The Darker Side of Desire
Kushiel's
Scion
Jacqueline Carey
Warner Books, June 2006
ISBN 0-44650-002-X
Review by Melanie Fletcher
In 2002, Jacqueline Carey caused a minor controversy in the speculative fiction community when she published the first book in the Kushiel's Legacy series, Kushiel's Dart. The story of Phédre nò Delaunay, a courtesan/spy with a divine ability to derive pleasure from pain, Kushiel's Dart interwove political intrigue with delicately written S&M scenes, pitting Phédre against her own greatest temptation, the beautiful and cruel Lady Melisande Shahrizai, for the fate of Terre d'Ange (loosely based on 17th Century France). This contest continued through the next two books, Kushiel's Chosen and Kushiel's Avatar, as Phédre struggled to stop Melisande's various plots to overthrow Queen Ysandre de la Courcel and gain the throne of Terre d'Ange.
In the series' fourth book, Kushiel's Scion, Carey shifts the focus from Phédre to Imriel de la Courcel, Melisande's son with Benedicte de la Courcel, the uncle of Queen Ysandre. After a failed plot results in Benedicte's death and Melisande's incarceration in a religious community, the infant Imriel is spirited away by his mother's followers and raised as an orphan in a rural village, unaware that he is third in line to the throne. Kidnapped by roving slavers ten years later, Imriel winds up in the harem of an insane Persian ruler, enduring torture and degradation until Ysandre sends Phédre and her warrior consort Joscelin Verreuil to locate and rescue him. Knowing that Melisande doesn't want her son raised by the Queen, Phedre strikes a bargain with the imprisoned noble; Phedre will raise Imriel as her own son if Melisande promises never to move against the throne of Terre d'Ange again. Melisande agrees, and Imriel becomes the foster son of Phédre and Joscelin.
In Kushiel's Scion, Imriel grows to manhood, painfully aware that his blood parents are Terre d'Ange's most reviled traitors; many powerful people at court want to see him dead, and his relationship with his royal cousins is strained at best. At the same time, Imriel also struggles with his burgeoning sexuality, hindered by his experiences in the Mahrkagir's deadly harem and the growing knowledge that he shares his birth mother's dangerous tastes in sex. The fact that his beloved foster parent Phédre is also an anguisette — the masochistic yin to his sadistic yang — convinces him to leave Terre d'Ange and become a student at the famed University of Tiberium. There, he falls into yet another web of intrigue with his new-found friends and the luscious Claudia Fulvia, a senator's wife and journeyman spy.
Unlike the first three books in the series, Kushiel's Scion is a smaller, more intimate story, focusing on one young man's personal conflicts instead of politics and the world stage. Carey's change of POV character opens a new view of Terre d'Ange and its machinations; instead of the pliant, clever anguisette Phédre, we see events through the haunted eyes of Imriel, a young man juggling the guilt of being his mother's child with a burning desire to be good, set against the background of a royal court eager to condemn him as a traitor. The fact that he is a scion of Kushiel, an angel charged with administering punishment to the damned, only complicates matters when the antagonism between himself and the Dauphine Sidonie, heir to the throne of Terre d'Ange, alchemizes into wary desire.
Matters come to a head when the Queen proposes a marriage between Imriel and a princess from the island of Alba, meant to secure d'Angeline interests in the allied land. Overcome by royal pressures and his growing passion for the remote Dauphine, Imriel chooses instead to enroll as a student at the University of Tiberium in far-off Caerdicca Unitas. Intending to follow a peaceful course of study, Imriel finds himself surrounded by new friends; Eamonn mac Graine from Eire, the icy Skaldic maiden Brigitta, and erratic but brilliant Lucius Tadius. Imriel's friendship with Lucius soon embroils him in yet another conspiracy when he becomes the lover of Lucius's sister, the powerful Claudia Fulvia. Claudia's beauty is only one of her lures; another is her membership in a covert society that trained Phedre's long-dead mentor and may be sheltering Imriel's mother, who has escaped from her religious prison. Claudia offers him entry into this society, but only if he agrees to support it even if it means going against Terre d'Ange.
Torn between his desire for Claudia and his loyalty to his country, Imriel gains some breathing room when he, Eamonn and Brigitta agree to accompany Lucius to his wedding in the nearby city of Lucca. Once there, Imriel learns of a local legend, the Bella Donna; a beautiful woman, unjustly imprisoned, whose son was taken from her and lost. Shocked, Imriel realizes that the Bella Donna is his own mother, Melisande; the clever noblewoman had encouraged a cult of personality during her incarceration, and spread it in her path when she escaped.
Sure that she is somewhere in Caerdicca Unitas, Imriel decides to search for her. Before he can start, however, Lucius's fiancée is kidnapped by a local warlord and Lucca is besieged by his forces. To make matters worse, the ghost-haunted Lucius becomes possessed by one of his own ancestors, the bloodthirsty warlord Gallus Tadius, who drafts all the men of Lucca, including Imriel and Eamonn, into a last-ditch defense of the city. In order to save himself and his friends, Imriel must accept the horrors of his past, including his heritage as Kushiel's scion, and become a true Prince of the Blood.
The fourth entry in the Kushiel's Legacy series stands up well to its predecessors, even with the shift of the main character. As in the first three books, Carey use of language is lush and poetic; however, Imriel's masculinity and conflicted desires lend the story more of an edge, and to Carey's credit she recognizes this, dropping the lyricism when appropriate. The fight scenes in particular are well orchestrated and realistic, and the Cassiline style of dagger fighting (used by Joscelin, Imriel and the Cassiline Brothers) is described in much greater detail.
Carey also takes the bold step of allowing the next generation to step forward in Kushiel's Scion and take up the thread of the story. As fascinating as they are, Phédre no Delaunay and her circle gracefully become secondary characters here, ceding the stage to Imriel and his royal cousins Sidonie and Alais as they create the next chapter in d'Angeline history. This sort of forward thinking, while disappointing to fans of Phédre and Joscelin, shows a shrewd appreciation for the organic forces of character development, and bodes well for the next book in the series, Kushiel's Justice.
