Cold Steel

“The mansa made him his heir!” I cried.

Brennan whistled with real admiration. “When I suggested you spy in the mage House, I had no idea you would do so with such success!”

“Heir to Four Moons House?” demanded Bee. “So he will become the next mansa?”

I nodded, too choked to speak.

She patted my hand. “Blessed Tanit! No wonder you’re crying! If there is one enticement Andevai could not resist, that would be it.”

“It gets worse,” I sniveled. “The mansa brought Vai’s mother along to be prisoner with his sisters. Now with his elevation his mother is elevated, too! She was born a peddler’s daughter and now she’s the honored mother of the heir to Four Moons House!”

Brennan whistled again. “Bold Teutates! Remind me never to play chess with the mansa. That will have secured the young man’s loyalty. You can’t ask a man to take a course of action that will seem to him to be dishonoring his mother.”

“Did you ask him to give up the heirship, Cat?” Bee asked. “Or did he cast you out so he could secure a more valuable bride?”

“Of course he didn’t cast me out!” I crumpled a pamphlet in my hands. I hated the way my anger and distress surged like storm tides, ripping me this way and that until I could not even think straight for wanting to cry one moment and rage the next.

“Of course he didn’t cast her out,” said Rory with a disdainful sniff. “For one thing, his scent is still all over her, and pretty fresh. For another, he would think it would make him look bad, as if he’s ashamed of Cat. If there’s one thing he truly hates, it’s the thought of looking bad or feeling demeaned in front of other people. No, there’s one thing he hates worse. He hates people thinking he is ashamed of where he comes from, because a part of him is ashamed of it.”

We all stared at him.

He explained with the patience of an elder to slow-witted children. “People often lie with their words, even if they don’t mean to purposefully. But almost no people can lie with their bodies. Do you need me to go and scold him?”

I wiped tears off my cheeks. “No. It would just make him worse. They praise and fawn over him to his face and talk about his low origins behind his back. But they’re scared of him, too, and so very impressed by how powerful he is.”

Bee nodded, stroking my arm. “What now, Cat?”

I flipped through the pamphlets to give my hands something to do. The writings ranged from broadsheets in simple verse to Professora Nayo Kuti’s lengthy tracts. “It was insupportable living in the mage House as the heir’s wife with nothing to do or look forward to except—”

“You need not describe the whole,” said Bee quickly.

“But I won’t let the mage House have him. I love him too much to let them ruin him!”

“Only you could. Honestly, Cat, sometimes I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“No doubt I learned how to love annoying people by growing up with you!”

Rory snorted.

Without the least furrow of irritation, she smiled at Brennan in a gentle way that made her look as radiant as a kind goddess standing in a heavenly beam of light. “I suppose you did.”

She glanced toward the archway as the two trolls and Kehinde came into the room. Chartji held aloft a candle lantern. Her taloned feet clacked as she walked in the oddly rhythmic glide trolls had. She bobbed to acknowledge me.

Kehinde came forward with hands extended to grasp mine. “Cat Barahal! I am so pleased to see you. May your heart be at peace.” She looked at our expressions, and raised an eyebrow in inquiry. “What news do you bring?”

I drew myself up. “I’ve glimpsed the mage Houses and their princely and Roman allies from the inside. I’m now convinced the general is the only one who can overthrow their grip on power. But Vai will never support Camjiata as long as the general is allowing James Drake to use fire magic to fight his battles. Nor should he. So I am going to infiltrate Camjiata’s army and kill James Drake.”

Before anyone could respond to my bold and dramatic declaration, a shrill troll whistle sounded outside, followed by a cascade of human whistles. The rumble of voices from the chamber ceased so abruptly that for an instant I thought I had gone deaf.

“Here come the authorities!” said Brennan with a glint in his smile that got my heart pounding, and not in a romantical way. He looked like a person spoiling for a fight. “Kehinde, you and Bee go swiftly now. You, too, Cat.”

“I am an accomplished swordswoman,” said Bee.