Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [161]
There weren't any.
Altogether too soon, we arrived at the de Toluard country estate, the gracious manor house flanked by tall cypress trees. It was like a bad dream revisited. I let Raphael lead me inside. None of the Circle pretended to affection, nor did I. Still, the ritual was observed, the cordial poured.
"To knowledge," Denis de Toluard said in a hard voice, lifting the glass to his lips and tossing back its contents.
The others echoed the toast and drank.
I emptied my glass on the floor.
Raphael's hand closed on my elbow, hard and painful. "Moirin, that is not helpful!" he hissed in my ear.
I shrugged. "Go to hell. You forced this bargain on me, Raphael. You made me buy my father's life with it. I'll keep my oath, but I don't have to wish you well in this. I think you're fools for attempting it."
The members of the Circle stared at me with hatred and resentment. I stared back at them with my mother's best unblinking glower until they looked away.
It was as dark as ever in the underground chamber, all traces of sunlight banished. I went through the familiar movements of preparation as slowly as I dared, donning the white linen robe and washing my face and hands in the hyssop-scented basin. My mind was miles away.
I shouldn't have trusted my letter to the guard. I should have awakened Jehanne myself, but I'd feared I'd violate the terms of my oath if I had to speak to her. Or mayhap I should have dispatched the letter to someone else—to my father, or to King Daniel himself. Thierry—Thierry would have heeded me. Or Master Lo Feng, mayhap. He was so calm and wise, surely he would have known what to do.
But it was too late.
"Lady Moirin." The silversmith Balric addressed me in a dispassionate voice, holding out a silver medallion engraved with a new sigil. "We're waiting."
I took the sigil and hung it around my neck, shivering.
There was one change to the ritual. In the great chamber, Balric produced an enormous silver chain from a leather satchel. Each link was etched with tiny, precise sigils. He wound the chain twice around the center of the six-pointed star, securing the ends with a silver lock.
"That will hold him," Orien de Legasse said in satisfaction. "Well wrought, smith."
Raphael imprisoned my hand in his, holding it hard. "Are we ready?" he asked the room at large. There were nods and murmurs of assent. "Then let us begin."
In a steady voice, Claire Fourcay began to speak the first conjuration in the Habiru tongue. The familiar sense of pressure filled the air. I gave a silent prayer to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself and abandoned hope to concentrate on the task at hand. Claire's voice echoed in the chamber. The torches flickered. The pressure intensified until my head was ringing with it.
In the center of the star, the air shimmered. I fought to steady my breathing, fought to remember my lessons.
A doorway, limned in pulsing flames.
It was vast, vaster than before. The top of it reached for the vaulted ceilings and there seemed to be no bottom. I pulled away involuntarily, not wanting to know what lay behind it, but Raphael's grip on my hand brought me up short.
"You gave your oath," he reminded me in a low voice.
"So I did." I gritted my teeth, a blaze of fury running through me.
I hated him, hated every last one of them. They wanted what I was capable of doing for them—well and so. Let them have it. "So be it."
I summoned the twilight and pushed—hard, harder than I'd ever pushed before.
The doorway flared and a wild wind whipped through the chamber. I let go the twilight. Someone cried aloud. Claire's voice faltered, then took up a new invocation. A vast bank of stormclouds boiled through the doorway, the sense of a great