Naamah's Blessing

by the ghost of Jehanne de la Courcel, the impossibly beautiful and highly mercurial D’Angeline queen I had loved so very much; and that Jehanne had told me I had unfinished business with a man both of us had loved, and would need her aid before it was over.
    I stole a glance at Bao. His face was calm in the moonlight. Shadowed eyes; high, wide cheekbones; full lips. Moonlight silvered his unruly shock of black hair, glinted on the gold hoops in his earlobes and the bands of iron reinforcing the bamboo staff he wore lashed across his back.
    He caught me looking, and raised his brows. “Like what you see, huh?” he asked in a teasing tone.
    I tugged on one ear-hoop hard enough to make him wince. “Mayhap.”
    Bao grinned. “You do.”
    I slid one hand around the back of his neck and kissed him. “I do.”
    He kissed me back, then pulled away, his expression turning serious. “It’s going to be hard for you, Moirin. Coming home.”
    “Home.” The word escaped me in a sigh. “Terre d’Ange isn’t home, not really.”
    “Alba?”
    “Aye.” I gazed into the distance. “But…”
    “Raphael de Mereliot.” Bao finished my unspoken thought for me. His mouth twisted. “That idiot Lord Lion Mane.”
    I said nothing.
    Raphael de Mereliot was the man that Jehanne and I had both loved—her favorite courtier, the man I had believed held my destiny for a time. Tall, tawny-haired Raphael de Mereliot with his healer’s hands. I’d let him use me, use my small gift of magic to augment his healing arts.
    Together we had saved lives, including my father’s.
    But I had let Raphael use me for other purposes, summoning fallen spirits filled with trickery. It had nearly killed me.
    I had been very young, and very foolish.
    Jehanne…
    Ah, gods!
    She had saved me from Raphael’s ambition, saved me from
myself
, claiming me for her own. And I had let her, gladly. She’d had a bower filled with plants made for me, granting me a safe haven. She had made me her royal companion. She had trusted me to be there for her when she honored her promise to her husband, King Daniel de la Courcel, setting aside Raphael de Mereliot and praying to Eisheth to open the gates of her womb, that she might bear the King a child.
    But I had left her.
    And while I was on the far side of the world, pursuing my everlasting destiny, Jehanne had died in childbirth.
    If I had been there, we could have saved her, Raphael and I.
    I wept.
    Bao’s arms encircled me. He spoke no words of false comfort, only breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, drawn in through the nostrils into the pit of the belly, expelled through the mouth.
    Slowly, slowly, as I had done so many times before, I matched my breathing to his, my thoughts growing calm.
    The ship swayed and creaked beneath us. The past continued to draw farther and farther away, the shining trail of wake etched in the moonlight, ever fading behind us and drawn anew.
    I wiped my eyes. “Thank you.”
    Bao nodded. “I am here, Moirin.”
    My breath caught in my throat. Those were words I had spoken to Jehanne many times—and they had always been true, until they were not. I turned in Bao’s arms, studying his face, wondering if he knew. “You are, aren’t you?”
    A wry smile lingered on his lips. “Try getting rid of me.”
    “Oh…” I reached up to tweak his ear-hoops again, then tugged his head down for another kiss. “I’d rather not.”
    Bao laughed softly.
    The ship sailed onward, rendering the past a series of memories, carrying us toward a new destiny.
    I prayed that for once, the gods would be merciful.
    But I doubted it.

TWO

    C ome daybreak, we saw the distant harbor.
    Marsilikos.
    The golden dome of the palace of the Lady of Marsilikos gleamed in the early autumn sunlight, a beacon to sailors everywhere. I’d been there once, and it wasn’t a good memory. Raphael de Mereliot’s sister Eleanore ruled Marsilikos, and she’d had me summoned to upbraid me for ruining her brother’s reputation. I’d lost my temper and shouted at her, telling her some unpleasant truths about her brother.
    I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat encounter.
    It was early afternoon when we made port. I hoped we would be able to disembark without fanfare. The ship was a Bhodistani trade-ship, our passage having been arranged by the Rani Amrita’s family in the coastal city of Galanka. I’d thought Bao and I might slip out of the harbor unnoticed among the sailors and traders; but it was