Cold Steel

He thought it was a good idea to go down. I slogged along, steered by his grip. My sword flared as he shaped bulbs of cold fire. A door gave way to a narrow entry hall with a stall for animals, where he dumped our gear. Inside a second door lay a bench and table and a bed tucked into an alcove with cupboards built in beneath. The hearth was empty but for a large kettle and roasting spit. The room was cold, windowless, and dark, with barely enough room to turn around in.

While he explored, I drifted, reflexively setting my cane and the basket on the table. Hadn’t I been carrying a pack before? I couldn’t remember how he had come to have it. Fortunately I was no longer cold. His exclamation roused me. He was pulling skins and furs from the cupboards beneath the bed.

“This is a hunters’ refuge. A place men can take shelter if they’re caught out in bad weather. There’s bound to be a village within a few days’ travel. My village keeps the same sort of shelters.” He glanced at me. “Catherine, now you must take off your wet clothes.”

My fingers were too numb to unfasten buttons.

He undressed me, dried me roughly, and wrapped me up on the bed in the furs. Then he went outside with the kettle, brought it back full, and laid wood onto the hearth although obviously he could not light it. Our wet clothes and gear he spread over the table and bench.

He stripped and got in with me. His skin was so warm that after a while I began to hurt all over. Chafing my hands, my cheeks, my legs, he talked a stream of words that I did not fully understand except that I loved to hear him speak. I began to shiver, and at length the shivering subsided as a frail glow of warmth took root in my frozen heart.

Blessed Tanit! We had escaped the spirit world! We were going to live!

As I relaxed, so did he, and I slid into a sleep without dreams.

22

I opened my eyes to darkness. A night breeze whistled in the chimney, but nothing else stirred. The air was wintry cold except where we were bundled warmly together, skin to skin. I lay for a while, wondering about him. He had rowed and tramped for miles in wet clothes after being half drowned in the icy sea, just as I had. In all the time I’d known him he had never seemed particularly affected by cold. Hadn’t he once told me that magic fed him? I had thought it a figure of speech but now I wondered if it was true in a strange and secret way.

He shifted but did not wake as his hand settled on my hip. I had him back.

My spirit exulted, and I was surprised at how amorous I felt. However, my throat was raw, my mouth tasted like a stew of brine and bile, and I wanted a bath. I was ravenously hungry and still tired, and well aware of how desperately we needed drink, food, and dry clothes. And then?

Then I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up as he moved, rubbing his head.

“I feel I’ve been hit by a hammer,” he muttered hoarsely. “My muscles ache, and I’m a little dizzy.”

He swung out of the bed. The shutters were closed, but I knew it must be day because my sword was a cane. As he shaped a globe of cold fire, the sword flared to life. I admired his backside as he stretched and then walked to the table to touch the clothes.

He winced. “Ah! Cold and clammy!”

“You’re a lot of trouble, Vai. I could have had a fire roaring all night.”

“I’ll keep you as warm as you could ever hope to be,” he said with a provocative look. “But not right now, love. I’m sure this headache comes from thirst and hunger. You must be starving.”

I tested the puffy, tender bruise where I’d bitten myself. “I’m so worried about Bee and Rory. We’ve got to get to Havery. The family won’t protect her from mages, princes, or generals, not if they’re offered an advantageous agreement in exchange for her person. Bee thinks she can scold powerful men into obeying her but that only makes them want her more… Noble Ba’al, Vai!”

I told him about Amadou Barry.

He whistled, shivering as he dressed in the damp clothes. “Washed away in the tide! What a fool! Anyway, we can’t go on until we’ve dried our clothes. You must light a fire. I’m going to see what’s in the shed. Maybe there’s something I can use to snare a rabbit or catch a fish.”

“You could stun some poor unsuspecting beast with your magic, couldn’t you?”

He kissed me on the forehead. “I already have.”

Clearly I hadn’t yet recovered from yesterday’s travail, because my mind had barely managed to trudge past several bland retorts before he returned to inform me that he was headed out to hunt and there was meanwhile a treasure-house of provisions in the shed. Then he was gone.