"I know," I said. "But Joscelin, I'm tired of having a terrified ten-year-old boy lurking inside me. And I need to deal with my own blood-guilt and ...other things. You told me I'd find a way, my own way. So I'm trying."

"I know." He let go the reins. "You'll see him home safe?" he said to Hugues. Ti-Philippe had offered to go, too, but I'd rather it was Hugues. If the ordeal took a greater toll on me than I reckoned, I trusted him to be gentle.

"Of course."

It was another cold, bright day in the City of Elua, the sky arching overhead like a blue vault. All the world seemed to be in high spirits. Hugues brought out his wooden flute as we rode and toyed with it, then thought better of it, tucking it away.

"It's all right," I said to him. "Play, if you like."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "It doesn't seem right."

"Have you ever been?" I asked.

"No." His face was open and guileless. "I've never known the need."

It had been a foolish question; I couldn't imagine why he would. I had known Hugues since I was a boy, and I'd never known him to say an unkind word. I wondered what it would be like to be him, unfailingly patient and kind, always seeing the best in everyone. I tried to look for the good, but I saw the bad, too. The flaws, the fault-lines. I was of Kushiel's lineage and it was our gift. My mother's gift, that she had used to exploit others.

But I was Elua's scion, too.

I wondered, did Elua choose his Companions? Nothing in the scriptures says so. They chose him as he wandered the earth; chose to abandon the One God in his heaven to wander at Blessed Elua's side until they made a home here in Terre d'Ange, and then a truer home in the Terre-d'Ange-that-lies-beyond.

He loved them, though. He must have. And if Blessed Elua found somewhat to love in mighty Kushiel, who was once appointed to punish the damned, then mayhap I would, too.

Elua's temples are open places; open to sky and grounded by earth. In the Sanctuary of Elua where I grew up-until I was stolen by slavers-the temple was in a poppy-field. I used to love it there.

I'd never been to one of Kushiel's temples. It was a closed place.

Though it was located in the heart of the City, it sat alone in a walled square. There were no businesses surrounding it; no shops, no taverns, no markets. The building was clad in travertine marble, a muted honey-colored hue.

"Funny," Hugues mused. "I'd expected it to be darker."

"So did I," I murmured.

The gate was unlocked and there was no keeper. We passed beyond it into the courtyard, hoofbeats echoing against the walls. I thought about the wide walls of Lucca, so vast that oak trees grew atop them. A young man in black robes emerged from the stables.

"Be welcome," he said, bowing.

We gave our mounts over into his keeping. I watched the Bastard accept his lead without protest, pacing docilely into the stable, and thought once more about the Sanctuary of Elua and an acolyte I had known there.

Hugues nudged me. "This way."

The stairs leading to the entrance were steep and narrow. The tall doors were clad in bronze and worked with a relief of intertwining keys. It was said Kushiel once held the keys to the gates of hell. House Shahrizai takes its emblem from the same motif. The door-knocker was a simple bronze ring, unadorned. I grasped it and knocked for entrance.

The door was opened by another black-robed figure: a priest, his face covered by a bronze mask that rendered his features stern and anonymous. Or hers; it was almost impossible to tell. The sight made me shiver a little. He-or she-beckoned without speaking, and we stepped into the foyer. He waited, gazing at us through the eye-holes of his mask.

"I am here to offer penance," I said. Save for a pair of marble benches, the foyer was empty of all adornment and my voice echoed in the space.

The priest inclined his head and indicated the benches to Hugues, who took a seat, then beckoned once more to me. I followed, glancing back once at Hugues. He looked worried and forlorn, his wide shoulders hunched.

I followed the black-clad figure, studying the movement of the body beneath the flowing robes, the sway of the hips. A woman, I thought. I wasn't sure if it made me more or less uneasy. She led me through another set of doors, down a set of hallways to the baths of purification.

Although I'd never gone, I knew the rituals. I'd asked Phedre about it once. It used to bother me that she went, betimes. I was fearful of the violent catharsis she found in it. The dark mirror, Mavros would say.

And now I sought it.

The baths were stark and plain. Light poured in from high, narrow windows. There was a pool of white marble, heated by a hypocaust. The water shimmered, curls of steam rising in the sunlight. The priestess pointed at the pool.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked her.

She tilted her head. Sunlight glanced from the mask's bronze cheek. In the shadows of its eye-holes, I could make out human eyes. The bronze lips were parted to allow breath. I thought she would speak, but she didn't answer, merely pointed once more.

I unbuckled my sword-belt, pulled off my boots, and stripped out of my clothing, piling it on a stool, then stepped into the pool. It was hot, almost hot enough to scald, and yet I found myself shivering.

"Kneel."

A woman's voice, soft and sibilant, emerging from between the bronze lips. I knelt, sinking shoulder-deep in the hot water. It smelled vaguely of sulfur. She took up a simple wooden bucket, dipping it into the pool. I closed my eyes as she poured it over my head in a near-scalding cascade; once, twice, thrice. When no more water came, I loosed the breath I'd been holding and opened my eyes.

The priestess beckoned.

I clambered out of the pool, naked and dripping. Water puddled on the marble floor. She handed me a linen bath-sheet. I dried myself and looked about for a robe, but she pointed at my piled clothing.

"Seems a bit foolish," I muttered. She said nothing, so I put on my clothes and followed as she led me out of the baths, feeling damp and anxious.

We entered a broad hallway with a high ceiling and another pair of massive, bronze-clad doors at the end of it. The temple proper. The doors clanged like bells as they opened. My mouth was dry.

Kushiel's inner sanctum.

All I could see at first was the effigy. It towered in the room, filling the space. I wondered how they'd gotten it through the doors, then realized the entire temple must have been built around it. His arms were crossed on his breast, his hands gripping his rod and flail. His distant face was stern and calm and beautiful, the same visage echoed in the mask of the priestess who led me, and those of the priests who awaited us.

One held a flogger.

I couldn't help it, my throat tightened. At the base of the effigy was the altar-fire. A few tendrils of smoke arose. The stone walls of the temple were blackened with old soot. The flagstones were scrubbed clean, though. Especially those before Kushiel's effigy, where the wooden whipping-post stood.

"Damn it!" I whispered, feeling the sting of tears. I thought about Gilot. No more tears, I'd promised him when we set out for Tiberium. Impatient at myself, I strode forward. I made an offering of gold and took up a handful of incense, casting it on the brazier.

Fragrant smoke billowed. I'd offered incense to Kushiel in the ambassadress' garden in Tiberium; spikenard and mastic. This was different. This was his place.

A bronze mask swam before me. A priest, a tall man. He bent his head toward me. "Is it your will to offer penance?"

"Yes, lord priest." I blinked my stinging eyes, rubbing at them with the heel of one hand. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes."

A single word; a single syllable. And yet there was knowledge and compassion in it. Behind the eye-holes of his mask, his gaze was unwavering. The decision was mine.

I spread my arms. "So."

Hands undressed me; unfastening my cloak, unbuckling my sword-belt. Anonymous hands belonging to faceless figures. Piece by piece, they stripped away my clothing, until I was naked and shivering in their black-robed midst. A heavy hand on my shoulder, forcing me to my knees. I knelt on the scrubbed flagstones.

Hands grasped my wrists, stretching my arms above my head. I willed myself not to struggle as they lashed rawhide around my wrists, binding them tight to the ring atop the whipping-post. The incense was so thick I could taste it on my tongue, mingled with the memory of stagnant water, rot, and decay.

The chastiser stepped forward, his bronze-masked face calm and implacable. He held forth the flogger in both hands, offering it like a sacrament. It was no toy intended for violent pleasure, no teasing implement of soft deerskin. The braided leather glinted and metal gleamed at its tips. It was meant to hurt.

My teeth were chattering. All I could do was nod.

He nodded in acknowledgment and stepped behind me.

I braced myself.

Ah, Elua! The first blow was hard and fast, dealt by an expert hand. White-hot pain burst across the expanse of my naked back. I jerked hard against my restraints, feeling my sinews strain near unto cracking. Again and again and again it fell, and I found myself wild with panic, struggling to escape. I flung myself against the coarse wood of the whipping-post, worrying at it with my fingernails. And still the flogger fell, over and over.

I saw Daranga.

Dead women, dead boys. The Mahrkagir's mad eyes, wide with glee.

Phedre, filled with the Name of God.

Brightness.

Darkness.

All of the dead, my dead. Daranga, Lucca. Everyone's dead.

Kushiel's face, wreathed in smoke.

"Enough." The tall priest raised his hand. I had ceased to struggle, going limp in my bonds. On my knees, aching in every part, I squinted up at him. "Make now your confession."

I craned my neck. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "And I will try to be good."

There was a pause; a small silence. I let my head loll. From the corner of my eye, I saw the tall priest gesture. There was the soft sound of a dipper sinking into water, and then another voice spoke. "Be free of it."

A draught of saltwater was poured over my wounds. I rested my bowed head in the crook of my elbows, sighing at the pain of it.

It was done, then. My penance was made. The anonymous hands untied my wrists and helped me to stand. Patted dry my lacerated back, helped me to dress. Though I stood on wavering feet, strangely, I felt calm and purged.

"So." The tall priest regarded me. "Is it well done, Kushiel's scion?"

If I had wished it, I thought, he would have spoken to me as a man, mortal to mortal, both of us grasping with imperfect hands at the will of the gods. I didn't, though. I bowed to him instead, feeling the fabric of my shirt rasp over my wounded flesh. It was a familiar feeling. I'd known it well, once. This was different. I had chosen it.

"It is well done, my lord priest," I said.

He nodded a final time. "Go, then."

Hugues leapt to his feet when I entered the foyer. "Are you ...how are you?"

I ran my tongue over my teeth, thinking. I could taste blood where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek, and the lingering taste of incense. Nothing else. I hurt, but no worse than I'd hurt after a rough training session with Barbarus'x squadron. The weals would fade. And I wasn't scared inside. "I'm fine," I said, surprised to discover it was true. I smiled at Hugues. "Come on, let's go."

Chapter Three.

Some days after my visit to Kushiel's temple, the Queen threw a fete to celebrate my return to the City of Elua.It was a small affair as such matters went. Given free rein, she would have thrown a larger one-and I daresay Phedre would gladly have aided her-but I had left the City under a lingering cloud of suspicion and recrimination, and as glad as I was to be among my loved ones, my return was tainted by what had gone before. I preferred a smaller engagement.

Duc Barquiel L'Envers would not be in attendance, which was good. My unwelcome nemesis was the Queen's uncle on her mother's side. The plot he had conceived against me had been simple and effective. A mysterious messenger, a whispered password, a note indicating a clandestine meeting. That was all it had taken to convince far, far too many peers that Melisande Shahrizai's son plotted treason, including some I counted as friends. Some of them had apologized after the Queen publicly proclaimed my innocence.

Others had not.

Bertran de Trevalion was one of those, and despite my wishes, he would be attending. I'd greeted him civilly upon my return. I was glad to know he'd been ignorant of his mother's intrigues, and I'd made my uneasy truce with her. Still, I'd rather not have to be polite to them at the dinner table just yet. Being targeted for murder had that effect.

"I'd truly prefer it if House Trevalion wasn't in attendance," I said to Phedre.

"I know, love." There was a slight furrow between her brows.

"Believe me, so would I, and Joscelin, too. But there are blood-ties between House Trevalion and Courcel, and other ties, as well. You know how Ysandre can be about such things. This is the price of the choice you made, and unless you wish to change your mind, you'll have to bear it."

I shook my head. "I made a promise."

I'd made my choice, in part, because of the Queen. Ysandre de la Courcel, the product of a contentious marriage and inheritor of a throne plagued by treachery, had a fierce determination to heal old wounds and unite the members of her family in harmony. It had not, however, extended to holding her uncle accountable for his actions in the public milieu. It still galled me, and all the more after learning that Bernadette de Trevalion had tried to have me killed because of it. Somehow, I blamed him more than I did her.

"At least Maslin de Lombelon won't be there," Phedre commented.

"He's still in disgrace?" I asked. She nodded. "Why did he do it, anyway?"

Maslin de Lombelon was a minor lordling because I'd made him one. I'd given him an estate, Lombelon; the smallest of my holdings. I'd done it because I knew he loved it, and I thought we understood each other, at least a little bit. His father had been a traitor, too. I'd been wrong. He'd left Lombelon to enlist in the Queen's Guard, where he glared daggers at me at every opportunity and later disgraced himself by administering a beating to one Raul L'Envers y Aragon, who was also distant kin to the Queen.

Betimes, returning to the City made my head ache.

"Raul challenged him," Phedre said dryly. "Maslin carried it too far."

The first time I'd seen Maslin, he'd been attacking pear trees with a pruning hook. I wouldn't have cared to cross him then, and that was before he learned to wield a sword. By all accounts, he was very, very good. And for some obscure reason, my cousin Sidonie was fond of him. Even before I left, there were rumors they were lovers and that she'd promised him the captainship of her Guard one day.

"I wonder why," I mused.

Phedre shrugged. "Some slight Maslin offered to Colette Trente. An ungentle rebuff, mayhap. Lord Amaury was angry, too."

"Hmm." I tried to peer at the wax tablet on which she was scratching a list. "So no Maslin, which is all to the good. Who else is attending?"

"You'll see." She covered it with one hand and smiled at me, one of those heart-stopping smiles that no poet could hope to describe. "There's a surprise, somewhat I didn't tell you in letters. You'll like it," she added when I looked dubious.

"Will I?"

Phedre nodded, her eyes sparkling. She was still in the prime of her beauty, and when she smiled like that, she scarce looked older than Claudia Fulvia, whose husband I had so thoroughly cuckolded in Tiberium. "Don't you trust me?"

I smiled back at her. "Always."