Naamah's Curse

TWENTY-THREE

The days that followed were a blur.

I refused to eat, refused to talk, turning my face to the wall of my cell. There was no thought or strategy behind it, only the profound, endless ache of grief.

Jehanne. My lady Jehanne.

All this time… ah, gods! She had been frightened, so frightened. Frightened of impending motherhood, frightened of childbirth. And I had left her anyway, obeying the call of my bedamned destiny.

If I had stayed, I could have saved her. Raphael de Mereliot and I could have saved her.

It was a thought that haunted me, circling back upon me no matter how hard I sought to avoid it. We had done it before, Raphael and I. Together, with my magic channeling his gift for healing, we had saved a young mother bleeding excessively during the act of giving birth.

I wondered if he had been there at the end.

I suspected he had.

King Daniel would have sent for him. It was true, even without my aid Raphael was a skilled physician. In their own ways, they had both loved her, and Jehanne had loved them, too.

And me.

I tortured myself with imagining it. Jehanne, weakening, her exquisite face drained of blood. Raphael, rubbing his healer’s hands together to generate warmth, laying them on her, trying in vain to staunch the bleeding. King Daniel hovering over the tableau in anguish, all his solemn poise undone.

And all the while, a thing unsaid lying between them.

If Moirin were here…

Folk came and went. The Patriarch tried to coax me into talking. Valentina and Luba took turns trying to coax me into eating, putting spoonfuls of hot broth to my lips. I ignored them, keeping my mouth stubbornly closed. For a mercy, no one tried to force me.

I ached at the unfairness of it. Even if I’d known what would happen, I couldn’t have chosen otherwise. How many more would have died in the war in Ch’in if I hadn’t been able to help free the dragon? Thousands, likely.

Or mayhap there would have been no war; mayhap Emperor Zhu would have surrendered, believing he had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Master Lo and Bao would have failed in their mission. My lovely princess Snow Tiger would have been put to death, and the dragon’s splendid spirit would have died with her, ceasing to exist forevermore.

Black Sleeve and Lord Jiang would have been free to loose the dreadful weapons of the Divine Thunder on the world, and the world would have become a far more terrible place. I couldn’t weigh Jehanne’s life against such a fate.

But oh, gods! It hurt.

If it hadn’t been for Aleksei, I don’t know how long I would have kept my fast. It wasn’t that I sought death, at least not consciously. But I hadn’t much will to live, either. Everything I loved had been taken from me. This last blow was simply more than I could bear.

Every day, Aleksei came and read to me from the Yeshuite scriptures, beginning with the tale of the world’s creation, and Edom the First Man and his wife, the All-Mother, Yeva. At first I ignored him, too, sitting huddled on the hard stone floor of my cell with my manacled arms wrapped around my knees and my face turned toward the wall.

He persisted, hunkering on the wooden stool that he might be closer to my level, reading in a pleasant, melodious voice.

I could ignore him, and I could let the words he spoke wash over me, but I couldn’t ignore the presence of Naamah’s gift in the room between us. Every time his voice faltered, I felt it.

In those brief moments of silence, I felt his gaze on me.

And I felt Naamah’s gift respond within me. It was not desire on my part, not even close. My grief ran too deep. I hadn’t even begun to cope with the shock and pain of being torn away from Bao’s side so unexpectedly, so soon after being reunited with my stubborn peasant-boy and the missing half of my soul, before being struck with the news of Jehanne’s death.

But it was a response to his desire, an instinctive urge toward life as simple and natural as a plant yearning toward the sun.

On the third day, or mayhap the fourth, Aleksei’s voice faltered, and he let the silence stretch.

When it didn’t break, I shifted, turning away from the wall to meet his gaze.

He flushed, and I saw his throat work as he swallowed hard. “Your queen… the babe was a girl. I thought you would want to know.”

Grief caught in my chest. “Is she alive and well?” I whispered. “Jehanne’s daughter?”

Aleksei nodded and looked away from me, fidgeting with the leather-bound book in his hands. “Before… before she died, the queen asked that the babe be called Desirée, so she would always know she was loved and wanted.”

Something within me broke, and for the first time since I’d heard the news, I wept in great, racking sobs-a storm of sorrow, my head bowed against my knees, tears soaking the coarse wool of my dress. Ah, gods! Everything I had told Jehanne was true. She had been a great deal kinder, wiser, and more gracious than she pretended, and for all her fears, she would have been a good mother.

Even in dying, Jehanne had found a way to let her daughter know she was loved.

Aleksei waited awkwardly for my sobs to subside. It was a long while before I got myself under control, rubbing my tear-stained face.

“Thank you,” I said to him. “It was kind of you to tell me.”

He looked away, looked back at me. “I wish you would relent. My uncle feels terrible about telling you thusly.” His color rose again, his fearful gaze skidding away. “He did not know you cared for her so.”

I leaned back against the wall, resting my head on the cool stone. I felt tired and hollow, and weak with hunger. “That’s not true.”

His blue-violet eyes widened. “Of course it is!”

“No.” I moved my head from side to side. “I saw his face, Aleksei. He heard the fear in my voice when I begged him to tell me what he meant by Jehanne’s fate. He knew. He relished the pain it would inflict.”

His flush deepened with anger, his voice dropping to a lower register. “You seek to sow doubt. I do not believe it.”

I shrugged wearily. “Believe what you like.”

Aleksei closed his eyes, his lips moving in a silent prayer. When he opened those glorious blue eyes again, they were luminous with the inner light of his faith. “I will not be swayed,” he said in a firm tone. “You were sent to us as a test and a trial, and I will not fail. God loves you, Moirin, and his son Yeshua gave his life that you might know it. I am trying; we are all trying. Do you but open your heart and listen, and you will hear the call to salvation.”

I studied him, studied the rugged planes of his young face, graced with that unmistakable D’Angeline symmetry. I tried to guess his age. Sixteen, mayhap; seventeen at most.

A year younger than me? Two years? Or mayhap three? Gods, I wasn’t even sure how old I was anymore.

He had only just begun to grow into the newfound strength of his adult frame-broad-shouldered and rangy, with long, loose limbs and oversized feet and hands. I remembered Cillian at that age.

And I remembered Jehanne at Cereus House, where she had first seduced me as a ploy in her ongoing game with Raphael de Mereliot, her fair skin flawless in the sunlight, her blue-grey eyes sparkling like stars as she caressed my face, uttering one of desire’s truths. Do you know how long it’s been since I let myself indulge in the headlong rush of youth’s untutored passion?

No.

She had kissed my lips, a kiss as sweet as a promise. Far, far too long, my gorgeous young savage.

And I had succumbed to her charms-oh so gladly!

The memory hurt. Neither of us could have guessed that that moment would lead us into a far more significant and complicated bond, one that I would never, ever regret. I had loved Jehanne, and I had loved her well. I took a deep breath, steeling myself against the pain, and contemplated young Aleksei, a tightly wound knot of desire and denial, sitting hunched on my wooden stool.

He was filled with youth’s untutored passion, taught to consider it a curse. Perhaps Naamah had some purpose for me here after all. One thing was sure; I was in desperate need of an ally.

I loosed my breath. “Read to me,” I said gently to him. “I will listen, I promise.”

Aleksei bowed his head and read to me, his tawny-gold hair falling about his face.

I listened, and began to plot.