Kushiel’s Dart

Somewhere amid the chaos, I found time to tend to those promises of my own I had to fulfill. Thelesis de Mornay was a great boon, setting the deeds of our quest and the great battle to verse, and translating them as well into Cruithne; for I had promised Drustan that his folk would know of their deeds. How many people she interviewed for this tale, I cannot say, but a great many of them. Though her health was never so good as it had been before the fever struck her, she spent herself tirelessly on her craft.

It became in the end a mighty epic, and she worked all the days of her life on the Ysandrine Cycle, so-named because it charted the tumultuous ascension of Ysandre de la Courcel to the throne of Terre d’Ange-though it is, in truth, many folks' stories, mine own included. But she had been Ganelon’s favorite poet for many years, and knew well enough how to turn out verse for an occasion, so we had the beginnings of it in time for the wedding. As it happened, she had begun work on it from the day four couriers styling themselves Phèdre’s Boys stormed into the City with a letter in hand, and news of great doings.

A party of riders hand-picked by Drustan set forth for Azzalle to meet Rousse’s fleet and be carried to Alba, carrying the tale locked in memory to Cruithne and Dalriada alike, bearing assurance of a victory won and an alliance made, and the return of the Cruarch to come. Quintilius Rousse himself guaranteed their crossing, having left Jean Marchand in command of the fleet and Marc de Trevalion to hold the border, that he might come to the Palace in person, roaring and bluff as ever, gathering me in an embrace that nearly cracked my ribs.

On behalf of those couriers who had brought my plea to Thelesis de Mornay, and the rest of Phèdre’s Boys, I kept my vow made on the ancient Tiberian roads of Alba, and met with Jareth Moran, Dowayne of Cereus House, First among the Thirteen Houses of the Night Court. The token he had given me the night of Baudoin’s natal festivities was long gone, seized along with all of Delaunay’s holdings, but Cecilie Laveau-Perrin came at my side, and made a bargain with him that would have made an adept of Bryony House weep with envy.

Fifteen tokens, one for each of Phèdre’s surviving Boys, to grant free passage to any of the Thirteen Houses on the eve of Ysandre’s wedding. But he was no fool, Jareth Moran. My name and my tale were known, in some part, an odd scarlet thread in the tapestry of D’Angeline victory; Delaunay’s anguissette, who had survived slavery in Skaldia, who had ridden to Alba. I was born and bred to the Night Court, raised in Cereus House. The Dowayne opened his doors to Phèdre’s Boys, and traded on my name to restore a measure of luster to the mythos of the Night Court.

No matter that I’d had naught to do with him since I was ten years old and Delaunay came to claim me. I’d been born to it, which was true. And I kept my promise, which was what mattered to me.

For the last of it, I brought the deed to Hyacinthe’s house and his holdings to his crew in Night’s Doorstep, finding Emile as he had bid me, and giving into his keeping the deed that Hyacinthe had written on scraped parchment in the lonely tower of the Master of the Straits. Emile wept and kissed my hands, blessing me profusely; out of joy, in part, and out of sorrow for Hyacinthe’s fate, in larger part. It touched me, to see how much, truly, they had cared for him.

Prince of Travellers.

I made an offering, then, in his mother’s name, at the temple of Elua where we had gone together after Baudoin’s death. Clutching the scarlet anemones, damp with dew, I laid them at the base of the statue, kneeling to kiss Elua’s cool marble feet. "For Anasztaizia, daughter of Manoj," I murmured, smelling all around me the moist soil and green things growing, the deep shade of the mighty oaks. Far above me, Elua’s vast features bent an enigmatic smile through the gloaming twilight.

I knelt there a long while.

This time, it was Joscelin’s hands that bid me rise; but the priest of Elua was there, the same, I swear it, though all priests and priestesses resemble each other in some way, for they are all part of an unbroken line of service. He smiled at us, barefooted in the damp mast, hands in the sleeves of his robe.

"Cassiel’s child," he said gently, remonstrating Joscelin, "do not rush. You have stood at the crossroads and chosen, and like Cassiel, you will ever stand at the crossroads and choose, choose again and again, the path of the Companion. The choice lies ever within you, the crossroads and the way, and Elua’s commandment to point you on it."

Joscelin gave him a startled look, but the priest was already reaching out one hand, laying it upon my cheek.

"Kushiel’s Dart and Naamah’s Servant." He smiled, leaf-shadowed in the twilight; a smile of blessing, of remembrance, I thought. Who could say? I believed him the same priest. "Love as thou wilt, and Elua will ever guide your steps."

He left us to linger there.