Cold Fire - Page 152/210

“Now listen carefully, Cat,” the general went on. “A living cold mage serves me much better than a dead one. I would value the services of a powerful cold mage when I return to Europa.”

“One like your wife?” I asked.

“She was not a powerful cold mage. She had only a minor gift, enough to call a wisp of cold fire, which was ironic considering how poor her vision was. She was as close to a castoff as a child can be who is born into a mage House. Her House, and she, had no idea she walked the path of dreams. Everyone just thought she recited the most execrable poetry to get attention. But when she was about your age she heard her destiny in her own words.”

Despite my irritation, I was drawn into his story. “What was her destiny?”

“Why, I was. Or she was mine. Hard to say. Maybe I should say, we were meant to be together, being each other’s destiny.”

“That’s very romantical,” I said caustically. Bee caught my eye, and I knew she was thinking, Didn’t that cold mage call you the other half of his soul? I narrowed my eyes to let her know that if she spoke one word I would make her life so miserable that dismemberment would seem a mercy.

She ate her egg.

“I meant,” I added, “considering what happened.”

“Perhaps you mean to note that I am alive while she is dead. Quite true. Believe me, Cat, I intend to do everything I can to keep Beatrice alive. It was what Helene would have wanted. For they are all sisters of a kind, the women who walk the path of dreams.”

“Like in one of those quaint cautionary folktales,” remarked Bee, “in which everyone dies.”

“Yes. Which brings me back to the point I have been trying to make. Cat, my dear, I fear you have not heard me, so I will say it again. If you do not bring the cold mage to me, then I will have to kill him. If that is what you want, then by all means, rid yourself of the magister and your marriage by refusing to cooperate with me. But do not make the mistake of underestimating me.”

“Unless he kills you first.”

“He will not kill me because I know who will kill me. And it is not him.”

“How can you know?”

“On the day Helene and I first met, it was the second thing she said to me. That she had seen the instrument of my death.”

“And you married her?” I demanded.

“As soon as I could.” He laughed. “Wouldn’t you?”

Bee stirred. “You’ve lived with that knowledge all this time? That’s remarkable.” She stared at him with none of the sledgehammer intensity that usually characterized her glares and looks. She looked as admiring as an actress in a stage play simpering at the steadfast prince whom she lovingly serves for the duration of the implausible plot.

A chill, as the broadsheet poets wrote in their cheaply inked stories, ran down my spine.

He sipped at his tea as if considering Bee’s praise was the weightiest task on his mind, far more than death, war, revolution, love, cold mages, and dream walkers. “Is it? We all live with the knowledge of impending death, do we not?”

“Did she tell you who?” I asked.

He looked at me. But he said nothing.

“Who will be the instrument of your death?” I added, in case he had not understood me.

He poured more tea into his cup, set the ceramic pot back on its trivet, and turned the cup’s handle so it lay parallel with the table’s edge. His gentle smile had such power that I leaned toward him as if he were about to confer on me a great honor or the princely kiss of approval.

“Why, you will, Cat. You will.”

28

I am not a young woman who craves attention. Although people have at times suggested that I talk a great deal, I could maintain silence with the best of them. A stony silence, accompanied by an offended glare, worked wonders on most people when they had insulted me.

Unfortunately, it had no effect at all on Camjiata. He smiled in an accommodating way. “I mean no offense, Cat. Nor do I mean to accuse you or even to suggest that I feel any hostility toward you. I am simply telling you what Helene told me.”

I set fisted hands on the table. “You’re trying to intimidate me. I won’t betray him to you.”

“You already have, or so he must believe.”

Had he slapped me, it would have hurt less.

“Amazing!” Drake’s lips curled into a sneer. “A more pompous, conceited, self-admiring ass I have never before encountered, and yet after all if you add to that a handsome face and expensive tailoring, the gals will crawl at his feet. Really, Cat, I’m disappointed in you.”