Kushiel’s Dart

Day broke, and whiled onward; I found the library, that housed a hundred books believed lost, pages thick and stiff with their drowning, ink blurred, but still readable. There was a whole volume of poems by a famous Hellene poetess that I had never read entire; Maestro Gonzago would have given his eyeteeth to see it. I read slowly, trying to translate the words into D’Angeline, wishing I had pen and paper. They were beautiful, so beautiful I wept, and forgot where I was, until Tilian came to fetch me.

Noon was nigh.

They led us back along the broad, winding path; strange, how familiar it seemed. The Master of the Straits awaited us in his temple, open on all sides to the breezes.

I never understood, before, how sacrificial victims could go consenting. I thought of Elua, baring his palm to the blade. I thought of Yeshua, taking his place upon the wooden tree. No two sacrifices are the same, and yet all are, in the end. It is the commitment to belong, wholly, to that which claims one.

"Have you an answer?" the Master of the Straits asked, and his voice rose like the wind, all around us, his eyes the color of sunlight reflected on water. I shivered; enough of a coward, it seemed after all, to wait on another’s response.

None came.

"Yes, my lord," I said, my voice sounding small and mortal. I raised my eyes to meet that sea-shifting gaze. "One of us must take your place."

I heard Hyacinthe laugh, despairingly.

The Master of the Straits looked at me with eyes full of thunderclouds. "Are you prepared to answer in full?"

Joscelin drew a long, hissing breath, his hands flexing above his daggers. Quintilius Rousse made a startled sound, and Drustan bowed his head, twisting the signet ring on his finger. He had guessed; Earth’s oldest children. They are closer to the old tales, to the workings of fate.

"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, my lord."

"No."

I was not sure, for a second, who had spoken; it sounded so little like Hyacinthe. My Prince of Travellers, light-hearted and careless; no longer, not since Moiread’s death. He gave a choked laugh and ran his fingers through his black ringlets. "You summoned me, my lord. I am here. I will stay."

The Master of the Straits was silent.

And I knew, then, that everything before had been but play.

"No," I whispered, turning to Hyacinthe. My hands rose, shaping his face, almost as familiar as my own. "Hyacinthe, no!"

He held my wrists gently. "Breidaia dreamed me on an island, Phèdre, do you remember? I couldn’t see the shore. The Long Road ends here, for me. You may have unraveled the riddle, but I am meant to stay."

"No," I said, then shouted it. "No!" I turned to the Master of the Straits, fearless in my despair. "You seek one to take your place; you posed this riddle, and I have answered! It is mine to answer in full!"

"It is not the only riddle on these shores." There was a sorrow in his voice, eight hundred years old. The sun stood overhead, casting the Master of the Straits' face into shadow as he bowed his head. "Who takes my shackles, inherits my power. Name its source, if you would be worthy to serve."

Joscelin turned aside with a sharp cry; I think, until then, he thought there was still a way he might answer. I raised my face to the sun, thinking, remembering. The library in the tower, the lost verses. Delaunay’s library, where I had spent so many sullen hours, forced to study when I’d rather have entertained patrons; I’d have given anything, to have them back now. Alcuin, hair falling like foam to curtain his face, poring over ancient codices. Joscelin’s voice, unwontedly light, a rare glimpse of the Siovalese scholar-lord’s son he’d been born. He’s got everything in here but the Lost Book of Raziel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshuite script?

The pieces of the puzzle came together; I lowered my gaze, blinking.

"It is the Book of Raziel, my lord."

The Master of the Straits began to turn my way.