From the heights of the Doge's palace to the depths of the Yeshuite quarter, La Serenissima belongs to Melisande. She is confined to the temple by a promise made on the mark of Kushiel's Chosen. It is the memory of a last kiss, a last blessing of pain, that keeps her there. Yet, in all the many isles of the city, there is no worship of Namaah that Melisande does not know about; there is no intrigue that she does not have a hand in.

Her spies bring Melisande word of the outworlder the very day she arrives over the caravan routes from Terre d'Ange. Rumour, always rumour, but Melisande lies at the heart of a web woven these many years. No d'Angeline rests easy in exile, and Melisande's game is a deep one indeed. She calls for the outworlder to be brought to her before the sun touches the sea.

The outworlder seems no more than a girl, and she is no d'Angeline--the ichor of Elua has passed her by; she might be no more than a shepherd's by-blow, some cuckoo child gotten on the wrong side of the sheets.

Yet Melisande senses in her a beauty more profound, more eternal, than any granted to Elua and his Companions, even in the true Terre d'Ange-that-lies-beyond.

The girl does not curtsey, does not mark Melisande as a Shahrizai, and a lady. She is insolent, and her eyes burn as black as any from Eisande House in the City of Elua. Her hair is coarse, thick, dark; her skin is rough; her body, lush with young womanhood.

There is nothing here for Melisande--this girl is more dedicated to Kushiel's precepts than perhaps she is herself. But there is a strength in her, a purpose, and Melisande has not seen its like since Phedre journeyed home with her Cassiline--a poor choice indeed, and one that left Melisande with a crack in her armour that none have devined before now.

The outworlder senses Melisande's weakness, or knows it by some secret ken, for the first word to pass her sensuous lips is, "Hyacinthe."

Melisande feels her breath depart as if stolen from her lungs. "That name is not spoken here," she says, and if she trembles in the depths of her heart, then it does not show in her voice.

The girl smiles. There is danger in it, mystery that even Melisande Shahrizai dares not turn away from. The girl has her secrets; and by what chance she passes through La Serenissima is perhaps no chance at all. The name of Phedre's childhood friend is the only watchword of trust that Melisande has left. Trust, in its simplest form, she has not known since Anafiel Delaunay was betrayed to his death at the behest of her ally, Duc Isidore d'Aiglemort.

"Would you care to join me for the evening meal?" Melisande asks, and the girl raises an arrogant eyebrow and assents.

That Melisande will eventually wring the outworlder's secrets from her, she has no doubt. Her flagellary is the wonder of every soul to see it; her art with flechettes, with the whipping post, is unmatched. She is, after all, Kushiel's Scion.

Yet even in the cruellest heart that ever passed through Mandrake House's doors, there is the seed of Valerian. Melisande has dark corners in her soul that are no stranger to guilt; and her burning ambition to claim Ysandre's throne is the least of her sins.

In the outworlder, Melisande finds that Kushiel's spirit burns brighter, has set its roots deeper.

"Faith," she cries, as blood from a thousand salted cuts paints anemone-red streaks down her body. "Faith!"

And, as the dawn is breaking, as the ink on their contract for Namaah's services is nearly dry, Melisande halts the final stroke of the scourge in Faith's hands: "Phedre," she whispers, and finds the peace only an anguissette knows.

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January 7, 2005