Kushiel’s Dart

I had just resumed my duties when I heard the commotion; a new party arriving, loud and high-spirited. Pushing my way through the crowd, I came upon the forefront of the audience.

It was four young men, and from their attire and demeanor alone, I could tell they were of royal blood, true scions of Elua and his Companions. "Prince Baudoin!" someone said in a tone of hushed awe, and I surmised which was he; slender and raven-haired, with fair skin and sea-grey eyes, the stamp of House Trevalion. The others deferred to him, for all that he leaned, drunken, on the shoulder of a comrade.

He wore a mask of Azza which was surpassingly lovely, though askew on his pure D’Angeline features, and a large velvet hat with a drooping feather. Seeing the gathering crowd, he pushed himself off his companion’s supporting arm and raised a goblet in his right hand. "Joy!" he shouted, his voice clear and carrying, even slurred with wine. "Joy to the Night Court, on this Longest Night!"

To my left, I heard the faint sound of trembling crystal; Donatien. He glanced once at me, terrified. Well then, I thought, so be it. Squirming past an antlered hart, I approached the Prince’s party. I could feel the eyes of the Night Court upon me, and my heart pounded.

"Joy," I echoed softly, holding up the tray.

"What’s this?" A grip like a pincer caught my upper arm, fingers digging into flesh, making me gasp. I looked up into the gaze of the Prince’s companion. He wore a jaguarondi mask, but behind it his eyes shone dark and cruel, smiling. His hair fell straight about his shoulders, a gold so pale it glittered like silver in the candlelight. "Denys, taste it."

One of the others took a glass from the tray I offered and tossed it down. "Owwooo!" He shook his head, wolf-masked, and smacked his lips. "Pure joie, Isidore; have some!"

I stood trembling, while the scions of Elua snatched with greedy hands at my tray. Glass after glass was drained, and hurled to smash on the gleaming parquet floor. The Prince let loose a laugh, high and wild, like trumpets. His mask rode crooked on his white brow and I could see a hectic gleam in his eyes. "A kiss for luck, little joy-bearer!" he declared, sweeping me into his arms. My tray was crushed between us and fell clattering to the floor, more glasses crushed to shards. His lips brushed the corner of mine for one breathless instant, tasting of joie; and then I was cast aside, forgotten, and the Prince’s party swept onward into the Great Hall. The man in the jaguarondi mask glanced once my way, and smiled his cruel smile.

I knelt on the floor, gathering shards of broken glass upon my tray, not heeding the tears in my eyes; why, I could not even have said, whether it was the kiss or the casting aside that seared my heart. But I was a child, and such things are quickly forgotten. In the kitchen, Jacinthe shot me hateful glances, and I remembered only pride that a Prince of the royal blood had named me joy-bearer and kissed me for luck.

Ironic, that; as Anafiel Delaunay could have told him, mine was an ill-luck name. If I’d luck to spare, I’d have shared it with him. I could not have known, then, that I would be there when his luck turned at last. Some would say he was a fool to have trusted Melisande, and perhaps he was; even so, he would not have seen the other betrayal coming, from one he’d known longer.

But that night, such plots had not even begun to be dreamt. As if the revelry hadn’t been in full stride before, it swung into a faster pace. Stately pavanes gave way to the galliard and the antic hey, and the musicians played in a frenzy, faces shining with sweat. So great were the proportions of the masque, it swallowed even the Prince’s party. I circulated with my tray, dizzy from the noise and heat. The evergreen boughs above the roaring fireplace loosed a piney fragrance, rising above the olfactory din of a hundred competing perfumes and heated flesh, punctuated by the pungent opium smoke of Gentian House’s incensors.

We were running short of glasses. The style of the evening had been set, and I’d no way of counting how many guests and adepts downed their joie and shattered their glasses on the floor, shouting. There was naught any of the four of us could do; we carried on, our trays sparsely laden, while the liveried servants of Cereus House darted amid the crowd with brooms and dustpans.

Such were the profundities that occupied my mind when, beneath the merry skirl of music, the slow beat of the tocsin began. It was the Longest Night; we had almost forgotten, all of us. But the horologists had not-they forget nothing-and the Night’s Crier struck the gong at a measured pace, cutting through the din and slowing the revelry. Dancers parted and the floor cleared, celebrants falling back. From behind a screen the Winter Queen reemerged, leaning on her blackthorn staff, hobbling to the head of the colonnade.