Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [122]
"Sit," he said. "Learn the Breath of Glowing Embers."
I sat, shivering and obedient.
Bao leaned over the brazier and blew softly on the coals. Their hot crimson hearts quickened, turning bright orange. They pulsed beneath a fine coating of ash, colors shifting like fiery jewels.
"The embers breathe in air and breathe out heat," Lo Feng said. "Even as we breathe in cool yin energy and exhale hot yang. The human heart is your precious ember. Breathe through your mouth into your heart. Feel the energy you inhale stoke it. Feel it pulse within you. Breathe out its heat."
It was hard. I was too cold to concentrate. I gazed at the embers, trying to find the rhythm.
I gazed at Master Lo Feng. His serene face comforted me, but it didn't help.
I gazed at Bao.
Like his mentor, he sat so very still in repose. But his face wasn't serene. He breathed through parted lips, faster than I would have thought by the slight rise and fall of his chest. His face was exhilarated. I knew without being told that fire was the element closest to his nature.
I matched my breathing to his and realized that it resonated with the shifting hues of fire within the coals.
In and out.
Flaring and fading in time with my beating heart.
Bao opened his eyes. "You not cold anymore."
I startled at the sound of his voice—and realized it was true. I wasn't exactly warm, but the cold that had permeated my bones was dispelled.
"Bao." Master Lo Feng delivered the gentle reproof without opening his eyes.
Bao gave me a faint smile and closed his eyes.
I closed mine, too, and breathed.
Somewhere in the days that followed, Raphael and Jehanne made up their quarrel. He didn't tell me about it, but he didn't have to. I knew her scent. I wondered if he'd promised to give me up after all. I wanted to ask him, but every time I thought about it, the topaz jewel of Marbas' gift sparkled in my thoughts, sending a covert pang of guilt through me. I kept quiet. After the next summoning, I would ask him.
There was a fete to celebrate the debut of a new poem by Lianne Tremaine. I accepted an invitation to attend as Prince Thierry's guest, assuming that Raphael would be escorting the Queen. I was wrong, but Raphael dealt graciously with it.
"No mind," he said when I told him. "I'll just be another courtier dancing attendance on her majesty."
"You're not angry?" I wished he would be, just a little.
He laughed and shook his head. "You're a free woman in Terre d'Ange, Moirin. Thierry's a handsome lad and the heir to the throne." And then he kissed me, his tongue probing my mouth, until desire flooded my loins. Raphael lifted his head, eyes gleaming. "Besides, he doesn't make you feel like that, does he?"
"You can be cruel," I informed him.
He only laughed again. "You're the one chose to let yourself be courted by the Dauphin."
It felt passing strange to see Lianne declaim her poem. I'd met her as the King's Poet, but I'd come to know her better as a member of the Circle, a white-robed figure engaged in shadowy rituals in a barren stone chamber. Here she wore a gown of bronze silk that suited her coloring and stood before the glittering court in a well-lit salon, speaking in measured tones.
She was very good.
Her speaking voice was pleasant enough, but it was her words that stirred the heart. The conceit of the poem was that it was written in the voice of a long-dead poet, Anafiel Delaunay, mourning his slain lover. Thierry explained to me in a low whisper that these things were all true, that Delaunay had been a famous poet and the beloved of Prince Rolande de la Courcel, one of his own ancestors and mine.
"Rolande was killed in the Battle of Three Princes," he whispered. "And although he mourned him deeply, Anafiel Delaunay—you might know him better as Anafiel de Montreve, the mentor of Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve—never did write about his grief."
I nodded and bade him to hush.
It was a terrible, beautiful poem—at once vivid, yet spare and haunting. At first I thought it was brave of Lianne to write from a man's perspective about things she couldn't