Kushiel's Chosen

over like a fly-stung horse. In a trice, he had me on the great bed with its gilded headboard, and his face hovered over mine, flushed with triumph and desire as he forced my legs over his shoulders. With a great groan of relief, he sheathed himself in me to the hilt.
    It had been a long time; a very long time, as I reckoned such things.
    I daresay he took rather longer at it than I had expected. For all his impatience, Kazan knew the value of self-control, and he was no green lad to spend himself in one furious spurt. Conquest was his trade, and he plied it with women as well as enemies. Once inside me, he moved in long, steady thrusts, increasing his pace until it brought me to the brink of pleasure and beyond, then slowing until I whimpered with frustration and dug my nails into his back, pleading in D'Angeline. Only when I had been well and truly plundered did he take his own pleasure, his expression turning far-off and distant as the critical moment came.
    Afterward he slept, as deep and sound as a man who has achieved his goal after long, hard labor. Since he had not told me to go, I stayed beside him, and lay awake thinking long after the lamp had sputtered into darkness, remembering the kríavbhog and wondering. In time my eyes grew heavy, and I, too, slept.
    When I awoke, the sun was well above the horizon and Kazan was gone.
    Marjopí gave me a breakfast of dates and honey with fresh bread to sop in it, giving me the evil eye and muttering in Illyrian. I ate in the bright, sun-lit kitchen, with several house cats twining around the legs of the table, and listened to her until I could endure it no more.
    "I understand, a little," I said in Illyrian. "I do not mean harm to Kazan. When Nikanor comes, I will go."
    She gave me the same look she had when I'd asked for a mirror; as if I were one of her cats that had suddenly opened its mouth and talked. "Oh, you are not bad in yourself, I know this," she said grudgingly. "But better you go now than later, before you steal his heart." She pointed to my left eye, marked by Kushiel's Dart. "It is bad luck, this says, and when blood-curse crosses blood-curse, someone will die."
    Or somewhat similar; I was guessing, a little bit, but I understood the sense of it. "He will not let me, until the money comes. Marjopí, why is Kazan ..." I stumbled over the word "... blood-cursed? Because he killed his brother? Why?"
    But she would not answer, and only turned away muttering again, too low to make out.
    Thus was the pattern of my days and nights of waiting established. I have no words to describe my relationship with Kazan Atrabiades during that time for, in many ways, 'twas stranger than any I have known. By day, it pleased him to think himself my host, and not my captor; sometimes he played the role so well I daresay he forgot it himself, although I never did. By night, it was different, and sometimes I did forget that I was in his bed because I was a hostage, and not a Servant of Naamah.
    And sometimes he was nearly like a friend, which was strangest of all.
    Those were times when he was light of heart, and wanted to spin out the night with talk and love-play. It came to be a running jest among his men, to number the reasons why Kazan Atrabiades was short of sleep. "Kazan had fleas in his bed last night and could not sleep for itching," one would say to the others with a straight face. "Do not trouble him today." And the next day, another; "An owl kept Kazan awake all night; beware his temper!" And Glaukos would color, knowing I understood.
    Other times, he was moody and withdrawn, and those were the times when the crawling shadows in the corners of his room made me uneasy. It was not until I awoke one night to find him standing in a square of moonlight, holding the wooden soldier, that he spoke of it.
    "Kazan," I said gently, sitting up in bed. "What is it?"
    For a moment, he said nothing, then answered roughly. "No matter, eh? I dreamed, I. It is nothing. Go to sleep, you."
    I watched him put the child's toy carefully back in the drawer and close it; I'd not gone near it since the first time. "There is truth in dreams, sometimes. It was a dream that sent me to La Serenissima. Do you speak of it, my lord, mayhap I can help-"
    "I dream of my brother when he was a boy." Kazan interrupted me, his voice grim. "He comes to me covered in blood, eh, and asks why I killed him!"
    I caught my breath, and waited; he glared at me across the moonlit room. For the space of three