Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

“Don’t you talk like that, Kayleigh!”

“I’m just saying it’s got a bad reputation. That’s a nasty gash at her eye. How did she get it?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is she’s here, and she’s safe.”

“I heard she was with another man.”

A breath of cool breeze soothed my fevered brow.

“Don’t get mad at me, Vai. It’s the truth. Kofi saw you see him. He said it looked like you wanted to plant your adze in the other man’s…face.”

It got a little colder. Then, alas, the breath of ice eased. “I see now. You’re jealous.”

Her voice did have a touch of discontented whine. “You promised you would come with me to the areito. But now you’re going to sit here all night and stare at her.”

His anger faded entirely. “I can’t leave her to wake up to unfamiliar faces. Here’s Kofi. Doesn’t he look all cleaned up for you! Because I assure you it’s not for my benefit. But before you leave for the areito, he and I need to have a talk about what we tell little sisters.”

I opened my eyes into a blur of confusing images: The young carpenter with the scars wavered into view wearing a colorful jacket and with his locks ornamented with beads; he was smiling at Vai’s younger sister Kayleigh, who had on a blouse and wrapped pagne in the local way, her blouse ornamented by white necklaces whose polished gleam bore me under into a white-capped sea turgid with ice; a masked face, bright and unkindly, turned to look at me; a latch winked with glittering eyes; a crow swept down in a shroud of black wings. I moaned, trying to get away, but it pecked at my weeping eyes, and I turned to salt and dissolved into the foaming ocean water.

“Catherine?”

I gasped, bolting upright, heart pounding and breath ragged.

Night had fallen. A finely etched and exceedingly delicate bauble of cold fire illuminated Vai’s face. Beyond, by lamplight, people were clearing the tables and setting the benches in order.

“I don’t feel well,” I whispered.

“No,” he agreed. He got his arms under me and lifted me bodily out of the chair. “If you can use the privy yourself, I’ll take you there. Otherwise I’ll ask Aunty to come help you.”

“I can do it myself.”

I could, and I did, although I got confused by the pipes and the bowl and the water-flushing mechanism that the girls had showed me how to use earlier, very elaborate and hygienic and unlike anything I had ever seen in Adurnam. I was reeling with dizziness when I came out, so he carried me up the stairs and into a room and onto a narrow cot.

He peeled me out of my jacket, and there was a sudden silence even though it was already quiet. Afterward he let go of my arm and wiped down my face and neck and arms with a cool cloth. He made me drink in sips and then he moved away and I heard him talking in a low, urgent voice but I couldn’t understand the words.

I tossed and turned. As in a restless dream, an old man with feathers and shells in his hair entered the room. His calloused hand traced my navel; his lips pressed against my forehead with a kiss that snaked through my body to kindle my blood.

His unfamiliar voice spoke. “She is clean.”

20

Later, it was quiet, a hint of breeze pooling around my face.

“Aunty, it was the worst moment of my life, when she slipped away from me down the well. I thought I’d lost her forever. And then, when I took off her jacket and saw that bite…”

“Don’ borrow trouble, lad. The behique say she is clean. Anyway, better if yee go on to yee work, else yee shall be a nuisance all day. See how she stir, because she hear yee voice? She need to sleep, for she is sorely tired and worn. Go on. I shall watch.”

I woke to daylight and a stifling heat like sludge in my lungs. Rain broke overhead, a downpour so torrential I could hear nothing but its drumming on the tile roof. The air cooled. My headache eased. The rain stopped.

I lay on a cot. I wore only drawers and a thin muslin blouse. There had been a cover over me but I had kicked it off. My cane was tucked along one side. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and cautiously rose, but my head seemed fit on properly. I found a pagne hanging over the screen that divided the little room into two, with a cot on either side and baskets hanging from the center beam. A sheathed sword lay tucked into the rafters, safe from stealing because no one could touch Vai’s cold steel except him. A basket on the floor contained my folded clothing. I bound on the bodice and wrapped the pagne. The blouse’s sleeves were long enough to cover the healing bite.

My mouth tasted of unpleasant memories. Drake had deserted me to make my own way to the Speckled Iguana, where I would have fallen sick all alone. Not like here, where people—Vai—cared what happened to me. Blessed Tanit! The thought of possibly carrying Drake’s child and what would become of me if I did made me determined to forge my own path. I was not going to crawl to Drake to beg for help.

“Ja, maku!” One of the girls peeked in at the open door. She looked a bit older than Bee’s sister Hanan, perhaps fifteen, and with her springy black hair and brown complexion resembled Aunty. “Yee feeling better? Eh! Never mind the question. Yee look not so like fouled cassava paste. I thought sure yee would faint right away last night.”

“I am better, thank you. Never mind what question?”

“Vai say never to ask yee a question. ’Tis almost supper, if yee’s hungry.”