Kushiel's Dart

dark blood. "Joscelin," I said, biting my lip. "That should be sewn."
    "Give me that meadskin." Tilting it back, he squeezed a long draught into his mouth and swallowed. "I took a kit from one of Selig's men. It's in the pack."
    I am neither chirurgeon nor seamstress, and by the time I was done, a good bit of mead had found its way down Joscelin's throat. When it was over, my black stitch-marks straggled across the flesh of his side, but the wound was closed.
    "Here," he said, handing me the meadskin as I stretched out alongside him, exhausted beyond words. "You did a good job," he said softly. "Through all of it. Phedre . . ."
    "Shh." Propping myself on one arm, I laid my fingers across his lips. "Joscelin, don't. I don't want to talk about it." Silent behind my hand, he blinked his blue eyes at me. I took my hand away then, and kissed him instead.
    I don't know what I expected. I hadn't thought about it. My hair fell loose about us, curtaining our faces. His lips parted under mine, and our tongues touched, only the tips, soft and tentative. I felt his arms slide around me in an embrace, and kissed him harder.
    The fire burned untended and the horses murmured and whickered in the forefront of the cavern, their drowsy stirrings and the occasional stamp of a hoof the only backdrop to our lovemaking. I would have thought he would be uncertain-a Cassiline, and celibate-but he came to it with wonder, taking all that I offered with a kind of reverent awe. His hands slid over my skin and I wept at his touch, that had such love in it, tasting the salt of my own tears as I kissed him. I had never, ever, chosen before. When he came into me, I shuddered, and he held off until I drew him back down, fiercely, burying my face against his shoulder and losing myself in him.
    At the end, though, I had to look, to see his face, D'Angeline and beloved, above my own. Chosen. He cried out at the end, a sound of wonder and amazement.
    Afterward, he rose and walked away, standing alone.
    I could only watch, lying in furs beside the fire, that same strange pain twisting at my heart. Joscelin, my Cassiline, my protector, his beautiful body bruised and torn in my service. Somewhere, in the distant part of my mind, I was astonished at it all, not the least that we were here, together, like this; both of us alive, naked in this cavern and not freezing to death.
    "We have dreamed this day," I said aloud. "Joscelin, we dream still, and tomorrow will wake from it."
    He turned about then, his face grave. "Phedre ... I am Cassiel's servant. I cannot cling to that vow, no matter how I've betrayed it, and be otherwise. And without the strength of it, I've not the strength to endure. Do you understand?"
    "Yes." Tears stung my eyes, which I ignored. "Do you think I would have survived this long, were I not Naamah's servant, and Kushiel's chosen? I understand."
    At that, he nodded, and came back to sit with me on our makeshift bed.
    "You're bleeding again." I rummaged in our things for a length of clean cloth, making a pad and binding it over the wound in his side, not meeting his gaze as I did it. It was different, now, touching his flesh.
    "I thought. . ." he began to say, then stopped, and cleared his throat. "It's not only pain that pleases you, then. I didn't know."
    "No." I glanced up at him, smiling slightly; he looked so earnest and disheveled, naked and battered, his wheat-streaked hair tangled in Skaldic braids. "Did you think that? I answer to Naamah's arts, and not Kushiel's rod alone."
    He reached out and touched Melisande's diamond where it hung, still, about my throat. "But the latter calls louder," he said gently.
    "Yes." Unable to lie, I whispered the word. My hand rose to clutch the diamond, and I jerked it hard, breaking the knot that bound the lead. "Ah, Elua! I would be free of it if I could!" I said in disgust, hurling it away from me. It fell with a faint chink against the cavern well. Joscelin gazed after it into the darkness beyond the firelight.
    "Phedre," he said presently. "We've nothing else of value to our names."
    "No." Obstinacy overcame me. "I would rather starve."
    "Would you?" He looked soberly at me. "You made me choose life over pride."
    I was silent a moment, thinking on it. "All right," I said. "Fetch it back, and I will keep it. I will wear it, and remember. If we need it to buy life, we will use it." My voice rose, ringing. "And if we do not, I will wear it, until the day I throw it on the ground at Melisande