Naamah's Blessing

delegation from House Shahrizai approached us, I felt chagrin added to my grief. They, too, would suffer from the way the politics of this tragedy played out. “I’m so sorry, my lady,” I said to Celestine Shahrizai. My voice sounded hollow. “I fear your generosity toward us proved a bad investment.”
    The matriarch of the House gave my elbow a hard squeeze—hard enough to hurt, yet strangely bracing for it. “Do not blame yourselffor the vagaries of fate, young one, nor fear our generosity will be withdrawn. We knew the risk we took.”
    “It’s not your fault,” Balthasar added. With his blue-black hair and ivory skin, he looked well in mourning garb, but his eyes were rimmed with red and there were dark shadows beneath them. His mouth twisted bitterly. “I should have been there. I should have gone with Thierry.”
    “There’s nothing you could have done,” his cousin Josephine murmured.
    Balthasar turned his grief-haunted gaze on her. “We’ll never know, will we?” His gaze shifted onto Rogier Courcel, deep in conference with the Comte de Thibideau, with a handful of other peers respectfully waiting their turn to speak with him. “And gods damn Daniel de la Courcel for putting us in this situation!”
    The other Shahrizai hushed him hastily. I glanced around, but it didn’t seem anyone had noticed.
    “I’m going to go get drunk,” Balthasar announced. “Who’s with me?”
    Bao and I declined. I had to address the Parliament tomorrow, my petition to do so having been reluctantly granted, and I would need my wits about me. As the reception thinned, we took our leave, returning home through the somber, silent streets of the City of Elua. Our house steward, Guillaume Norbert, greeted us with weary gravity and asked if there was aught that we required.
    All I wanted was to sleep, and wake to find this was all a terrible dream. I thanked him for his kindness and retired to the bedchamber. I undressed and crawled into bed. Bao moved around the chamber quietly, snuffing the lamps.
    “It will get better, Moirin,” he murmured, joining me in our bed. “Day by day, bit by bit. It will get easier to bear.”
    “It’s just so
unfair
!” My voice broke on the last word.
    “I know.” Bao held me and breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, deep and soothing. “I know.”
    Comforted by his warmth and worn out by sorrow, I fell intosleep as though it were a bottomless pit from which I never wished to emerge.
    I slept, and dreamed.
    I dreamed I was back in the Palace, standing in the hallway outside the door to the enchanted bower Jehanne had had made for me.
    I took a deep breath before I opened the door.
    Jehanne was there, seated on the edge of my bed beneath the green fronds of the great fern. As ever, the fern-shadows painted delicate traceries on her fair skin; but this time, she was fully clothed. She lifted her head as I entered the room, and her blue-grey eyes were bright with tears.
    She knew.
    A choked sound escaped me. I crossed the room and fell to my knees before her, burying my face in her lap. My shoulders shook with sobs, the sobs of profound grief that I’d not yet loosed. Jehanne held me, stroking my hair until the worst of the storm had passed. It was a long time before I could look up at her.
    “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
    “I know,” she said sadly. There was a depth of knowledge and wisdom in her beautiful face that she’d only begun to acquire in life. “So am I. And I am angry, too, my beautiful girl. But Daniel had borne all that he could, and I forgive him for it.” She stroked my cheeks, wiping away the tracks of my tears. “This was one blow too many.”
    I repeated what I knew was a child’s futile protest. “It’s not
fair
!”
    “No, it’s not,” Jehanne agreed. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a purpose in it.” Her hand lingered against my cheek, cupping it with affection. The sorrow in her star-bright eyes reminded me of the sorrow in the gaze of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself when She had laid a destiny on me. “It’s coming time, Moirin.”
    Even in a dream, I felt cold. “Time for what?”
    “You.”
    I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
    Jehanne bent her silver-gilt head toward me as though she meant to kiss me or whisper a secret in my ear. I could smell her glorious, intoxicating scent wrapped around me, feel her soft breath on my cheek.
    “Thierry is alive,” she said to me.

TWENTY-FIVE

    T
hierry is