Cold Magic

Walk the dreams of dragons?

What did that mean?

In the tone of a man goaded by curiosity into imprudence, Andevai spoke. “Can such people truly exist?”

The mansa said, as if Andevai had not spoken, “Am I doing the right thing, Bakary? To bring a woman who walks the dreams of dragons into a mage House puts us all at a terrible risk. We know what the Wild Hunt did to Crescent House. We saw the ruins.”

“It is true, Mansa. So my father taught me and his father before him. This is known to us, but we never speak of it. To bring one who has learned to walk the path of dreams into a mage House is like bringing fire into a field of dry straw. One spark and all is consumed.”

“Yet she is too valuable to lose. I thought it would be enough to bind her to us through the contract and let her remain, untouched and untrained, in her family’s arms. If we bound her and kept her hidden in plain sight with her family, then no one else could take her, and we placed no risk on our House. That way, we held her in reserve. In case the storm came.”

“Plans are dust thrown into the wind,” said the djeli.

“So the storm comes, as we feared. We must take the risk.” The mansa’s words fell as heavy as iron.

I shifted to get a better look at the glass-paned wall that looked out over the garden: high arched windows, paned doors, velvet curtains swagging from the walls and tied back with ropes of red braid. Warmth breathed up from the raised floor, embracing my belly. Here in the protected halls of Four Moons House, it was difficult to imagine what risk they faced.

“I n-never knew…,” stammered Andevai, and an older, simpler accent surfaced in his voice, quickly stifled. “I had nay idea—no idea. Only a story I heard as a boy about a woman born with the gift that is a curse. She learned to walk the dreams of dragons, and so the Wild Hunt killed her. If that’s so, Mansa, and if an entire mage House was destroyed by the Wild Hunt because of one dreamer, then what would be so terrible that you would risk bringing such a person into Four Moons House?”

His question was met with a drawn-out silence.

When the djeli spoke, it seemed his voice penetrated the foundations of the house. “Camjiata has escaped his island prison.”

If the roof had fallen in on me, I could not have been more stunned. Perhaps I made a noise. The attendants glanced toward me and as quickly away. Bad enough to be humiliated like this without them smirking at me in my mortification. I dug deep for the concealing glamor, letting it embrace me like a cawl.

The mansa’s anger stung like sleet. “The Houses will keep the secret of Camjiata’s escape for as long as they can, but all too soon the news will get out. And when it does, the Barahals may try to seek him out and gain his protection. They do not know what the girl is, but we can be sure Camjiata will recognize her importance immediately. He will claim her, if he finds her before we do.”

“The other girl,” murmured Andevai. “When I saw Catherine, I was sure Catherine must be the one waiting for me… and then they told me she was the eldest…. She said she was two months older than the other girl.”

“So there is still time before the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter reaches her majority and the contract expires,” said the mansa.

A new uneasiness stirred in my heart. I pushed up my head to see if my arms worked and lowered myself down again. The attendants paid no attention to my movement.

“What must I do, Mansa, to regain your favor?” Andevai asked in a low voice.

“Return at once to Adurnam and marry the Barahal girl, as you were commanded to do.”

The djeli said, “The marriage already made was bound by an irrevocable chain, Mansa.”

“Then it must be undone.”

“It can’t be undone, Mansa,” replied the djeli patiently. “You know this as well as I do. And furthermore, the contract stipulates that the girl must be the sole wife of the magister who marries her.”

“So she will be,” said the mansa, each word ice, purposefully, deliberately. “The one you married in error is useless to us, Andevai. Indeed, she was party to the fraud. The marriage will be undone and the other girl recovered and brought under our control before the winter solstice. Andevai will carry out his duty to show his obedience and prove his worth.”

From the chamber on the other side of the door, silence fell. The attendants at the other double doors yawned, oblivious to the tension pouring out over me. In the garden, a breeze set the treetops swaying. I heard, rising from elsewhere in the building, the voices of children in full spate, laughter and teasing and stories and dares.