Naamah's Blessing

words.
    “On her death-bed.” Lianne supplied them gently. “The King sent for him before the end. He tried to save her.”
    I knew; I’d seen his majesty’s memory. But I hadn’t known it was the only time Raphael had seen Jehanne since I’d left. “Stone and sea!” My voice shook a bit. “That’s hard.”
    “It is,” the poetess agreed. “So you can see why I’m reluctant toassail their tragic affair.” She cocked her head. “Moirin, if I may ask, why do you care? Why such an interest in Raphael de Mereliot?” She lowered her voice, eyes widening. “Do you really think a part of Focalor resides in him?”
    I traced the rim of the tea-cup that sat on the table before me. “Truly, I don’t know. I only know that Jehanne came to me in my dreams and told me that I have unfinished business with him.” I glanced up at Lianne. “Does that sound too absurd for belief?”
    “From you?” She smiled wryly. “Hardly.”
    I sighed. “My lady Jehanne says she doesn’t know
why
, only that it’s so. And she cannot pass on to the Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond or to rebirth until it’s done. She says I’ll need her before the end.”
    “Did she bid you serve as Desirée’s protector?” Lianne asked. “That would add a fine twist to the tale.”
    “No.” I shook my head. “I’ve not dreamt of her since before leaving Bhaktipur. She asked me only to promise that I would tell her daughter good things about her mother, things no one else knew, things no one else would tell her.”
    Her mouth twisted. “Like the fact that Jehanne tried to protect you from being killed by Raphael and the Circle of Shalomon’s ambition?”
    “Aye.”
    “And she did, didn’t she?” Lianne mused. “She sent aid because you left a note for her that day telling her what we were about.”
    I nodded. “Raphael had made me swear not to
speak
of the matter, so I didn’t. It took me a while to find the loophole.”
    Lianne eyed me. “Most sensible folk would simply have broken their oath.”
    “I swore by the sacred oath of the Maghuin Dhonn,” I said simply. I touched my chest. “If I had broken it, my
diadh-anam
would have been extinguished forever, and I would no longer be Her child.”
    “You and your bear-goddess,” she said, but the words were uttered in an amiable enough tone. “Well, assuming your dreams are indeed true ones, I suppose you’ll find out what unfinished business liesbetween you and Raphael when Prince Thierry’s party returns in the spring.”
    “I was surprised to learn that he went,” I said. “Raphael lost both his parents in a boating accident. I wouldn’t have thought he’d embark on such a long, dangerous sea voyage.”
    Lianne shrugged. “I told you, he was a broken man after Jehanne’s death. When his sister Eleanore succumbed to illness a year later, I suspect it was the final straw. Raphael de Mereliot didn’t care if he lived or died. As I heard it, when Prince Thierry asked him to accompany the expedition as their official physician, he accepted it without hesitating.”
    “Anything to flee his sorrow,” I murmured.
    “I suspect so.”
    We sat a while longer in silence together with our memories. “I don’t want to hurt him,” I said eventually. “Raphael’s been hurt too much already. He’s made mistakes, aye, but fate’s dealt him cruel blows in turn. I wish I knew what this was about.”
    The former King’s Poet met my gaze, a furrow of concern etched between her brows. “If it
is
a piece of Focalor’s spirit inside him… Moirin, what in the name of Blessed Elua and his Companions will you do?”
    I lifted my tea-cup and drained the dregs, peering at the leaves plastered to the bottom of the cup, turning it this way and that, and finding no answers there. “Truly? I haven’t the faintest idea.”
    She gave another wry smile. “Well, that’s comforting.”

SEVENTEEN

    T hat night, Bao and I dined with the Shahrizai.
    It seemed that for Balthasar Shahrizai, a few friends meant a few members of his notorious and notoriously close-knit family.
    There was his uncle, Gamaliel, a laconic fellow with a predator’s hooded gaze; and his oh-so-quiet wife, Mariette. There was his cousin, their daughter Josephine, high-spirited and flirtatious, although it was the kind of flirting that carried a sharply honed edge. Somewhat about her put me in mind of Jagrati, only it was a Jagrati filled with playful malice instead of banked rage.
    And then there was