Naamah's Blessing

brows. “Answer the question, Moirin. Do you take me for a monster?”
    “Aye,” I said. “I do.
    Trailing his fingers in the black river of ants, Raphael just laughed.

FIFTY-FIVE

    I was a prisoner without a cell.
    Raphael had no need to confine me. The threat hanging over the heads of Bao and all our company was enough to compel my obedience. Once the men had been escorted away by the Quechua warriors and a column of ants, presumably to labor in the fields or to whatever lodgings they were allotted, Raphael proved surprisingly magnanimous.
    He gave me a suite of rooms that opened onto a small, sunlit courtyard filled with fruit trees and a bathing fountain in a stone channel that poured down the terraced mountainside. In other circumstances, it would have been charming… were it not for the presence of the ants.
    I eyed the black stream exploring the courtyard. “Surely they’re not… staying?”
    “Just one small colony,” Raphael assured me. “Don’t worry, I’ve assigned one of my handmaidens to look after you and care for them.”
    I shuddered.
    He sent for the handmaiden, a pretty young Quechua woman named Cusi, who seemed awestruck at being in his presence. Raphael stroked her hair absentmindedly. “Cusi here was raised to be a Maiden of the Sun,” he remarked. “To serve royalty, or even at a time of great need, to serve as a holy sacrifice.”
    “I thought you disdained such practices,” I murmured.
    Raphael frowned at me. “As the Nahuatl practice it, yes, of course. It is barbaric and… wasteful. But sometimes blood is necessary, Moirin. Sometimes blood is the only sacrifice that will suffice.”
    I remembered the Nahuatl Emperor saying much the same words to me, and kept my mouth shut on the thought. It seemed a bad omen.
    “But that time is not yet upon us, is it?” Raphael smiled at the handmaiden. “I chose her especially for you, Moirin. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she?” His voice took on a taunting edge. “Make her your own little royal companion, if you wish. I’ve ordered her to please you in any way you might desire. Customs being what they are, I’m not sure she understood what I meant, but…” He shrugged. “You will find the Quechua wholly unsophisticated, but not unteachable.”
    A surge of bile rose in my throat, and I fought to swallow it. “You’re very generous, my lord.”
    “I need you,” Raphael said simply. “And I need you healthy and hale, Moirin. We have a great undertaking before us.”
    I rubbed my face with both hands. “How did you know I would come?”
    “I dreamed it,” he said. “Over and over. I dreamed of you, and blood, and a doorway filled with darkness.”
    “Did you dream of Jehanne?” I could not help asking.
    His face hardened. “No,” he said in a curt tone. “Do not speak her name to me, Moirin. I cannot bear the sound of it on your lips, and it will be better for all of us if I do not despise you more than I already do.”
    Silently, I nodded my understanding.
    Raphael patted my shoulder. “Good. There is just one more small thing. Sooner or later, it will occur to you that if you’re willing to bloody your hands, you might simply summon your twilight and dispatch me at your leisure.” He smiled. “Know that if any harm befalls me, my Quechua warriors have orders to put every D’Angeline in Tawantinsuyo to death, so I suggest you pray for my health andwell-being. Do you understand?” I nodded again. “Very well. The day grows late. You should bathe and eat and rest. You’ve had a long, hard journey, and another awaits you. We’ll speak further in the days to come.”
    With that, he left me.
    True to his word, a colony of ants remained. When Raphael had gone, taking the bulk of his insectile entourage with him, they swarmed up a sisal rope hanging from the ceiling of my bedchamber, climbing over one another in layers until they formed a large, glistening black ball that regarded me with a thousand faceted eyes.
    I sank onto the feather-stuffed pallet atop my bed, buried my face in my hands, and wept.
    The distraught handmaiden Cusi knelt beside me and sought to offer comfort, her hands fluttering impotently over my hair and skin, a stream of soothing Quechua words I barely understood pouring from her lips.
    With an effort, I wrestled myself under control, catching her fluttering hands in mine and stilling them. “
Sulpayki
, Cusi,” I said to her. “Thank you. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to trouble