Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [203]
I took an involuntary step forward, lowering my bow.
“No, Moirin!” Deftly, Amrita slipped past me, turning her back on the Spider Queen and raising her hands in a mudra to focus the will. “Be strong, dear one!”
No one could hear us in the twilight unless we willed it. I met her gaze and nodded, lifting my bow once more. “Aye, my lady.”
It was strange, so very strange, stealing into the throne room, coming upon that unholy tableau unseen. They were waiting for us, they were all waiting for us, gazing fixedly at the open doorway. There was one throne and Jagrati sat in it, her long fingers curled into armrests carved in the shape of roaring tigers. Four men were arrayed before her with weapons drawn, the Falconer Tarik Khaga among them.
Two others lurked on either side of the doorway, bristling with more weapons. We were close enough that I could hear them breathing.
“Bao?” I called, willing him to hear me. “Assassins waiting to ambush you on both sides of the door.”
He didn’t answer.
I hoped he had heard me.
Small and fearless, my lady Amrita advanced through the twilight, past the lurking killers, all the way to the foot of the throne. I followed her.
It took every ounce of concentration I had to expand the twilight and spin it around Jagrati, but I did it.
Her head jerked up in surprise as the world dimmed around her, her face contorting with fury. “You! What have you done?”
Behind me, there was shouting. Later, I would learn that Bao had indeed heard my warning, had come through the doorway in a low, diving somersault that took him past the lurking killers and came up fighting, the others crowding behind him.
Now, all I knew was that the battle was engaged, Tarik Khaga and his deadly falcons rushing to join it.
I wanted to look, but I couldn’t. I looked past the Spider Queen instead, keeping my arrow trained in her general direction. “No one but the Rani Amrita and I can see you, Jagrati. Give Kamadeva’s diamond to her, or I will kill you.”
She laughed.
A low sound, a sound at once soft and harsh. I felt it in the pit of my belly. Ravens fluttering. “No,” Jagrati said fondly in her silken rasp of a voice. “No, my oh so pretty dakini, I do not think so.” She rose from the throne, moving with that angular grace, Kamadeva’s diamond glowing at her throat. “Come, put down your bow, young Moirin. Do not threaten me. It is not who you are. You were made for pleasure, not killing.”
It was true; so true! With a sigh of relief, I lowered my bow.
Jagrati smiled. “Well done, child! Now release your magic.”
I wanted to obey her.
“Moirin, no!” Amrita’s voice rang out. She positioned herself deftly between us, her hands rising in a warding mudra. “Do not listen to her; do not look at her! Look at me, and hold fast to all you love!”
I raised my bow, blinking hard.
I held the twilight.
Jagrati hissed through her teeth, pacing with ferocious elegance. “Little Rani,” she said in a guttural purr. “Do you know, you are everything I hate in this world?”
“The world has not been kind to you,” my lady Amrita said steadily, her hands unwavering. “And I am sorry for it. I listened to the words you said before, and I will seek to be mindful of them in pursuit of the truth. But that does not excuse your cruelty.”
“Pious mush-mouthed creature!” Jagrati reached for her, then recoiled with another hiss. “Look at you.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “So brave, little daughter of the warrior caste; so proud to be doing her duty, so sanctimonious in her self-righteousness.”
It made me angry.
“My lady Amrita is none of those things save brave, Jagrati,” I said fiercely. “Do not project your own darkness on her.”
Jagrati’s glittering gaze settled on me, bringing the full force of Kamadeva’s diamond to bear. My blood thundered in my ears, throbbed in my veins. I had never been afflicted with a taste for life’s sharper pleasures, but that was before I had committed murder and taken darkness onto my own spirit. Now I sensed the absolution to be found in accepting punishment, in abasement and humiliation.