Cold Fire

Luce dragged me along toward one of the women’s circles where she had seen her friends. I paced along with Tanny and Diantha, the steps easy to follow, the gals chatting like runaway horses. They wanted to know about Luce’s hair; my jacket and skirt; they wanted to know about Luce’s father’s ship; they wanted Diantha to tell them about the latest tryouts for the women’s team of the Rays; they wanted to know if kerchiefed Gaius had come courting Tanny with a basket of mamey.



How they talked! I might have said something, but I could not get in one word, and anyway, I kept losing track of the conversation and the steps. I had to scan the restless shifting of the crowd.



But of course he would not come out onto the ball court, not with all those gas lamps.



I tugged at Luce. “I shall be right back. You stay here?”



She rolled her eyes. “Yee’s not gone looking for him already?”



Affronted, I meant to make a brilliant counterthrust, but I caught sight of Kofi strolling along the stone risers with one of the gals I had seen at the gate the night before. I hurried after him, only to lose him in the crowd as I pushed out of the ball court and into the plaza where food carts had been set up together with folk peddling such a fine array of amulets, beaded necklaces, and brass or shell earrings that I would have paused to browse had I not been impelled to look for…



Arms crossed on his chest, he was leaning against the closed tailgate of a wagon in whose bed stood four soldiers. One soldier was exhorting the gathered audience, mostly young men, to sign up for the general’s army, where fortune and adventure awaited in distant Europa. With his closed expression and detached gaze, Vai looked so like the haughty cold mage I had first met that I could barely stand to look at his handsome face, inviting body, and beautiful clothes. What had I been thinking, to come here? Could a man eavesdrop more clumsily, in his excessively decorative jacket that marked him a mile off?? Could he look more contemptuous, with eyes staring onto nothing and lips pressed together as if he was holding back angry words? I tried to remember all the cutting things he had ever said to me, but there were so many it was hard to recall even one.



My hands clasped and unclasped restlessly over the skirt. Had I dressed up so he would admire me? Or to make him chafe at what he couldn’t have? Was Aunty right? Was I just trying to punish him? I felt like a monster, the grotesque spawn of a courageous, bold woman who had protected the man she loved and of a heartless creature who with brutal efficiency and no scruples or compassion hunted down anyone who disturbed his peace of mind.



He saw me, away across the crowd. His entire expression changed. The mask of contempt washed away as in a cleansing downpour. He pushed away from the wagon and arrowed for me.



Blessed Tanit. I could not move. My mouth was parched and my heart was galloping.



Even when a surge of people passing in front cut off my view, freeing me from the chain that linked our gazes, I could not move.



He elbowed his way out of the crowd. And there he was, standing right in front me. Him. Just him. There was no one else in the world except him.



“Catherine?” He extended his right hand, and somehow my left hand leaped into his grasp. “Are you well?”



I leafed through my extensive mental dictionary and managed to snare a word. “What?”



His eyebrows rose. “You look…stunned. Like a cow that’s been bludgeoned by a sledgehammer.”



“I look like a cow?”



Several people passing paused at my outraged words, and their gazes dropped to my sandaled feet as if they thought to see hooves. Then the crowd’s roiling current ripped them away.



He released my hand and pressed his to my forehead. “No fever. Maybe you just need something to drink. Guava juice with lime and pineapple. That’s your favorite.”



I was riveted by the smile that curved his lips. “Why do you always call me Catherine and never Cat?”



He leaned intimately closer. “A name should be like a caress. Why make it short?”



I am sure I would have spoken a sophisticatedly witty question in reply if my mind had not, just then, lurched to a halt as his lips brushed my cheek with a feathery-light kiss, and then a second and a third, moving toward my ear.



He murmured words like a fourth kiss. “Tell me what you want from me, Catherine. For whatever it is, you know you can have it.”



I had made a dreadful mistake. I had left Sensible Cat and Heartless Cat at the law offices of Godwik and Clutch. There was only one way to protect myself.



“I want the truth of why you came to Expedition,” I said hoarsely.



He took my hand. “Very well. Let’s get something to eat.”