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My blood ran cold at his revelation; it was not, I supposed, the most dreadful thing that could be done. I have heard of worse atrocities, including those committed by Akkadians. But I am D’Angeline, and a scion of Blessed Elua, and I could conceive of no greater blasphemy. And too, I remembered the children left behind in Amílcar.

Fadil Chouma had sought one child; only one. Peerless; a
gadjo
pearl, the Tsingani had called Imriel de la Courcel.

And his mother had seen to it he was raised in perfect innocence.

“What does he say?” Lord Amaury placed a peremptory hand on my wrist. “Will he send men into Drujan on our behalf?”

Unable to speak, I shook my head.

“So be it.” Amaury’s tone rang with relief. “My lords, my lady de Rives, listen well! We have exerted ourselves at the Queen’s behest, above and beyond the call of duty. Though I am sore grieved at our failure, we have come to the place where we can go no further. As I am entrusted with the Queen’s command, I so decree it: Our quest ends here.”

There was unabashed cheering. I do not think they lacked pity for Imriel’s fate, but the fear of Drujan had grown strong. I looked at their happy, relieved faces. The Akkadians, thinking it a tribute, smiled with pleasure. Valère was whispering to Prince Sinaddan, explaining what had transpired. Renée de Rives was flushed and joyous, her youthful beauty like a candle in the feasting-hall. It was, I thought, passing strange that her offer had so failed to move me. I had never found surcease from my own nature before.

This is how it ends.

I looked at Joscelin, his quiet, capable hands curled around a cup of honey-beer, no rejoicing in his expression, only quiet compassion awaiting my reaction. I thought of my dream, my vow, the diamond held forth on Kushiel’s hand. I wondered at the absence of desire within me, that terrible, waiting emptiness. And I felt the looming pattern that had hovered over us since that first awful moment in Siovale, when I realized that there was no intrigue, no plot, behind Imriel’s abduction, come to a terrible fruition.

Branching paths, and each one lying in darkness.

It is said the Mahrkagir searches for the perfect victim
…

What was Kushiel’s Chosen if not that?

Ah, no, I thought; Blessed Elua, no! It is too much to ask; too much!

And even as I thought it, the emptiness was filled, a vast inrushing presence of joy and love and light, more light than I could bear. It swelled within me, lovely and unbearable. Filled with presence, I was vastened, conscious of an overarching pattern that encompassed all of life within it; all of love. Love, and all that it entailed; the complicated ties that bound us to one another, that begat life, loyalty, compassion, and sacrifice in its truest sense. I had not believed it possible, until then. I did not think it possible for a mortal being to contain such glory. What was it that filled me? Not Kushiel, no, nor Naamah, but Elua, Blessed Elua, the bright shadow whom they all followed, all of them, revealing at last the immensity of his plan, filling and surrounding me, golden and irresistible, filling my soul with radiant light, filling my mouth with the taste of honey, setting my heart to beating like a hummingbird’s wings, yes, yes, yes.

No, I thought. Tears stung my eyes. No.

It is too much.

I drew in a breath and heard the air rasp in my lungs, and the presence eased, loosening its grip, beginning to fade like the dying strains of a beautiful song. Forgive me, I thought, desperately grateful, forgive me, Elua my lord, thank you for your compassion, for understanding, I swear to you, I will heed you in every action, I will pour incense upon your altar every day, I will say a thousand prayers in blessing …

The presence continued to fade, withdrawing in regret, all of it.
Farewell
, I heard, final and unarguable,
farewell
. And it was not only Elua, Blessed Elua, but the others, too-Kushiel, the bronze wings beating their last in my bloodstream; Naamah, her enigmatic smile fading.

All of them, leaving me forever.

And the dull grey emptiness waiting to take their place.

“All right!” I clenched my hands, nails digging into my palms, not realizing I’d spoken aloud. “I will do it.”

“Phèdre?”

It was Joscelin’s voice, low and concerned. I blinked at him through my tears, unsteady in my chair at the massive inrushing
presence
that filled me, vastening and painful, but there. I was not abandoned, no, and I was myself. “Yes?” I whispered.

“I thought …” His beloved face was perplexed. “You were just staring, at nothing, and for a moment I thought …” He shook his head. “I thought I saw the mark, Kushiel’s Dart, the scarlet mote in your eye … it was disappearing, I swear it, shrinking before my eyes. I saw it dwindle to a pin-prick, and then …” Joscelin touched my cheek, wondering. “Then it returned.”

“Yes.” Giddiness and despair made my voice strange. “I suppose it did. Oh, Joscelin … you’re not going to like this.” Before he could ask what, I turned to the Lugal. “My lord Sinaddan,” I asked him in Akkadian. “Would you perchance know anyone willing to guide us to Daršanga? Not as an embassy, but as merchants with human goods to sell?”

Valère L’Envers had already begun to smile, anticipating her husband’s denial, when the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad gave a thoughtful nod. “Yes, my lovely lady translator,” said Prince Sinaddan. “As it happens, I might, for the right amount of gold.”

Somehow, I was not surprised.

Thus ended our fête in Nineveh, with our entire company thrown into disarray.

It was Lord Amaury Trente who spoke most bluntly to me, once he grasped my plan. “You understand that I cannot countenance it?” he said, pacing and frowning. “It is little short of madness, Phèdre. If I had an ounce more sense, I’d have you clapped in chains.”

“I understand, my lord,” I said calmly to him.

He shook his head. “You know that the Queen would never permit such a thing? Name of Elua, I’m not even sure that Shahrizai she-devil would ask it of you!”

“I know, my lord,” I said. “It is not Melisande Shahrizai who asks it.”

Lord Amaury sighed. “All right, then; listen to me, Phèdre nó Delaunay. I have agreed to pay the asking-price of Prince Sinaddan’s guide, who may I add, is a misbegotten Persian-born brigand who would sell his own mother for gold. He was one of the mountain-guides on the last expedition, and fled before the slaughter. And I have gotten Sinaddan to agree to send an armed escort with you as far as the Drujani border, which,” he added, “I will accompany. From thence, you are on your own, provided-” He held up a cautionary finger. “Provided Joscelin Verreuil goes with you. Understand me, Phèdre. If the Cassiline does not agree to it, I will not let you go.”

I nodded. “I understand, my lord. I am grateful that you are willing to take such a risk.”

Amaury Trente looked sourly at me. “Make no mistake, I’m not happy about it.”

Thus, Lord Amaury.

It left only Joscelin, who had not spoken to me for two days, not since he had divined the nature of my plan. What he did in that time, I cannot say, save that he spent a good deal of it walking the city of Nineveh. No one bothered him. Small surprise, with his grim expression and the sword strapped across his back, the daggers riding low at his hips. I waited until he came to me. There was a time he might not have done so. Ten years ago, in La Serenissima, he had walked out on me, and I’d not been sure he would return.

This time, I was.

I heard the shrieks in the women’s quarter of our inn, and knew. No more, and no less. When he made up his mind, proprieties would not deter him. I looked at Renée, gazing wide-eyed at the door. “It is Joscelin,” I said. “My dear, you don’t want to be here for this.”

She didn’t argue, donning her veil hastily and slipping out the door past him even as he entered, oblivious to her fleeting presence.

“Phèdre,” he said, a world of agony in the word; a single word, my name. It is an ill-luck name, I have always said so. “Do you know what you are asking?”

“Yes,” I said steadily. “I am asking you to take me to Daršanga and sell me into the seraglio of the Mahrkagir of Drujan.”

He turned away, hands clenched into fists; I heard the leather straps of his vambraces creak in protest. “A man who breeds death as another breeds life.”

“Yes.” My voice betrayed me by trembling. “Elua! Do you think I’m not terrified?”

“Then
why
?” Joscelin turned around, blue eyes blazing, innocent as a summer sky, filled with all the love and outrage in his being. “Blessed Elua, Phèdre,
why
? Do you care so little for me? Does Melisande’s son mean so much to you? Is the desire that pricks you so unbearable?
Why
?”

“No,” I answered, shaking. “No.” I gazed at him, though it hurt to look at him. “Do you remember, on the ship, what we spoke of? Joscelin, it is Elua himself who asks it of me. I swear to you, I would not ask this for anything less.”

With a low sound, like an animal brought to bay, he dropped to his knees, hiding his face in his hands. “It is too hard,” he said, his voice muffled.

“I know,” I said softly, crossing the room and laying my hands on his head. “Believe me, my love, I know.”

Joscelin’s arms rose unbidden, holding me hard about the waist. “To damnation and beyond,” he whispered, hot against my belly. “I have sworn it.” The sound that caught in his throat might have been a laugh, or not. “As if I’d had the slightest idea what that meant.”

“‘
Joscelin
,” I breathed. “It is taking my last ounce of courage just to contemplate this. Tell me now whether you will aid me or no.”

On his knees, he looked up at me, blue eyes framed with tear-spiked lashes, an eerie echo of the face in my dream, though no shadow fell across it but my own. “I would sooner serve you my heart on a platter, love, but it is not what you ask. So be it. I will sell you to this man who calls himself the Conqueror of Death, and Elua help him afterward.”

I could ask no more.

Forty

THERE WERE a good many tearful farewells before we departed for Drujan.

No one was happy with it, and I could not blame them, for once the moment had passed, I myself was riddled with doubt. I questioned my judgement some dozen times a day, seeking to rekindle that ineffable certainty that had assured me this was Elua’s plan, the golden presence that had filled me and made me so cursed
sure
.

It never happened.

Baron Victor de Chalais would lead the delegates home, crossing the Great Rivers before the spring floods began. He was a good man and steady, and I was glad of it. Lord Amaury Trente, Nicolas Vigny and two others would remain, accompanying us to the border of Drujan with Prince Sinaddan’s escort. There they would stay, for six months. If we were not back by then, they would reckon us dead or lost.

Renée de Rives fell on my neck, weeping hard and kissing me as she bid me farewell, leaving no doubt that she’d no hope of seeing me alive again. Despite the language barrier, the delegates had managed to get their fill of tales of Drujan; enough to render them certain that we rode toward our doom.

There had been a death in Nineveh, whilst we made our arrangements-a commoner, a potter, had been crushed by his own wares when a shelf had given way in his workshop, after he’d cursed a
Skotophagotis
who crossed his doorstep.

It was enough to fuel the fear.

Joscelin said little and sharpened his blades, working them endlessly with a whetstone, oiling his scabbard and sheaths and removing the last traces of rust from our rain-sodden journey to Nineveh. We had worked out a plan, such as it was. The Lugal’s man, one Tizrav, would guide us to the palace of Daršanga. If we reached it safely, Joscelin would pay him half the agreed-upon price from his own purse. Our story was that Joscelin was a renegade D’Angeline lordling who had abducted a peer’s wife-that was me-against her will. Having found the price of his escapade too steep, pursued by my husband’s kin across several lands, he would be willing to trade my favors for sanctuary in Drujan, where no one would dare seek him.

A simple plan, and a good one. As a surety, Lord Amaury himself would hold the second half of Tizrav’s payment, to be rendered only when the Persian returned from Drujan with the appropriate code-word. Joscelin and Amaury had agreed upon the word, and Joscelin would not give it unto the Persian until he was certain Tizrav had not betrayed us.

“What word shall we choose?” Amaury had asked, frowning.

Joscelin had looked at me. “Hyacinthe,” he said.

It was only fitting.

There is a point where fear becomes so large it ceases to matter, and exists only in the abstract. I reached it, during those preparations. It was too vast to comprehend, so I went about my business. I met Tizrav, son of Tizmaht; he was not a figure to inspire confidence, a wiry, dirty man with one eye put out by a poacher’s arrow, so he said. I considered it a good deal more likely he had been poaching. Nonetheless, the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad vouched for him.

“Tizrav knows the mountains,” he said. “He is a coward, but a cunning one, and he will not betray you, not where there is gold at stake.”

I’d no choice but to believe him. “Are you willing to lesson me in Old Persian along the way?” I asked. “It is a long road to Daršanga.”

“Of course!” he said, bobbing his head agreeably, grinning and fingering beneath his eyepatch. “Whatever my lady wishes. It is my milk-tongue; I speak it like a native! It is why no Drujani will trouble us, no, not when Tizrav is guiding.”

I had my doubts; I had a thousand doubts. I kept my mouth silent on them. Joscelin looked at me without speaking and continued to sharpen his blades.

Ironically, Valère L’Envers forgave me for abusing her House’s password and came to like me better once she thought I was marked for death. Having nowhere else to turn for it, I begged a favor and asked her to hold in safekeeping the Jebean scroll with the story of Shalomon’s son, and Audine Davul’s translation. Not only did she accede, but did me another favor unasked. “Here,” she said, thrusting a coat upon me, a deep crimson silk lined with marten-skin. “It was a gift from Sinaddan, who had it in tribute, but the sleeves are too short and I’ve never bothered to have it sized. It ought to fit you well, Comtesse, and it will be cold in the mountains.”