Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

Again Lord Marius appeared, a god out of a Greek tale, ready to smite. He snatched away the cup before it could touch my lips. “I want an answer to my question.”

She nodded calmly. “Of course, my lord. But it is hard for the young woman to speak with dry lips.”

I could speak!

“The Legate Amadou Barry is responsible for his own death.” My voice emerged as more of a hoarse croak. “It was his choice to follow us into a dangerous place. He thought he had the right to possess Bee simply because he wanted her. Yet he didn’t respect her enough to trust her when she tried to save him. He was swept out of the spirit world by the tide of a dragon’s dream. I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“My lord, if you will allow her to take willowbark tea to ease the pain, she will come to her senses.”

“She is not delirious.” White-lipped, Lord Marius glared at me. “The punishment for murdering a Roman legate is death. The punishment for murdering my beloved brother is that I will hound you until you show me his grave and then I will water it with your blood.”

From outside I heard men shouting angrily. Lord Marius turned to look at the tent’s entrance, where two soldiers in the colors of the Tarrant militia stood guard.

“No! They’re saying one of them was shot! I will see my sisters!” The voice was Vai’s.

A second male voice replied in the loud and mocking tone of a highborn man who means to be heard by as many people as possible. “Your sisters, or your daughters? I know how your kind are. Everyone sleeps in the same bed.”

“I’ll kill you,” said Vai in a raw, ugly tone I had heard only in his nightmares. The smack of a fist hitting flesh was followed by the thud of a body hitting dirt.

The other man shrieked, “Get the stinking goat off me!”

A commanding voice I recognized as the mansa’s spoke. “Enough! Tie his arms back if he can’t control his fists.” The grunts and curses of a scuffle faded to silence.

Vai burst into the tent. His arms were trussed up behind his back with rope bound around a stout stick that could be twisted to control him. The brawny soldier who had hold of the stick brought him up short as he saw the girls.

“Bintou! Wasa!”

The bigger girl bolted to him and pressed her face against his shoulder. He kissed her hair, then looked with a frown toward the other girl who, with her too-short crutch, hadn’t tried to move. His glance skipped from the invalid girl to the woman. His lips parted. A jolt of stunned shock rolled through his body. But he recovered quickly. In a cunning move worthy of a sly Barahal, he slammed back into the soldier, jostling the stick. With a wrench, he freed himself and staggered forward to drop to his knees before the woman.

“Mother.” He rested his forehead on her knees. “Forgive me for bringing this trouble on you and the girls.”

“Son.” She laid a hand on his head in a blessing. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but her tone was implacable, even a little aloof. “You will be strong, as I taught you. I am told this woman is your wife and thus my daughter.”

His head and shoulders came up as if yanked. With an intake of breath, he stared into her face to read the truth of the words. Then he turned and saw me.

“Catherine!” He leaped to his feet. “What can you have been thinking? You weren’t to follow me… did they capture…?” I recognized the moment he saw the bandage because of how his entire body shuddered. He was not speechless. He spoke through his magic. A grinding roar of noise rumbled far above as masses of air crashed and cooled. A waterfall of illusions spilled around us like deformed creatures writhing as they were twisted inside out.

“Andevai, this is not the behavior I expect from you.” His mother did not raise her voice, yet her tone cut right through the fury of his emotions.

He fought down from the storm, but it was a hard descent. He was so passionate about things. My shoulder hurt horribly, but I had my wits tucked about me like the blankets. He needed a task to take the edge off the surge of frustrated feelings of impotence and wounded pride.

My voice scraped out a whisper. “I thought you would need someone to help take care of the girls. They looked so frightened. But honestly, Vai, I wish you would get Lord Marius to stop threatening me. Bee and I truly did try to save Amadou Barry in the spirit world, but he wouldn’t listen to us. She wept buckets of tears when he was swept away in the tide. Now Lord Marius says he means to kill me to get satisfaction. But it was the legate’s foolish choice and not any scheme of ours. And he won’t let me drink my willowbark tea.”

Illusions vanished. Even with his arms tied behind him, Andevai could draw himself up with the arrogance of an exceedingly powerful cold mage who does not expect to be crossed.

“Lord Marius, my wife is not to be bullied or threatened. The legate should never have believed he could walk into the bush as if it were a country garden. Even those who have studied its secrets and passed down this lore know how dangerous it is to walk there. He was a fool twice over. Once to rush after them. Twice to not heed them.”

“Were you there, Magister, to see how it all transpired?” Lord Marius asked. “How can I even believe such a wild tale?”

“I have told you the truth. Give me the tea so I can give my wife relief from the pain of her injury.”

As angry as Lord Marius was, he also had a sense of the absurd. “How will you manage that, I wonder, with your hands bound behind you?”

Vai’s mother rose. That she scarcely had the strength to stand was evident by the tension in her frail frame, but to look at the stately lift of her head and the pressure of her gaze, one might never guess she was anything but a woman of power.

“I will take the cup, my lord, and minister to the young woman, as was my intention.” She held out her hand.

Something in that voice struck him. His forehead wrinkled as he obediently handed over the cup. “Are you mage House born, Maestra? For you have something of the manner about you, although I can’t quite figure your accent.”