Heart of Gold

by Sharon Shinn

  “Oh, honey, what happened, what did he say to you, are you all right?” Sereva demanded in one breathless sentence. “Why did you go dance with him like that, I was so worried—”

  “I thought he might—I wanted to distract him,” Kit said, stumbling over the words. Sereva was shaking her or—no, that was her own treacherous body, trembling with a fever ague. “He had a dagger, I thought he might hurt Aliria—”

  “A dagger!” “A knife!” “The gulden had a dagger?” The cries and questions swept around the circle hemming them in. One voice rose a little more clearly than the others. “Did you see this dagger?”

  Kit nodded but addressed her reply to Sereva. “I saw him shake it into his hand. That’s why I went over to him. I thought if I could just get his attention, someone might get Aliria safely from the room—”

  Sereva clutched her more closely; it was hard to breathe. “Oh, my brave girl!” her cousin murmured into her neck. “Weren’t you afraid?”

  Actually, yes. “A little,” Kit admitted. “But he wasn’t really focused on me.”

  She heard fragments of talk as her story was circulated among the onlookers, and there was an entirely unexpected murmur of approval that drifted back. “Quick thinking!” “There’s a smart girl.” “It’s that Candachi, isn’t it? Solvano’s daughter?” Then, more ominously, “And he just strolled out the door! That’s not right! Someone better notify Ariana Bayless. A gulden man attacking a woman right here in an indigo house—!”

  “Damn guldman’s got to be brought to justice. Now, before he gets too far—send out a search party—”

  Kit freed herself from her cousin’s arms and surveyed the crowd, trying to discover who was talking. The last two had been male voices, but everybody in the crowd looked wrathful.

  “You won’t find him,” she said quietly. “He’ll probably go straight back to Geldricht tonight.”

  One of the men snorted. He was a short effete man with pale blue skin and lackluster hair. “He’ll stay to brag to his gilder friends how he insulted an indigo queen.”

  Kit’s voice cut through the small chorus of agreement. “He’s gone,” she said decisively. “And if you bring in the wrong guldman for punishment, can you guess what kind of trouble you’d raise in the city?”

  That created an uneasy stir in the crowd. Kit pressed her advantage. “Would you recognize him, if he was brought to you tonight in the company with three other gulden men? I don’t think so.”

  “But surely you would,” said a hawk-faced older woman with a low, commanding voice. “You danced with him for ten minutes.”

  Kit took a deep breath and loosed it on a lie. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I was too nervous to take in too many details.”

  “Aliria, then,” the woman said. “Surely she could identify him.”

  Everyone agreed loudly with that, seeming relieved and purposeful at the thought of some definite action. “We’ll tell Ariana Bayless in the morning.” “Yes, Ariana’s the one to handle this.” Kit hesitated, opened her mouth, then said nothing. It didn’t matter, anyway. The guldman, she was sure, had already put himself beyond their reach. He had satisfied his honor and shamed the indigo girl. Now he would retreat to Gold Mountain and shun the city the rest of his days.

  “At any rate, all’s well now,” one of the men said. That pronouncement too won its supporters, and the crowd around Kit began to dissipate. But not before a round dozen stepped forward to pat Kit on the back, or reach for her hand, and tell her again how brave she was, how foresighted, a remarkable girl, splendid. She was numb with the night’s many twists and turns, its public events and dark undercurrents. She shook their hands, accepted their thanks, and with her eyes begged Sereva to take her home.

  * * *

  * * *

  Worse was to follow. Worse by Kit’s standards, anyway. Having become a heroine, she must now be lionized. Emron Vermer was not the only indigo to come calling at her grandmother’s during the next few days. She was visited by no less than twenty of the brightest lights in indigo society, all of whom had been present at the ball, all of whom raved about her quick actions and ready wit. Fortunately, she was not required to say much during these sessions, since she couldn’t think of a clever or witty remark to save her life. But her grandmother presided over all of the visits, glowing with a fierce satisfaction, and she was able to make all the necessary Candachi contributions to the conversations.

  Even Aliria Carvon came to offer careless thanks, seeming much less chastened than Kit would have expected. “I thought it would be more fun than it was to dance with a gulden man,” Aliria said in such a disappointed voice that Kit could hardly keep from staring. Then the heiress laughed, shook her head, and laid a restless hand briefly on Kit’s arm. “But I find myself hoping you’re around the next time I decide to be outrageous. I do believe I have you to thank for saving my life.”

  * * *

  * * *

  But the Higher Hundred, it turned out, were not the only ones to approve of Kit’s dramatic intervention. The day after Aliria came to call, a note came to Kit at the charity bank in the Lost City.

  From Jex.

  Cursing herself and her giddy heart, Kit opened the letter with fingers that trembled. They had not communicated since she had returned his last summons with a curt negative. She had not been able to convince herself that she would never see him again; she had not been able to forget he was alive, in the city, a few miles distant. Three times—she was humiliated to realize she could not stop herself—she had gone to the Complex merely to walk past it, to assure herself that it was still standing and that Jex, therefore, must still be whole and breathing. And yet he would never send for her, she knew this. And she could not forgive him. And so there was no hope and, in the whole world, no joy at all.

  But here. A note from Jex. And it said: “Come to me today. I need to see you. Please.” She stared, read it again, and a third time. She had never heard Jex utter the word please. She had not thought it was in his vocabulary. It was possible, she thought, her brain idly toying with this concept while her body turned to fire and her heart went yapping against her ribs, it was possible that she had never heard a guldman use the word. Only the timid and fearful guldwomen were ever reduced to begging. And Jex had written it out with his usual bold stroke, and it meant in his hand what it meant in anybody’s, and of course she would go to him. There was simply no question.

  Twenty minutes later, she was in a ringcar, breaking all speed records as she dipped and snaked through traffic in the Centrifuge. One car wobbled and nearly skidded into the curved wall as she darted around it with scarcely enough room to spare. The driver, an older indigo man whose white hair contrasted sharply with his blue skin, stared out at her, aghast and terrified. Remorse made Kit slow down sharply and drive with more care. She did not want to kill herself, after all, before she saw Jex one more time.

  Still, she was so eager that she could have outrun the trolley (which moved more slowly, she was sure, than a crippled man on his knees), and she had to force herself to await the elevator at the Complex rather than racing up the stairs. She wanted to appear before Jex with at least a shred of dignity, a semblance of calm.

  The same sour guard admitted her with the same obvious disapproval, and she stepped into Jex’s apartment, trying not to hold a hand to her anxious heart. He was waiting by the door. It had not even shut behind her before he took her into a crushing embrace.

  “Kit! Marvelous! Brilliant and honorable and unexpected all at once! I could never have forgiven myself if Clent had come to harm. He would be dead by now if it wasn’t for you.”

  She struggled to pull back just far enough to see his face. She didn’t want to free herself from those demanding arms, oh no. “You know him, then? What’s his name—Clent?”

  Jex kissed her on the mouth, then continued kissing her right through his next words. �
��Yes. He came to town—with my father. I know him from Geldricht, and he—mmm, I’ve missed you—he wanted to stay. Hecht put him up. I don’t know where he—mmm—met this blueshi bitch.”

  “No one told me. I can’t imagine why she would have thought of inviting him to this party, and why he would actually go—”

  “I told him he should. I thought he would intimidate them. So—if something had happened to him—the fault would have been all mine. Except for you—for you—for you—!”

  He tightened his arms again, flattening her against his chest and covering her face with kisses. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t even protest, and she felt a moment’s physical panic. Something would break, her bones would snap in his hold … She tried to choke out a plea, but his arms loosened of their own accord, and she drew two long, hard breaths.

  “Intimidate them,” were her first gasping words. “Intimidate the indigo? On their own territory? Jex, what were you thinking?”

  “Bad idea. I realize that now. As soon as he started telling me the story, I couldn’t believe he’d gotten out alive. And then, he told me how you had come to his rescue—”

  She couldn’t help a weak laugh. Her ribs still hurt. “Funny, the indigo all think I came to Aliria’s rescue.”

  “And I was so proud of you! And I had to thank you myself! And tell you how much I’ve missed you. And ask you if you’ve missed me.”

  “Of course I’ve missed you,” she said in a low voice, but had no time to add anything else, for he kissed her again. Part of her mind wanted to protest, to slow him down, to say, What about the explosion at the Carbonnier Extension? What about the quarrel we had last time I was here? How much do I really matter to you, and do you care about this stupid Clent more than you care about me? But she could not think, she could not speak, she could not be anything except almost painfully elated to be in his arms again, existing through his kiss. How had she survived a day without this, how had she survived an hour?

  “Look,” he said, drawing her farther into the room, for they had stood all this time not two inches from the door. “Look. Don’t you think this will work? I’ll turn on music, it will drown out any noise. Isn’t this clever? Say you’ll stay.”

  And she had, perforce, to turn her head and discover what he was talking about. Even so, it took her a minute to assimilate the significance of the furniture pushed together in the center of the room, a bed quilt thrown over the sofa and the back of the chair to form a tent over a pile of rugs on the floor.

  “No one will see us,” he said, his voice urgent, his hands upon her body more urgent still. “I’ll turn up the music. No one will hear us. Oh, Kit, I want you so much—I can’t put it in words—I need you—”

  Lovers, here in Ariana Bayless’s prison, huddling under a makeshift shelter. She should be horrified, she should be offended, but she had missed his body more than she would miss sunlight if she were buried alive. She turned back to his embrace, strained upward to invite his kiss, and gave her silent consent to the seduction.

  They kissed till their bodies were fused, then broke apart, breathless and laughing. Jex reached for the laces on her shirt, but she pushed him away. “No—the cameras—” she said, so he guided her toward the tented furniture and they crawled beneath the blanket. There was almost no room. Giggling and squirming, they kicked off their shoes, pulled off their own clothes, came together naked in the filtered light of the overhead canopy. She was shocked, as she was always shocked, by the gleaming incandescence of his body, almost phosphorescent against the rich, matte surfaces of her own. When he laid his hand against her cheek, she imagined the effect of a lamp held against her skin, lighting up the interior cavities of her skull, giving it an inky luminescence of its own.

  “I love you,” she said, flinging herself against him, clinging to that golden body with the length of her own so that it passed its ardent light through every knot of muscle, every hollow bone. She could feel herself catch fire, feel her midnight colors pale and scatter before his blaze. “Oh, Jex, I love you, more than anything else in the world.”

  * * *

  * * *

  An hour later, she left the Complex in a state of near-total disorientation. Part of it was the sheer dissolution of self she felt every time she made love to Jex. The first time it had happened, she had felt dazed for a week. She had been unable to tell how much of that was physical, how much emotional; he left her always feeling as if a cataclysm had erupted inside her head, disrupting her balance, changing the molecules of her skin.

  But part of it, this time at least, was a niggling, worrisome tendril of dissatisfaction, an inability to overlook completely some of the omissions of this assignation. He had never said he loved her, that was one thing. Of course, it was something Jex rarely said, but still, under these circumstances, it would seem appropriate—in fact, essential. He had seemed more concerned with Clent’s fate than her own, that was the second problem; and he had still never apologized for the hateful words that caused the rift in the first place. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he should feel remorse. He seemed to think that the fact that he wanted her should be enough for her.

  And for so long it had been. Maybe it still was. Clearly, there was no one among the indigo who could enchant her the way Jex had. She had met the best of them a week ago, and not one of them had moved her to anything except boredom and disdain. Jex was careless always, cruel sometimes, calculating in many ways, but he had a passion for life so furious that it could not help but ignite fires in everyone around him. It was impossible to stand beside him and be indifferent. Long ago, Kit had given up trying.

  So he was flawed, but she loved him, and the rupture between them was healed. She could not help smiling, sometimes actually laughing aloud, as she made the long dreary trek back by trolley to the Centrifuge station. Granmama would wonder what had made her so light-hearted. Sereva would guess, and would rage in silence. But there was no help for it. She loved Jex, and he loved her.

  The Centrifuge was crowded. She had paid no attention to the passing of time, but this was the homeward hour, when the city’s workers left their daytime jobs and flocked back to their houses and apartments. She had to wait thirty minutes for a ringcar. The tunnels were so jammed she could not travel at her usual speeds. Indeed, traffic slowed so much each time they approached a gate that at times she felt lucky to be moving forward at all. Things would only get worse as they neared the South Zero and South One gates, where most of the indigo commuters would exit. If she could think of an alternate way home, she would pull over at one of the West gates and take a surface route out of the city.

  But the pace picked up a little as she cleared West Four, and she was able to lift into the upper lane, where she increased her speed. The driver before her was riding so close to the tail of the car in front of him that any sudden slowdown would send him careening into it. Kit eased up on the throttle; she did not want to be part of a pileup. Cars were packed in so tightly there was no room to maneuver. One vehicle spinning out of control would take a dozen or so with it.

  She slowed still more as she passed South Zero and dipped to the middle lane, weaving a little to try to get ahead of a cautious driver. Actually, if she dropped to the bottom level, speeded up, and darted back upward, she might be able to—

  The tunnels before her blossomed into an orange panorama of fire. She saw the colors before she heard the explosion. The world was nothing but a rage of scarlet dotted with spinning black shapes—ringcars tossed backward by the force of a powerful blast. Even before the first ringcar barreled backward into hers, she felt her vehicle buck and shudder from the shock waves, and she fought the controls to keep it steady. Everywhere around her was the slam and screech of metal hitting stone and metal. She felt a hundred small collisions as ringcars from above and behind knocked into hers and in turn were hit by others. That was all a matter of seconds; then a ringcar before her came hurtli
ng backward, red with fire, black with smoke, and plowed into her car. Her body smashed sideways into the wall; her neck seemed to snap in two. Another collision rammed her against the opposite wall—and then another and another, until she was too hurt and dizzy to count. The heat was impossible. She couldn’t breathe. Her right arm felt both leaden and tortured. Had she broken it? She couldn’t twist her head far enough to take a look.

  Then behind her, the second explosion went off. She felt it, though she could not turn her head to view it. There was nothing she could do. Oddly, she felt no fear, no panic, nothing but an irresistible lassitude. She closed her eyes and thought how easy it would be to fall asleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Leesa left the morning after the ball. Just as Nolan had felt his perceptions alter when she arrived, so did he feel them realign the day that she packed up her belongings and departed. What confused him was wondering what was reality—the world as colored by Leesa or the world viewed through his own lens. For surely the world itself was unvarying, unchanged. He was the one going through permutations.

  She had been reluctant to leave because, she said, “All the best gossip will come after I’ve gone! Let me know the instant you hear anything about Aliria. Corzehia has promised to write, but she’s so unfaithful, and I must know everything that happens.”

  “You could stay another few days,” Nolan offered. “I’d be more than happy to keep you.”

  She laughed. “No, I’ve been gone too long as it is. Mother will be completely disorganized without me. But you can come in-country anytime to visit me. The spring holidays, maybe. That would be nice.”

  “That would be nice,” Nolan agreed, thinking with a moment’s longing of the unbroken green vistas of his mother’s land. It had been months and months since he’d been back, and the sound of Leesa’s voice had the uncanny ability to make him, briefly at least, fiercely homesick. “I’ll check with Pakt. Maybe I can get some time off.”