Kushiel's Scion (31 page)

Authors: Jacqueline Carey

Tags: #High Fantasy

"Imriel nó Montrève de la Courcel." Raising her head, Emmeline looked into my eyes. We were almost of a height. "Understand, there are desires in your blood that will not find fulfillment here tonight."

It was at once a disappointment and a relief to hear it said. I nodded, preparing to clamp down on my ardor with an iron will. "I understand," I said grimly.

"No." She gave me that brief sunburst of a smile. "You don't, not yet. It is a gift I wish to give you; Naamah's gift. But there is a gift I ask in return."

"A patron-gift?" I said stupidly.

Emmeline shook her head. "Your trust," she said softly. "Already, you have given it twice this evening; to Phèdre nó Delaunay and to the Dowayne. I ask you to give it a third time; to trust yourself, and to trust me to guide you in this. It is only for a little while, for this charmed space of time. And I swear to you, I will hold it in Naamah's keeping. No harm will come to you, only good."

Unexpected tears stung my eyes. " 'Tis hard to do, my lady!"

"I know," she said gently.

I drew a harsh, ragged breath. This was neither the scene of tender romance nor torturous passion I had envisioned. "What must I do?"

"Be still," Emmeline murmured, "and trust." She laid one hand on my breast, splaying her fingers over my hard-beating heart and gazing into my eyes. The air in the room seemed to thicken, and I felt the presence of something—Naamah, or Blessed Elua himself—hover over us. "Can you do that?"

"I think so," I whispered. "I will try."

"Good," she whispered in reply. "It is all any of us can ask."

And there, in that room of fretted shadows, Emmeline of Balm House stripped me bare. She did it slowly, with an adept's grace. Her delicate fingers undid the buttons on my velvet doublet, and she removed it with care. She teased my silk shirt loose from my breeches, sliding her hands beneath it. I hissed as she eased it over my head, her hands sliding along my ribs, over my shoulders. Her touch was gentle and warm, not yet meant to arouse. It might have been soothing were I not strung tighter than a harp-string.

"This is sacred, Imriel." Her fingers, dipped in scented oil, annointed my chest, tracing a line toward my navel. "You; all of you. Do you understand?"

I stood, shuddering like a fly-stung horse while she moved around me. "Yes," I said helplessly. "Yes."

Emmeline's fingers found the weal-marks on my lower back, the faded scars of Daršanga. "Oh," I heard her murmur, and then I felt the touch of her soft lips, and the tip of her tongue tracing them, learning them. "And this, too."

Something knotted deep within me began to ease, almost painfully. My body began to respond to her touch. I unclenched my fists and gazed at the flickering lamps.

"There is no part of you that is not sacred." Emmeline rose before me, her hands sliding over my oil-slick breast. "And there is no shame here, only love. This is a benediction. Do you understand?"

"I am beginning to," I said, breathless.

She laughed. "Ah, Elua!" Her pupils were dilated. "You are a beautiful boy!"

I swallowed. "There is more."

I didn't want to have to explain; and I didn't need to. Emmeline nodded. She sank to kneel on her heels, removing my boots and undoing my breeches. My phallus, freed, sprang erect, straining. She annointed me with oil, murmuring a blessing. At the touch of her lips, I gritted my teeth and stared at the ceiling.

"This."

Emmeline's fingers found the brand on my left buttock; Jagun's brand. I looked down at her, seeing tears in her wide grey eyes.

"Oh, my love," she whispered. "Oh yes, this, too."

I started crying when she kissed it; and once I started, I could not stop. I wept as she led me to the bed, that big vast bed with all its white pillows. And there I lay and watched, tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, as she stripped off her silken gown, bare skin gleaming in the lamplight, and came to straddle me.

"Here," she murmured, grasping my phallus, guiding the tip to her hidden aperture. I could feel it parting her inner lips, dewy-moist, emanating heat. "Here, there is healing and Naamah's grace."

She lowered herself, and I gasped. Inside, her flesh was as slick and hot as blood, and as soft as silk. It was more intimate than anything I could have imagined.

Inch by slow inch, she sank down onto me.

Ah, Elua! I was sheathed in her to the hilt, and it was heaven.

"Is it not so?" Emmeline asked softly.

"Yes," I whispered through my tears. "I understand." And suddenly, there was tenderness and ardor, too. Emmeline leaned forward, her hair falling to curtain our faces. She kissed me; kissed away my tears, kissed my tear-swollen lids, kissed my lips. Her hips moved, only a little. If it had been more, I couldn't have stood it. I took her face in my hands and kissed her back, sinking my fingers deep into her shining hair. Her lips were soft, so soft. They parted beneath mine, and I felt the tip of her tongue touch my own. It was so lovely and sweet, I could have wept anew.

Is it possible to fall upward? It seemed it to me. Lying on my back, I fell upward into Emmeline; into her mouth, into her. Every part of me she had touched and made sacred blazed with a desire that was Naamah's gift, clean and pure, untouched by any shadow. I offered it back as tribute, and she accepted it with gladness.

Toward the end, everything gathered. Emmeline let out a gasp, lifting her head. I held her hips hard as she rode me, seeing for the first time the way a woman's face changes with pleasure, going soft and abandoned. It was impossibly beautiful.

With a sense of awe, I felt her inner walls ripple and flutter. Ah, Elua! It was too much to bear. I wanted the moment to last, I wanted to gaze at her face and fix it in my memory, but everything gathered. I was falling, falling so fast. Her face, the lamplight; everything blurred. I gave up and closed my eyes, letting myself fall.

"This, too," I heard her whisper. "This, too, is sacred."

Groaning aloud, I spent myself like a shooting star.

It seemed to go on forever. All the vast desire in my body was concentrated in my aching loins; my throbbing phallus and testes. A year's worth of awful, complicated longing was released in a surge of seed, and Emmeline rode the crest of my desire as a ship rides a tall wave.

But at last, it ebbed. I returned to myself enough to hear the harsh sound of my own breathing, its frantic pace slowing. I felt the tickle of her hair against my face and opened my eyes to see her face, her grey eyes shining with tears.

"You have given me a gift," she said. "Thank you."

"No." I touched her eyelashes. "You have." I paused. "Am I still crying?"

Emmeline smiled. "A little bit." She brushed away a tear with the ball of her thumb. "I don't mind."

She moved off of me, then. There was a fleeting sense of loss as my limp phallus slipped from her warm recesses. I turned my head on the pillow to gaze at Emmeline as she reclined beside me, propped on one arm. I felt strangely at peace, languid and good.

"My beautiful boy," she whispered, sliding one thigh over mine and tracing my lower lip with one fingertip. "It must have been bad."

"It was," I said simply. "How did you know?"

Her smile deepened. "It's my calling."

The night did not end there. After having lanced the poisonous wound of my desire, Emmeline showed me such things as I wished to learn; things I had read about in the Trois Milles Joies. I learned. As the Dowayne had said, Emmeline was near my age, but old enough to impart a wisdom of her own. I learned how to kiss properly, with all the niceties and subtleties. I held her breasts in my hands, marveling at the wonderful heft of them, and felt her nipples harden beneath my touch. I learned how to adore them with lips and tongue, teasing and suckling, until I exerted the pressure that pleased her most.

And I learned her innermost parts.

Emmeline showed me without shame, leaning against the pillows and opening her thighs. She spread her outer lips with her fingers, and then the inner, revealing Naamah's Pearl.

"There," she said, sighing as I made reverence to it. "Oh, yes!"

She taught me myself, too. It was true, there was no part that was not sacred. I caught my breath when she performed the languisement, one hand grasping my shaft, the other easing back my foreskin to expose the sensitive glans. I cried aloud as her mouth descended on me, one hand sliding beneath me to cup the sack of my testes.

"It is all sacred, Imriel," she murmured before proceeding.

It was. All of it was. And these things I had known in my head and heart, I learned in my flesh that night. When I fell asleep at last, my head pillowed on Emmeline's breast, it was the sleep of true exhaustion. Emotionally and physically, I was replete.

I slept soundly and without dreams, waking at dawn. Balm House was quiet. I stooped over the bed, watching Emmeline's eyelids crease as the sun's first rays slanted through her room's garden window, laying a ruddy coverlet on the bed.

"Thank you," I whispered. "I thank you so much."

"Beautiful boy." She stirred and touched my face. "Will you remember this?"

"Always," I said. "Always, and with joy."

Emmeline smiled. She was as beautiful in the morning as she had been the night before. Before I left, she rang for a servant, who came to fill the washbasin with steaming water. She bathed me herself, sponging away the oil with which she had annointed me and the dried traces of our lovemaking that lingered on my skin. The soap had the same light fragrance as her perfume.

On her nightstand was a sculpture carved of gleaming wood, depicting a pair of cupped hands; Naamah's Hands. I placed a purse of coin in it, my patron-gift. I wished I had something more personal to give her, a keepsake of some sort.

"I'll come back to see you again," I promised.

"You may," she said, stroking my cheek. "I will always welcome you gladly, Imriel. But I think you have found what you sought here."

It was true. If I had felt strange to myself yesterday, it was nothing to what I felt this morning. Emmeline escorted me to the reception salon where Ti-Philippe and Hugues had already been summoned. They were waiting, yawning and sleepy-eyed. I wondered if I looked different to them. Surely, I felt different.

"Good-bye, my beautiful boy," Emmeline said, giving me a farewell kiss.

"Good-bye," I whispered.

Outside, the sky was growing brighter. I stood in the courtyard, listening to birdsong, while the ostlers brought our mounts. The Bastard's spotted hide was vivid in the dawn light. He snorted as I mounted, but was otherwise docile. I swung astride him and settled myself in the saddle, feeling a heightened awareness of my body. I have known a woman since last I did this, I thought.

The world seemed very beautiful today.

We were halfway down Mont Nuit before either Ti-Philippe or Hugues spoke of it. It was Ti-Philippe who gave me a sidelong glance. "So," he said. "Riding with our head held high today, are we?"

I laughed. "Am I?"

"You are." Hugues smiled at me. "Well done, Imri."

"Yes," I said. "It was."

Chapter Eighteen