That was all I got out before a commotion broke out near the entrance to the salon. There was a babble of voices and a moment of confusion, then members of the Royal Guard formed a cordon. Hurrying between them in the swirling crimson robes of Naamah's Order was a familiar figure, her face pale and stark.
Noemie d'Etoile.
My heart sank as my worst fears came home to roost.
"Moirin!" She gasped my name and caught my hands. "Your father—"
I wanted to cover my ears. "Is he—?"
"No." Noemie shuddered. "But he's ill, gravely ill. He's lain ill all winter." Tears shone in her warm hazel eyes. "I'm so sorry, child! I was sure it was just Phanuel's usual wandering."
My mind reeled. "How ill?"
"Very." Her hands tightened on mine. "They say you've a gift?"
The salon had gone quiet, watching and listening. On the dais, Jehanne had risen to her feet and was making her way toward us. I couldn't get my thoughts in order. "I….. no. Not alone."
"Hold," King Daniel said in a deep, firm voice. "Sister, tell the tale from beginning to end."
It braced her. Noemie d'Etoile caught her breath and told her tale. When the snows had melted, another wandering priest of the order had visited a remote hamlet in Namarre, a village so small it hadn't a name, pursuing the rumor of a woodcutter's daughter, a young woman of extraordinary beauty and a possible recruit to Naamah's Service.
He had found her.
She was tending to my father. In the depths of winter, not long before the Longest Night, my father had wandered into the village, fevered and delirious. The woodcutter's family had taken him in. They had hoped he would rally come spring, but instead his condition had worsened.
Now…..
"Brother Ramiel recognized him," Noemie whispered. "He dispatched the nearest reputable physician, then came straightaway to the temple. Moirin….. it's an affliction of the lungs. He's having difficulty breathing. Brother Ramiel was not hopeful."
My father, my lovely, gentle father who trailed grace in his wake.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
Raphael.
I needed Raphael.
I said the words aloud. "I need Raphael de Mereliot."
And then Jehanne was there, her hands gripping my upper arms with that unexpected strength. "Go to him," she said, soft and urgent. "Beg if you need to. Raphael owes you. Remind him. Tell him I'll beg, too." Her gaze was steady. "Do whatever is needful."
I went, stumbling, accompanied by an escort of guards dispatched by the King.
At Raphael's townhouse, the maid Daphne answered my knock. She regarded me with open hostility. "What do you want?"
I stood shivering on the doorstep. "I need to speak to Raphael, Daphne. Is he here?" She didn't answer. "Please? It's very urgent. Will you at least tell him I'm here?"
"Wait here." She closed the door in my face.
I waited.
For long moments, I thought he meant to turn me away. I wrapped my cloak tight around me, trying to quell my shivering. I couldn't concentrate well enough to breathe properly. I wouldn't leave, though. If Raphael refused to see me, I'd damn well lay on his doorstep until he relented.
But at length Raphael came to the door, his eyes bloodshot, the smell of alcohol on him. He regarded me and my guards with profound distaste. "To what do I owe the honor of a visit from the royal bedwarmer?"
"May I speak to you?" I asked humbly. "It's about my father. He's very ill."
His jaw tightened. With a curt nod, he beckoned me inside. "You and you alone. The guards stay outside."
In the marble foyer, I poured out my tale. Raphael listened with folded arms. I finished by pleading for his aid.
"You humiliated me, Moirin," he said when I was done, slow and deliberate. "You made me the laughingstock of the City. And now you beg me to ride posthaste all the way to Namarre to assist you?"
"I do." I dropped to my knees. "Raphael, please! I did a great many services for you, too. I helped you save the life of someone dear to you. Can you not find it in your heart to do the same for me?"
"In exchange for what?" His tone was neutral.
I swallowed. "What do you wish?"
A cruel edge crept into his voice. "Would you forsake Jehanne?"
I thought of her steady gaze. Do whatever is needful, she had said. I bowed my head, my heart aching at the thought of betraying her. "Is that your price?"
"No." Raphael grabbed my chin and forced it upward. "You were always more use to me out of bed than in it, Moirin. My price is this: When we are finished in Namarre, you will assist the Circle with one last summoning. You will swear to do this and to speak to no one of our bargain. Do you agree?"
I hesitated, then nodded. "I agree."
He let go my chin. "Swear it. Swear it by the oath of your people, the oath the magician Berlik swore."
I took a deep breath. "I swear by stone and sea and sky, and all that they encompass, that I will assist the Circle with one last summoning and speak to no one of our bargain. I swear it by the sacred troth that binds me to my diadh-anam!"
"Good." Raphael shouted for his footman Jean-Michel, who came at a run. "Pack a pair of saddlebags and see that my medical kit's in order," he said brusquely. "I'm riding to Namarre."
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
With Brother Ramiel for a guide and an escort of four royal guardsmen and a footman, Raphael de Mereliot and I rode to Namarre.
It was a horribly uncomfortable journey.
For the first few days, Raphael didn't deign to speak to me. Brother Ramiel made some effort to soothe the troubled waters between us, but he didn't have my father's gift and Raphael's determined silence soon quelled him. I'd come to be friendly with a number of the Queen's guards, but these were the King's men and strangers to me.
We pushed the horses as hard as we dared, and I was grateful for the times when a swift pace made conversation impossible. When we slowed to a walk, the silence was deafening.
All around us, the world was awakening from winter's sleep, the last snows melting, trees beginning to bud. Any other time, I would have taken joy in it. Now all that burgeoning life seemed a cruel reminder that I didn't know if we'd find my father alive or dead.
On the fourth day, Raphael's shell of silence cracked.
"I don't understand it," he announced out of nowhere. "You have a gift, Moirin. A gift no one else in the world possesses. Gods! You have the potential to do great things." He turned his frustrated gaze on me. "Why in the name of Blessed buggering Elua would you give it up to become Jehanne's lap-dog?"
The others kneed their mounts and jogged a discreet distance ahead of us.
"I didn't," I said softly. "Raphael, whatever gift I possess, it was never what you wanted it to be. It's not endless. I'm not endless. Using it as I was on your behalf was killing me slowly."
His nostrils flared. "And yet you're willing to use it on your father's behalf."
"Aye," I said. "Call me selfish if you will. I only just met him. I don't want to lose him."
"How nice for you to be given that choice," Raphael said bitterly.
I closed my eyes, remembering. The cold water, the uplifting arms, the ragged voice. "I'm sorry."
He lowered his voice. "One success in the Circle's endeavor could save a thousand fathers' lives."
"So you say." I felt weary.
"Oh, the prospects are real." Raphael rubbed his nose. "I've proof of it. The goddamned ants are coming out of hibernation."
I wanted to say that it was a trick, that the spirits they summoned were ancient and clever, and it was always going to be a trick. But in the back of my mind, I heard the black-maned lion Marbas' soundless roar, and the topaz gem he had placed in my thoughts winked. The charm to reveal hidden things, a gift unasked for. So I kept my thoughts to myself and said only, "I gave you my oath. I'll do as you wish."
"Good."
"Raphael….." I wished there were some way I could reach him. "Why does it matter so much? Why do you want it so badly?"
He didn't answer for a moment. "If you have to ask, you'll never understand."
"I might if you told me," I said.
Raphael glanced at me, then looked away, his mouth hardening. "Practice your lap-dog skills elsewhere, Queen's confidante. I told you once before to stay out of my head. I'm telling you again."
"It might be good for you to speak of it," I murmured.
"Gods!" He raised his gaze skyward. "Why in Blessed Elua's name did destiny place you in my path if not for somewhat truly worthwhile? It makes no sense!"
My diadh-anam pulsed inside me, faint but insistent. "I'd like to know that myself."
"Well, you'll not find the answer in Jehanne's bed," he said in a cruel tone.
"Did you?" I asked pointedly. Raphael looked back at me, eyes darkening with anger. I held his gaze. I had as much right to be angry as he did.
In the end, he broke off his gaze. "This isn't conducive to healing. Better we not talk than quarrel, Moirin."
"All right."
The uncomfortable silence returned. We lodged at wayside inns. In the common rooms, the guards spoke quietly among themselves. Brother Ramiel told me tales of my father, trying to raise my spirits. Raphael was silent, attended by his manservant.
Two days later, under Brother Ramiel's guidance, we turned off the main road onto a narrow dirt track. It was near dusk when we reached the nameless hamlet. Folk turned out to gape at our fine attire and the guards in their livery of Courcel blue, pointing the way to the woodcutter's cabin.
It sat on the verge of the Senescine Forest, a humble building of expertly hewn logs. There was a chill in the air and smoke curled from the chimney. My heart thundered in my chest.
Before Brother Ramiel could knock, a woman opened the door. She was work-worn but lovely, tears in her eyes. "You're here! Elua be thanked!"
"He lives?" I forced the words out.
She hesitated. "His breath yet clouds a mirror."
Raphael was already in motion, dismounting and unlashing the bag that carried his medical supplies. He met my eyes and there was no hostility in his gaze, only a healer's intense concentration. "Come with me."
The cabin was small and cramped, warmed only by a cooking stove. The woodcutter bowed as we entered. A slender figure kneeling beside a cot on the far side of the stove rose, golden hair glowing in the dim light. A mirror flashed in her hand.
On the cot lay my father.
He looked like a newly dead corpse, frail and bloodless. His skin was translucent and the beautiful bones of his face were too prominent, the hollows of his eyes sunken. He was utterly motionless, not even his hest rising and falling. An involuntary keening sound burst from my throat.
"Moirin." Raphael caught my wrist. "Be strong."
I nodded.
Raphael borrowed the girl's mirror and knelt, holding it to my father's lips. After an eternity, it clouded faintly. "How long has he been this way?"
"Two days, messire." Her voice was low and steady despite the threat of tears in it. "I done give him all the medicaments and poultices that the physician the good Brother Ramiel sent gave us, but he only done worsened and worsened."
"You did very well," he said soothingly. "The infection in his lungs had taken too deep a grip."
I waited in an agony of suspense while Raphael examined my father, taking his pulses and listening to his chest, rubbing his hands together and hovering them over his body. The woodcutter's daughter eyed me with wonder.
"You're his daughter," she said in awe. "The Queen's witch." Aye.
"I never seen anyone like you," she said simply. "He kept asking for his daughter. Seemed to give him comfort when I tended to him. Can't think how he'd mistake us."
I spared her a glance. She was truly a rustic beauty, golden-haired and blue-eyed, clad in a homespun gown. "You tended to him with a daughter's loving care. I daresay that was what he sensed, and I'm grateful for it."
She flushed. "I done my best."
"Moirin." Raphael lifted his tawny head, his expression grave. "There's no time to waste. Are you ready?"
Panic washed through me. I pushed it away and sank to my knees beside him. I forced myself to cycle through the Five Styles of Breathing, drawing energy from the earth below me, the memory of the ocean, the trees around us, the embers glowing in the stove, and the very air itself.
Raphael rubbed his hands together, his gift rising and calling to mine. He splayed his hands over my father's chest.
"Now!"
I placed my hands over his and summoned the twilight, breathing it out.
I poured my energy into Raphael.
More.
More.
More.
We were three entities and we were one, conjoined. The water-wheel of my spirit's energy turned. I spilled into Raphael; he spilled into my father. Pushing, pushing at the thick congestion that clogged his lungs. Coaxing at the spark of life that lingered. The wheel turned and turned. I emptied myself heedlessly, turn after turn of the wheel. Golden warmth spilled from Raphael's hands. In a distant part of myself, I wondered what would happen when the stream ran dry. The stone doorway beckoned.
My father woke and coughed.
Raphael pushed harder, his brow beaded with sweat, damp hair hanging in his eyes. I poured the last of myself I had to give into him.