Cold Steel

Without his cold fire to light the evening, I crawled back into bed at dusk.

What woke me I did not at first know, only that I came awake groping for my sword. The hilt shivered in my hand as I drew it out of the spirit world. Vai was sprawled across half the bed, dead asleep but breathing comfortably. The door’s latch jigged down, and the door bumped against the chair. Veiled in shadow, I padded to the door.

A male voice muttered to his companions in words I understood well enough to get the gist: The mage was ill, the black-haired beast was alone and trapped in the body of a woman, so the cursed magister could be slaughtered like the pig all mages were and his possessions shared among men bold enough to take action.

A hand groped through the crack where the door gapped open, seeking to shove away the chair. I stabbed, pinning the hand to the wood.

“I never sleep. After I kill you, I’ll paint my face with your blood and come after the rest.”

I pulled the blade out.

Whimpering in fear, the men stumbled out the front door. I grabbed the linen dressing robe, tied it around myself, and went after them. By the time I reached the open door, my attackers had vanished into the night. A lamp carried by a single person approached across the snow. With sword raised, I waited. A middle-aged man halted at the bottom of the stairs. His lime-whitened, spiky hair glittered with snowflakes. In his ears shone the gold earrings of a djeli. He spoke with an educated accent as he measured me with a tale-teller’s curiosity and an icing of fear.

“My apologies if the magister was disturbed. I heard too late that ruffians were up to mischief. They will be punished.” There drifted from the village a shout, followed by a scream. “Do you wish to kill them yourself?”

Anger made it easy for me to strike. “No. Give them a year’s punishment at hard labor so they live to tell the tale of how no man can attack a magister. How are we to sleep, knowing the hospitality we were offered has been violated?”

“It is our shame that the magister was insulted. No doubt he keeps one such as you as protection.”

“One such as me? What do you mean?”

He hesitated, looking as if he were trying to decide whether it would be better to answer or to plunge his head into a cauldron of boiling oil. “I mean no offense. Your hair and eyes stamp you as being born with the mark of the Hunt. Such children are known to be unseemly wild and ungovernable, lustful and violent.”

“Are there many like me here in the north?” I demanded, much struck by this revelation. Was my sire tomcatting about every Hallows’ Night? Or was the wolf we had seen capable, like Rory, of walking in human skin?

“Not so many. Most such ill-omened children are set out in winter for the wolves to eat. I will watch here by the door through the rest of the night myself, if you will allow it.”

I let him into the passage to sit on a bench. Once back in the bedchamber I shoved the chair back up against the door and then sat under the quilt in the bed, unable to sleep for the way my blood was pounding. Set out in winter for the wolves to eat! I would just eat those cursed wolves first! Not to mention skewer every night-stalking criminal who hated cold mages.

Vai hadn’t stirred. Asleep, he was so vulnerable. I had once heard him describe to his grandmother the impossibility of a cold mage making his way in the world alone, without a mage House to protect him. Was there no safe place for us?

I meant to keep watch until he woke, but as dawn lightened night to gray, I dozed off.

A spill of water woke me. He stood naked at the side table washing his face at a basin. Seeing me awake, he slipped back into bed.

“Vai!” I cradled his face in my hands as I studied him for lines of illness. “I was so worried about you. How do you feel?”

“Rested and warm, although I’m hungry. Why would you be worried about me?” I loved the way his hands roamed, knowing just how to touch me. “Ah! You’re worried because I fell asleep last night instead of—”

“Last night? You slept two nights and a day!”

“Did I? I collapse sometimes when I weave too much cold magic for too long without rest.” His casual tone reassured me, as did the kisses he flew along my cheek. “It’s no wonder you’re disappointed and fretful.”

“To be sure! Now that you mention it, I suppose I am a trifle sulky and out of sorts, and not just because I spent all day yesterday as an adoring wife ought, lovingly mending your dash jacket while watching over you in your sickbed, and afterward stabbing a man in the hand.”

He drew back. “What?”

“Last night I stopped three men from breaking into this chamber and killing you.”