Kushiel's Chosen

have believed so easily. All is not lost until the game is played out in full, and it is not, not yet. It is a bitter hand Melisande has dealt me, but there are some cards still unplayed.
    So I mused and thought, until the light began to fail in my stifling chamber and one of the guards brought my evening meal. Constantin, he was called, silent and grey. As the prison guards went, I liked him well enough, for he troubled me not.
    "Constantin," I said to him when I returned my empty tray. "Will you carry a message to the warden for me?"
    He shifted the tray in his arms and looked stolidly at me. "I will carry it. I do not promise he will hear."
    "I understand," I said gravely. "Pray tell him I seek an audience with him."
    "I will do that."
    No more did he say, and with that, I had to be content. Falling night leached the last of the light from my cell. I sat on my pallet and watched the afterglow fade through my narrow window, blue twilight turning to grey and thence to star-pricked black. As vision failed, the endless moan of Asherat's grief filled my senses. Awake, I listened, picking out the sounds of my prison mates amid the cacophony. I had named them all, in the endless nights. The Wailer, whose ululating cries rose and fell without ceasing. The Scratcher, who made sounds like a small animal trying to tunnel through solid rock. The Snarler, who had wits left to curse his fate. The Banger... I did not like to think what the Banger did, producing dull muffled thuds that punctuated the howling night. There were others, mayhap seven or eight. It was hard to tell, even to my trained ear. I was not sure but that the Pleader and the Screamer were not the same person. I never heard them at the same time, but I was not certain if it were one prisoner alternating between begging despair and wild rage, or merely the orchestrations of madness.
    When I am gone... it will be worse.
    It would get worse. It would get a great deal worse. I did not yet cry out in the night, but only woke whimpering from a fitful sleep. When my dreams were full of naught but Malvio's slippery, grinning gaze, Fabron's lewd whisper in my ear ... ah, Elua!
    It would get much, much worse.
    If Joscelin and TiPhilippe lived, if they stood a chance, it would be worth it.
    Because I did not think I could withstand Melisande for very long.
    If.
    I fell asleep at last, exhausted by the torments of my mind. Morning came and wore on late; at length, a guard came with food. It was Tito, his gaze sympathetic in his broad, homely face. I asked him if the warden would see me today, and he shrugged, shaking his head. He did not know. I thanked him anyway, and ate my morning meal. A slab of cold porridge, but drizzled with honey. Tito watched hulking to see if I liked it.
    "From you?" I asked.
    He nodded and beamed like a child. "The beekeepers' tribute came. I had a piece this big." With massive hands held apart, he indicated the size of the honeycomb. "I saved some for you."
    Despite it all, I smiled. "Thank you, Tito. It's very good."
    There is no rock on which the mortal soul may founder but that contains some frail tendril of human kindness struggling to grow; this much I have found to be true. Is it a weakness in me that I sought ever to reward it? I cannot say, only that I would do the same, though Tito's simple-minded fondness proved blessing and curse alike, in the end. So I think now; then, I merely watched him carefully swipe the last telltale traces of honey from the platter and suck his fingers, at once grateful and sorrowing that this was what kindness had come to in my life.
    The warden did not come that day, nor the next. I paced my stifling cell, sweating and irritable. Each time I heard a key in the lock, my heart raced with fear that it would be Melisande, come for my reply. Fear and dread bound in an awful knot of complex desire that left my mouth dry and my pulse pounding in my veins.
    On the third day, the warden came.
    I heard the key, this time, too soon to be a guard come with the evening meal. Quickly, with trembling fingers, I bound my hair at my nape with the loose knot we called lover's-haste in the Night Court, that will stay without pins or a caul. Gathering myself into a semblance of dignity, I stood to receive my guest, smoothing the grey dress.
    When the warden entered, accompanied by Fabron, I inclined my head, according him the greeting among equals we use at court. He made no response, but only said in his colorless voice, "You