Kushiel's Mercy

liaison. I felt their presence attendant on our love-making, which was by turns tender and violent. Once nights had been my bane, the province of bloody nightmares that woke me screaming.
    Now they were my joy.
    It lasted all the way up the coast of Aragonia and well after we’d passed the mountains and caught sight of Terre d’Ange’s coastline, a sight that made my heart swell. It lasted until the morning we drew near the mouth of the Aviline River and saw a fleet of dozens of war-ships clustered there, anchored offshore outside the harbor of Pellasus. The town was smaller than Marsilikos, but it did a lively trade with ships bound up the Aviline.
    These weren’t trade-ships and the pennants flying from their masts were not the silver swan of House Courcel, but solely the lily-and-stars of Terre d’Ange itself.
    “What does that mean?” I asked Sidonie.
    She wore her troubled look. “I’d say it’s an indication that they’re not in the service of the Crown. It’s not an auspicious sign. Do you think Nuno failed to deliver the key?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
    One of them raised its sails and hailed us, heading out in our direction. “Your highness?”
    Captain Deimos inquired. “What will you?”
    Sidonie and I exchanged a glance. “If the country’s still torn apart, we’re better off dealing with those not in the Crown’s service,” I said. “And it’s not as though we could outrun an entire fleet.”
    “Wait for them,” she said to Deimos.
    We lowered our sails and waited as the D’Angeline war-ship made its way alongside us. I felt ungodly tense, and although Sidonie’s face was composed, I knew she felt the same way.
    “Hey!” A sturdy fellow aboard the war-ship shouted through cupped hands in crude Aragonian. “What passes? Is anyone speak D’Angeline?” And then the ship drew nearer, the gap closing between us. He caught sight of Sidonie and me. His hands fell and he stared. Everyone on the war-ship stared.
    Separately, they might not have known us, not for a surety. None of them had seen us before. But I bore the unmistakable stamp of House Shahrizai on my face, and Sidonie looked enough like her mother that they’d seen the like of her profile on a thousand coins.
    And we were together.
    The war-ship drew alongside and men scrambled to secure the ships—ours heedless of the stares, theirs wondering.
    “Who’s in command?” I called.
    A brown-haired man in the tattered jacket of the Royal Navy approached the railing.
    “Captain Henri Voisin,” he said hesitantly. “Your highness?”
    “Imriel de la Courcel,” I said in confirmation. “We come bringing her highness Sidonie de la Courcel, the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange, home.”
    “So I see.” Henri Voisin’s gaze slid toward Sidonie. “Is she . . . ?”
    “Sane?” Sidonie inquired. “Mercifully, yes. What passes here, my lord?”
    His expression was torn between hope and doubt. “A great deal. We thought you were a ship out of Aragonia. You’re flying Aragonian flags. We hoped you’d have news.”
    “We do,” Sidonie said. “Come aboard and we’ll share it in exchange for yours.”
    With some difficulty, Voisin made the crossing. He was breathing hard as he clambered over the railing onto our ship. The realization that our crew was not Aragonian did nothing to alleviate his trepidation. I couldn’t blame him. Insofar as I was aware, the last he knew of either of us, Sidonie had gone off to wed Astegal, and I’d vanished after screaming my throat raw in a month-long fit of madness. Still, he gathered himself and made a careful bow. “Well met, your highnesses.”
    “And you, my lord,” Sidonie said. “Tell me, who do you serve?” He didn’t answer. “Is Terre d’Ange at war?”
    “No,” Henri Voisin said. “Not yet.”
    “But it’s divided? And growing worse?” She read the answer in his face. “Who do you serve? My mother or my sister?”
    His throat worked. The fact that the question could put a man in fear made my blood run cold. “Your sister.”
    “So the City of Elua remains under a foul enchantment?” she asked. “No key to undoing the madness was found?”
    The D’Angeline captain licked his lips, glancing from one to the other of us. “No. There was some talk, some wild rumors of magic, after . . .” He nodded at me. “After you vanished, your highness. But it came to naught.”
    “Let me be swift,” Sidonie said. “There was a spell cast, a dire spell.