Kushiel's Mercy

naught wrong. I was a Prince of the Blood in my own right, returning from avenging my wife, the Queen’s own niece by marriage.
    “Welcome home, your highness.” The royal chamberlain greeted Sidonie with a deep bow. “Your mother awaits you in her quarters as soon as you have had a chance to refresh yourself.”
    Sidonie inclined her head. “My thanks, Lord Robert.”
    The chamberlain accorded me a bow only slightly less formal, as was fitting. “Welcome, Prince Imriel. Your quarters are in readiness. Her majesty will send for you at a later time to express her gratitude in person for your brave deeds.”
    “My thanks,” I echoed.
    Well and so. Sidonie and I glanced at one another. She tilted her head, smiling slightly.
    “Go on. I’ll send word to you.”
    “All right.”
    I watched her walk away, surrounded by her guard in their blue livery with the pale stripes. We’d scarce left one another’s side since being reunited in Alba—truly reunited.
    We had years of lost time to make up. But we had agreed that once we reached the Palace, diplomacy and tact would serve us better than flagrant public displays of passion. So I watched her go, took a deep breath, and made my way to my quarters.
    That was something, anyway. If Ysandre had maintained my quarters within the Palace, she didn’t mean to accuse me of sedition.
    They were pleasant quarters, nicely appointed, with a fresco of Eisheth gathering herbs on the ceiling, and a balcony overlooking one of the gardens. I sent a chambermaid to order a bath drawn, then wandered the rooms, waiting for the bath to be filled and servants to bring the trunk with my clothing and possessions that had been in our train.
    I lingered in the bedroom, overcome by memory. The bed was larger than I remembered; I’d grown accustomed to a smaller scale in Alba. I twisted the knotted gold ring on my finger without thinking, clenching my fist until it bit into my palm. It was here that Sidonie had given it to me. But in truth, this bedchamber held more memories of Dorelei.
    Gods, I’d been an ass to her!
    “I’m sorry, love,” I murmured. “You made me a better man in the end. I’ll try to be worthy of it.”
    It had been Dorelei’s last wish to send me back to Sidonie. I’d done it, although I hadn’t wanted to. She’d been right to do it, though. If I hadn’t, if I hadn’t seized that bright thread of hope and joy . . . I don’t know what would have become of me. I might have become a cold and bitter monster, like the vision I saw of our grown son. I might have died in the far reaches of Vralia, bereft of all reason to live. Such things are never given to us to know, and in my experience, it is best not to meddle.
    That had been a year ago.
    A year since Ysandre de la Courcel found me kneeling, heartbroken, in her daughter’s embrace. A year since she burst into fury, speaking words that singed my ears. I’d left the City of Elua that day. Two days later, I’d departed on the trail of the man who killed my wife, the bear-witch who’d nearly taken my life, too. But in those few days, Sidonie and I had done a fair job of overturning the entire Court.
    Now I was back.
    The servants brought my trunk. I unpacked my things myself. There wasn’t much aside from clothing: a leather-bound book of love letters that Sidonie had given me, a wooden flute that had been a gift from Hugues, and a flint-striking kit. Everything else, I carried on me. My sword and dagger. The etched vambraces Dorelei had commissioned for me.
    Sidonie’s ring. The gold torc that marked me as a prince of Alba. Drustan mab Necthana, the Cruarch of Alba, had given it to me himself when I wed Dorelei there. And in the purse at my belt, a smooth stone with a hole in the center; a croonie-stone, the ollamhs called it.
    It had been part of the bindings that protected me from Alban magic, and I carried it for remembrance. I never wanted to be bound like that again, ever. The bindings had protected me, but they’d severed me from myself, too.
    Never again.
    And yet if it hadn’t been for that binding, I might have spent all my days with Dorelei aching and miserable, seething in discontent. I might never have learned to love her, and grown from a pining, self-absorbed youth to a man in the process.
    Or she might not have been slain.
    I would never know.
    “Prince Imriel?” The chambermaid appeared in the doorway, startling me out of my reverie. “Your bath is ready.”
    “Thank you.” I