Cold Steel

In silence he studied me over the brim of his glass as if waiting for me to rethink my position and change my mind. But I was not to be trapped as Vai had been. I knew how to riposte.

“Did you love her?” I asked.

He drained the glass and set it down with a hard clunk. “You are not the only one to have lost those you held dear.”

“I’m sorry they aren’t with us now,” I replied quickly, for his spike of anger startled me.

“This is why you and I will never be done, little cat, for we are all that remains of them.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, as this war goes on, it seems we need each other.”

I went to the side table to slice bread and smear dollops of cheese on top.

Many scribes and storytellers have recorded the history of the world, each colored by its author’s own interpretation and illuminating only the part of the tale she feels is important or wishes to reveal. Stories tell us what we think we know about the world. Sometimes they share truth and knowledge, and sometimes they propagate lies and ignorance.

But words are only one road to change. The sword, which is not fighting but any form of action, is the other. Some cut a path that others may follow into the wilderness of possibility. The general saw not limits but unchained opportunity. I did not trust him, but I believed that, as Rory had once said, he said what he meant, and he meant what he said. At least in the moment he said it.

“What exactly is it you need me for, Cat?”

“Your legal code will release villages and clans from clientage. That’s what I need.” I offered him the plate. “Do you ever worry about your safety? Since I’m to be the instrument of your death.”

“Will I die because of a deliberate action on your part against me? Might you be the tool someone else will use to destroy me? Or is your refusal to be my heir the death of my hopes to set in place a successor whose ideals will match my own and thus improve the destiny of humanity?”

I laughed. “Oh, that was well played, General. But the answer is still no.”

He took several slices of bread off the plate. “You can’t possibly believe that I believe you came to me because you have been seized by an overwhelming desire to join my army.”

“We have a common enemy,” I said in a low voice.

He glanced again toward the door, then smiled with a confiding look that drew an answering smile from me. Was I so starved for affection that I would rub up against any hand that offered a friendly pat?

“So we do. It is the only reason you are not weighted in chains and thrown into the river to drown. I mean that in the poetic sense, you understand.”

“When you offered to make me your heir, did you mean that in the poetic sense as well?”

“Oh, no, Cat. I mean that with all seriousness.”

“Even though you distrust my motives for coming here?”

“Were I to truly gain your loyalty, I would know it to be sincere and unshakable. Do not dismiss my offer out of hand.”

Unlike with Vai and the mansa, nothing in the offer tempted me. “Should you gain your empire, it should then die with you. I will not be the means to prolong it. I stand with the radicals, General. Each day we add to our numbers. You are strong, but in the end, we will be stronger.”

He lifted his glass as if in toast to my speech, then drank.

I drank with him, not in his honor but in honor of all those who fought. I could not help but see Bee and myself caught between the mansa and the general—just as, in another way, we were caught between courts and dragons. Vast forces battled, sweeping us up in their conflict. At first we had been ignorant pawns, able to run but never to stand. Alone we did not have the means or the strength to effect change.

But in the midst of the monstrous assembly that is slave to fortune, each solitary small figure who linked her hand to another built a chain of loyalty and trust.

We make ourselves into the net that we throw across the ocean.

41

Rory gave a copiously false yawn and rose to open the shutters. Roosters crowed. The creak of wheels and trample of feet and hooves drifted from the encampment as the army moved out.

“Where are we going today?” Rory asked as he plundered the remaining bread and cheese.

Aides and attendants clattered into the room to pack away the gear with impressive speed. The general personally escorted me to the latrines. Youths wearing the red jackets of fire mages hovered close all the while, like hawks waiting to dive on cautious rabbits. The truth was, I did fear their fire. Rory did not even try to flirt with them.

Faster than I had thought possible, the headquarters staff was on the road in a column of horses, carriages, and dust. We were led by a company of Amazons under the command of Captain Tira. A battalion of Iberian infantry marched behind. The baggage and hospital train would follow at the rear.