Naamah's Blessing

will learn to love her.”
    I sighed. “I will do as you ask.”
    He squeezed my hand. “Thank you.” He smiled ruefully. “I suspect I could spend the rest of my life thanking you, and it would not begin to be enough.”
    I shook my head. “If I had not let Raphael de Mereliot turn my head all those years ago, none of this would have happened.”
    Thierry gazed at the skyline. “We would have starved in the jungle without Raphael and his bedamned ants. They foraged for us. It’s why none of us dared raise a hand against him on the journey, why we could not turn back.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “I gave up hope,” he said, more to himself than me. “I’ll not let that happen again, ever. The memory of Balthasar Shahrizai wielding a digging-stick in the far reaches of Terra Nova will suffice to remind me that anything is possible.”
    It made me laugh. “Balthasar, and not me?”
    Thierry gave me a quick, fond glance. “For all your youth and naivete, you did always have an air of destiny about you, Moirin. I must confess, your presence did not surprise me as much as Balthasar’s.” He squeezed my hand again. “Do you remember, a long time ago, I said you and I had become family in a very odd manner?”
    “I remember.”
    It had been on the Longest Night when Thierry had served as my escort, clad in the attire of a Cassiline Brother.
    My lady Jehanne had worn the costume of the Snow Queen. I remembered the taste of
joie
lingering on her lips, her blue-grey eyes sparkling at me with delight. It was the same costume she had worn when she said farewell to me in my final dream, the satin edge of her ermine-trimmed cape brushing the freshly turned soil between the tall rows of
maize
swaying overhead, waving their tassels.
    My eyes stung.
    Staring at the surging waves once more, Thierry did not notice. “I’m glad,” he said. “I’m glad I named you so.”
    Blinking away tears, I turned my hand beneath his on the railing, giving it an answering squeeze. “Do you forget, my lord?” I asked him lightly. “I am a descendant of House Courcel by way of Alais the Wise. You showed me her likeness in the Hall of Portraits when first we met. We were always kin, you and I.”
    “Forgive me, Moirin. I did forget.” Thierry gave me a self-deprecating smile, and there was a hint of his old easygoing charm in it. “But kin is not the same as family.” Raising my hand to his lips, he kissed it. “Rogier Courcel, Duc de Barthelme, is kin to me.
You
are family.”
    The ship bobbed beneath us, riding the waves. Up a crest, down a trough. Every inch carried us closer to home.
    “And you,” I whispered to Thierry. “And you. And the gods willing we make safe harbor, Desirée, too.”

EIGHTY

    A fter months at sea, we gained the harbor of Pellasus and began making our way up the Aviline River.
    It felt strange knowing we were retracing the voyage poor, doomed Denis de Toluard had taken, practicing his deceit in reverse. He had withheld the knowledge of Thierry de la Courcel’s death from Terre d’Ange.
    We withheld the knowledge of his survival.
    The crew of the
Naamah’s Dove
and the men of our company obeyed unquestioning, united in common accord. No one gossiped, no one dropped so much as a hint of a rumor.
    Of course, their very silence engendered rumors, and a bow-wave of gossip raced ahead of us.
    Eyahue and Temilotzin strolled the decks clad in Nahuatl finery, fanning the flames of rumor. I thought they both rather relished the task, especially our reprehensible old
pochteca
. Someone had told them tales of the Night Court that had Eyahue cackling in anticipatory glee, and the Jaguar Knight slapping his thighs and laughing uproariously at the exploits the former had planned.
    I didn’t begrudge them, and I hoped they would find a warm welcome among the Thirteen Houses.
    Whenever we approached a river port city, Bao and Thierry and I remained belowdeck, hidden from sight. I had argued against including Bao in the deception. Knowing Desirée’s fondness for him,I feared it would pain her twice over to believe that both Bao and I had perished in a futile effort to rescue her brother. But Bao had refused.
    “I cannot look that child in the eye and lie to her, letting her believe you are gone, Moirin,” he said. “Do not ask it of me. I have done one hard thing too many on this journey.”
    And so I did not press him.
    As the leader of the expedition that had set out to find Prince Thierry, Balthasar