I slept, and I dreamed I was waking Vai with passionate kisses, and he said we can’t it will hurt you and I said we have to because what if I’m dead tomorrow and he gave way cautiously and tenderly, and then I woke up. To discover Vai asleep beside me and yet somehow his clothes had come off, which forced me to revisit my memories of what had been dream and what had been real. A sound of clicking and rustling had woken me. The key in the lock was being jiggled from the other side of the door. I slipped out from under the thin cotton blanket and dashed for the wardrobe to grab Vai’s sword. Then I picked up my rumpled pagne and tied it hastily over torso and hips as the key worked loose and dropped with a clunk to the floor. Vai stirred. The latch turned, and the general came in.
He closed the door, taking in the scene. “The vigor of youth never fails to amaze.”
Vai blinked several times as in confusion, and then recollection settled his expression. Sitting, he caught sight of Camjiata, realized he was uncovered from the hips up, and, after a moment, smiled with the comfortable bravado of the man who knows he looks well in any outfit.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” he said, making no effort to cover his bare torso or the two chains and rings, one ice lens clear and one cloudy.
The general smiled. “Which you may suppose is deliberate. I must use what advantage I can make for myself, for I am not a cold mage of rare and unexpected potency.” I flushed, not that one could tell, as I was already pinked. “As for you, Cat, I trust you are not too badly injured.”
“Do you? Drake tried to kill Vai, too.” I placed the sword on the bed next to a startled Vai before I stalked to the wardrobe to get a blouse, pagne, and clean bodice and drawers.
“He will not do that again.”
“How can you possibly be sure?” I demanded as I took the clothes, and the ceramic jar of ointment, behind the screen for privacy. Vai kept his gaze fixed on the general.
“I hold the power of life and death over James Drake in ways I am not about to share.”
“You’ll excuse us,” said Vai, “if that seems a slender reed on which to cross this river.”
“‘Us,’” murmured the general as I poured water into a pitcher. “How interesting to phrase it that way. I should like to know how you managed to kill Drake’s fire and save Cat. You should not have been able to do that.” A chair scraped along the floor and I heard him settle onto it.
“I should like to get dressed,” said Vai, “but in all honesty, General, I’m not going to do it in front of you.”
“I don’t like to have a sword held to my throat, Magister, so I admit to enjoying placing you in a position of discomfort. We’ll have the talk here. You may dress, or not.”
“Bastard,” said Vai, perhaps appreciatively.