Naamah's Curse (67 page)

In the meantime, we lived in fear.

Hasan Dar insisted that the Rani and her son continue to sleep in the hidden room. It made sense, for although the assassin Zoka had tortured the secret out of poor Sameera, he had taken it to his death.

Still, I could not blame either of them for being reluctant to return there.

“Would it help if Moirin and I stayed with you?” Bao offered. “I am sure it is against protocol, but…”

My lady Amrita fingered her bruised throat. “Yes,” she said gratefully. “It would help very much, thank you.”

I didn’t think there was room in the small space for another bed. “We can put a pallet of blankets on the floor between you.”

“Even better!” Ravindra clapped his hands together with glee. “Bao-ji can share my bed, and Moirin can share yours, Mama-ji. It will be as though we were a large family, like your family in Galanka, eh?” The notion delighted him. “Yes, I will pretend Bao is my older brother, and you will pretend Moirin is your little sister.”

“I don’t think—” I began diplomatically.

“Would that make you happy, jewel of my heart?” Amrita asked her son. He nodded. She summoned a weary smile. “Then if Moirin and Bao do not mind, we shall do so, and have a game of pretending.”

Bao made a show of weighing the matter. “Do you snore, young highness?” he asked in a serious tone. “Because I cannot abide snoring. Do you steal the blankets at night? Because I do not like to be cold.”

Giggling, Ravindra shook his head. “No, older brother! I promise, I do not do either thing.”

Amrita touched my hand. “Do
you
mind?”

I smiled at her. “What do you think, my lady?”

She gave me a sidelong glance, a hint of her familiar, amused sparkle returning to her eyes. “I think I am very glad to see my son happy in the midst of this nightmare. I think your bad boy has a very large heart.” She caught my hand and squeezed it fondly. “And I think you do not mind at all,
little sister
.”

Of course I didn’t.

Even so, my nerves were strung tight that evening as Bao and I ascended the narrow stairway to the hidden room to ensure it was safe, both of us wrapped in the twilight. The memory of the assassin Zoka’s attack was fresh in my mind. Bao searched every corner, peered under the beds, over the balcony, his staff at the ready. Not until he nodded at me did I kindle the lamps and release the twilight, the bright-burning wicks turning from cool silver to flickering gold.

Safe; we were safe.

This time it was true.

It was a little bit funny, a little bit awkward, and altogether sweet as we turned our backs on one another to change into sleeping attire. The beds creaked as we climbed into them, a comforting, homely sound.

I was careful not to touch my lady Amrita, not wanting to presume on her affection.

“Oh, don’t be foolish, Moirin,” she chided me, laying her head on my shoulder. “All of us need all the comfort we can find. I am glad you are here.”

Relieved, I held her. “So am I.”

Her dark eyes glimmered at me, and she put her lips close to my ear. “Listen to our boys.”

Ravindra was telling Bao a tale about one of his favorite Bhodistani heroes, the great archer and warrior Arjuna, who was reluctant to do battle because of the many deaths it would cause. “But Lord Krishna convinced him it was his duty to protect his people,” he said in a solemn tone. “I think that is why my mother has decided she must go to Kurugiri. Do you think you could convince her to let me come, Bao-ji? You said I was a great help today.”

“So you were, little brother,” Bao said soothingly. “But you have a different responsibility. You must remain here with your tutor to remind us all what we are fighting for.”

Ravindra sighed. “Because I am too young?”

“You are very brave, but you are not a warrior yet.” Bao tickled him. “For example, warriors do not giggle.”

It was a boy’s laughter, helpless and unfettered, reminding me once more to be grateful that even in the midst of fear and darkness, love and laughter could survive. Amrita smiled quietly in the dim moonlight spilling from the balcony, her thoughts echoing mine. “I think your Bao is good for my Ravindra,” she murmured. “My son is such a serious boy. It is good to hear him laugh, especially during such a dreadful time.”

“I think your Ravindra is good for my Bao,” I said softly in reply. “He is helping him learn to live in brightness again.”

Amrita shivered against me. “I pray to all the gods that we are given the chance to do so,” she said in a low voice.

I thought of Sameera’s severed fingers lying on the storeroom floor, of the shifting fires of Kamadeva’s diamond, and Jagrati’s terrible beauty; and I shivered, too. I held Amrita closer, breathing in the flowers-and-spice scent of her skin, and kissed her hair.

If I failed her in Kurugiri, I would never, ever forgive myself.

“I pray so, too, my lady,” I murmured. “I pray so, too.”

T
hree days later, we departed for Kurugiri.

Although he had wept at their first parting, this time Ravindra was dry-eyed and grave, every inch the solemn young prince once more. The gravity of the situation had become all too real to him, and I think he understood that if his mother didn’t return, he would be called upon to rule their people in a time of fear. He stooped to touch our feet in a gesture of respect, and embraced us all in turn.

“You will do your best to keep my mother safe, Bao-ji?” he asked.

“I will, highness.” Bao pressed his palms together and bowed. “Moirin will, too,” he added. “She is as skilled an archer as your Arjuna, you know.”

It won the faintest of smiles from the boy. “Although I do not believe it, it is good to hear anyway.”

Last of all, Ravindra embraced his mother. Amrita held him tenderly, whispering in his ear. When she turned away, there were tears in
her
eyes.

I closed mine, whispering a soft prayer to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to grant me strength.

I would need a very great deal of it.

Once more, we set out in procession through the streets of Bhaktipur. This time the mood was altogether somber. We were riding to war, not to a parley. There was no hidden gambit to give us the upper hand. So much of our plan hinged on my ability to summon the twilight and hold it for a very long time, to use it to kill with stealth in the deadly maze, praying all the while that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself did not withdraw Her gift from me for using it thusly. If She did, I would be useless when we reached Kurugiri.

My lady Amrita had teased me once about carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and today it felt like it.

Folk in the street bowed as we passed, low and deep. Some went to their knees, pressing their brows to the ground. Many of them had been afraid for their much-loved Rani the first time.

This time, all of them were.

Beside me, Bao breathed the Five Styles as he rode, his expression at once fierce and calm. His
diadh-anam
burned as bright and clear as a bonfire within him, calling to mine. I took heart from it. Surely, if the Maghuin Dhonn Herself disapproved of what we meant to do, Her spark would not shine so brightly.

Although we hadn’t done anything yet.

Retracing our steps, we made camp in the same meadow the first evening. I could not help but remember the last time we had been there, all of us defeated and dispirited in the wake of our failure, and me racked with unholy desire, shuddering to the marrow of my bones with it, Jagrati’s predatory face swimming before my eyes.

I was afraid of her, and afraid of myself, too.

In the privacy of the tent I shared with my lady Amrita and Bao, I prayed to Naamah, begging her to have mercy on her errant daughter, begging her to let me keep her gift a blessing, and not a curse.

“I have tried to use it well, brightest of ladies,” I whispered. “I know I have not always been wise or strong, but I have always tried. I am still trying. Please, help me.”

In response, I had a sense of Naamah’s grace enveloping me like a cloak, filled with warmth and love and desire; but there was regret in it, too. Her gift was a double-edged sword that cut both ways. Not even she could make it otherwise.

But there was another offer the bright lady Naamah could make, and I felt it, words rising through my consciousness like bubbles from the eddies of a clear-running stream, each one perfect and glistening.

One by one, the words were strung together to form a single, terrifying query, spoken as clearly to me as Naamah had ever spoken through me.

Do you wish me to take it from you?

I caught my breath, my skin prickling with awe. Tears stung my eyes; and whether they were tears of terror or relief, I couldn’t have said. There was sorrow and curiosity behind the offer, but it was genuine.

Naamah could withdraw her gift from me.

My heart ached at the thought, and my
diadh-anam
flared in alarm. The Maghuin Dhonn Herself did not wish it so.

Neither did I.

I gazed at Bao, at his familiar face with its high, wide cheekbones, dark eyes glittering above them. And at my lovely lady Amrita, who gazed back at me with worried perplexity. I thought about all the people in my life I had loved and desired, from my lost Cillian slain too soon to my sweet boy Aleksei—and all that lay between them. Even the ill-advised but compelling Raphael de Mereliot with his healer’s hands, and, of course, my beautiful, mercurial lady Jehanne. My valiant princess Snow Tiger, trusting me enough to reveal an unexpected playful streak that had delighted me so.

I could not betray those memories. And for whatever reason Naamah had seen fit to grant her gift to a child of the Maghuin Dhonn when she called my father to my mother, there must be some purpose in it.

“No,” I murmured. “No. Please, do not take it away from me, goddess.”

Naamah did not. I felt her presence fade, leaving her gift intact.

I sighed with profound relief.

“Moirin, who in the world were you talking to?” Bao inquired.

“Naamah,” I said honestly. “I think… I think she offered to take her gift away from me. And I refused.” I swallowed hard. “I hope that was not a very bad mistake.”

Bao came over and put his strong arms around me, holding me hard. I leaned against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, the bright flame of his
diadh-anam
entwining with mine. “Moirin without her eternal and perplexing desires would not be Moirin,” he whispered against my hair. “You did the right thing.”

“I think so, too,” Amrita said firmly. “It is never wise to refuse a true gift of the gods. Moirin… do your gods often speak to you?”

“No.” I searched for words, and found there weren’t any big enough. All I could do was clear my throat. “No, my lady. Not like this.”

She smiled a little. “Still, you are quite special to them, I think. I knew it the moment I saw you protecting that girl in the street. You were shaking with fever and you could barely sit up straight in the saddle, but you were not going to let those men harm her. And as sick as you were, you still looked like you’d stepped out of an ancient tale from when gods and goddesses roamed the earth.”

It made me smile, too. “You are very kind, my lady.”

Amrita laid one hand on Bao’s shoulder and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “And you are very frightened, dear one. But you are stronger than you know. You will be strong enough to face Jagrati, I am sure of it.”

I prayed she was right.

All of us slept uneasily that night, the camp on high alert, ringed about with anxious sentries. Bao positioned himself before the flap of the tent and passed the night in a restless doze. Twice, there were shouts in the night that brought him to his feet, his staff at the ready, while I reached desperately for the twilight, flinging it around myself and Amrita. But they were false alarms sounded by our uneasy guards.

There was no attack. Kurugiri, it seemed, had gone on the defensive.

The next day, we passed through the meadow where we had held our parley. As a precaution, Hasan Dar sent a company of scouts ahead to sweep through the spruce copse where our ambush had hidden, but it was empty. We filed past the Sleeping Calf Rock and began to ascend higher into the mountains, the air growing thinner and colder, pockets of snow in the windswept crags.