“The necklace is enchanted,” the sea goddess said. “It will bring you your heart’s desire.”
Mina was troubled. “Majesty, thank you, but I have all that I desire. There is nothing I want...”
She stopped in midsentence. She had just remembered there was something she wanted. Wanted very much.
“The pearls will lead you to a grotto. Inside you will find what you long for. No need for thanks, child,” the sea goddess said. “I delight in making mortals happy.”
Zeboim fussed with the pearls, arranged them to best advantage on Mina’s slender neck.
“Remember who did this for you, child,” Zeboim told her as she vanished, leaving behind the lingering odor of bracing sea air.
Chemosh entered the room to find Mina brushing her hair.
“What—” He stared. “Where did you get that necklace?”
“Zeboim gave it to me, my lord,” said Mina. She kept her gaze on her reflection as she continued to brush her hair. “I have never seen black pearls before. They shine with a lovely, strange radiance, don’t they? Like a dark rainbow. I think they are very beautiful.”
“I think they look like rabbit turds on a string,” Chemosh said coldly. “Take them off.”
“I believe you are jealous, lord,” said Mina.
“I said take them off!” Chemosh commanded.
Mina sighed, reluctantly raising her hands to the clasp. She fumbled at it. unable to release it. “My lord, if you could help me—”
Chemosh was prepared to rip the pearls from her throat. . . Then he paused.
Since when does the Sea Witch bestow gifts on mortals? he asked himself. Since when does that selfish bitch give gifts to anyone, for that matter? Why should Zeboim bring Mina pearls? There is more to this than meets the eye. They plot against me. I do wrong to object. I must appear to be as stupid as they obviously think I am.
Chemosh lifted Mina’s luxuriant hair and put it aside. The tips of his ringers brushed the pearls.
“There is magic here,” he said accusingly. “Godly magic.”
Mina’s reflection looked out at him. Her amber eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “The pearls are enchanted, my lord. Zeboim told me that they would bring me my heart’s desire.”
Mina took his hand, pressed her lips upon it. “I know that I have lost your regard. I would do anything to raise myself again in your esteem. Anything to recover the happiness we once shared. You are my heart’s desire, my lord. The pearls are meant to please you, to bring you back to me!”
She was so lovely, so contrite. He could almost believe she was telling the truth.
Almost.
“Keep the pearls,” Chemosh said magnanimously. He took the brush from her and set it aside. He gathered her into his embrace. “The necklace is beautiful, but not so beautiful as you, my dear one.”
He kissed her, and she yielded to his touch, and he gave himself to pleasure.
He could afford to enjoy her.
Ausric Krell was watching from the shadows.
2
Mina slept fitfully, drifting in and out of dreams. She woke to find herself alone in the bed. Chemosh had left sometime during the night; she was not certain when.
Unable to go back to sleep, Mina watched the pale, gray shadow of morning steal through her window and thought of Zeboim and the goddess’s gift. Her heart’s desire.
She had not lied to the god. Chemosh was her heart’s desire, but there was another, something else she wanted just as much as she wanted his love. Something she needed, perhaps more than his love.
She threw off the blankets and rose from her bed. She cast off the silken gown and dressed in a plain linen shift she had found in the abandoned servants’ quarters and a pair of soft leather shoes. She hoped to be able to slip out of the castle without attracting Chemosh’s attention. If she did run into him, she had her excuse prepared. She did not like lying to her lord, however, and hoped she could avoid him and also avoid the Beloved who, if they saw her, would start their clamorous pleading and moaning.
She wrapped herself in a thick, warm shawl and drew it over her head. Leaving her bedchamber, Mina padded softly through hallways that were still dark.
She pondered her lies to her lord. She had told Chemosh the truth when she said that she loved him and would do anything to regain his favor. She did love him, more than her life. Why lie to him about this? Why not tell him the truth?
Because a god would not understand.
Mina was not sure she herself understood entirely. Goldmoon had told her time and again it did not matter who Mina’s parents had been. The past was past. It was the here and now of her life that mattered. If her father had been a fishmonger, and her mother a fishmonger’s wife, would that make a difference?
“But what if,” the small Mina had argued, “my father was a king and my mother a queen? What if I am a princess? Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
Goldmoon had smiled and said, “I was a princess, Mina, and I thought that made a difference. I found out, when I opened my heart to Mishakal, that such titles are meaningless. It is what we are in the sight of the gods that truly matters. Or rather, what we are in our hearts,” Goldmoon had added with a sigh, for the gods had been gone a long time by then.
Mina had tried to understand and tried to put all thoughts of her parents from her mind, and for a time, she had succeeded. She had, of course, asked the One God, but Takhisis had given Mina much the same answer as Goldmoon, only not as gently. The One God had considered this longing of Mina’s a weakness, a cancer that would eat away at her unless it was swiftly and brutally cut out.
Perhaps it was the terrible memory of Takhisis’s punishment that made Mina reluctant to speak of this to Chemosh. He was a god. He could not possibly understand. Her secret was only a little one. It was harmless. She would tell him everything once she knew the truth. Then, together, they could both laugh over the fact that she was a fishmonger’s daughter.
Keeping to back stairs and ruined passages, Mina made her way to what had once been the kitchen and from there to a buttery, where the castle’s former owners had stored barrels of ale, casks of wine, baskets of apples and potatoes, smoked meats, bags of onions. The ghosts of good smells still lingered, but there were so many ghosts flitting about the palace of the Lord of Death that Mina paid scant attention. She hungered, but not for food.
Mina had no idea where Chemosh was. Perhaps he was recruiting disciples or judging souls or playing khas with Krell, or doing all three at once. She would have given odds that she knew where he wasn’t—in the storeroom. His sudden appearance, therefore, standing right in front of her, came as a considerable shock.
She expected recriminations, accusations, a tirade. He regarded her with mild interest, as though they’d met over breakfast, and asked, “You are up early, my dear. Going out?”
“I thought I would go for a swim in the sea, my lord,” Mina replied faintly, giving the excuse she had prepared.
She could not know, of course, that this was the one excuse that Chemosh would find most suspicious.
“Isn’t it a bit cold for sea-bathing?” he asked archly, a peculiar smile on his lips.
“Though the air is cold, the water is warm and will seem that much warmer,” Mina faltered, her cheeks burning.
“You still wear the pearls, I see. They hardly go with such a plain gown. Aren’t you afraid you will lose them?”
“The clasp is strong, my lord,” Mina said. Her hand went involuntarily to the necklace. “I don’t think—”
“Why are you in the storeroom?” he asked, glancing around.
“This way is closer to the shore, my lord,” Mina returned. She had overcome her shock and was now starting to feel irritated. “My lord, am I your prisoner, that you feel the need to question my comings and goings?”