Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Now it was a symbol of what they had been through together. She would have it cleaned, and once she put it back on, she would not take it off.

  But what was she going to do?

  Nothing had changed. She still had secrets. But everything had changed. As suddenly as a lightning strike, she was no longer willing to give him up.

  He had done that to her before. Twice before. When he had kissed her for the first time, it had opened her heart to their bond. When he had told her about the rape he had witnessed as a child, sympathy had drowned her anger. Why did she keep forgetting how much he understood her? This morning she had thought that they had nothing in common. But they had the most important thing of all in common. Magic. He could commiserate with her, share what he knew with her, discuss what it all meant with her. She did not need to make conversation with him, did not need to fill the silence with small talk, because they could talk about real things. Their magic. His strange visions. Oran’s strange visions about him.

  You will burn the world.

  What did it mean? They had not talked about it very much. The idea was so disturbing that she did not want to talk about it, especially since she was not convinced that it was real. Did it have anything to do with that heretic’s visions, his pictures? She was not in any of them. Would Graegor burn the world unless she was in the pictures? Or the other way around? Did they have anything to do with each other? Did they have anything to do with the shovel-men?

  She should be in the pictures. She was important to him. She was his lady.

  He was not perfect, of course. His odd, central-Telgardia accent had not quite faded. He was not tall enough, but he might still be growing. Even with the beard, his face still looked too boyish. There was something asymmetrical about it too, or maybe it was just that all his expressions were half-this or half-that. He had a tendency to only lift one side of his mouth when he grinned, and to only lower one eyebrow when he frowned. The beard did help with that, a little. She wished his hair was blonde instead of brown. And shorter.

  In the past, she had only been attracted to extremely handsome men. Both Alain and Nicolas had turned ladies’ heads wherever they went. But where had that gotten her? Alain had always wanted Marjorie, and Nicolas had used his good looks to seduce and betray her. Graegor wanted her, and it felt good to want him too, to look beyond his face and into his heart.

  He was such a good person. He cared about her so much.

  Did he love her? Love her like she had wanted Nicolas to love her?

  She was still so hesitant to even think that word. But she knew Graegor so much better than she had known Nicolas. He had none of that cynical, unscrupulous nature. He never pretended, and he never lied. She could feel how he felt about her. She just did not know if that soft fabric woven with fascination, desire, esteem, and affection meant love.

  Love. Trust. Power. Magic.

  Desire suddenly filled her, and she squeezed her legs together to try to dampen it. What was she going to do? He did not know how making love felt, how it changed a person. He understood so much, but he would not understand this. She would not have understood before that night with Alain. Had Marjorie fallen in love with Alain and slept with him before marrying him, Tabitha would have condemned her friend’s wanton behavior. She could not stand the thought of Graegor feeling that way about her.

  Could she hide it?

  Difficult, but not impossible. What if Tabitha worked hard at her telepathy and attained absolute mastery of her mind? Last spring’s coronation had proven that she could stand still for hours without visibly moving, so could she learn to do the same with her thoughts?

  Magus Uchsin was not pleased with her progress in telepathy or telekinesis. Like everyone who had ever been tasked with teaching her, he always spoke to her with precise respect, but he constantly corrected her, and it was frustrating. The more she cared about what she was learning, the more frustrating it was to be corrected, and she had just decided that she cared a lot about telepathy.

  Maybe Maga Rollana could take over that part of her education. She learned better from women. From Nan. Nan had taught her to fear the dark, and she still could not wholly shake it.

  It was dark in the carriage. Tabitha pushed away her ridiculous anxiety. Dark carriages were not the same as dark houses. And even dark houses were no threat, because she was a sorceress.

  Nan did not mean to make me afraid forever. She would not want me to be afraid now. She could almost hear Nan telling her to sit up straight and hold her head high, to not give anyone in the world any clue of what she might be feeling. Nan had taught her the art of “playing statue”, the minute flexing and relaxing of muscles in her legs, arms, back, and shoulders that allowed her to maintain perfect poise. Nan’s corrections had been just as constant as any of her tutors’, but it had not bothered Tabitha quite so much. Was it because she had been younger?

  No, that was not it. Her father had corrected her as much as Nan had, and those corrections had really bothered her. Maybe it was because his corrections were often accompanied by jokes at her expense. She hated that. He did not care, though. He cared about the House of Betaul, and he had ruthlessly planned every aspect her future solely for its benefit.

  No. She winced, knowing that none of those thoughts were worthy of him. He loved her as a father should, and he had raised her, which of course involved him telling her what to do, and which he had stopped doing as soon as she had become the new sorceress. He had kept her fed, clothed, and housed, richly so, throughout her childhood. She had always been able to meet his high expectations of her behavior. He had seldom made her feel stupid, and he had never made her feel useless.

  Not like Natayl did.

  Again she wished she was Josselin’s apprentice. Being Contare’s would be all right too. She did not know if any of the other older sorcerers would be better than Natayl, but she doubted they could be worse. Serafina and Malaya were frightening in their own ways, but at least they were women.

  She envied Koren and Ilene. And she thought that they had some sympathy for her, since neither of them would have liked having Natayl for a master. The three of them were very different people, and she really could not stand Koren, but they did all treat each other as the equals that they were. The boys did not. Rossin, of course, never spoke at all, but all the other boys would talk over and past her, dismiss her, condescend to her, or try to make things easy for her, because she was a girl and they thought she was weak. All of them, except Graegor.

  He was still in pain. That spear must have done enormous damage to his leg. The rogue magi had hurt them both.

  Fields of flowers, petals closing.

  She should be with him. She was his lady. She deserved to be there helping him, not sent away like a child. Contare never would have sent Josselin away.

  I can fight. I did it. I made a shield.

  Should she call to Josselin? The Khenroxan sorceress had told her that she would help her whenever needed. Josselin would not insist that Tabitha return home to Natayl’s shouting, would she?

  But Tabitha would have to return home eventually. Whenever that happened, tonight or tomorrow or a week from now, Natayl would lose his temper.

  All right, shout at me. Scream at me. It will not change what happened. It will not keep me from doing what I need to do.

  She wished she could say that to him.

  We can do anything.

  Graegor believed in her. She should believe in herself.

  She was pressing her hand against the bracelet again, making her wrist hurt. She stopped. Fields of flowers, petals closing. She had learned to control her pain so quickly. Why was it so much harder to control her thoughts?

  The brain is far more complicated than the body. Someone had said that to her once. Maybe Natayl.

  She needed time to learn. She realized that she had time to learn. Betrothals in the L’Abbanist kingdoms could last a year or even longer, and Josselin had advised the magi girls to spend a year getting to
know potential lovers before bedding them. Tabitha and Graegor were not a betrothed couple looking forward to a wedding night, and sorcerers were not magi, but one year was nevertheless very reasonable. Graegor was too much of a gentleman to actually ask her, or let his hands wander when they kissed, but he had to be wondering when they were going to consummate their romance. It would be unfair to ask him to wait more than a year. And certainly she did not want to wait more than a year. She did not want to wait a week. But she had to. She had to control her thoughts. She needed time to learn.

  The Equinox. Their first kiss had been just after the autumn Equinox. She had until this coming autumn Equinox to master telepathy. They could plan to go somewhere special.

  No. No, she could not make plans. She might need a little more time before she was completely confident. Or she might need less time, and not want to wait for the Equinox.

  But what if she was never completely confident? Or what if she was, but still thought about Alain or Nicholas when the time came?

  No. She could not. She had to pretend that Alain and Nicolas had not even happened. That at most they were dreams of hers, fantasies.

  Everyone had erotic dreams. Maybe soon, when the right moment came, she could say to Graegor that all her dreams were very vivid, and that she remembered them as if they were real. Then, if she let an actual memory of Alain or Nicolas slip through when they were in bed, he would think she was remembering a dream. He would not like it, but he would understand.

  Maybe it would help to indulge in some daydreams. If she spent the year having fantasies about him, maybe … maybe …

  The sound of the neighbor’s wind-chimes broke Tabitha’s reverie, and she realized that the carriage had almost arrived at Natayl’s townhouse. The sweet feelings from her imagination drained out of her immediately, while the muscles in her shoulders tightened and the pain in her arm sharpened. Before she even realized it, she had leaned forward and opened her mouth to tell Graegor’s driver to keep going, but she managed to hold back the words.

  What was the use? It was no use. She could tell the driver to go to the other end of the city, she could complain to Josselin, she could sit out here for the rest of the night, but she would only be delaying the inevitable. Natayl was going to scream at her and make her feel stupid. The sooner she let it start, the sooner it would end.

  Her stomach hurt. God, she did not want to go inside.

  But Natayl himself kept telling her to face her fears.

  Isabelle called to her. “You’re home? Please tell me that’s your carriage outside.”

  “Yes.” The carriage stopped, and Tabitha peeked behind the window shade. She saw that most of the windows of the townhouse were lit. “Please tell Joune to start a bath for me,” she told Isabelle. The old maga probably could do that correctly.

  “You’re all right? You didn’t get hurt?”

  “I did. I was wounded in the arm. I need to clean it.” She sensed surprise from Isabelle. Her cousin probably expected her to be hysterical. But she was a sorceress. She was controlling the pain, and her body was already healing itself, so there was no reason to worry. “Exactly how angry is Natayl, do you think?” she asked calmly.

  “You know that vein on his forehead that looks like a scythe?” At Tabitha’s bemusement, Isabelle went on, “Right now it looks like a clawhammer.”

  Tabitha really did not understand her cousin’s humor sometimes. “I see.”

  “What happened?” Isabelle asked. “You went to a fox-den?”

  “I will tell you everything once I have spoken to Natayl.” She broke their connection.

  She itched. She was sweating. She did not want to go inside. Dear God, she did not want to go inside! She reached for Graegor, to fill herself with his warm strength, but he was still in so much pain that it hurt her too, and she had to close herself off from their bond.

  Natayl told me to face my fears. He should respect her for facing him, now.

  I am a sorceress.

  She held that idea in front of her, just as she had held her magic in front of her on that dark staircase.

  The carriage door opened, and the driver anxiously helped her to step down to the cobblestones. She still had her wounded arm tucked close to her chest, under her wrap, holding everything in place with her other hand. The smell of blood was still strong, even outside the confines of the carriage. In fact it suddenly seemed overwhelming, and her stomach twisted as she tried not to breathe. Graegor’s driver kept his hand under her unwounded elbow as he escorted her to Natayl’s front door. It opened before they reached it, revealing no less than four of Natayl’s servants, including old Joune. Her jaw was slack as she and the others watched Tabitha come up the porch steps.

  “You’ll be all right, my lady?” Graegor’s driver asked.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He bowed to her and left. The servants stared stupidly, crowding the open door, moving aside only at the last moment to let her come through them.

  “Joune, Isabelle told you to start a bath for me.” Tabitha preferred to speak aloud to Natayl’s servants, just as she preferred to speak telepathically to her friends. It was a way to remind herself who could be trusted. “Have you?”

  Joune twitched at Tabitha’s words as one of the other servants shut the door. They were all wearing robes and nightcaps, and Joune’s were a ridiculous pink. “Yes, m’lady, I will, I will. But m’lord wants to talk to you.”

  Just then Isabelle hurried down the staircase. Apparently she had still been up, since she was fully dressed and her dark hair was pulled into a bun. She shooed all the male servants out of the foyer and began to help Tabitha out of the satin brocade wrap. When she saw the wine-red ruin of the dress’s sleeve, she sucked in her breath with a hiss. “My God, that blood’s yours?”

  Tabitha still held her arm folded against her chest, so Isabelle had not even seen how much blood there actually was. “I told you I was wounded.”

  “I guess I didn’t believe you.”

  More likely, Isabelle expected Tabitha to fall to pieces when confronted with blood and pain, and since she had not, Isabelle had not believed there had been any blood or pain. Even her cousin thought she was weak. “A man died and another lost his arm. Graegor was stabbed through the leg. This is nothing.”

  Isabelle looked at her in alarm, her brown eyes wide and the nostrils of her big nose flaring out. “Graegor was hurt?”

  “No need to worry.” Tabitha regarded her coolly. “Lord Contare is with him.”

  Isabelle dipped her head, and she made a show of inspecting the inside fold of the wrap, which was stained from being pressed against Tabitha’s arm. “I don’t think this will come out.”

  “Best not to try.” It and the dress were both destined for the city incinerators. When Tabitha unfolded her arm from its protective clutch against her chest, the dried blood on her sleeve and glove cracked apart, flaking and showering to the floor. But the wound inside her elbow only hurt a little bit as her skin stretched on either side of it. Graegor’s bracelet, covered in gore, was stuck against the fabric of her glove at her wrist. “Help me get this off.”

  Isabelle pulled out her handkerchief and held it over the bracelet as she worked it free. “I’ll get it soaking,” she sent. “It should come clean, if the water’s hot and soapy enough.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What happened? Why were you in a fox-den?”

  “There were Telgard heretics who wanted to meet with Graegor. I wanted to ask them about the shovel-men.” The shovel-men had not yet made contact with her as they had promised, but her father still needed her to find out what she could about them. She knew that the Telgard heretics were not the same as the shovel-men, but they might have known something. And she had wanted to ask them about those pictures.

  “They tried to kill you?” Isabelle asked, sounding more fascinated than horrified.

  “No, it was rogue magi.”

  “There’s more of them?”

&nb
sp; “It seems so. Where is Natayl?” Tabitha had expected the scrape of his mind against hers long before now, and she did not know if it was good or bad that she had not felt it.

  “I think he’s in the parlor now. He was pacing through here like a caged puma.”

  Tabitha nodded, but did not move. The prickling itch was spreading from her neck and down her spine. Isabelle turned to give the wrap to Joune, but the maga was staring blankly at nothing. She suddenly shook herself and, flustered, almost dropped the wrap as she took it. “M’lord wants to talk to you now, m’lady,” she said, and nodded toward the short corridor to the parlor.

  I am a sorceress. I can do anything.

  Tabitha did not hurry to the parlor, but she did not dawdle either, and Isabelle followed. The room was lit by three lamps and the fireplace, and Natayl sat in the largest of the leather chairs beside the largest of the cherrywood tables. His walking staff stood propped against the mantel. A steaming mug of something sat at his elbow, and he was wearing an old black house-robe. He was glowering, and the vein in his forehead was bulging like the end of a clawhammer.

  But he was not shouting.

  When she stopped a few paces from his chair, he looked at her for a moment. Then he said, “Tell me what you learned today.” His voice seemed to grind the words into each other.

  Tabitha swallowed. He asked her this same question on each day that she had lessons with her magi tutors. In fact, he had already asked her today, before she had gotten dressed to go to the theater. But this was not about her lessons. “I healed a cut,” she said, hating how low and uncertain her voice sounded. He gestured impatiently, and she took another step toward him and extended her arm fully.

  Natayl studied her ragged, bloody sleeve. “Did you?” he growled. It did not surprise her. He usually criticized the magic she demonstrated.

  From behind Tabitha, Isabelle sent, “Heal your face, old man.” If she had meant to make Tabitha smile, it very nearly worked, which would have been disastrous.

  Natayl reached out, gripped one of the ragged red edges of her sleeve, and then ripped it away from her skin. That hurt, but Tabitha held her mouth shut and only a brief yelp of pain escaped her. As Natayl dropped the blood-soaked strip of fabric, Tabitha drew her arm back, took hold of her glove herself, and pulled it off before he could. Then, biting the inside of her lip, she pulled off another strip of her sleeve that was glued to the crease of her elbow. Fresh blood oozed between cracks in the thick scabs, and Tabitha looked away as her stomach seized.