Cold Fire

“Do you want to be released from our marriage, Catherine?” His stare challenged me.



“May I speak bluntly?” I asked.



“When did you ever not?”



“You’d be surprised how many times I bit my tongue!”



“If you’d done so, I would think I would have seen more blood.”



“One drop was enough,” I said.



With an intake of breath, he stiffened, looking like a man who has no idea how he came to be standing in a place so far beneath his consequence. “There is no answer to that.”



How was it he kept putting me on the defensive? “You misunderstand me. All I meant was, are you willing to hear what I have to say in front of another person?”



Chartji’s crest rose slightly.



“I do not fear her censure, if that is what you think. Anything said here won’t be repeated.”



“I was trying to be thoughtful,” I said. “I meant only to spare your feelings.”



“Please do not begin concerning yourself about my feelings now.”



“Was there a time before this I would have had some reason to be concerned for your feelings? Perhaps after I was forced to marry you and you treated me with cruelty instead of kindness? Or perhaps when I was running for my life after you were commanded to kill me?”



The troll’s faint whistle shivered the air. I fisted my hands, waiting for Andevai to cut me down to size.



He shut his eyes, then opened them to look right at me, his voice tight and his tone rigidly formal. “I regret the high-handed way I behaved toward you on that journey almost as much as I regret not immediately rejecting the mansa’s command to kill you. But my regrets do not change the past. So say what you must, Catherine. I am not afraid to hear it.”



My heart was hammering so hard I was dizzy. I brushed the back of a hand across my forehead and took a breath to steady myself. “You belong to Four Moons House. Legally, you belong to them. You had to marry me because you were ordered to do it. Once I was forced to marry you, I belonged to them, too, through the djeli’s binding that contracted me to you. You knew that’s what would happen. So in a way I think it was an attempt at kindness for you to think that you and I—that you thought I was—” Heat seared my cheeks. I could not go on.



“Acquit me of kindness, Catherine. I meant what I said.”



I certainly could not forget what he had said: “When I saw you coming down the stairs that evening, it was as if I were seeing the other half of my soul descending to greet me.”



I gulped in air and got words past an obstruction. “Even if you believe that now, to Four Moons House I will never be anything except the mistake you made that lost them the person they wanted. The burden of protecting me from their indifference and spite will eventually wear away whatever affection you may currently believe you hold for me.”



“I wish you would speak for yourself, Catherine, and stop telling me what I do and do not believe and how I will and will not act.”



“Then I’ll speak for myself.” Because my hands were shaking, I clasped them together again. “I can’t live in Four Moons House as an unwanted creature whom everyone will scorn. And I know you said I could live in your family’s village, but I wouldn’t know how to live there. I’d be so out of place. Above all else, I know better than to chance what may happen tomorrow on a transitory passion felt today.”



I had to stop.



He said nothing. Yes, he was physically handsome, and attractive in some other intangible way. After those first disastrous days, he had made an effort to help me. His kiss had certainly pleased me in a most startling manner. But I did not love him. How could I? I didn’t even know him. And whatever he might think, he did not truly know me. He only believed he did.



“I am sure it is to your credit that you tried to soften the blow,” I went on.



“Soften the blow??” His eyes flared.



Had I been wiser, I would have stopped, because the fire in the hearth flickered.



No one had ever accused me of being wise.



“You were commanded to marry a woman against both your own will and hers. So you concocted a honeyed fable in your heart to make an unpleasant duty palatable. Just as you weave illusions out of light, you wove an illusion about us. One soul cleaved into two halves and then like destiny reunited—”



The fire whuffed out with a puff of ash. A glimmer of ice crackled across the heavy iron circulating stove.



“Are you quite through insulting me?” he demanded.



Chartji’s crest was fully raised. I felt she was making ready to act precipitously in case someone lost his temper and brought down the house.