Uru-Azag frowned, brows meeting over his hawklike nose. "Who will kill the guards?" he asked.

"You?"

"No." I shook my head. "The Mahrkagir calls him the Bringer of Omens."

The Akkadian laughed with harsh delight. "Him! Ah, then, I see."

"You will do it?"

He stared into the distance over my head, weighing the matter. "You are mad, you know. It is likely that we will all die."

"It is possible," I said. I thought of Erich's words. Like the Skaldi, the Akkadians had been warriors, once. "It would be a warrior's death, Uru-Azag. Not a slave's."

"It would." He looked at me. "Nariman will be a problem. I will kill him myself. It will be a pleasure to slit his fat throat."

I repressed my surge of relief and only nodded. "And the others?"

"They will fight." He smiled grimly. "It would shame them not to. Your god, lady, must be a mighty warrior, to inspire such courage."

A hysterical laugh caught in my throat. "No," I said, half-choking on it. "But he is a prodigious lover.

Believe me, Uru-Azag, in this place, it is the more dangerous of the two."

The Akkadian only looked at me askance, and went about his business. It didn't matter. They thought me mad, god-touched. It had made me a pariah, before. Now it made me an icon, a catalyst. The signs had spoken . . . Kaneka's dice, the ringing tone's of Kushiel's presence, the Skaldi's return to life. It was enough. He would fight; they would all fight. It left Imriel to be told. I had not done it yet.

On the first day, I had gone to see him after Kaneka and I had finished. Drucilla had examined him - this time, he had allowed it. He had been beaten with a lash, and there were marks of branding on the skin of his buttocks; Kereyit runes, indicating possession as one might mark a herd-animal. Prohibited from possessing him, Jagun had nonetheless marked Imriel as his own. He was not injured badly, as such things went in the zenana, meaning he would not die of it. She had slathered his welts and burns with Tatar horse liniment and gave him a dose of valerian against the pain, from a store she normally held in reserve for the dying.

Imriel was half-drowsing by the time I saw him, and I hadn't the heart to rouse him. I sat on the end of his couch and watched him.

"Phedre," he murmured. "Did my mother really send you?"

"Yes, Imri." I stroked his fine blue-black hair. "She really did."

"How did she know I was here?"

"She didn't," I said softly. "But Blessed Elua did."

I thought he might protest it, but his unfocused gaze merely wandered. "When you shouted," he whispered. "When you shouted ... it made me think of home, and the statue of Elua in the poppy-field . . .

one of the goats used to follow me there, Niniver was her name, and she crawled under the fence . . . she was so little and I fed her with a bottle when her mother died, and Liliane helped me, and she would crawl under the fence and follow me ..."

His voice had drifted into silence and he had fallen asleep. I stayed with him until I was sure he would not awaken, aching with helpless tenderness. I had borne such marks upon my own skin-but I was Kushiel's Chosen, and it was of my own volition. I had entered Naa-mah's Service as an adult, aware of my own choices. Such a fate was never meant for a child. I waited until his breathing deepened in sleep, and then went at last to bathe.

Afterward, he was fevered-out of trauma, Drucilla said, and not infection, but he talked aloud in his dreams, rambling, and I feared what he might say. "Be glad it's only talking," Drucilla said darkly, and I didn't know what she meant, not then.

It mattered naught to the Mahrkagir, who sent Imriel to attend to the Kereyit warlord in the hall the next night, and the next. The feasting continued, and games of combat, too. Again, Joscelin had to fight. He made it quicker, this time, conscious, I think, of ImriePs fearful gaze. The boy actually shrank back against Jagun when Joscelin passed him. I could have wept to see it, though I understood. Melisande's treachery had taken me thus. For a D'Angeline to betray his country is an unspeakable deed.

After the combat, someone called out for Joscelin to fight Tahmuras, and the shouts of accord rose, wagers being placed. I do not think the massive Persian would have been anything loathe to do it. He glowered under his brows, toying with the haft of his morningstar, a bitter smile on his lips. I had seen him in battle, and I knew enough to be scared. Peerless swordsman or no, it was not a weapon Joscelin had faced before-and the giant was preternaturally gifted with it. Joscelin bowed calmly to the Mahrkagir, awaiting his pleasure, only a faint tightening of his jaw giving any hint of reserve. "What do you say?" the Mahrkagir asked, laughing. "The Midwife of my Birth-from-Death, my protector Tahmuras, against my Bringer of Omens? It would be a battle to shake the rafters!" He waited for the shouting to die before dashing their hopes of a spectacle, an impish gleam in his eyes. "No. These two, I need. Find someone I do not need to die!"

They did. They found a pair of women of the zenana and made them fight, arming them with daggers and pricking them with spears until they had no choice. One was Jolanta, the Chowati; the other, a Kereyit Tatar, a gift of Jagun, who had very much hoped to be given Imriel in return. I never even knew her name.

Neither of them wanted to do it. They circled one another, skirts knotted for freedom of movement, while the Drujani jabbed at their bare legs. Eventually, fighting to win became preferable to being pierced by a Drujani spear, and they did. Both of them knew how to use a knife. Jolanta knew better.

I saw tears in her eyes as she straightened, the Tatar girl's blood on her gown. If I had hated Jolanta for tormenting Imriel, I pitied her now. She met my gaze briefly across the crowded festal hall, while the Mahrkagir's guests whooped and shouted, pleased at the display. When she looked away, I saw her hand rise. Making a blood-stained fist, she pressed it to her brow, and I knew it for a declaration of loyalty.

"Come," the Mahrkagir said, smiling at me. "It will be an early night. The young men are hunting boar in the morning, for the vahmyacam."

I went with him.

He didn't know, not yet. Of that, I was certain. I wondered when the aka-Magi would tell him, and if they feared he would refuse if he had time to consider it. I wished it were true. I was sure it was not. I was his gift, his rare gift, filling him with wonderment and delight, willing to wallow in the vilest of depravity. It would pain him, to lay that gift upon Angra Mainyu's altar. But he would do it, and believe it his finest deed.

The aka-Magi watched us leave, and they all smiled.

Everyone was returned early to the zenana that night, on account of the morning's hunt. I wished I had known. It might have been better, to plan something when a good portion of the inhabitants were gone. It was how Joscelin and I had escaped from Selig's steading. Still, if we had used the opium that night, they would not have gone a-hunting . . . it does not matter, now. The date was chosen. The vahmyacam, when they would least expect it, when they would drink deep in celebration, when the aka-Magi were distracted, and when, I prayed, Angra Mainyu himself would be sufficiently sated with sacrifice that he was slow to take alarm.

I didn't bother to wake Rushad, only gave myself a cursory wash with tepid water from the morning's basin and crawled onto my pallet. There I lay, wakeful, listening to the sounds of others returning. It was not often I had that chance. I knew their steps-the Akkadians' heavier treads; Nazneen the Ephesian, who moved like a weary dancer; the swift, angry pace of Jolanta. I heard Imriel among them, too, his agility gone, his steps stumbling and leaden.

But alive, and walking. I lay down my head and slept.

And awakened to piercing screams. The sound was indescribable, ear-splitting, deafening. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed a mortal throat, a single boy, could utter such a sound-and I say that as one who endured the mourning wails of La Dolorosa for days on end. There was nothing of grief in this sound, only utter terror. It sent me bolt upright in bed, my heart racing like a distance-runner's, knowing beyond surety it was him.

In the zenana, women groaned, complained, uttered curses and orders to be silent, covered their heads with cushions. Clad only in my shift, I make my way amid the couches.

"Nightmares," Drucilla said in Caerdicci, meeting me halfway. Her shawl was clutched about her, her eyes dull with sleep. "He had them in autumn, too. I have valerian."

"No," I said. "I'll go." After a moment, she nodded and stepped aside.

Shrill and endless, the screams echoed from the walls, until I had to grit my teeth against the sound.

Only a few lamps were burning, and by the dim light, I saw Imriel curled into a thrashing ball, his hands fisted, eyes clenched tight, mouth stretched wide in a rictus of terror.

The cords in his throat stood out like cables as he screamed and screamed, never seeming to draw breath.

"Imriel," I whispered, speaking in D'Angeline, kneeling at his side, not daring to touch him for fear of what it might invoke in his dreams, "Imriel, I'm here, it's all right, I'm here."

His eyes flew open, and the sound stopped. He stared at me uncomprehending, then drew in a long, ragged breath and burst into tears.

It was like a dam breaking. His arms came around my neck, chokingly tight, and I held him while he sobbed, raw and gasping, his entire body wracked with the force of it. Tears stood unheeded in my eyes as I murmured meaningless reassurances. His cheek was hard against mine, silky child's skin, sticky and hot with anguish, his shoulders heaving.

He was afraid of anyone seeing him cry.

I am not strong, but I am strong enough; he was only ten years old, and light with it. I picked him up in my arms and carried him to my chamber, the private chamber of the Mahrkagir's favorite, his arms wound tight about my neck, his grief echoing at my ear. And there I lay down with him on my pallet and he clung to me, Melisande's son, burying his face against my throat, still jerking with the force of his misery, soaking my shift with hot tears, until at last his sobbing subsided and his limbs grew still and he passed, grief spent, into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion with a child's thoughtless ease, one hand still clutching my shift, the other knotted in my hair.

"Imriel," I whispered, kissing his brow. "Oh, Imriel!"

And I lay for a long time sleepless, aware of the unaccustomed weight, slight though it was, of a child at my side, of his clinging arms. I knew, that night, that my life had changed. I was not sure how, nor why.

And since the gods gave no answer-not cruel Kushiel, nor Naamah, nor Blessed Elua himself-in time, I slept.

When I awoke, I knew myself watched. He sat perched on the stool, heels hooked on the rung, elbows propped on knees, watching me sleep.

It was passing strange to wake to that gaze, his mother's sapphire eyes, in a child's considering face.

"Did Elua send you here to die?" he asked me.

Only in the zenana of Daranga would that question sound so natural.

"No," I said. "I don't think so." And I told him my plan.

He listened carefully, frowning, all traces of the nightmare-ridden child gone. I did not overstate our odds. Imriel had been in Daranga too long to believe a pleasant fiction; longer than I. And besides, I would not consider it wise, at any time, to mince truths with Melisande's son-nor Ysandre's cousin. I saw it for the first time that day, the lineage of House Courcel in his features.

"Imriel." I took hold of his shoulders. "He is my consort. He won't touch you."

His face worked; he was trying to make sense of it. "He came here. . . ?"

"He came here with me," I said. "Because I asked it of him, and because he swore a vow, long ago, to Cassiel, to protect and serve me. To damnation and beyond, that is what he swore. And that is what I asked."

"A Cassiline," he echoed. "That's why he never smiles."

I nodded. It was close enough. "Will you tell him what I have told you? On the night of the vahmyacam, he is to drink no wine, only water. A quarter of an hour after the Mahrkagir retires with me, he is to go to the upper entrance to the zenana, and dispose of the guards. If he can procure other weapons, it is all to the good. If not..." I shrugged. "We will do what we can."

"I will tell him," Imriel said. He hunched his shoulders and looked at me. "Do you think we will live?"

"I don't know," I said steadily. "But we will try."

At that, he came off his stool, flinging his arms about my neck and burying his face in my hair. "I am glad," he said in a muffled voice, "that you came here."

"So am I, Imriel," I said to him, meaning it. "So am I."

FIFTY-FOUR.

ON THE third day before the vahmyacam, the Mahrkagir knew.

I did not need to be told. I saw it, the instant I entered the festal hall. His eyes, always bright, glowed like black suns. He was overjoyed. He was transcendent with it. His hands, when they took mine, were trembling; ice-cold and trembling. "Ishta," he murmured, embracing me. "Ishta, beloved!" He took a step back and gave a radiant smile. "I knew, I knew from the first! I knew that you were special. Such a gift, ishta, such a gift you have given me. I sought, and knew not what I sought. I did not know it had a name, until Daeva Gashtaham told me."

I smiled back, my hands in his. "Everything I have is yours, my lord; everything I am. Of what do you speak?"

He laughed, buoyant and joyous. "Not everything, not yet! Oh, but I cannot tell you. It is a surprise, the greatest surprise." Embracing me again, he nuzzled my neck. These things, these tender niceties, I had taught him. "You will live forever, ishta, through me; for ten thousand years! It is the greatest surprise, I promise."

And so I smiled and smiled and pretended I could not wait for the great surprise, and the aka-Magi smiled too, Gashtaham most of all, smiling at my innocent pleasure. It was the single greatest performance of my life. Even Joscelin smiled, cool and amused, his arm about ImriePs waist while Jagun the Kereyit gnashed his teeth in fury. Imriel played his part to perfection, resentful and withdrawn, pulling away at every opportunity.

In the Mahrkagir's bedchamber . . . Elua.

Some things are better left unsaid.

If there was anything to offset the horror of it, it was seeing the life return to Imriel's features after the first night he was sent to Joscelin, the spark of defiance rekindled in his eyes. "Even the Drujani are afraid of him," he said, gloating. "No one will touch me while the Mahrkagir has given me to him! And he says he will not let them, ever."

"Did you tell him our plan?" I asked.

Imriel nodded, both feet hooked about the rungs of the stool. "He says you are as mad as the Mahrkagir, and we are all like to die."

I hadn't expected anything different. "Will he do it?"

"Yes."

And so our plan progressed. The palace of Daranga boiled with activity. A dais was constructed in the festal hall, to the rear of the covered well where once the eternal flame of Ahura Mazda had burned.

There were a good many new faces; aka-Magi, their acolytes and apprentices, and bewildered others-parents, siblings, loved ones, the unwitting victims of the vahmyacam-to-be. Negotiations continued, too, with the Tatar tribesmen, with a handful of fierce Circassians who arrived unannounced.

The Mahrkagir could scarce contain his glee. If all went as planned, he told me, Drujan would march on Nineveh within the month. And when Nineveh fell . . . they would sweep south between the rivers, and city by city, Khebbel-im-Akkad would be theirs, as it had been in days of old.

"It is a beginning, ishta," he told me. "Only a beginning!" His black eyes shone. "From thence . . . where to go? The aka-Magi have travelled, these nine years-to Hellas, to Menekhet, to Ephesus, even Caerdicca Unitas! No one can stand against us. And Terre d'Ange . . ." He caressed me, smiling. "Terred'Ange, I think, will be the greatest prize of all. I have heard stories of your land. It is for this I had the aka-Magi seek out one of your kind, one without peer, that your gods might know of me and tremble, that I might plant the seeds of death among them, and Angra Mainyu would be mightily pleased." He laughed, soft and delighted. "They brought me the boy, and I served notice upon his flesh at the end of a lash! I marked him well, beloved. And they heard me, ishta, your gods heard me and knew fear. I thought he would serve at the end-but I was wrong, ishta; so wrong. This is more glorious than I could have imagined. Still, it was well that I waited, for his pain carried the message." He smiled at me. "You heard it, didn't you?"

I thought of my dreams, of Imriel kneeling in the Skotophagotis shadow, if we failed, it would be no more than the truth. I could only pray, for all our sakes, that our desperate gamble succeeded. "Yes, my lord," I said softly. "Oh, yes. I heard it."

"As did your gods." He laughed again, caressing my cheek with cold, cold fingers. "And the gods of Terre d'Ange have already given their answer, have they not?"

"Yes, my lord," I said, shivering. "Truly, they have."

Thus, the palace. In the zenana, a grim air prevailed, and our plans continued apace. The lump of opium in Drucilla's basket grew ever larger. The cook had sworn undying love to Nazneen the Ephesian, and promised to aid her in boiling it to a tincture. I had not seen, before, the effects upon addicts when the drug was withheld; I saw it then. They went through agonies, bellies cramping, sleepless and feverish.

"Let them be," Kaneka said when pity weakened my will. "They have endured it before. This time, it is of their choosing. Let them be."

I did. And those who held back, those who hoarded their opium, paid a price as great. The Ephesian boy, the last surviving child in the zenana other than Imriel, died of it. Although I cannot be sure of it, I think that the woman who tended him, lovingly blowing smoke into his mouth, suffocated him with a cushion in the dark hours of night. As for her ... I do not know how much opium she consumed. Enough to make her dreams last forever.

"Fadimah," Nazneen said in mourning tones, standing over her couch. The dead woman lay slack-faced and still, the boy's limp form clutched to her breast. "It need not have been so." And she looked at me, eyes moist under long lids. "No more. This is why I help you. You see? No more."

I saw, and nodded. Words were not enough for this death.

Words. I lack them; I do not have words to describe the courage of the women of the zenana in this time. So many details! It was hard, so hard, to put together a plan of this scope, of this magnitude, against odds so staggering it dries my tongue to think of it, even now. For most of what happened, I can take no credit. Once the wheels were set in motion, it was a valiant few who executed so much of it.

Kaneka . . . Drucilla . . . Nazneen . . . even Jolanta. And the others, the countless others. There are women who died, others whose names I never knew-although I remember their faces, every one-who played crucial roles, overseeing the serving of the opium-laced pitchers. A small role, yes, but a vital one.

Our plans were laid. We could do no more.

I knew a little of what to expect, for the Mahrkagir told me. "Feasting, ishta, such as you have never seen in Daranga! And you are to attend it with me. And then the vahmyacatn, and the apprentices shall be dedicated, and the acolytes . . ." His lips curved tenderly. ". . . and the acolytes will present theirofferings to Angra Mainyu, and the Aka-Magi will deem them fit or unfit. I will present you, ishta, I will present you as my bride." There was no irony in it; truly, he saw it thusly. "This is for you," he said, presenting me with a splendid crimson gown, the edges stiff with gold embroidery. "Do you like it?" he asked in an anxious tone. "It belonged to Hoshdar Ahzad's Queen, my father's first wife. Gashtaham said it would be well to make the most of your beauty for the vahmyacam."

"It is beautiful, my lord," I murmured.