Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Eglantine House

Eglantine maintains she charmed with the sweetness of her song. Eglantine is the artists’ House, and her adepts are skilled in a dozen disciplines: players, poets, artists, musicians, dancers and tumblers. And, it would appear, clothiers.

Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Eisande

Gentle Eisheth went to the southern coastal lands, which hold dreamers and sailors, healers and traders, as well as the thousand birds and wild cavaliers of the salt marshes. Her province is called Eisande, and it is the smallest of the seven. There are Tsingani who dwell there, and live unmolested.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Gentian House

According to Brother Louvel, Naamah was filled with a mystic purity of spirit when she went to the King of Persis, and when she lay down with strangers in the market. But that is what they say at Gentian House… … and the adepts of Gentian came masked as seers, preceded by incensors of opium…

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me. It is hard for me to resent my parents, although I envy them their naïvete. No one even told them, when I was born, that they gifted me with an ill-luck name. Phèdre, they called me, neither one knowing that it is a Hellene name, and cursed. When I was born, I daresay they still had reason for hope. My eyes, scarce open, were yet of indeterminate color, and the appearance of a newborn babe is a fluid thing, changing from week to week. Blonde wisps may give way to curls of jet, the pallor of birth deepen to a richness like amber, and so on. But when my series of amniotic sea-changes were done, the thing was obvious. I was flawed.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Orchis House

… and Orchis, for a lark. … and the merry Calantia had gone on to foster at Orchis when her tenth birthday had arrived. And there was Mierette, from Orchis House, who had made her marque and kept her own salon now. Steeped in the gaiety for which her house was renowned, she brought laughter and a sense of sunlight with her, and where she went, I saw pleasure and merriment light people’s faces.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Imriel de la Courcel

What does it mean to be good? When I was a child, I thought I knew. It was easy then. I knew nothing of my birth or my heritage. My childhood was spent in the Sanctuary of Elua, where I was a ward. My days were spent in work like play: scrambling the mountainsides and tending goats with the other children of the Sanctuary, climbing trees and swimming in the swift stream while our charges grazed. I was steeped in the precept of Blessed Elua: Love as thou wilt. And I did. I loved without reserve, freely and easily—my playmates, the priests and priestesses of the Sanctuary, the goats I tended, the earth beneath my feet and the sky above my head. I am a D’Angeline; I loved Terre d’Ange, the country of my birth. With all my heart, I loved our gods, Elua and his Companions, and I knew myself loved in return. I was happy. I never thought to be anything else. When I was ten years old, everything changed. I was stolen by Carthaginian slave-traders and sent on a journey into hell. And I thought I’d die there, but I didn’t. I was rescued. I was brought out of damnation into safety. And everything changed again. In a distant fortress on the far verges of Khebbel-im-Akkad, the D’Angeline Queen’s delegate bowed his head and greeted me as Imriel de la Courcel, Prince of the Blood. All that I knew of myself was a lie.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Apollonaire and Diànne de Fhirze

But happily, at that moment, a woman’s hand touched my bare shoulder, and I turned in answer to see a drunken couple clad as Diana and Apollo, the twin moon-and-sun deities of the Hellenes. “Tell me, Servant of Naamah,” the woman said laughing, her silver mask askew on her lovely face, “Who does your costume represent? We have a bet, my brother and I.” I inclined my head to them, raising my arms so the scarlet ribbons trailed from my wrists. “Mara, my lady; Naamah’s daughter, and Kushiel’s handmaiden.” “I told you!” he said to her in drunken triumph. The woman laughed again, brushing my veil with her fingertips. She was close enough that I could feel the heat of her body and smell joie sweet on her breath. “Then I shall have to pay the penalty for losing,” she whispered. “We already agreed upon the settlement. When you receive my proposal, remember there is a debt of honor at stake.”

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Dominic Stregazza & Thérèse de la Courcel

“Now, which one of the Stregazza is Thérèse?�� I asked, when I gauged that he was no longer paying attention to me. “Is she the firstborn? Prince Benedicte’s daughters are House Courcel, I thought.” “They’re of the Blood by birth, like Lyonette de Trevalion, but Thérèse married a Stregazza cousin. Dominic.” I had caught his interest; his voice ran a little ahead of his thoughts. Alcuin had always been better than I at royal genealogies. “A bad match, by all reckoning; he’s a minor Count, but then she was second-born. First is Marie-Celeste, who wed the Doge’s son. It’s her son stands to inherit La Serenissima. Once Prince Rolande died, I wager Dominic Stregazza thought to poise his family near the D’Angeline throne, though.” “And found his path blocked by House L’Envers,” I mused. “How disappointed he must have been. But why would Delaunay care who killed Isabel L’Envers? By all counts, she was his enemy.”

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Dahlia House

Dahlia claims she bestowed herself like a queen… The elder, Juliette, had hair darkening to a brassy gold in her seventh year, and it was reckoned that Dahlia House would buy her marque. With her reserve and solemn air, she was suited to its service.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Jasmine House

… it was to Jasmine House, indolent and sensual, that he hied himself. … Jasmine House, to which I would have been heir, holds that she did it for pleasure…

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Cereus House

As everyone knows, beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently. Upon such fragile transience was the fame of Cereus House founded. One could see, still, in the Dowayne, the ghostly echo of the beauty that had blossomed in her heyday, as a pressed flower retains its form, brittle and frail, its essence fled. In the general course of things, when beauty passes, the flower bows its head upon the stem and fails. Sometimes, though, when the petals droop, a framework of tempered steel is revealed within.

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Hyacinthe

After three years in pale, swooning Cereus House, he was positively exotic to my eyes. His skin was as brown as a Bhodistani’s, his eyes black and merry, and his hair hung to his shoulders in curls of jet. “Yes,” I said, and because I thought him beautiful, “What House are you from?” He squatted on his heels. “I live on the Rue Coupole, near the temple.” The stoop was dirty, but my gown was dirtier. I gathered it around my knees and sat. “My mother was of Jasmine House. You have their coloring, yes?” With one hand, he touched the ribbons twined in my hair. “These are nice. They’d fetch a few coppers, in the market.” His eyes widened, showing the whites. “You’re of the Night Court.” “Yes,” I said, then; “No. I’ve the spot, in my eye. They want to sell me.” “Oh.” He pondered it for a moment. “I’m Tsingani,” he said presently, pride puffing his voice. “Or my mother is, at least. She tells fortunes in the square, except on market days, and takes in washing. My name’s Hyacinthe.”

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Alais de la Courcel

“Imriel!” Heedless of the protocol of adults, Alais, the younger, launched herself at me with a shout of delight. “Welcome back! I missed you!” I caught her, staggering a bit under her weight, and tried to fend off her kisses. Slight though she was, at ten years of age, her exuberance carried an impact. “Hello, Alais.” “Did you bring me a puppy?” she demanded. “You promised you would, from the spring’s litter in Montrève.” “I forgot,” I said honestly. “But I wasn’t expecting to be here so soon.” “Oh.” Her violet eyes, like unto the Queen’s, darkened. It was her only resemblance to Ysandre. For the rest, she looked purely Cruithne, like her father. “Of course. I’m sorry, that was thoughtless.” “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll remember, next time.”

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Anafiel Delaunay

“She is a comely child,” I heard at length spoken in a bored voice; a man’s rich tenor, cultivated, but with the lack of modulation that only nobles can afford to display. I know this now, because Delaunay taught me to listen for such things. Then, I thought merely that he disliked me. “And the incident you describe intrigues. But I see nothing to intrigue me overmuch, Miriam. I’ve a pupil in hand these two years past; I’m not looking for another.” “Phèdre.”                                         My head jerked up at the command in the old Dowayne’s tone and I stared at her wide-eyed. She was looking at Delaunay and smiling faintly, so I transferred my gaze to him.                                    Anafiel Delaunay sat at his ease, canted languidly, elbow propped on the arm of the chair, contemplating me with his chin on his hand. He had very fine D’Angeline features, long and mobile, with long-lashed grey eyes flecked with topaz. His hair was a pleasing shade of ginger, and he wore a velvet doublet of deep brown. His only adornment was a fine chain of chased gold-work. His sleeves were russet, a hint of topaz silk gleaming in the slashes. He stretched his well-turned legs out lazily, clad in rich brown, the heel of one highly polished boot propped on the toe of the other. “Elua’s Balls!” He gave a bark of laughter that startled me. I saw Jareth and the Dowayne exchange a quick glance. Delaunay unfolded himself from the chair in one smooth, elegant motion, lowering himself to one knee before me. He took my face in both hands. “Do you know what mark you bear, little Phèdre?” His voice had turned caressing and his thumbs stroked my cheekbones, perilously close to my eyes. I quivered between his hands like a rabbit in a trap, longing. . . longing for him to do something, something terrible, fearful that he would, rigid with suppressing it. “No,” I breathed. He took his hands away, touching my cheek briefly in reassurance, and stood. “Kushiel’s Dart,” he said, and laughed. “You’ve an anguissette on your hands, Miriam; a true anguissette. Look at the way she trembles, even now, caught between fear and desire.”

Kushiel’s Legacy GIF sets || Marc de Trevalion

The Duc de Trevalion looked much like his kinsman Caspar: older, a trifle taller and more slender, but with the same raven’s-wing hair streaked with grey. Lines of age and sorrow were engraved on his face. He made a gesture, before the accusation was read, holding the King’s gaze and lifting his empty, shackled hands. “In the writings of the Yeshuites, the sin of Azza is named as pride,” he said quietly. “But we are D’Angeline, and the sin of angels is the glory of our race. The sin of Blessed Elua was that he loved too well earthly things. I have sinned against you as they do, brother, in pride and love.” Ganelon de la Courcel’s voice shook. “Do you say you aided my sister and conspired against the throne, brother?”  “I say I loved her too well.” Marc de Trevalion’s gaze never wavered. “As I love my son, who shares your blood. I knew. I did not countermand her orders to the admiral of my fleet, nor the Captain of my Guard. I knew.” Again the vote; again the thumbs turned downward, and it came at last to Ysandre de la Courcel. I watched her, and her face showed no more emotion than a cameo on a brooch as she turned it to her grandfather. Her voice was like cool water. “Let him be banished,” she said.