Kushiel's Mercy
oak tree. Sunjata was there, pressed against it, barely visible in the shadows. I made my way to him, forced against him close as a lover due to the crush of people. His dark eyes gleamed, inches from mine.
“What the hell do you want?” I said through gritted teeth.
The crowd surged. Sunjata swayed, steadied himself with a hand on my waist. I felt his lips at my ear once more. “I’m sorry.”
“For wha—” I began.
Pain, thin and piercing, seared my side. It felt like he’d driven an enormous needle into my kidneys. I tried to gasp, but my tongue was cleaved to the roof of my mouth. The sky overhead whirled, rotating around the bloody moon. Ice-hot fire ran in my veins.
“Listen to me,” Sunjata whispered urgently. “I’m sorry. This was the only way to shield you from it. You’re going to lose your wits. It’s madness, but it will pass. The fever will break in a month.”
The needle was withdrawn.
Cold flames continued to race through my veins. It felt like my skull was on fire. I tried to raise my hands to claw at it, but my knees were threatening to give way beneath me.
Sunjata grasped my shoulders, holding me upright.
“Go to Cythera,” he hissed. “Ask Ptolemy Solon how to undo what’s done here tonight.
He may even tell you.” He released my shoulders, and I began to slump.
Somewhere, an emerald glow arose.
Brightness flashed.
The crowd gave a collective gasp.
I heard it, but I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t see anything but the roots of the oak tree that were rushing up at me, gnarled and writhing. A tangle of serpents. Deep in my throat, I mewled with fear. Serpents. Roots. I scrabbled at them. A dark hand caught mine. There was a tug on my finger, somewhat removed. A tangle. A knot of gold. A hand knotted in my hair, lifting my head.
“I’m sorry about this, too,” Sunjata whispered. “But I don’t dare disobey. It’s a hard business serving two masters.”
He let go my hair. My head fell. All around us, no one noticed, staring rapt at the bloody sky or shoving for a peek at the mirror.
“You’re lucky your mother loves you,” the eunuch whispered. “Go to Cythera.” And then he was gone and madness took me.
That was the last thing I understood for a long, long time.
Thirteen
I had gone mad before.
When Dorelei was slain, I lost my wits. I remember bits and pieces of that terrible night.
Running through the woods, my sword in hand. Charging the bear. Berlik’s blow laying me open. Dorelei, dead.
I don’t remember much of what followed, which was a mercy.
This was different.
I lived in a world of fever-racked terror. I knew no one. Not the ones who found me after the moon’s shadow had passed. Not the ones who took me back to the Palace and tended me. Not myself. I knew only that I lived in a world bent on destroying me.
Things came alive.
Sweat-damp bedsheets sought to strangle me. Fat globules of wax slid from candles to scald my skin. Demon-filled shadows lurked in every corner.
My voice came back. I screamed and ranted until my throat was raw. The fever ebbed and flowed. My strength came and went in waves. When it came, I tried to escape. I struggled with my captors. A tall man with blond hair held me down.
They tied me to my bed, tied my wrists and ankles. I strained at my bonds until my muscles threatened to burst and my ligaments to crack. I bent my back like a bow. A dark-haired woman wept. I cursed her.
“I have to go to Cythera!” I shouted at her. “Let me go! I have to go to Cythera !”
She laid a cool compress on my brow, her hot tears falling on my face. They burned.
“Let me go, you weeping bitch!” I raged.
They didn’t. They kept me there, day after day. When I was weak, they untied me. So I learned. I feigned weakness. One day, I broke free. I burst past them, laughing like a madman. They didn’t expect me to be that quick.
They caught me, though, caught me in the hallway. Men with sheathed swords barred my way. I don’t know why they didn’t draw on me. Too slow, too stupid. The tall man grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms. I thrashed in his grip, cursing him, but he was strong.
“I’ll take him,” he said to them.
“You don’t have to do this, Joscelin,” one of them said. “Let us do it.”
“He’s my son,” he said in a low voice. “At least in my heart.”
I laughed and spat on the floor. “You wish!” I shouted. “My father was the north wind and my mother was a jackal!”
The tall man
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