Prologue
What does it mean to be good?
When I was a child, I thought I knew. It was easy then. I knew nothing of my birth or my heritage. My childhood was spent in the Sanctuary of Elua, where I was a ward. My days were spent in worklike play: scrambling the mountainsides and tending goats with the other children of the Sanctuary, climbing trees and swimming in the swift stream while our charges grazed.
I was steeped in the precept of Blessed Elua: Love as thou wilt. And I did. I loved without reserve, freely and easily—my playmates, the priests and priestesses of the Sanctuary, the goats I tended, the earth beneath my feet and the sky above my head. I am a D'Angeline; I loved Terre d'Ange, the country of my birth. With all my heart, I loved our gods, Elua and his Companions, and I knew myself loved in return. I was happy. I never thought to be anything else.
When I was ten years old, everything changed.
I was stolen by Carthaginian slave-traders and sent on a journey into hell. And I thought I'd die there, but I didn't. I was rescued. I was brought out of damnation into safety.
And everything changed again.
In a distant fortress on the far verges of Khebbel-im-Akkad, the D'Angeline Queen's delegate bowed his head and greeted me as Imriel de la Courcel, Prince of the Blood.
All that I knew of myself was a lie.
I learned my father was Benedicte de la Courcel, the great-uncle of Queen Ysandre. For many years, he was her closest living relative in House Courcel. But by the time I heard the news, he was long dead. He was a traitor to the throne, and if he'd lived to be tried, he would have been convicted of it. He didn't, though.
My mother was another matter.
When I was eight years old, before I knew who she was, Brother Selbert took me to La Serenissima to see my mother. He had told me that my parents had been D'Angeline nobles who had died of an ague during a ship crossing, bequeathing me with their dying breaths to the priest as a ward of the Sanctuary. He told me that this woman had been a friend of my parents and would stand as my patron when I came of age. And he told me that she had dangerous enemies and that I must never speak of her, for it would put her in grave danger.
That last bit, at least, was true. I believed him. Why shouldn't I? I'd spent my life trusting him. But everything else was a lie. And he didn't tell me that she had earned each and every enemy she made. My father's treachery pales in comparison to her deeds. In all its history, Terre d'Ange has never known a deadlier traitor than Melisande Shahrizai de la Courcel.
My mother, whom I learned to despise.
In hindsight, it seems strange that I didn't recognize her at the time. And yet how was I to know? There were no mirrors in the Sanctuary of Elua. Betimes we children used to lean over the goat-bridge and peer at our wavering reflections in the stream's surface, but that was all. I was as ignorant of my features as I was of my identity.
Of course, that was before the slave-traders took me. Then I had ample opportunity to hear myself described. In the country of Drujan, they were looking for perfect, unblemished sacrifices. I was sold to one of the bone-priests who served the Mahrkagir, the ruler of all Drujan. The Mahrkagir was cruel, ruthless and utterly mad. And I was bought for his foul harem, the zenana in the palace of Daršanga. Beauty is scant comfort on a descent into hell.
I resemble my mother.
I know it now. I see it in mirrors—there are always mirrors, in my foster-mother Phèdre's household—and I hate it. I wear my mother's face. My eyes are her eyes, a deep twilight blue. My skin is her skin, a shadowed alabaster, the color of old ivory. I see the generous curve of her mouth reflected in my lips. My hair, like hers, grows in gleaming, blue-black waves.
The resemblance cannot be denied.
There are those—even now, after all she has done—who marvel that I don't welcome it. Although she was the greatest traitor our nation has known, Melisande Shahrizai was one of its greatest beauties, too. A deadly beauty, bright as the sun, keen as a blade. In certain circles, she is still admired for it. If there is a nation on the face of the earth with a people more vain than Terre d'Ange, I've yet to find it. And in my twelve years, I've seen more of the world than most D'Angelines will ever glimpse.
But I have seen beauty, and it does not wear my mother's face.
When I gaze in the mirror and see her features reflected in mine, I am filled with uncertainty. What does it mean to be good? When I look inside myself, I see only darkness and confusion. I do not know why what happened to me, happened. I do not know what I did to deserve it, or if I am bearing the price of my mother's sins. I fear the resemblance between us. I fear that one day I may prove to be like her. But when I look outside myself, it is easy to point to goodness. I was stolen out of paradise and sent into the depths of a depravity the likes of which decent folk couldn't begin to comprehend, but I was rescued. The ones who rescued me… when I think about what it means to be good, I think about them.
Phèdre.
Joscelin.
Phèdre.
I don't know—I will never know—where they found the courage to do what was needed to save me. Phèdre says that although it is my mother who charged her with the task, it was the will of Blessed Elua himself that sent her forth across that terrible threshold. I cannot reckon the cost. I know what the Mahrkagir did to her. All of us who were slaves in the Mahrkagir's zenana knew what he did to his favorites. I don't know how she endured it. And I don't know how Joscelin, Phedre's consort and protector, survived knowing the abuse she suffered at the Mahrkagir's hands without succumbing to madness.
I love them so much that it hurts inside.
I am theirs, now; their foster-son. Queen Ysandre allowed it, although she has little liking for the arrangement. My mother consented willingly to it; indeed, she made a concession that it might come to pass. As far as I know, it is one of the only concessions my mother has ever made in her life. Although they have been opponents in her intrigues, there is a bond of long standing between her and Phèdre. I don't understand it, and I don't want to; I think, somehow, that I will rue the day I ever do. My mother remains in sanctuary in the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea in La Serenissima. Unlike my father, she was tried and convicted of high treason long before I was born. Her life is forfeit if ever she sets a foot beyond the temple walls.
She writes me letters, which I don't read. I tried to burn the first letter she sent, but Phèdre snatched it from the brazier. After that, she began keeping them for me. She says that I will want them one day, and mayhap it is true. In my short life, I've seen many things no one would have believed possible. But I cannot ever imagine wanting to read my mother's words.
It doesn't happen often, but sometimes Phèdre is wrong.
It is strange, now, to think how I despised her at first. In the zenana of Daršanga, Phèdre nó Delaunay, the Comtesse de Montrève, did not look like a heroine bent on my rescue. She looked like a D'Angeline courtesan, delicate and lovely, and willing to wallow in the foulest depravity the Mahrkagir offered. It was true, too. For that, I hated her. I hated her so much I could barely stand to look at her. And Joscelin… Joscelin, too. I thought he had betrayed all that was noble and good about Terre d'Ange, sinking as low as a warrior can go.
I was wrong.
They were more, so much more. They were my salvation, and the salvation of many others. Not all, but many. A deadly evil was removed from the world the night that we—all of us together in the zenana—overthrew the Mahrkagir's forces. It was Blessed Elua's will, Phèdre says. Perhaps that, too, is true. I wish to believe it. In the daylight, enfolded in their affection, it is easy. We are a family. We emerged from the terrible stronghold of Daršanga, the three of us, damaged and broken, and healed ourselves into a new whole.
I pray that what befell us will never come again, not so long as I live.
Whatever becomes of me, I will live my life in the shadow of greatness, but I will never begrudge it. When all is said and done, I do not think I have greatness in me. I would like to, but I don't. Not like Phèdre; not like Joscelin, whose role was even harder in some ways, who ever stood at her side, whose scars bear testament to his courage and valor. All I want to do is come to manhood in a manner that does not disgrace those I love.
This, I pray, is not too much to ask.
In the daylight, I can be happy and filled with hope. Sometimes the emotions well within me so strongly—love, joy—that it feels as though my skin is too tight, as though my heart will burst out of my chest. And I am happy, and glad to be alive.
But the nights are different. At night, I remember. I remember the Mahrkagir and his fathomless black eyes; the things he did to me, and the things he made me do. I remember his voice, whispering joyous promises of agonies to come. I remember the others, the warlords who made a plaything of me. I remember the lash against my skin and the agonizing sizzle of a branding iron, the stink of my own seared flesh. At times I dream and wake myself screaming.
It is hard, then, to believe in goodness.
Still, I try. I try not to think too hard about the tangled threads of destiny that led me into hell as a child, and out the other side as something at once more and less. I lost my childhood in Dar anga, but I have reclaimed bits of it, here and there. Most of all in Montrève, Phedre's estate. She inherited it from her lord Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève, who bought her marque when she was but a child, who adopted her as she had adopted me. But that is a long story and not mine to tell.
Montrève lies in the foothills of the D'Angeline province of Siovale. It reminds me of my childhood at the Sanctuary of Elua. There, I am at home. I am Imriel nó Montrève, not Imriel de la Courcel. I have the mountains, the mews and the kennels, and even friends—the seneschals of the estate have a clan of good-natured youngsters. I would be content to stay there always. So too, I think, would Joscelin, for he has little love for Court intrigue. But the Queen demands her due and betimes we must return to the City of Elua and attend her. Joscelin is her acclaimed Champion, and Phèdre is one of her most valued confidantes.
And I am a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne.
It is the blood of Blessed Elua that runs in my veins, at least on my father's side. I have never boasted of it. Elua and his Companions spread their seed widely; there is no one in Terre d'Ange who cannot claim descent from one or another. But the Great Houses have kept their lines pure, or so they claim. It is a source of pride and vanity, and at times, intolerable prejudice.
I should know. I was conceived because Benedicte de la Courcel wished to provide Terre d'Ange with a purebred D'Angeline heir. He thought the goal worthy of treason.
To her credit, Queen Ysandre does not subscribe to this vision. Her marriage was a love-match to Drustan mab Necthana, the Cruarch of Alba. Together, they rule over two countries. I like Drustan very well, and wish that I liked the Queen better. It is hard for me. I travelled with Phèdre and Joscelin for a long time after I was rescued. Ysandre was angry, so angry, that it took them so long to restore me to Terre d'Ange. She didn't understand that I needed to be with them. And I didn't understand her anger.
It was a cold anger. Phèdre, who forgave her for it long ago, says it was the Queen's right to be concerned about the safety of her kin. Still, I am uneasy with Queen Ysandre. It is unfair, I suppose, when she had championed me against the united mistrust of the peers of the realm. There are those who would gladly see me dead, despising the fact that Melisande Shahrizai's son is three heartbeats away from the throne.
Such is the dubious gift of my mother's legacy. The mistrust of these nobles is deserved. If my mother had triumphed, if her intrigues had born fruit, even now I might be sitting upon the throne of Terre d'Ange, a boy-king with a treacherous regent.
And yet I have no such desire. I would be content to be left in peace, to be Imriel nó Montrève, would the world allow it. To spend my days hawking and hunting and fishing, learning from Joscelin the fighting skills of the warrior priests of the Cassiline Brotherhood, listening to such tutors as Phèdre lures to the estate, bickering and coming of age among the children of her seneschals. This, I know, is not to be. Yet I will cling to it for as long as I may.
Until I can't, anyway.
I fear my mother's legacy will make it difficult. It is only on my father's side that I am descended from Blessed Elua. My mother's lineage is different. The Shahrizai are among the Great Houses of Terre d'Ange; but they are not descended from Blessed Elua, but from one of his Companions. Their blood is very old and very pure, and it is that lineage that frightens me. They are Kushiel's scions.
Kushiel's name means "the rigid one of God," and he was once charged with administering punishment to the damned, but abandoned his post to accompany Blessed Elua in his wanderings. It is said that he had an excess of compassion for his charges. It is said that they, in turn, loved him so well that they wept with gratitude beneath his lash. This I find difficult to believe. And yet, in Terre d'Ange, his temples endure.
Sometimes Phèdre visits the temples of Kushiel. What absolution she finds there under the lash, I cannot comprehend. I know that when she returns, she is tranquil and at peace. Joscelin says it is a mystery in the truest sense of the word. Although he will never be easy with it, there are things he grasps that are beyond my ken.
Me, I cannot fathom it. I know that she is an anguissette, Kushiel's Chosen. She was marked by it for all the world to see; Kushiel's Dart, a mote of scarlet in her eye. I understand that she is condemned to find pleasure in pain, and that somehow this redresses an imbalance in the world. I know, too, the source of this imbalance: my mother, Kushiel's greatest scion, born without benefit of a conscience.
