Kushiel's Mercy

in love with the one person in the world it was not proper to love.”
    I stared at her, the hair on the back of my neck prickling.
    “I had a long time to think while you were surviving shipwrecks and gaol and endless hunts through the trackless wilderness.” Sidonie wiped her eyes impatiently, adding,
    “You can close your mouth now.”
    I did. “Sidonie . . .”
    She uncoiled, reaching for me. Her hands sank deep into my hair. Her face was close, so near our breath mingled, and her expression was fierce. “So now you know. But I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to think anymore. Not here, not now.”
    I obliged her.
    Our love-making wasn’t gentle that night. Betimes it could be. Betimes it wasn’t. That night, for the first time since we had been reunited, Sidonie and I waged love like war. I took her on the couch. I carried her to the bedchamber and I took her there. I left marks on her skin. She left marks on mine. And in the small hours of the night, when the full moon rose outside our balcony, I watched her sleep, peaceful as a babe, her bare skin silvered by the slanting moonlight.
    “Sun Princess.” I traced the line of her spine, from the nape of her neck to the cleft of her buttocks. My throat felt tight. “I don’t have the words. I wish I did. I just don’t ever want to be without you.”
    Sidonie murmured in her sleep. I lay down beside her, fitting the curve of my body around hers, drawing up the sheet to cover us both. My arm settled around her waist. Still sleeping, she hugged it to her.
    Why do we fit so well together?
    “I’ll try to find words,” I whispered, and slept.
    On the morrow, I went to meet with the priest at the Temple of Elua. A smiling young acolyte met me in the vestibule, kneeling to draw off my boots.
    “Brother Thomas will meet you in the inner sanctum,” he said.
    It is an old place, one of the oldest in the City, quiet and peaceful; a roofless sanctuary with pillars marking the four corners and ancient oaks flanking the effigy of Blessed Elua.
    The trees were old, too. The only living thing in the City more ancient was the oak tree in Elua’s Square in the exact center of the City, said to have been planted by Elua himself. I walked barefoot over lush grass to approach the effigy, kneeling to press my lips to the cool marble of his foot.
    “Imriel de la Courcel,” a voice said behind me.
    I rose and turned. “Brother Thomas Jubert?”
    The priest inclined his head. He was a big man and younger than I’d expected, not yet sixty, with black hair and pale grey eyes that reminded me of Berlik, the magician of the Maghuin Dhonn who had killed Dorelei. The thought made me uneasy, which his words did nothing to allay.
    “Come.” Brother Thomas beckoned. “I would speak with you, as would others.”
    I raised my brows. “Others?”
    He folded his hands in the blue sleeves of his robe. “Elua’s priesthood does not speak for all his Companions.”
    “I see.” I followed him into the temple, down a corridor. Somewhere, a woman’s voice was raised in song, merry and incongruous. Brother Thomas led me into a pleasant atrium garden, set about with chairs and couches.
    Representatives of all the orders of Elua’s Companions were there—or at least all save one. Naamah’s priest clad in scarlet, Azza’s in a saffron tunic with a crimson chlamys. A Priest of Kushiel clad in black robes, wearing the bronze mask of office. A Priestess of Eisheth in sea-blue, and Shemhazai’s in a scholar’s dark grey robes. A Priestess of Anael in brown, tied at the waist with a rope belt. A Priest of Camael in a forest-green surplice, his sword hanging at his side.
    “No Cassiline Brother?” I asked Brother Thomas.
    He smiled faintly. “We do not believe the Cassiline Brotherhood speaks for Cassiel. I believe you have some familiarity with that notion.”
    “I do.” Joscelin had been a Cassiline Brother, a warrior-priest of the order. He had broken his oaths of loyalty, obedience, and chastity for Phèdre’s sake. He believed in the end that his path was in accordance with Cassiel’s wishes. I believed it, too.
    “Please be seated.” Brother Thomas gestured. His expression was grave again.
    “Understand, Imriel de la Courcel, that we have little liking for this process. We are servants of Blessed Elua and his Companions. We concern ourselves with matters of the soul, the heart, the flesh. Of love, desire, and divinity, growth and healing, penance and