Naamah's Blessing

grin as he caught sight of me. Everything I had told Raphael was true, but it didn’t begin to encompass the bond between us. There was the way my
diadh-anam
quickened with joy at being reunited with his, a sensation I couldn’t even begin to describe. There was an unshakeable solidarity born of having survived so many trials and hardships together—aye, and wonders, too.
    There was love, always love.
    I did not relish the task of telling him what I had to tell him today. In the benighted Temple of the Sun, it had seemed at once a noble sacrifice and a necessary horror. In the bright light of ordinary day, sweat trickling beneath my gown, it merely seemed a horror, an unthinkable horror.
    But it
wasn’t
an ordinary day. No day under Lord Pachacuti’s rule was ordinary. A living, seething moat of ants ringed the field, an ever-present reminder of the unnatural straits in which we found ourselves.
    Bao read my expression, his grin faltering. “What is it, Moirin? More trouble?”
    “No.” My eyes stung. “Worse. Hope, but it is a grim one.”
    His sharp gaze skated over Machasu. “That is a different maid,” he said in the scholar’s tongue. “Is she also a spy?”
    “No,” I said. “An ally.”
    The others began to gather, eager for news. There was not a man among them one would have taken at a glance for the pampered, gossip-loving scions of D’Angeline nobility many of them had been, quick to revel in luxury and indulgence. They were lean and work-hardened, hands callused by paddles and digging-sticks, fair skin burnt brown by the sun. But there was a fierce light in their eyes. Whatever fight there was to be fought, they were ready for it.
    “Lady Moirin.” Prince Thierry de la Courcel, naked above the waist, greeted me with a courtly bow that did not disguise the hunger in his expression. “Tell us, what passes?”
    I swallowed. “I would speak to Bao alone.”
    A muscle in Thierry’s jaw twitched. “Why?”
    Balthasar Shahrizai laid a grimy hand on Thierry’s shoulder. “They’re husband and wife, man,” he said in a deceptively easy tone. “Give them a moment, won’t you?”
    Prince Thierry kept his gaze hard on mine. “Whatever news you have to deliver, it concerns all of us, does it not?”
    “Aye,” I said. “But none more than Bao.”
    The rightful heir to the throne of Terre d’Ange hesitated, then nodded, taking a step backward. “Of course. As you will, my lady.”
    A stream of ants detached from the river to follow Bao and me into the field as we went some distance from the others. The sun-warmed earth between the rows of growing potatoes was soft and crumbling beneath my sandal-shod feet. Once we were out of earshot, Bao took my arm in a firm grip.
    “Tell me,” he said.
    I did.
    I told him the whole of what I had learned from Ocllo and Cusi and the Maidens of the Sun. I told him the secret of the ancestors, and their belief that one who was twice-born would wield the key—wouldwield the
knife—
to offer the blood sacrifice that would call forth the ancestors out of death into life.
    When I had finished, Bao walked away.
    He did not go far, only a few paces. But he stood with his back to me, his head bowed, hands clasping his elbows. I gazed at him, seeing the bright shadow that had hung over him since his death gather and darken.
    “Bao…” I whispered.
    “Do you think it will work?” he asked without turning around. “This business of sacrifice?”
    I went to him then, wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing my face against the back of his neck and inhaling the scent of his skin. “I think it is our only hope.”
    Bao took a deep breath, his ribcage rising and falling beneath my arms. “I should have known there would be a further price to pay,” he said. “There is always another price. I do not wish to do this thing, Moirin.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “She’s scarce more than a child!”
    I leaned my brow against his taut shoulder blades. “I know. Ah, gods, Bao! I know. But it is her choice, and she has chosen.”
    “I want to speak with her,” Bao said abruptly.
    “Cusi?”
    He turned in my arms. “Yes. I do not doubt you, Moirin. I don’t. But for my own sake, I must hear it from her lips.”
    I nodded. “Then I will make it happen. What will you tell the others?”
    Bao shrugged. “Whatever is needful.”

SIXTY-THREE

    T ime was running short. Upon returning to my quarters, I was visited by Eyahue, who brought the latest details of