Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

“How can you be safe from the salters if you’re not a fire mage?”

Gracious Melqart did not spare me from being a complete ass who could not think before she spoke. There could only be one reason. Quite by instinct, I scooted away from her.

She looked down, shoulders slumping.

“Oh, Blessed Tanit,” I muttered. “I’m such an idiot. I’m so sorry.”

Lamplight spilled through the door. Drake entered, a lamp in one hand and a gourd bottle in the other. “Is something wrong, Cat?”

“Does Abby have the salt plague?”

Maybe it was the way the lamplight lanced through the room, but for an instant the girl looked like a dead thing, skin the wrong color, lacking the blood that gives life. She sucked in a sob.

“That was rude,” Drake said. “I thought better of you, Cat. Abby’s no danger to you.”

“Cat’reen mean no rudeness,” Abby said quickly.

I clamped my lips tight over excuses. “I was rude and thoughtless. My apologies.”

He hung the lamp from a hook, caught Abby’s arm, and pressed a kiss on her forehead as a father might kiss a child. “Be patient a day longer, Abby.”

“I so scared,” she said, and my heart cracked.

“I gave you my promise, Abby. Now go.”

She shuffled out with the tray. Drake sat down beside me, unsealed the round bottle, and filled my cup with liquor. He drained the cup, then filled it again and offered it to me.

I gulped it all down, the rum smooth in my throat. “It’s so horrible.”

“More horrible than you know. The salt plague drove out tens of thousands of refugees from the Malian Empire and other parts of West Africa. I’m sure many died as they fled. Most went north to make new lives among Celts and Romans, for the salt plague is rare in Europa. Some say winter kills it. Some in Europa even say the plague was a good thing.” He filled the cup with more rum.

“How could they say that?”

“The salt plague brought the West African Mande and the northwestern Celts together. The mages and sorcerers among the Mande and the Celts found they had a great deal in common, and thus the mage Houses were created. As these cold mages amassed power, they bound more and more villages into clientage until with the power of their magic and the power of the law, they rule like princes.”

I did not want to discuss cold mages, clientage, and the law. “Drake, Abby seemed surprised when that salter bit me. Does that mean he was in the harmless phase before and not yet biting?”

Judging by the upward quirk of his lips and eyebrows, I had surprised him. “Yes. Had you spoken to him yesterday, he would have seemed as normal as you or me except halting in speech and lame. Something kicked him into the active phase. Maybe your blood.”

“I did not!” I drained the cup as if the taste could drive out the memory of the bite.

“I’m not blaming you! It’s unpredictable. The harmless phase, more properly known as the infestation phase, can last days or months or in rare cases years. Yet between one breath and the next, the border is crossed. Poor Abby knows the disease is eating away at her mind and body-”

“Stop!” I grabbed the bottle out of his hand and took a slug. I had drunk too much too quickly, but I was exhausted and disoriented and hot. To think of Abby made me sick at heart.

He took the bottle with a shake of his head. “You have a tender heart.”

“Much good my tears do for her! Why haven’t you healed her?”

“Abby’s family are plantation workers in the cane fields. It took too long to get her to a behique. Her blood was infested before they got there.”

“But if a behique could do nothing, what do you think you could do now?”

Passion makes a man attractive, so the poets say, and he blazed with purpose in a way that seemed attractively admirable. “Something they don’t want me to do.”

“Why would they not want you to save her?”

“Do you know how dangerous fire magic is, Cat? To the fire mage, I mean.”

“I’m no fire mage, but I’ve read that fire mages usually are consumed by their own fire.” I met his gaze, realizing how close he sat beside me. “Did you risk your life to heal mine?”

He considered me in silence. Then his mouth turned down in a way that sparked my interest. He leaned back onto an elbow. “I suppose I did. I didn’t think about it at the time. Anyway, under Taino law, any person bitten by a salter must be quarantined on Salt Island.”

“Unless they’re healed. That’s what you told me.”

He poured more rum. “No. Any person bitten by a salter, whether healed or infested. The law dates from the arrival of people from Europa and Africa. It was part of the original treaty that allowed the Malian fleet to set up the independent territory and city of Expedition on the island of Kiskeya. By ruthlessly enforcing the quarantine, the caciques stopped the disease-and other diseases that came with the fleet-from spreading as much as they would otherwise have done.”

“Are you telling me I can’t ever leave this island?”

“No, I’m telling you I have plans to get you off this island. You must keep your mouth shut about this conversation and especially about my association with Camjiata. Don’t tell anyone. Be patient, like Abby. When I tell you to act, act immediately, no questions. Can you promise me that?”

“What choice do I have? Drake, what day is it?”

“The second of Augustus. As we Celts say, Lughnasad.”

Seven full months had passed while I had floundered in the spirit world. Lughnasad was one of the cross-quarter days. Was that why I’d been drawn back at just this time?

“How did you get here, that you don’t know what day it is?” he asked.

With a racing heart and a stab of fear, I suddenly realized I could not answer the question even had I wanted to. “How do you think people commonly arrive in the Antilles?”

He took a swig from the bottle and offered it to me. When I hesitated, he lifted it to my lips. He had a delicate touch, and the rum did calm me. “Come now, Cat. There can be no reason I could have expected to see you ever again, much less on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Adurnam.”

I felt like a cornered rat, but I had to say something. “I was kidnapped. I ended up here.”

“Floating in the sea?” He laughed. “Did you get thrown off the ship or did you jump?”

“Since I can’t swim and I am terrified of water, why would you think I would jump?”

“Since I don’t know, you have to tell me.” He glanced heavenward and then back to me. “That’s why I asked.”

The secret belongs to those who remain silent, as Andevai had once said to me. “It’s too painful. I’m not ready.”

An expression brushed by a glimmer of impatience creased his face and vanished into a gentler smile. “When do you think you might be ready, Cat?”

Sitting in the dark house with him reclining so close beside me made the memory of our sexual congress by the pool very strong. I was adrift and restless, and I just did not want to be alone.

“Did you think it was nice?” I whispered.

For a few anxious, embarrassed breaths, I wasn’t sure he had understood me.

“Ah!” A warmer smile softened his mouth.

He leaned in to kiss my lips, his moist with liquor and mine no different. I needed someone to cling to, and anyway it felt so good, even on a mat on a floor.

“I have to go,” he said afterward, rising and pulling on his clothes. “Salters are most active at night.” He lit a glass-shuttered candle set on a shelf fixed to the wall by the door. “There are centipedes and scorpions. You’d best sleep in the hammock.”

Then he was gone. I barred the door as I wondered what a hammock was. The gleam offered enough illumination for me to use basin and pitcher to wash myself with water drawn from the big bronze pot. I pulled on my shift and drawers so as to be decently covered. The air inside the chamber was like hot viscous porridge. How could I possibly sleep?