Kushiel's Mercy

calm and steady and courageous. At Ysandre, proud and noble-hearted. And, ah, gods, Sidonie! She gazed back at me, a perplexed frown creasing her brow, as though she were trying to remember a dream she’d forgotten. My girl, still struggling deep inside against the spell that had ensnared her. I loved her so much.
    I loved them all.
    I forgave them all. None of this was their fault, none of it. And the gods were merciful after all.
    I spread my arms wide, feeling as though light must be streaming from my fingertips.
    “Your majesties.” My voice seemed to come from very far away and it was filled with gentleness. “You must not do this thing. The gods themselves forbid it.”
    My words hung shimmering in the air.
    Ysandre looked past me and nodded.
    And my world went black.

Eighty-One

    You didn’t have to stay.”
    Joscelin’s voice was the first thing I recognized as I swam slowly back to my senses.
    Kratos’ was the second, low and rumbling, speaking faltering D’Angeline with a pronounced Hellene accent.
    “I don’t mind. Her highness cares for him in her way.”
    My head hurt with a splitting pain. I was . . . where? Their voices had an echoing quality.
    A vast space, empty. There was cool, hard marble beneath my cheek. My eyelids were too heavy to lift. I lay still and listened.
    “He wasn’t always like this,” Joscelin said with deep regret. “He suffered a terrible ordeal as a child.”
    Behind my closed eyelids, I could envision Kratos’ broad shoulders lifting in a shrug.
    “As you say.”
    Echoing.
    The Hall of Audience. I was still there; but all of the wondrous brightness that had filled me was gone. All gone. Blessed Elua and his Companions were silent. I had failed. I was a flawed vessel. My stomach lurched. I swallowed bile and cracked open my heavy eyelids.
    I was lying on my side on the dais. Before the easel that held the painting—that goddamned, thrice-cursed gem painting. It loomed over me. And this time, from my unlikely vantage point, I saw it. “Oh, gods!” I sat up fast. Too fast. My head swam and my nausea surged. “Kratos. Kratos! It’s in the tree. It’s inside the damned tree.”
    “Imri?” Joscelin asked cautiously.
    I ignored him, reaching for my purse and finding my belt gone. “My belt,” I said to Kratos. He looked blankly at me. “My sword-belt. Where is it?”
    “Don’t—” Joscelin began.
    Kratos handed me my sword-belt. I ignored the blade, wrenched open my purse. I pulled out Bodeshmun’s faded talisman and turned it sideways, holding it up before the painting.
    “Look.”
    The image was subtle, but it was there. Whorls in the bark. Circles. Circles within circles.
    I’d taken it to be a bole on the oak tree. It wasn’t. It was the image of the demon itself; the ghafrid , the elemental, turned on its side. Hidden in the design.
    “I see it,” Kratos said slowly. “But wasn’t the tree searched?”
    “All over the outside, yes.” I touched the image. It was nestled just below a fork in the trunk. “But there must be a niche, a hidden aperture. Somewhat that was missed, somewhat cleverly disguised. If there’s a spell that can make me look like Leander Maignard, surely there’s one that can hide a hole in a tree.” I levered myself onto my feet, waiting for another surge of nausea to pass. “How long was I unconscious?”
    “A quarter of an hour or so,” Kratos said. “Not too long.”
    I began buckling my sword-belt around my waist. “Then there’s time. The army won’t have departed yet. Ysandre may not even have begun to address the City. It takes time to muster an event on that scale.”
    “Imriel.” Joscelin’s tone was flat. “You’re talking nonsense. And you’re indulging him,”
    he added to Kratos. “I’d prefer you didn’t.”
    “Joscelin, look .” I held out Bodeshmun’s talisman sideways again to show him the match . . . and remembered. My heart sank. Sidonie and I had omitted that part of the tale, reckoning it was too difficult to explain what a horned, fanged whirlwind had to do with protecting the City. “It’s a symbol,” I said. “It’s a sign that the demon—” I bit the inside of my cheek, willing the dizziness that addled my wits to be dispelled. “That the gem’s hidden in Elua’s Oak.”
    Joscelin put his hands on my shoulders. “You need to sit down.”
    “Please.” I forced myself to breathe slowly and evenly. “I need to get to the Square.”
    “No.” His voice hardened.