She wrinkled her nose at me. “Why would you think that?”
“Well,” I said, feeling foolish. “In my experience, women do. There’s naught Phèdre likes better than planning a fête. Your mother, too.”
We were lying in bed. Sidonie shook her head, her hair loose over her bare shoulders. “I used to hate formal occasions. All the stares, folk muttering about Ysandre’s half-breed heirs tainting House Courcel’s pure bloodline. It was worse for Alais because she looks less D’Angeline than I do. I told you how much I hated the fact that I couldn’t keep the gossip from hurting her.” She traced the scarred welt on my left thigh. “It’s different now. I’ve learned to enjoy fêtes and I’m looking forward to ours. But I’d rather plan somewhat larger. And I’d rather do it with you.”
I ran my fingers through her hair. “An academy of magic?”
“Mayhap.” She shot me a look. “We could start smaller. I did promise Amarante to see a new Temple of Naamah dedicated in the City if she would return and stay. And she has.”
“Ah.” I smiled. “Well, if there’s anyone owes Naamah a temple, it’s you and I.” I circled the pink disk between her shoulder blades. “Kratos is of the opinion that the City of Elua needs a palaestra. I fear he’s growing bored.”
Sidonie shivered. “Don’t, please.”
“Talk of Kratos?” I asked.
“No.” She peered over her shoulder. “I hate it, that’s all.”
I flattened my palm against her skin. “It’s a badge of honor, love.”
“I know.” Sidonie sat upright, quick and deft. “But I still hate it. More than I hated gossip.” She straddled my lap and stroked my chest, her eyes dark and grave. “Your scars are a reminder of love and loss, of struggle and sacrifice and honor. Mine’s just a reminder of Astegal.”
I pulled her against me and kissed her. “Who?”
Her gaze softened. “No one.”
Fall turned into winter; a quiet season, a fallow season. The Palace was filled with a fresh crop of young peers embarking on the Game of Courtship. The Hall of Games was filled once more with activity, though its jocularity wasn’t quite the same.
For the most part, Sidonie and I ignored it. We made love and we made plans. A temple, an academy, a palaestra. Anything and everything was possible. She’d had a taste of what the burden of rulership would be like, and I of what it would be like to share it with her. Now, before the burden fell on our shoulders in earnest, we had time to dream and begin the work of bringing our dreams to life.
Some would be easily brought to fruition, like the temple. We had in mind that it would be a haven dedicated to oppressed lovers, a cozy little sanctuary. It was a fitting tribute. I proposed building it on the site of the burned Tsingani house.
“It would still serve as a reminder,” I said. “But it would be a more uplifting one. There’s enough guilt and shame.”
We debated whether or not that was a good thing, whether or not it would be disrespectful to the memories of the Tsingani who had died. We met with members of Naamah’s priesthood and wrote to the Lady Bérèngere, who was the head of the order.
And we went to Night’s Doorstep and met with Emile at the Cockerel and spoke with many of the Tsingani who frequented the inn and lived in the quarter. It made me smile to see Sidonie among them, listening gravely to their concerns. In the end, everyone seemed pleased by the idea, and we proceeded to consult with various architects.
The academy would be an infinitely larger and more challenging project. If it were to happen, it truly would be our legacy. For now we merely talked about it, debating where it might be, debating its nature. Would it be an institution of pure academic study or would we seek practitioners of arcane arts to teach the actual practice? Should there be a philosophical component? What rules should govern the practice of magic? To whom should the practitioners be accountable? Where to even begin?
They were questions to be settled over the course of a lifetime, like as not questions that would outlive us.
That was all right.
We had a lifetime.
And we had the nights—a hundred thousand nights that Blessed Elua in his mercy had granted us. Neither of us ever forgot that each night we spent together was a blessing, and long as the winter nights were, they passed swiftly.
The Longest Night came and went, celebrated with somber joy. The nights grew shorter and fled ever more quickly.
Spring came.
The trees greened and flowers blossomed. Workers began clearing the burnt debris from the site where Naamah’s new temple would be built. Pledges to attend our wedding began flooding in from far afield.
Some of them surprised me. My Serenissiman cousin Severio Stregazza and his wife planned to come. I’d met him only once, long ago. Some surprised and delighted me. I’d sent word to Lucius Tadius da Lucca, having kept up an intermittent correspondence with him all these years. Lucius was coming. Some of them honored me. Hyacinthe would be attending, the Master of the Straits and his family. And some, like Eamonn and Brigitta, simply delighted me.
“You’ve touched a good many lives, Imriel,” Sidonie observed.
“A good many lives have touched mine,” I said in reply.
I thought in those days about the ones who wouldn’t be attending. Women killed in the Mahrkagir’s zenana; and those who had survived. If I could have chosen one soul among the living, it would have been Kaneka, the strong-willed Jebean woman whose courage had been an inspiration to us all. On that long, grueling voyage with Phèdre and Joscelin to find the Name of God, Kaneka’s home village had been the first place I’d remembered what it meant to be happy.
I hoped she was there with a love and children of her own, dandling them on her knee and telling them stories. Telling them of dire magics and unlikely heroes.
And I thought of Dorelei.
Often.
Sidonie came upon me unexpectedly one day in our quarters, sitting cross-legged on the balcony and playing the wooden flute that Hugues had given me. I’d never played it for her. I didn’t know she was there until I stopped and felt her presence.
“That’s a pretty tune,” she said softly behind me.
I lowered the flute. “It’s a silly song. I learned it as a child.”
“I thought it might be.” Sidonie rested her hands lightly on my shoulders. I’d told her things she remembered. How I used to make Dorelei laugh by playing a child’s goatherding song. “Will you play it again?”
I did.
She bent down to kiss me. “Dorelei wanted you to be happy.”
“I know,” I murmured. “That’s what hurts.”
“I know,” Sidonie said.
Private griefs, private shames. There were some we could never share with one another, not wholly. But that was all right, too. We knew one another. We bore our scars and carried our memories as best we could. We watched the pale green leaves darken and broaden, spring hurtling toward summer. We watched Ysandre stew and fret over the preparations for our wedding, silk tents blossoming on the greensward of the royal gardens. We made our plans, made love, whispered words of solace and passion to each other.
Elua knows, there was passion.
Less than a week before our wedding, I caught Sidonie conspiring with Amarante in our quarters.
“—don’t want to risk blasphemy,” she said.
Amarante’s voice was tranquil. “I would never have suggested it if I thought it did. But if it eases your mind, my mother agrees that it’s not.”
“What’s not?” I asked without announcing myself.
They both glanced at me and fell silent. Sidonie’s dark eyes narrowed; Amarante’s, calm and apple-green, her gaze as steady as it had been the day she’d helped me stitch Alais’ dog’s wounds.
“Nothing,” Sidonie said.
“Not yet,” Amarante added.
“Fine.” I leaned down to kiss them both. “Keep your secrets.”
Whatever it was, it didn’t trouble me. I trusted Amarante without question. She’d kept Sidonie’s secrets for as long as she’d been her companion, and she’d kept our secrets when it would have meant the Queen’s wrath on her head. Without her aid, we might never have found the means to carve out enough time to discover that our feelings for one another ran far deeper than the lure of the forbidden. And I daresay there were secrets of Sidonie’s that she kept even now. If Sidonie needed to speak of Astegal, to tell someone things she couldn’t bear to tell me, it would be to Amarante that she’d turn.
The City swelled. Peers from all over the realm came, guests from overseas. The Palace was a whirl of activity. The inns were crowded and there wasn’t a townhouse to be rented. Every night there was a new fête to attend.
Terre d’Ange had come out of mourning.
I was reunited with old friends and introduced them to new ones. Eamonn and Brigitta brought with them a strapping one-year-old boy with bright blue eyes and a thatch of ruddy hair. Lucius arrived with his satyr’s grin, unaccompanied by family. Raul and Colette returned from Aragonia accompanied by Nicola, who had played a role in brokering the peace there and ensuring Serafin’s succession to the throne. Maslin de Lombelon arrived unannounced, smiling crookedly at my surprise. The Lady of Marsilikos arrived accompanied by both her son and daughter. The Shahrizai came in numbers. The Cruarch’s flagship brought Hyacinthe and Sibeal and their two children, grown startling older than my memories placed them. Urist was in Alais’ vanguard, serving once more as commander of the garrison of Clunderry.
There was sorrow mixed in with the joy.
But mostly there was joy.
We needed it, all of us. And so we toasted the mourned dead and celebrated the living. I watched Joscelin glower at the sight of Phèdre laughing with Severio Stregazza, who had once offered for her hand, and smiled as Nicola succeeded in coaxing him into a better mood. I heard Maslin’s tales of his adventures in distant Vralia and the changes yet brewing there. I watched Mavros flirt unabashedly with an amused Lucius, and decided that Master Piero’s best pupil could hold his own against my obstreperous cousin. I listened to Eamonn and Brigitta’s animated account of developing their own philosophical academy, making notes in my thoughts.
And I watched Sidonie.
It seemed we were parted more often than not at each glittering affair. There was too much clamor for our attention. But we always knew where the other was. Time and again, I would glance across a crowded room and find her gaze meeting mine.
Two days before our wedding, I didn’t see her at all. She departed with Amarante, bound, I thought, for a last fitting with Favrielle nó Eglantine, but day turned into evening without her return. The guards bade me not to worry, but they would say naught of her whereabouts. I attended a fête hosted by Lady Nicola, thinking to see Sidonie there.
“No,” Nicola said, her eyes dancing. “Her highness sent her regrets. It is her hope that you might make an early night of it. You’ll not be seeing each other on the eve of the wedding.”
My pulse quickened. “Ah.”
Nicola laughed and made a shooing gesture. “Go to her.”
I returned to our quarters to find them ablaze with candlelight and Sidonie awaiting me. All the attendants had been dismissed and the drapes were drawn. The air in the room took on a charge. I could feel the blood beating in my veins.
“You planned this well, love,” I said.
Sidonie gave me a quick smile. “I have somewhat to show you.”
I raised my brows. “Oh?”
She took a deep breath. “Will you see?”
The words sparked a faint memory of a tale Phèdre had told me long ago about her foster-brother Alcuin and their lord and mentor Anafiel Delaunay. Those three simple words were the formal request made by adepts of the Night Court on completing their marques. The debt was not fully concluded until the marque was acknowledged. I gazed at Sidonie, the air quivering between us. She looked young and a little uncertain.
“Present yourself,” I said.
She undid the laces of her bodice and pushed her gown from her shoulders. It fell around her ankles in a shimmering pool of amber silk. She stepped neatly out of it and removed her undergarments. Candlelight made her naked skin glow. I forced myself to breathe slowly. Sidonie gathered her clothing and placed it carefully over the arm of the couch.
And then she knelt as I’d taught her, clasping her hands behind her neck. But there was one difference. She turned and knelt with her back to me.
My breath caught in my throat. “Ah, love!”
A sunburst. Astegal’s scar formed the center of it, the pink disk turned to gold. Gold lines radiated outward, edged in black for definition. I walked forward and touched it. It was a bit larger than the span of my hand, perfectly centered between her shoulder blades.
I remembered Amarante assuring her there was naught blasphemous in whatever they were plotting. Now I understood.
“It’s your mark.” Sidonie’s voice shook. “Do you like it?”
“No.” I circled her, stooped. Took her chin in my hands and tipped her face up toward mine. I kissed her until I felt her body sway toward me, yearning warring with obedience, fear warring with desire. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. I love it. And I love you.”
She made a soft sound and slid her arms around my neck, kissing me. I gathered her in my arms and carried her into the bedchamber where a dozen more candles blazed. I laid her on the bed and opened the door of the cupboard that stood beside the bed.
“What will you, Princess?” I asked gravely.
