Free Mélusine by Sarah Monette Page A

reasonably, so truthfully. "I will give him to you; in return, you will let me go on my way."

    "You are going to the Bastion."

    "Yes. I had been going there anyway. Felix begged me to take him with me. I do not know why. I refused. But after he broke the Virtu, I… reconsidered."

    Those sparks of blackness in the raging red corona around Stephen told me that Shannon had admitted our fight, confessed to the bruise. And Stephen had loathed me for years. He would believe any evil of me, and gladly.

    "I could take both of you," the bear growled. "You are as much a traitor as he."

    "Please, Lord Stephen, be reasonable. I am not a Cabaline. I have not sworn your ridiculous panoply of oaths. I am not even a citizen of Marathat. If I wish to visit the Empire, it is no one's business but my own. And I do not care to have my business interfered with. Take Felix, who is too far gone on phoenix to cause you any trouble, and let us part without further… unpleasantness."

    I could see that Stephen believed him about the phoenix, just as he seemed to believe that I would have broken the Virtu in consequence of a nasty piece of gossip and a lovers' quarrel. He sat and thought. I could see, too, that his fury was almost too great for him to think at all; it washed off him in great scarlet waves, splashing the riders and lapping against my feet.

    I wanted to move back, but Malkar's grip on my arm was too strong.

    "Malkar, please," I said, "please don't—"
    "Hush, Felix," the dog said. "Lord Stephen is thinking."
    The mockery in Malkar's voice acted on Stephen like spurs. "Very well," he said. "Give me Felix, and you can go. But do not think this is the end of it."

    "Not at all," Malkar said. "Thank you, my lord." He turned and caught me in a kiss that probably looked passionate, but was nothing more than a brutal, numbing intrusion, a blind for the compulsion he cast, winding me about in a shroud of briars, ensnaring me and silencing me, so that I could tell no one the truth, tell no one what he had done and how.

    He murmured, just loud enough for the riders to hear, "Good-bye, my darling," and pushed me suddenly toward Stephen. I stumbled halfway down the hill and dropped to my knees, drowning in a pool of bloody hate. Malkar had already swung onto his horse and spurred it away, over the top of the rise, the second horse running after.

    The bear dismounted, his movements deliberate with fury as he waded through the bloody surge of his own hatred, and grabbed me by my coat lapels, hauling me to my feet.

    "Do you know what you've done?" he said, his voice low, his eyes red and black and horrible. "Do you even care? The Curia managed to contain the damage, which I'm sure disappoints you, but every single spell has been weakened. Victoria says they may begin to unravel at any moment."

    He paused, waiting for me to make some response, but the briars and the abyss were all that were in my head, and they gave no answers. Stephen's grip tightened on my coat, and he went on, his hatred staining both of us with carmine guilt. "We haven't been this vulnerable since the days of Lucien Kingdom-Breaker. Every wizard in the Mirador has been working desperately to shore up our defenses since we realized what you had done. I shouldn't have taken Lady Vida away from that, but I thought her services as a member of the Curia would be required to hold you. I thought you'd put up a fight." He stopped, staring at me; the red blackness of his eyes was making me dizzy. "Why did you do it?" He shook me, a sharp, hard snap like a terrier killing a rat. I wished it had killed me. "Damn you, why?"

    I could not answer him; he shoved me away in disgust, sending me sprawling, and said, "Get this vermin away from me. And make sure you tie his hands."

    The riders surrounded me, tying my hands, pulling the ribbon out of my hair, shoving me roughly up onto a horse.

    "Do you have him, Vida?" the bear demanded.

    The lady is an obsidian statue with eyes of green