Cold Steel

“I can hear you moving about, Cat. Do you think I did not notice when you suddenly vanished? Dark Ataecina! Whence comes this shadow magic? Has the Hassi Barahal clan nurtured it close to their hearts all these years? Uniquely suited for a family of spies, don’t you think? Or is it only you, Cat? Not cold, not fire, but a creature as yet unclassified by the scholars.”

Fortunately, before I felt obliged to answer this salvo, all delivered in a cheerful tone, boots sounded in the corridor. I threw myself on the couch and pretended to be asleep as Drake walked in. The whiff of smoke made me choke.

“I have discovered another apt fire mage. Another girl.”

“You seem to prefer the girls, James.” Camjiata’s tone seemed distracted, but I heard the edge cutting beneath his genial disinterest.

“Girls are more malleable. More grateful, for I give them a status and independence they cannot gain elsewise. Thus they are the most loyal of all. Most of them, anyway. Not this one.” I felt the pressure of his gaze as he looked at me. I wanted to leap up and stab him, but Vai’s cautions and my promise to the radical cause stayed my hand. “Women are so grievously shallow-minded. If the arrogant cold mage weren’t so handsome and cocksure, she wouldn’t love him half as well.”

“Really, James, you must give up this unseemly obsession.”

“I care nothing for her. Angeline is far more beautiful and an equal to me besides. But she will lead me to him.”

“If you kill him, I will be seriously displeased with you.”

Drake laughed. “And then what? Then what will you do?”

Tension stung like the snap of air before a thunderstorm breaks.

“Do you want to find out, James?”

Noble Ba’al, but I had to admire the general’s self-assurance! Drake hesitated for so long I almost popped my head up just to enjoy the expression that surely soured his face. Rory prodded me with his foot. I stayed curled up.

“Without my help, your partisans would never have been able to break you out of your island prison.”

“I am aware of what I owe to you. But I am also aware of what you owe to me. You are a murderer, condemned by your own kinfolk in your own clan’s court of law.”

“They left me to burn after stealing my inheritance! Of course I acted to save myself!”

“Any justness in your actions does not change the fact that I brought you under my protection at considerable risk to my reputation.”

“You promised me an army to take back what is mine.”

“An army you shall have, once my victory is assured. How long do you think you will last without my support, James?”

“I am coming to question whether I need your support at all. My fire mages are loyal to me because they know I am the only one who will raise them up and defend them. They will never let any harm come to me. I used to think I needed your army, but now I wonder if all I need are powerful fire banes. Who would dare oppose me then?”

“A constant application of terror and grief is no way to rule.” Footsteps sounded in the corridor. “Here are my officers. Have your people ready to ride within the half hour.”

“I shall not be patient for much longer,” muttered Drake.

The instant the sting of Drake’s presence faded from the room, I kicked Rory’s shins and got up. The staff officers nodded at me; they had accepted our presence among them with the alacrity of youthful disinterest. After all, they had a war to fight. We made a meal of bread and cheese, and I was glad to have it for I suspected that many of the soldiers got nothing. Before the sun’s edge topped the horizon, the troops were moving north in their columns. The pops and cracks of gunfire signaled a skirmish far in the advance.

“This knife’s edge must be walked cautiously,” remarked Camjiata when he and I had a moment riding apart from the others. “You do understand, do not you, that if we lose this battle today, then all is lost?”

“Because the princes and mages will crack down so hard on dissent that it will be decades or generations before another radical movement has a chance to rise? Or because you’ll have lost control of Drake? Never believe I am selfless enough to sacrifice my husband on the altar of your empire.”

“Just buy me time, Cat. Do nothing rash.” He glanced toward where Drake rode amid his company of mages, then back to me. “Had you been my daughter, you would have been loyal to me.”

“Tara gave me the father she wanted me to have,” I said softly, but he could not hear.

The rising sun bent its rays over the landscape. The road sloped upward along a gentle rise. Rumbling booms shook the air. A frantic blaring of trumpets, as with warning calls, was followed by the crackling of gunfire, which at length subsided into an uncanny quiet that made me more nervous than anything that had come before.