Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [18]
"No reason." I closed the book. "Well. Now we know."
"I could try to find out his name for you," he offered. "I'm sure there's a register of important foreign guests who attended my father's coronation. Mayhap the priest's name is recorded in it."
I glanced at my mother's face. Her expression was unreadable. "No," I said slowly, stroking the cover of the book. "No, it's enough to know this much. Thank you, Cillian."
He smiled. "You're welcome, little frog."
And for a time, it was enough. Knowledge, I decided, could be a fearsome thing. I knew who I was: Moirin, daughter of Fainche. I did not wish to become other. And so I locked the name of the bright lady my father served away in my heart along with the name of the man with the seedling whom they called Star of Love and Good Steward, and I prayed instead to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself that I should be one of Her children and no one else's.
In the autumn, Cillian began his formal studies at the Academy and I saw less of him. Still, he came when he could. By spring, he'd grown another three inches and his head was full of all manner of new tales and histories, as well as gossip about the young men and women studying with him.
"You must come when you're of age, Moirin," he wheedled. "It's only two years from now, is it not?"
"One," I said, offended.
"Oh, aye?" He looked surprised. "That's right, I forgot. My sister looked older at thirteen."
It needled me that he should see me as such a child. I was old enough that I could survive in the woods alone. I could read as well as Cillian, and I'd learned D'Angeline as fast as he could teach it to me. But now he was reading works by Caerdicci scholars and learning skills like astronomy and mathematics. Wherever he was going, I was being left behind.
I said as much to my mother.
She gave me her wry look. "Wait."
"For what?"
"You'll see."
Oengus came that summer. He'd come a few times since our pilgrimage to Clunderry. This time, he eyed me critically.
"She's not started her woman's courses?" he asked my mother.
She shook her head. "No. I'd have told you."
I flushed. "Whatever for?"
They exchanged a glance. "It would mean you're eligible to be courted," my mother said. "Time enough and more for that," she added in a firm tone, putting the subject behind us.
That night, she went with Oengus. I lay awake in my nest of blankets, listening to the sounds of the night forest, trying not to think on what they did out there. When I closed my eyes, I saw the bright lady. Naamah, whose gift was desire. She held her hands cupped at her waist, then raised them and smiled at me. Soon, she said in a voice like honey, and opened her hands. A shimmering grey dove burst into the air, its fluttering wings echoing the fluttering deep in my belly.
Soon.
Soon came that autumn and winter. My woman's courses didn't start, but my body changed nonetheless.
I grew tall—or at least taller than my mother. At first I was reed-thin with it, but then that changed, too. My breasts and hips swelled. Where once my body had been quick and nimble, it now acquired a lithe, nubile grace.
I felt strange in my skin.
Good, but strange.
A world of sensation abounded. I craved it. I could become absorbed for hours in the softness of a piece of rabbit hide, running the down-soft fur over my cheek. Drawing a comb through my hair. The way my clothing rustled against my skin. The sensual warmth of thawing my hands over the fire after a day afield could make me shiver with pleasure.
"Ah, Moirin mine," my mother murmured, watching me. "You're a beautiful girl."
"Am I?" I asked, startled out of a reverie.
She kissed my brow. "You are."
When Cillian came that spring for the first time in long months, I saw it reflected in another's eyes. I was boiling tender lily buds over the hearth-fire and sensed him coming long before he arrived, a trail of disruption in his wake. He bounded into our campsite on long legs, his voice turned deep and booming.
"Moirin!" he shouted. "Moirin! I'm sorry I've been away so long,