Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [99]
Catti’s face was chill, still, nearly expressionless. She reached down to touch the bandage. The white light seemed to wind around her dark fingers like wool.
Of one thing Ista was certain: Cattilara was not the gate for any god. God light, in all its hues, was unmistakable to the inner eye. And Ista knew only one other root for such sorceries.
So where is the demon? Ista had not felt its malign presence before; what she had mainly felt in Cattilara’s company was irritation. Enough to mask that deeper unease? Not entirely, it seemed in retrospect, even if Ista had misperceived her recurring clotted tension around the marchess as base envy. Partly misperceived, she corrected with grim honesty. Ista marshaled all the clarity of vision she could, widening her inner eye to take in all the living light that rippled in unhappy disorder around the room.
Not light: darkness, shadow. Floating under Cattilara’s breastbone, a tight, dark violet knot, turned in on itself. Hiding? If so, not quite successfully, like a cat in a sack that had forgotten to pull in its tail.
But which was the possessor, which the possessed? The term sorcerer applied, confusingly, to both spiritual states; for all that the divines claimed they were theologically distinct, from the outside there was little practical way to tell them apart.
I can tell, it seems. But then, I’m looking from the other side. Cattilara rode this demon, not the other way around; it was her will that prevailed here, her soul that was ascendant in that lovely body. For the moment.
Cattilara ran one fingernail down Lord Illvin’s torso from the hollow of his throat to his navel, and beyond. The fire seemed to intensify in its trail, divert downward as if flowing through a new channel.
She eased herself onto the bed beside him, leaned in, and began to methodically caress his body, from the shoulders downward, from the ankles upward, recentering the fountain of light over his groin. Her caresses grew more explicit. The gray eyelids never flickered, but other parts of Illvin’s body began to respond to this focusing of attention. Alive he was on one level, flesh if not mind. Visibly.
Are they lovers, then? Ista’s brows knotted. For all the efficient expertise, that was the most unloving touch Ista had ever seen. It sought to stimulate, not gratify, and took no satisfaction for itself. If her hands had the privilege of tracing that ivory skin over whipcord muscle, that darker velvet sensitivity, they would not be rough, abrupt, clawed with tension. Her palms would be open, drinking delight. That is . . . if she ever had the courage to touch anyone. The passion here was anger, not lust. Lord Bastard, your blessings are being wasted in that bed.
Catti was whispering. “Yes. That’s right. Come on.” The busy fingers worked. “It’s not fair. Not fair. Your seed is thick, and yet my lord’s has turned to water. What need have you for it? What need have you for anything?” The hands slowed again. Her eyes glittered, and her voice dropped still further. “We could ride him, you know. No one would ever know. Get a child all the same. It would be half Arhys’s at least. Do it now, while there’s still time.” Had that dark knot beneath her breastbone fluttered?
A little silence, then her voice hissed. “I don’t want second-best. He never liked me anyway. All his stupid jokes I could never get. There is no man for me but Arhys. There will never be any man for me but Arhys. Always and forever.”
The knot seemed to cringe inward again. Aye, Ista thought to it. You are not the pregnancy she seeks, I’ll warrant.
Cattilara’s hands opened: framed taut, aching flesh spinning a thread of white fire from its tip. “There. That should hold for long enough.” She eased off the bed, which