There was naught else to say, so I nodded once more. Drustan twisted the signet ring around his finger, dark eyes holding mine, then left.
"What did he say?" Quintilius Rousse asked, bewildered. "By the ten thousand devils…I thought we were here to resolve a mystery!"
"Ask Phèdre," Hyacinthe said, his voice hollow, raising his haunted face. "She thinks she has solved it. Ask her, and see if she will speak." He slid his hands blindly over his face, and let them fall, helpless.
"If this riddle is mine to answer in full, then I will," I said softly; his pain tore at my heart. "Don’t begrudge me that, Hyacinthe."
He gave a choked laugh, then stood unsteadily. "Would that Delaunay had left you where he found you! I rue the day he taught you to think."
I’d no answer to that, either. Hyacinthe made me a mocking bow in his best Prince of Travellers style, the slashes in his sleeves flaring eloquently. Quintilius Rousse scowled at his exit, shaking his head.
"I like this not at all," he growled, picking absently at a tray of sweets. "If you’ve an answer, lass, share it! Let us put our heads together, that all may benefit!"
"My lord Admiral," I said. "No. If Anafiel Delaunay found this answer, he would not share it. Nor can I. If you come to it on your own, so be it."
Quintilius Rousse muttered something about Delaunay’s folly. Joscelin moved, restless, coming to stand next to me, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out upon darkness.
"I’m not going to like this, am I?" he said quietly.
I shook my head. "No."
He stared at the unseen sea until I laid my hand upon his arm. "Joscelin." He looked at me, then, reluctant. "Since the day you were assigned to ward me, I’ve been a trial to you. A thousand ways I’ve strained your vows, until your very Brotherhood declared you anathema. I swear to you, I’ll only do it once more." I cleared my throat. "If we must…if we must part, you must abide it. You were trained to serve royalty, not the ill-conceived offspring of Night Court adepts. You swore your sword unto Ysandre’s service. If you would serve her, protect Drustan. Promise me as much."
"I cannot promise it." His voice was low.
"Promise me!" My fingers bit into his arm.
"I do Cassiel’s will! No more can I swear."
It would have to be enough; I could ask no more than I would give. I released him. "Even Cassiel bent his will to Elua," I murmured. "Remember it."
"Remember you are not Elua," Joscelin said wryly.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
I did not sleep well that night, in the Master of the Straits' fabulous four-posted ebony bed. My heart and mind alike were too full. Once I rose, opening the door of my chamber onto the tower landing, candle in hand, gazing at the closed doors of my companions' sleeping-quarters. I would have gone somewhere, to someone, then; but I knew not whom.
So I returned to my vast, lonely bed and dozed, tossing, waking in a tangle of linens.
I wished Delaunay were here.
Day broke, and whiled onward; I found the library, that housed a hundred books believed lost, pages thick and stiff with their drowning, ink blurred, but still readable. There was a whole volume of poems by a famous Hellene poetess that I had never read entire; Maestro Gonzago would have given his eyeteeth to see it. I read slowly, trying to translate the words into D’Angeline, wishing I had pen and paper. They were beautiful, so beautiful I wept, and forgot where I was, until Tilian came to fetch me.
Noon was nigh.
They led us back along the broad, winding path; strange, how familiar it seemed. The Master of the Straits awaited us in his temple, open on all sides to the breezes.
I never understood, before, how sacrificial victims could go consenting. I thought of Elua, baring his palm to the blade. I thought of Yeshua, taking his place upon the wooden tree. No two sacrifices are the same, and yet all are, in the end. It is the commitment to belong, wholly, to that which claims one.
"Have you an answer?" the Master of the Straits asked, and his voice rose like the wind, all around us, his eyes the color of sunlight reflected on water. I shivered; enough of a coward, it seemed after all, to wait on another’s response.
None came.
"Yes, my lord," I said, my voice sounding small and mortal. I raised my eyes to meet that sea-shifting gaze. "One of us must take your place."
I heard Hyacinthe laugh, despairingly.
The Master of the Straits looked at me with eyes full of thunderclouds. "Are you prepared to answer in full?"
Joscelin drew a long, hissing breath, his hands flexing above his daggers. Quintilius Rousse made a startled sound, and Drustan bowed his head, twisting the signet ring on his finger. He had guessed; Earth’s oldest children. They are closer to the old tales, to the workings of fate.
"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, my lord."
"No."
I was not sure, for a second, who had spoken; it sounded so little like Hyacinthe. My Prince of Travellers, light-hearted and careless; no longer, not since Moiread’s death. He gave a choked laugh and ran his fingers through his black ringlets. "You summoned me, my lord. I am here. I will stay."
The Master of the Straits was silent.
And I knew, then, that everything before had been but play.
"No," I whispered, turning to Hyacinthe. My hands rose, shaping his face, almost as familiar as my own. "Hyacinthe, no!"
He held my wrists gently. "Breidaia dreamed me on an island, Phèdre, do you remember? I couldn’t see the shore. The Long Road ends here, for me. You may have unraveled the riddle, but I am meant to stay."
"No," I said, then shouted it. "No!" I turned to the Master of the Straits, fearless in my despair. "You seek one to take your place; you posed this riddle, and I have answered! It is mine to answer in full!"
"It is not the only riddle on these shores." There was a sorrow in his voice, eight hundred years old. The sun stood overhead, casting the Master of the Straits' face into shadow as he bowed his head. "Who takes my shackles, inherits my power. Name its source, if you would be worthy to serve."
Joscelin turned aside with a sharp cry; I think, until then, he thought there was still a way he might answer. I raised my face to the sun, thinking, remembering. The library in the tower, the lost verses. Delaunay’s library, where I had spent so many sullen hours, forced to study when I’d rather have entertained patrons; I’d have given anything, to have them back now. Alcuin, hair falling like foam to curtain his face, poring over ancient codices. Joscelin’s voice, unwontedly light, a rare glimpse of the Siovalese scholar-lord’s son he’d been born. He’s got everything in here but the Lost Book of Raziel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshuite script?
The pieces of the puzzle came together; I lowered my gaze, blinking.
"It is the Book of Raziel, my lord."
The Master of the Straits began to turn my way.
"Only pages." Hyacinthe’s voice was like a hollow reed sounding. "Pages from the Lost Book of Raziel, that the One God gave to Edom, the First Man, to give him mastery over earth and sea and sky, and took away for his disobedience, casting it into the depths." The Master of the Straits stopped and considered him. Hyacinthe gave his desperate laugh, black eyes blurred with the dromonde, seeing at last. "A gift of your father, yes? The Admiral calls him the Lord of the Deep, and tosses him gold coins, for he is superstitious as sailors are. But the Yeshuites name him Prince of the Sea; the angel Rahab, they call him, Pride, and Insolence, who fell, and was cleaved and made whole, who fell, but never followed." The words came faster, tumbling from his lips, his blank gaze seeing down the tunnel of eight centuries. I remembered a blazing fire, the sound of fiddles skirling, Hyacinthe playing the timbales while an ancient woman cackled in my ear. Don’t you know the dromonde can look backward as well as forward? "He begot you, my lord, upon a D’Angeline girl, who loved another. Who loved an Alban, son of the Cullach Gorrym, a mortal, one of Earth’s eldest. Is it not so?"