Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey

Author:Jacqueline Carey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780446500029
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 2006-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Thirty-Eight

"Water."

Master Piero perched on the low ledge surrounding the Fountain of the Chariot and dipped one cupped hand in the pool, raising it to let the water trickle through his fingers. It sparkled in the sunlight, bright enough to make me squint. My eyes felt raw and sand-scoured, and if I looked too long at the brightness, spots danced before them.

"It sustains and cleanses us, does it not?" he continued. "And yet we may drown in it." He wiped his hands. "What else is like water?"

"Fire," someone said. "For it, too, sustains us; and it, too, can kill."

"Earth," another voice offered; Akil, the Umaiyyati. "All things grow from it, but in my country, a man may be buried alive in the sifting sands."

"In truth, all the elements, Master," Lucius observed. "For without air, we die, but we starve on a steady diet of it."

"So." Master Piero smiled at him. "When the elements are in balance, there is life. Where there is imbalance, there is death. Is this a true statement?"

I stifled a yawn and struggled to focus on the conversation. Like as not, I should have pleaded illness that day. But I'd barely made it back to the insula before Gilot awoke, and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of chiding me. So I'd saved the tale of the murdered cudgel-wielder for later, poured a bucket of water over my head, put on a fresh shirt, and gone to Master Piero's lecture.

It felt strange.

I felt strange.

I felt like a man caught in someone else's dream. The sunlight, the fountain, the conversation of Master Piero and the students… all seemed unreal. Even the dead man in the empty street seemed unreal. There was a bottomless black well of profound exhaustion inside me, and at every instant my awareness threatened to succumb to it.

And there, beyond the brink, a bedroom lit with a hundred candles awaited, and Claudia, Claudia, Claudia. Kneeling, lips and hands devouring me. Naked, her breasts swaying as she crawled. Beneath me, astride me, taking her pleasure. Her yielding flesh, her avid mouth.

Uttering words, ripping my world asunder.

A room like a temple, a bed like an altar. But ah, Elua! No love. There was no love between us. Nothing sacred, not even pride. Only dark intrigue and desire like a conflagration, desire deep enough to drown. I wanted to put my hands around her throat and choke her until she gasped out the whole truth. I wanted to take her until she begged for mercy.

"Imriel."

I caught myself with a jerk, shaking my head to dispel the images in it. "Master?"

"We have spoken of the physical elements," he said patiently. "But in what other elements does imbalance bring about harm?"

"And don't say 'love,' D'Angeline," Aulus muttered.

I scrubbed my face with my hands. "Why not?" I asked. "After all, it does. A love that is not reciprocated in equal measure may hurt and breed bitterness."

He flushed and looked away.

"Wherein lies the fault if it breeds bitterness?" Brigitta challenged.

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