had delighted me so.
I could not betray those memories. And for whatever reason Naamah had seen fit to grant her gift to a child of the Maghuin Dhonn when she called my father to my mother, there must be some purpose in it.
“No,” I murmured. “No. Please, do not take it away from me, goddess.”
Naamah did not. I felt her presence fade, leaving her gift intact.
I sighed with profound relief.
“Moirin, who in the world were you talking to?” Bao inquired.
“Naamah,” I said honestly. “I think… I think she offered to take her gift away from me. And I refused.” I swallowed hard. “I hope that was not a very bad mistake.”
Bao came over and put his strong arms around me, holding me hard. I leaned against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, the bright flame of his diadh-anam entwining with mine. “Moirin without her eternal and perplexing