Kushiel's Mercy

didn’t answer, only tightened his grip. I struggled and kicked and scratched until others came to help him. They wrestled me into bed, tied my limbs. I went limp and stared up into his summer-blue eyes, hating him.
    “Joscelin,” I crooned. “That’s your name, isn’t it? I’ll remember it.” I rolled my head, rolling my gaze around the chamber. “She’s your woman, isn’t she? The weeping bitch.”
    I saw fear in him and laughed. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you? Too scared to kill me.
    You ought to, you know.”
    “Imriel.” He gazed at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Try to sleep.”
    “I have to go to Cythera!” I shouted at him.
    Somewhere, the woman wept.
    “Later, love,” the tall man said gently. “When you’re well.”
    I tugged steadily at my bonds, feeling the ropes bite into my skin. A serpent-tangle, fibrous teeth. Gnawing my flesh until it was blood-slick. “I’ll cut out your heart,” I said to him. “ Joscelin. I’ll get free, and I’ll do it. I’ll take your woman.” I bared my teeth at him, inspiration coming from deep inside me. “I’ll take her with my rusted iron rod, I will, and I’ll make her beg for it like the whore she is.”
    He turned away with a choked sound, fists clenched.
    Oh, that had hit hard, it had! I laughed.
    “Joscelin.” She was there, weepy-eyed, gentling him. “It’s not his fault. He’s borne too much for anyone’s lifetime. Something broke inside him.”
    They held one another, consoled one another.
    I jeered at them.
    Days came and went. Others came and went. A tall woman with fair hair, a studied look of worry in her eyes. A man with a face like a blue mask and eyes like polished stones.
    Some bitch pretending to be a chirurgeon, a liar who called me cousin. People I didn’t know.
    I hated them.
    I hated them all.
    “I will kill you!” I raged, my fever spiking. I yanked at the ropes that bound me. Blood and sweat mingled. “All of you! I need to go to Cythera!”
    “Hush, love.” The dark-haired woman sat beside my bed. She had dark eyes, too. A scarlet mote swam on the outskirts of her left iris, vivid as a rose petal. For some reason, it maddened me further. She dipped a cloth in cool water, laid it on my fevered brow.
    “It’s all right, Imri.”
    Since I couldn’t move my limbs, I snapped my teeth at her.
    Liars and hypocrites. They pretended to know me, pretended to be kind. They talked in worried tones, prayed and moaned and wept over me, but they kept me tied like an animal. They tried to feed me broth, and I spat it back in their faces. My body grew weak and wasted, ravaged by fever.
    I memorized their names.
    I would make them suffer for treating me like this. I plotted ways to kill them, ways to torture them before they died. I told them in exacting, foul detail, relishing the pain and fear it evoked in them. Day after day, I tormented them, while my body grew wasted and the ropes etched bloody channels into my wrists and ankles.
    And then I woke up sane.
    It was the moonlight that did it, a silvery wash of it spilling over my bed, so bright it woke me in the middle of the night. My bedsheets were soaked with sweat, but my body felt cool. I turned my head and gazed through the balcony doors. There was the full moon, round and bright as a silver coin.
    It’s madness, but it will pass. The fever will break in a month.
    It had.
    And I remembered everything.
    My stomach seized. I turned my head and vomited, but nothing came out save a trickle of bile.
    “Imriel?” In a chair in the corner, a shadowy figure stirred and rose. Phèdre wiped my mouth tenderly with a clean cloth, eased the soiled pillow from beneath my head. “It’s all right, love.”
    “Oh, gods !” I whispered, my eyes burning. “Oh, Blessed Elua and his Companions have mercy on me, ah, gods! Phèdre, I’m so sorry !”
    She went very still, a moonlit statue. “For what, love?”
    “Everything I’ve said and done in the past month,” I said wearily, exhausted past the point of shame. “It’s all right. It’s passed. The fever’s gone.”
    Phèdre kindled a lamp. In the warm glow, I could see her beautiful face was tired and worn, shadows like bruises beneath her eyes. She swallowed visibly, not quite daring to hope yet. “Do you know who you are?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Your foster-son, Imriel nó Montrève.”
    She covered her face with both hands, drew a shuddering breath. “And where you are?”
    “In the bedchamber of my