Cold Fire

“No, I suppose we are not. Even so, I don’t think you understand destiny as well as you claim to.”



He nodded in a way that was both challenge and promise. “We shall see.”



With a lift of my chin, I acknowledged the old proprietor, for I did wonder what he could tell me about my mother. He nodded as in reply to my unspoken questions. Unmolested by the general’s partisans, we left.



Kofi saw me home and, before departing for the Council House, posted a guard at the gate.



“For I see the general don’ care for yee, Cat, and I don’ trust him.”



We stood in the shadow of the open gate, him outside and me within. “Why, Kofi, whence comes this change of heart about me?”



“Shall I doubt yee love Vai?”



“No, yee shall not. But I am curious.”



“Kayleigh reckon yee truly care for him. I trust she to have Vai’s interests best in she heart. But also, when I rowed yee and Vai back to the jetty that morning, yee fell asleep. That convinced me yee truly love him.”



I flushed, thinking of how strenuously Vai and I had spent that night. “Because I fell asleep?”



He chuckled as if divining my thoughts. “If yee were really after him to betray him, yee could never close yee eyes nor chance to miss one thing he said yee could use against him. But yee just lay yee head against he shoulder and slept. ’Twas sweet. ’Twas the first time I truly saw yee trust him.”



He kissed me on the cheek and went off to the business of Expedition’s future.



I took Rory in and introduced him to the family. Afterward I took Aunty Djeneba aside. “He is harmless, and very loyal.” She indicated the bar, where Rory was already buttering up Brenna, who was giggling like a gal half her age. “All right,” I agreed. “That’s a problem he has. Just you wait until he turns the charm on you. Is there some mending I can do?”



I mended through the afternoon, too restless to take the usual nap. My thoughts churned and boiled as I thought of Vai in my sire’s clutches. When the courtyard began to fill with curious customers, I took a tray. It was easier to move than to sit, and if I had to exchange brilliant quips with the regulars, that kept my mind off Vai, who might only now be realizing I had just been thrown out of the coach, for who knew how time was running for him? Would he think I was dead?



“Gal?” Uncle Joe paused beside me where I leaned against the counter, stricken by a wash of cramping or perhaps only fear. “Yee all right?”



I pressed my hand against the locket, where our hearts pulsed. Vai would know that I lived and that, because I lived, I would come after him. “Just tired, Uncle.”



“Yee go up to yee sleep, gal. Yee have the same room as before.”



I looked around to find Rory sitting between Tanny and Diantha, lounging at his ease with his long legs stretched out. He was laughing in that flirtatious way he had as Tanny told a story whose words I could not be bothered to overhear. “That will not end well, Uncle, do you think? What if they fight over him?”



He chuckled. “There is that about those two gals I think yee don’ know. Anyway, they’s of age to make up they own minds, gal. Yee go on up.”



I slipped out of the courtyard and went up with a candle to light my weary way. When I closed the door behind me, I stared, for the room was furnished with a bed and chest I knew. I set the candle on the floor and opened the lid to see all his dash jackets waiting for him. As I ran my hands through the folds of the fabric, a tear wound down my cheek.



I did not hear the door open and close. Wind blew out the candle, and he touched my shoulder.



“Catherine.”



“Vai? Blessed Tanit! Vai!”



I leaped up and embraced him as the lid banged down. He pressed his lips hotly to mine and in the dark room with the cheerful noise of the evening drinkers serenading us, we kissed until I thought I would dissolve into him.



Then I caught my breath and drew back, peering at him in the darkness, him and his annoyingly handsome face and the strange wisp-light in his beautiful eyes. My hands stroked the buttons and fine chains of embroidery woven down the front of the dash jacket he wore. My fingers itched to undress the man I loved. “Vai, how did you escape…?”



Fear squeezed my heart.



“Let me see your navel,” I said.



He laughed, but it was not Vai’s laugh. His smile cut like contempt, and although he looked exactly like Vai, his gaze was as hard as stone. “I have come to warn yee, maku. We don’ want yee here. Yee cut a path through what was closed. Elsewise that one shall not have taken blood from this country.”