“He’s right,” I called out at length. “You may admit him.”
“Name of Elua!” My cousin Mavros Shahrizai strode into the bathing-chamber and glared at me, hands on his hips. His midnight-black hair was loose and rippling, his blue eyes vivid with emotion. We bore an unmistakable family resemblance. “Do you never think to send word? We worry, you know.”
I stood in the tub, dripping. “Hello, Mavros.”
“Idiot.” He gripped my bare shoulders and gave me the kiss of greeting, then held me away from him, gazing with a critical eye at the pink furrows of flesh that ran at a raking angle from my right shoulder to my left hip. “Gods, it’s worse than I reckoned. You didn’t tell me that bastard nearly gutted you.”
I shrugged. “I lived.”
His fingers flexed, digging into my shoulders. “Idiot. He’s dead now, right? You brought his head home in a bag?”
“And buried it in Clunderry,” I said. “Oh, yes.”
Mavros let go of me, fetching a stool and dragging it nearer the tub. “Finish your bath and tell me about it.”
For as long a journey as it had been, there wasn’t much to tell. It had been a slow, plodding hunt. I’d been shipwrecked on the EasternSea and lost weeks stranded on an isolated island while we salvaged and repaired our damaged ship. I’d been mistaken for an ally of raiding Tartars in a Vralian village and thrown in gaol. I’d managed to escape, and followed Berlik to the place where he’d sought refuge, spending countless days attempting to find him in the trackless wilderness.
In the end, he found me.
“So he wanted to die?” Mavros asked when I finished.
“Yes,” I said. “To make atonement.”
“Huh.” He thought about it while I dried myself and slipped into a dressing-robe. “Do you reckon it worked?”
“I don’t know.” I knotted the robe’s sash. “What he did . . . as awful as it was, I came to understand it. He thought it was the only way to spare his people.”
“From the future your son would bring,” Mavros said slowly.
“Yes.” I shivered, remembering the vision. A young man, his features a mixture of mine and Dorelei’s, but bitter and cruel. Armies raging over Alba, blood-sodden fields. Women and children dragged from their homes, houses put to the torch. Men hunted like animals. The standing stones and the sacred groves, destroyed. “I’ll tell you one thing, Mavros. I’ll not defy Blessed Elua’s precept again and I want nothing more to do with strange magics. All I want is to be left in peace for a time.”
“Good luck.” His tone was wry.
“I know,” I said. “Sidonie.”
“Is it worth it?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
I turned the gold ring on my finger. Despite everything, the love I felt for her was undiminished. The soaring exaltation, the inexplicable rightness of the fit. The shared laughter and talk, the common, ordinary happiness. And somewhere beneath it, a sense that this was important and needful. I couldn’t explain it. I only knew it was true.
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Well, you know House Shahrizai stands behind you,” Mavros said. “Although things being what they are, our support might not be terribly helpful.”
“So I noticed.” I gestured, pointing my thumb downward.
“Mmm.” His face was introspective. “You and Sidonie . . . it raised old fears, opened old wounds.”
“You do know I’ve no aspiration toward the throne?” I asked.
“Oh, I do.” Mavros glanced up at me. “But I’m not the one you need to convince. There are a few thousand of those, starting with her majesty the Queen.” As though summoned by his words, there was a knock at the outer door—one of Ysandre’s guards, come to fetch me to audience. Mavros laughed humorlessly. “Well, and here’s your first chance.”
After bidding Mavros farewell and donning clean attire, I accompanied the guard to my audience with Ysandre. It was early evening and the Palace was beginning to come alive with what revelries the coming night would hold: private fêtes, wagers in the Hall of Games, mayhap a performance in the theatre.
I endured the gauntlet of stares and whispers. I was used to it; it had been my lot since I had first returned to Terre d’Ange as a child. I met the stares, returned them with a level gaze, trying to read the faces behind them.
Some were sympathetic.
A few were hostile and guarded.
Most were simply curious.
I wasn’t sure if it would be a state reception or a private one. It turned out to be somewhere between the two. The Queen received me in her private quarters, but Lady Denise Grosmaine, the Secretary of the Presence, was in attendance, which meant whatever transpired would be documented for the Royal Archives.
I entered the Queen’s salon and bowed low.
“We welcome you home, Prince Imriel.” Ysandre’s tone was even. Careful.
I straightened. “My thanks, your majesty.”
Ysandre de la Courcel had ruled Terre d’Ange since before I was born. She’d assumed the throne when she was no older than I was now, and she’d had a long time to learn to school her features into a polite mask. But I was Kushiel’s scion, and I could see a measure of what lay behind the mask—hurt, betrayal, and anger. It hadn’t gone away since I left. It had settled into a deep place inside her.
Still, she was the Queen, and a very good one.
“We—” She paused, then continued, her voice firm. “I wish to thank you for avenging the death of my husband’s blood-kin. I wish to tell you that Drustan, that the Cruarch of Alba, sent a letter commending you for your courage and persistence. We are both grateful to know that the spirit of Dorelei mab Breidaia will rest peacefully thanks to your efforts.”
“As am I,” I said quietly. “She was my wife. She would have been the mother of my son. I pray they are both at peace.”
The Secretary of the Presence recorded our words, her pen scratching softly on paper. I gazed at Ysandre. Sidonie had inherited her mother’s fairness, although Ysandre’s hair was a paler hue. She had inherited her mother’s cool, reserved beauty. But she had not inherited a kingdom on the verge of being invaded and conquered due to the treachery of Melisande Shahrizai.
Ysandre inclined her head. “You may go.”
I spread my hands. “Your majesty . . .”
Her expression hardened. “We will discuss the other matter at a later date. There will be a Priest of Elua seeking an audience with you to discuss these things. I recommend you grant it.”
I opened my mouth to make a reply or an appeal, then thought better of it and inclined my head. “Of course, your majesty.”
With that, I was dismissed.
Outside of Ysandre’s quarters, I leaned against the wall and exhaled hard. Ah, Elua! Love shouldn’t have to be so hard.
“Prince Imriel?” a cheerful voice asked. I squinted at the speaker. One of Sidonie’s guardsmen, a short, wiry lad with dark hair. He grinned at me. “That bad, eh? Her highness sent me to fetch you.”
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” I said.
His grin widened. “Thought you might think so.”
The guard, whose name was Alfonse, led me to Sidonie’s quarters. It was the first time I’d entered them openly as her acknowledged lover, and it felt strange. I half expected to be halted. But no; Sidonie’s guard was loyal, and it seemed Ysandre wasn’t minded to intervene, at least not overtly, not yet. I suspected it had little to do with tolerance for the situation, and more to do with fear of driving Sidonie into open rebellion.
Sidonie’s rooms were larger and finer than my own. There was an abundance of candles lit against the encroaching darkness. Covered platters sat on the dining table, and the succulent aromas seeping from beneath the domes made me realize I was hungry.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Sidonie, seated on a couch, set down the sheaf of letters she was reading. “I thought it might be nicer to dine in my chambers than face the gawking horde on our first night.”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “And I’m ravenous.”
“Mmm.” She rose with deft grace. “How was Mother?”
“Cordial.” I caught her hand. “How did you find her?”
Sidonie kissed my throat. “Formal.”
I ran a lock of her hair through my fingers. “She wants me to speak to a Priest of Elua.”
She nodded. “I told you I’d been working to gain the support of the priesthood while you were gone. If they’re convinced that what’s between us is genuine, it will make it harder for her to oppose it.”
“And I’m to convince them? Seems I’m expected to do a good deal of convincing these days.” I traced the line of her brows, so similar to my own. “What of you?”
“Oh, I’ve already done my part, at least with the priesthood.” Sidonie turned her head to kiss my palm, then smiled at me. “They’re sure of me. Now it falls to you to convince them that this isn’t part of an evil scheme to gain the throne by seducing me and winning my heart.” She took my hand in hers, kissing the tips of my fingers.
The pulse of desire quickened in me. “Anyone fool enough to think that doesn’t know you very well,” I said, my voice sounding rough in my ears.
“True.” Sidonie glanced up at me, then slid my index finger into her mouth and sucked on it, just long enough to turn desire’s pulse into a throbbing, thundering drumbeat. Her black eyes sparkled with wicked amusement. “But, then, most people don’t.”
I made a wordless sound, stooped, and scooped her into my arms. Sidonie laughed softly, looping her arms around my neck as I carried her toward the bedchamber, kissing her.
“I thought you were ravenous,” she teased.
I nudged the bedchamber door open. “It can wait.”
Two
So began our life of uneasy stalemate at Court.
Sidonie and I neither hid nor flaunted our relationship. Everyone knew, of course. But since Ysandre had chosen, at least for the time, to treat it as though it didn’t exist, it wasn’t discussed openly, at least not in earshot of anyone who might report to the Queen.
It was discussed a great deal in private. It was discussed with glee by young nobles engaged in the Game of Courtship, many of whom were surprisingly supportive, reveling in a tale of tragic romance. They were too young to remember the Skaldi invasion, which had happened before I was born. Melisande Shahrizai was only a name, a story. She’d been in exile for over twenty years, first in the Temple of Asherat in La Serenissima, and then vanishing to Elua-knows-where.
But there were plenty of others old enough to remember, and many of them discussed it with mistrust and suspicion. Not all of them. For every D’Angeline who regarded me as the potentially traitorous spawn of Melisande Shahrizai and Benedicte de la Courcel—who had only escaped being convicted of treason by virtue of dying before he could be tried—there was another who regarded me as the foster-son of Phèdre nó Delaunay and Joscelin Verreuil, undeniably heroes of the realm.
Phèdre did meet with Ysandre. She had been the Queen’s confidante for a long time, and she could be damnably persuasive. Not this time.
“She claims I’m too close to the matter to be an objective judge when it comes to Imriel,” she said, frustrated.
“She has a point, love,” Joscelin observed. He put up his hands in a peaceable gesture when Phèdre raised her brows at him. “You and I and everyone under this roof know that you’re right. But in Ysandre’s mind, you’d defend Imri under any circumstances.”
“She’s scared.” I toyed with one of the quince tarts that Eugènie had made in honor of my visit, the second visit that week. “For ten years, she’s had people like Barquiel L’Envers telling her that she was nursing a serpent in the bosom of House Courcel. Now it looks as though I’ve proved them right.”
“Sinking your fangs deep into her heir’s tender breast,” Ti-Philippe commented.
I flushed. “In a manner of speaking.”
He eyed me with amusement. “Or not.”
“Well, she’ll have to listen to the priesthood if they choose to speak on your behalf,” Phèdre mused. “That was a shrewd thought on Sidonie’s part.”
“What do you plan on telling them?” Joscelin asked.
I shook my head. “I’ve no idea.”
I had indeed received a request from Brother Thomas Jubert, the senior member of the Great Temple of Elua here in the City, summoning me to an audience in two days’ time. I had agreed to it readily. At the time I’d not felt apprehensive, but as the meeting approached that began to change. If the priesthood did choose to give us their blessing, well and good. It wouldn’t change much in political terms, but it might go some way toward swaying the hearts of those in doubt, and it would make it difficult for Ysandre to move toward outright opposition.
And if they didn’t, it would seal the opinion of those who opposed us. And it would make it a great deal easier for Ysandre to issue an edict ordering her wayward heir to choose between me and her inheritance.
I didn’t know if she would. And I didn’t know what Sidonie would do if she did. All I knew was that I didn’t want to find out. If I could rip out my heart and show it to the priest, I thought, it would be simple. If I could live out my life before his eyes, show him I intended no harm and aspired to nothing more than spending the balance of my days at Sidonie’s side, it would be simple.