Kushiel’s Dart

I understood, later, why he held me back during those first long years. Those whom Delaunay would choose for his clientele would be chosen with care. They were among the elite and mistrustful of the nation, too deeply embroiled in money and power to be lured easily into spilling pillow-secrets. With Alcuin, Delaunay was wise enough to set the wheels of desire in motion long before the day would arrive. There were nobles who yearned for years, watching him grow with tantalizing slowness from a beautiful child to a breathtaking youth. When they spilled their secrets, there were years of pressure behind the force that burst the dam.

With me, it was different. The desire that I elicited-would elicit-burned hotter, and with a shorter fuse. Delaunay, who knew much of human nature, knew this, and chose in his wisdom to keep me a secret from his guests. Word spread, as was inevitable, that he had taken a second pupil; when his guests pressed him to reveal my nature, he smiled and demurred. Thus did my reputation spread, while I toiled toward adolescence, immersed in the labors of ink and parchment.

There was one exception: Melisande.

Genius requires an audience. For all his cleverness, Delaunay was an artist and as vulnerable as any of his kind to the desire to vaunt his brilliance. And there were few, very few, people capable of appreciating his art. I did not know, then, how deep-laid a game they played with each other, nor what part in it I was to play. All I knew was that she was the audience he chose.

I had been three years and a half in his household, and had been some time training with a tumbling-master Delaunay had found Elua-knows-where. He believed, Delaunay did, in a balanced approach to shaping one’s nature, and thus were Alcuin and I subjected to an endless series of physical training to ensure that our well-honed minds were ensconced in vigorous bodies.

I had just finished my day’s lesson, in which I had learned to throw a standing somersault, and was towelling off the sweat when Delaunay entered the gymnasium with her. The tumbling-master was packing his things, and seeing her, bid to make a hasty retreat, which Delaunay ignored.

To describe Melisande Shahrizai is, as the poets say, to paint a nightingale’s song; it is a thing which cannot be done. She was three-and-twenty years of age at that time, though time never seemed to touch her, either way it flowed. If I say her skin was like alabaster, her hair a black so true it gleamed blue where the light touched it and her eyes a sapphire that gemstones might envy, I speak only the truth; but she was a D’Angeline, and this only hints at the beginning of beauty.

"Melisande," Delaunay said, pride and amusement in his voice. "This is Phèdre."

As I am D’Angeline and Night Court-born, you may be sure, I am not easily awed by beauty; but I am what I am, and there are other things that awe me. The Shahrizai are an ancient house of courtiers, and many, knowing little of the nomenclature of Terre d’Ange, suppose they are of Shemhazai’s lineage. It is not so. The namesakes among the descendents of Elua’s Companions are intertwined in such a way that only a D’Angeline scholar can comprehend them.

I, who had studied such things, had no need of history to tell me House Shahrizai’s lineage. When I glanced up politely to meet the blue eyes of Melisande Shahrizai, her look went through me like a spear, my knees turned to water, and I knew that she was a scion of Kushiel.

"How charming." She crossed the gymnasium floor with careless grace, sweeping the train of her gown over one arm. Cool fingers stroked my cheek, lacquered nails trailing lightly over my skin. I shuddered. With a faint smile, she held my chin up, forcing me to look her in the face. "Anafiel," she said lightly, amused, turning to him, "You’ve found a genuine anguissette."

He laughed, coming to join us. "I thought you would approve."

"Mmm." She loosed me, and I nearly fell on the floor. "I’ve wondered what you were hiding, you magician, you. I know people who’ve wagered a considerable amount of money in speculation."

Delaunay wagged one finger back and forth at her. "We had an agreement, Melisande. Do you want Cousin Ogier to know why his son cancelled his wedding at the last moment?"

"Just…thinking aloud, sweet man." She gave him the same treatment, a trailing caress down the side of his face. Delaunay merely smiled. "You must think of me when you decide it’s time for her to serve Naamah, Anafiel." She turned back to me, smiling sweetly. "You do wish to serve Naamah, don’t you, child?"