Naamah's Blessing

was scheduled to take place in a month’s time.
    The announcement was made in the grand salon of Eglantine House in the evening of the day the invitation was received, and it was accompanied by Lianne Tremaine declaiming a poem she had composed for the occasion.
    By the next day, the poem was on everyone’s lips.
    The former King’s Poet hadn’t held back. The poem lauded the King’s decision as a return to the true origins of the Montrèvan Oath, the oath that Anafiel Delaunay had sworn to his beloved, Rolande de la Courcel, to protect his infant daughter Ysandre. Lianne Tremaine made the bold claim that this was the first time in generations that the honor had been bestowed in keeping with the spirit of that oath, making much of my having returned from great tribulation to accept the role.
    “Thus was the sorrowful spirit of the lamented Queen at long last appeased/For knowing her eldritch lover would stand guard over the child, her grieving heart was eased,” Lianne quoted with a shudder. “Dreadful pap, but I had to work quickly. ’Tis the sentiment that matters. Does it meet your needs?”
    I’d gone to pay her a visit while Bao had his morning’s lesson with Desirée. “It’s… a bit excessive,” I said carefully.
    “Poetry glories in excess,” she said. “When it’s not extolling the virtues of austerity. Do you think I went too far in comparing you to Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève? After all, you did say you loved Jehanne.”
    “Aye,” I murmured. “But I left her.”
    Lianne cocked her head. “Why
did
you leave?”
    Long ago, before I’d known about the Circle of Shalomon, I had tried to explain my
diadh-anam
and the prompting of destiny to Lianne Tremaine, who was still the King’s Poet at the time. Unlike most D’Angelines, she had at least some familiarity with the notion from her extensive reading. Now I reminded her of that conversation, telling her how the same prompting had driven me to Ch’in. She listened quietly, seeming to understand it better than most. “Jehanne knew,” I said when I was done. “She always knew I would leave. It’s just that neither of us thought it would be so soon. If I had been able to stay longer…” I couldn’t finish the thought. “When I told her, she said it was as well she was an adept of Cereus House, and taught to revere the transience of beauty, for this had been a fleeting and precious thing.” My eyes stung. “And when I left… when I left, I asked her how one could find beauty in somewhat that hurt so much.”
    “What did she say?” Lianne asked quietly.
    I rubbed my eyes. “Jehanne said that it would always be like this. That I would always be young and beautiful in her memory, and she in mine. That I would never grow resentful, never be tempted to betray her. That she would never grow restless and fickle, and seek to replace me.” I smiled through my tears. “So you see, not exactly the sentiments of a great and terrible love affair.”
    “Oh, but it is.” There was sorrow in Lianne’s gaze. “If Jehanne had lived, mayhap it would have been otherwise. Mayhap you would have returned to find yourselves both too changed to resume the liaison. But Jehanne died, and it will ever be what it was, exactly as she said. Fixed in time, like a portrait of a delicate blossom cut too soon immortalized in paint.” Steepling her fingers, she touched her lips in thought. “That’s not a bad image.”
    “Mayhap you can work it into your next poem,” I murmured.
    Lianne grimaced. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to make light of your grief. But I do know what I’m doing, Moirin. No one will accuse you of comparing yourself to Anafiel Delaunay. They will blame
me
. That is the risk poets take when we exaggerate for the sake of effect, which is what we do. And believe me, there are many who agree with the sentiment.”
    “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to question your knowledge of your craft. I’m grateful for your aid.”
    She lifted her chin. “And you owe me for it. Tell me the tale of your ordeal in Vralia. No… wait. That’s not where it begins, does it?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “Begin at the beginning,” she demanded. “Begin with the Ch’in expedition that came in search of that physician. What was it they were after? What was so urgent that the Emperor of Ch’in would send well nigh an entire army to fetch one lone man?”
    I told her.
    Not all of it; there were a few parts I left out. I