Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [60]
Since I didn’t have a choice, I stood my ground as he lifted my chin with gentle fingers, peering at me.
I took his measure, too. He was ruggedly handsome in the Vralian manner, with weather-beaten skin and strong, prominent bones. His hair and long, thick beard were black, his eyes a dark, velvety brown. At the moment, they shone at me with surpassing warmth, so much so that I felt myself relaxing.
“Flawless!” Pyotr Rostov breathed with the same peculiar reverence. Releasing my chin, he lifted his medallion and kissed it, murmuring a prayer in Vralian. “Oh, child! I have been looking for someone like you for so very, very long, but never in my fondest dreams did I imagine God would grant my prayers with such perfection.”
“Oh?” I whispered uncertainly.
“Oh, yes.” He smiled at me with a father’s tenderness. “Look at you! Every abomination of two sinful races combined in one flesh, trailing a history of foul magic and blasphemy—and all of it wrapped in a package of unholy temptation.” He kissed his medallion again. “Truly, God is great.”
I felt sick. “Why?” I asked for the thousandth time, trying not to break down in tears. “What do you and your god want of me?”
This time, I got an answer. The Patriarch of Riva spread his arms. “I am the servant of God and his son Yeshua, and I pray that they work through me.” His eyes shone even brighter, taking on a hectic, avid quality. “If I can lead one such as you to salvation, surely I can change the world!”
My trapped diadh-anam surged in alarm.
I had my answer, and I did not like it. Not one bit.
TWENTY-ONE
With unctuous courtesy, the Patriarch of Riva introduced me to his family, my new jailors.
The older of the two women was his wife, Luba, a stern-looking woman with grey eyes and lips thinned with disapproval. The other woman, Valentina, was his sister. Although she was younger than her brother, she had the same velvety brown eyes and worn traces of beauty in her features. Both of them wore scarves wrapped around their heads.
Neither of them cared to meet my eyes, nor did the young man.
He intrigued me.
He hadn’t lifted his head once since Ilya escorted me into the temple, keeping his face stubbornly averted. Tawny hair, bronze streaked with lighter gold, fell to curtain his features, reminding me uncomfortably of Raphael de Mereliot.
It wasn’t just that, though. When I gazed at him, I felt the unmistakable stirring of Naamah’s gift within me, recognizing its presence in another. Without ever looking at me, the young man flushed beneath my gaze, a tide of red blood creeping upward to stain his throat and cheeks.
“Aleksei,” the Patriarch said in a somber voice. “She is a test and a trial of your faith as much as mine, and perhaps even more so. It is the only way you can ever redeem your mother’s sin.”
The young man nodded. “Yes, Uncle.” Squaring his broad shoulders, he lifted his head and met my gaze.
I drew in a sharp breath. He was half-D’Angeline, no doubt. The stamp of Terre d’Ange was on his features, that keen, fearful symmetry wedded to the rugged Vralian bones to form a different kind of beauty. His full lips were made for kissing, and his eyes, gods! They were a vivid hue of blue tinged with violet, like rain-washed speedwell blossoms.
At the moment, they gazed at me with a mixture of fascination and morbid fear.
His mother, Valentina, made a choked sound and turned away.
I let out my breath. “Is that what this is really about?” I asked the Patriarch, trying not to let my anger show. “Some D’Angeline laid a cuckoo’s egg in your sister’s nest, and I must be punished for it?”
“No, child.” Pyotr Rostov shook his head. “I spoke the truth. It is about sin and redemption—yours, mine, Aleksei’s, Valentina’s, and the whole world’s. It is about the Rebbe Avraham ben David, and the struggle for the soul of Vralia’s faith. It is about the prophecies of Elijah of Antioch… do you know of them?”
“No,” I said curtly.
“You will,” he said in a calm tone.