Kushiel's Mercy

seems an unnecessary risk.”
    “Would you say the same if it meant leaving Phèdre for months on end?” I asked.
    “Mayhap years?”
    “I . . .” He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
    “Whatever you choose, we will aid you,” Phèdre said steadily. “No matter what.”
    I smiled at her. “My thanks.”
    I talked about these matters with Sidonie, too. We talked endlessly about all manner of things, and if half our discussions ended up in bed and breathless, we simply picked up the threads of conversation in the morning.
    Elua, it was good.
    So many things in my life had been hard. Since I’d been abducted as a child, life had dealt me blow after blow. I’d borne them. I’d survived. As Urist, the commander of the garrison at Clunderry, had noted when we’d been shipwrecked together, I had a knack for surviving. I’d struggled with guilt, struggled against strange magics, struggled to become a good man. But this . . . this was so blessedly easy. It seemed manifestly unfair that I would have to walk away from the best thing in my life.
    “You can’t let the quest make you bitter,” Sidonie said once when we were lying in bed together, talking in love’s afterglow about things to come. “Unfair though it is.”
    “I’m trying,” I said.
    She smiled. “You’re doing well. It’s a lot to ask.”
    I rolled onto my back. “Well, this deed pays for all. After this, no more.”
    “A lavish wedding, mayhap.” Sidonie propped herself on her elbows, gazing at me. “In time, children.”
    “Children.” I ran a lock of her hair through my fingers. “Yours and mine.”
    The shadow of Dorelei and the son I’d lost lay between us, but Sidonie didn’t speak of it.
    We both knew. Neither of us ever forgot. “It’s going to be hard, you know,” she said instead. “Your mother.”
    “I know,” I said. “Even with all she’s done.”
    “She’s still your mother,” she said.
    I’d only ever met my blood-mother twice. The first time, I hadn’t known who she was.
    I’d been ignorant of my own heritage, a Sanctuary-raised fosterling, ignorant of my own face. I’d thought she was wonderful.
    The second time, I’d known.
    That time, I had despised her.
    I still did. Since the day Phèdre, Joscelin, and I had ridden out of Drujan and Lord Amaury Trente had greeted me as Prince Imriel de la Courcel, turning my world inside out, I’d lived my life under the poisonous cloud of Melisande Shahrizai’s monstrous, unspeakable treason. She had been condemned to death before I was born, before I was even conceived. There was no doubt in my mind that she deserved the sentence, none at all.
    And yet . . . she had loved me. I didn’t doubt that, either. A few years ago, I’d finally steeled myself to read the letters she’d written me during the long years of her exile in the Temple of Asherat. And I could not forget that the woman I was meant to bring to justice had also been a doting mother, filled with fierce, unexpected love, counting my infant fingers and toes.
    I stared at the ceiling. “How do you suppose it will be done?”
    “After so long?” Sidonie’s voice was gentle. “I imagine she’ll be asked to make a confession, then given a choice.”
    “Poison or the blade?” I asked.
    She nodded. “A swift-acting poison.”
    “And the body displayed,” I said dryly.
    “Probably.” Sidonie didn’t flinch. “Imriel, I hate this, too. On some level, I daresay even my mother hates it. You wanted a voice in this choice. If it hurts that badly, if you want me to step down . . .”
    “No.” I rolled onto my side, grasping her upper arms hard enough to bruise. “No. I want you, all of you, but as you’re meant to be.” I flexed my fingers, then let go with an effort.
    “Wife, mother, and Queen, Sidonie. Nothing less.”
    She brushed a lock of hair from my brow. “’Tis still a high price.”
    “I’ll pay it,” I said. “Any price.”
    We fell to kissing, then, rolling in the tangled bedsheets. Every time I thought my desire was spent, I found it wasn’t. This time, this respite, was short and precious. Autumn was tipping toward winter. Come spring, I would be forced to choose a course of action. But not yet, not now. What my mind denied, my body knew. I nudged Sidonie’s knees apart, settled between her thighs. I felt her body accepting mine. Sank into her like I was coming home.
    Love.
    You will find it and lose it, again and again.
    No.
    “No,” I said aloud.
    “No?”