Kushiel's Chosen

Cassiline, who left me. I hated him for that; hated and despaired, for it may have been the one thing that would save his life. But it had left me bereft, well and truly alone. I had been stronger with him at my side, my Perfect Companion. He lent me the courage and strength to cross the Skaldic wilderness in winter, and when Ysandre bid me go to Alba, he left the Cassiline Brotherhood itself to go at my side.
    And then he left me.
    The light on the water faded to mauve, and Tito came with my evening meal, looking with worriment at my face, my bloodstained dress, and coaxing me to eat before the light went altogether. I did, finally, if only to ease his distress. If I chose no, if I stayed, his hulking kindness would be the only spark in my life. I wondered, would it continue? If Melisande's ban was lifted and the warden freed his men to use me as their plaything, would Tito be among them? Simple and kind, yes, but a man, confined to this rock. I imagined Malvio showing him what to do, grinning all the while, and shuddered.
    The worst of it... I did not like to think.
    I thanked Tito as he took my tray, closing the door behind him. It was hard to make out shapes by now. I fumbled my way to my drinking bucket, rationing the water I consumed to save a little for washing my face. The hair at the back of my head was stiff with matted blood, but I didn't have enough water to cleanse it. I dampened my fingers enough to part it, touching the wound gingerly. It had clotted over cleanly, I thought, beginning to heal. More of Kushiel's questionable mercy, keeping me hale to endure fresh torments.
    With the encroachment of night came a fitful wind and scudding clouds, obliterating the stars. Awake, I stood clinging to the bars of my window, facing unrelieved blackness and feeling the warm breeze on my skin. Asherat's grief moaned in the wind and surging sea. I separated the threads of sound from my various cell mates, finding a new voice among them, or mayhap only a new phase of madness. This was a deep cry on a rising tenor that reached a certain pitch and broke off in a throaty gurgle; the Howler, I named him. I listened for the others, counting, and did not hear the Screamer, although the Pleader's voice was among them, an endless litany of begging.
    Well, I thought, mayhap they were different all along, and the Screamer has become the Howler. It could be that this Howler was a new prisoner, but I listened further and decided no, that the sounds were too far gone from human. An old cell mate with a new voice, then. A new phase of madness.
    I made my way back to my pallet by touch, wondering, what voice will I have when first I break? A Ranter, mayhap. I liked to think I would retain intelligible language, at least for a good while. Longer than most, likely. It would take a long time, for Kushiel's chosen to forget entirely what it meant to be human. They are not like us, who cannot forget.
    Mayhap I never would, until I died.
    I do not think I lack for courage, although admittedly, it is my own kind. I am no warrior, to face naked steel on the battlefield, but it is true, what I considered earlier; I have faced dire fates before. If I feared, if I prayed and pleaded it might be otherwise, still, I went. Into the Skaldic winter, into the teeth of the Straits, into the hands of Waldemar Selig. I was not a coward.
    But this fate I could not face.
    So be it, I thought, sitting alone in blackness, I cannot do this thing. Blessed Elua have mercy on me, but I would rather be Melisande's creature than a broken thing in a cell. At least it gave me a chance, a fragile, deadly chance, but a chance all the same. Here, I had none.
    I had chosen.
    My decision made, I felt somehow calmer, and at last was able to pray. I prayed for a long time, to Elua and his Companions, all of them, to protect and guide me, and above all, to give me strength not to betray my own companions. And if there was some chance, any chance, that Ti-Philippe and Joscelin lived, that they might yet act against Melisande and Benedicte, let my lips remain sealed. She would be cautious, but she would press; it made her uneasy, to know they had evaded her. Well and good, then let me serve as living distraction, no matter what the cost, no matter what she might do. Let my pain atone for the deaths I had caused.
    Let me keep silent. Let me be the sacrifice.
    It was better than this.
    When I was done, I felt at peace for the first time since I had beheld Melisande, and