The Fire Lord's Lover - 1 (24 page)

   Cass dropped her face into her hands. He'd made his father torture him with magic. For her sake. Dear Lord, how could she live with this? She had never had anyone make such a sacrifice for her, would never have expected it. She hadn't realized the way love could entangle lives. She had a greater responsibility for him now than she ever did for the Rebellion.

   She lifted her head, met his eyes. "To say I'm sorry cannot erase your pain. And I cannot ask for your forgiveness when you have suffered so greatly. All I can do is promise that I shall never act without your knowledge again."

   He grunted, leaned forward and clutched her shoulders, dragging her face up to his. "That is enough," he whispered. "Damn, it is enough that you have returned to me unharmed."

   And then she could no longer stop the flow of her tears. But at least they were silent ones, running down her cheeks with nary a sob. He kissed her then, so tenderly it made her tears flow the faster, for surely just the touch of her lips caused him more pain.

   "It has been long and long since anyone has shed a tear for me," he said as he pulled his mouth away from hers. "Father's black fire has an uncanny knack for lingering inside of me for a time, making me sensitive to the slightest touch. But it will fade."

   "Is there naught that I can do?"

   His lip twitched. "Get out of those wet underclothes and join me in bed. It will help if I'm nude atop the covers. Can you manage to lie beside me without touching me?"

   Cass sniffed. "You are entirely too arrogant in regard to your beauty."

   "Will it help to know that it will be torture for me not to touch you as well?"

   Lady Cassandra rose to her feet and considered. He looked a bit better already, the hint of a smile lingering on his mouth. "Yes, my love. It does."

   When they finally settled beside each other on the bed, Cass could not help admiring the lean sight of his body. "Does your hair hurt?"

   "It wouldn't surprise me if it did; but no, I think not."

   She wrapped her fingers in the long length of it. It lacked its usual silver sheen but still felt like silk within her palm.

   "I told you," he murmured smugly.

   Cass sighed and brought the locks to her cheek, breathing in the faint spicy scent. No, she could not help but touch him.

   "My magic is still not strong enough to defeat my father. Despite Ador's words, I fear it may never be."

   "God will grant you the strength when you have most need of it."

   She felt his body stiffen in doubt, but he did not shush her when she began to pray. Indeed, he drifted off to a peaceful sleep on the sound of her words.

* * *

Cassandra felt as if she'd barely closed her eyes when the stench brought her awake. Dawn light filtered into the room, highlighting the planes of Dominic's body, making his skin shimmer. She glanced at his hair still tangled about her fingers and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it had regained its silver luster.

   And then she coughed.

   Cass rose as quietly as she could and followed the smell, staring out her window with disbelieving eyes. A ribbon of blackness stretched from the palace through the city almost as straight as a road, nothing but rubble in its path, the far end of it flickering with red fire, a cloud of black smoke hanging above it.

   She felt Dominic join her, heard him curse, but could not tear her eyes away from the devastation.

   "What has happened?" she breathed.

   "My guess is that Father regained the full strength of his powers this morning. And that your Thomas has managed to get Breden's half-breed out of Firehame. Mor'ded hasn't had a tantrum like this for many years, and never through the heart of London. The nobles will be annoyed by the loss of their fine mansions." He turned and began to pull clean clothing out of the wardrobe.

   "What are you doing?"

   "I must stop the fire before it does any more damage."

   Cass quickly retrieved her own clothing. Black. Again. Yet she could think of no better color to wear in soot. "How?"

   "With fire, of course. I will start a blaze to combat the one still burning—what do you think you're doing?"

   "Coming with you."

   He stilled for a moment, those fathomless midnight eyes staring into her own. "This is not your fault."

   She did not agree but knew the futility of arguing with him. "So many people will be hurt, Dominic. I must help them if I can."

   He pulled on the coat of his red uniform, secured a black cloak about his broad shoulders. "Do not slow me down."

   Cassandra nodded, snatching a plain woolen mantle, struggling into it while following on her husband's heels. She pulled the hood over her head as they made their way through the eerily silent palace, and stayed beneath that covering while Dominic gathered up a troop of his men, gave orders to many others. She rode her black stallion, who had become hers by the simple fact that he allowed no other to approach him.

   They rode hard through the streets of London, on parallel roads untouched by the fire, until they reached the end of the blaze. Dominic guided them directly in its path, behind several buildings that the fire had not yet reached. He ordered his men to clear the buildings, but most people had already fled, except for a lame old man and his grandson who had refused to leave his side.

   At first the pair stared at Dominic with cold hatred, and Cass suspected they thought he was Mor'ded, but when they caught sight of Cass and studied her husband's uniform and face, their expressions changed, and they waited and watched with the rest of the general's men.

   Dominic seemed to struggle to call his power, perhaps still not fully recovered from last night's ordeal, and Cass sidled her horse up to his, reached out to touch his arm. He glanced at her but a moment, his eyes shimmering with determination, then held up his hands. Gray flame burst from his palms, crawling over the buildings before them, smothering the red fire from the top down. But the red slid beneath his magic, igniting the buildings, smoke pouring through open windows.

   The heat of the flames burned Cass's cheeks and robbed her of breath.

   Then Dominic cursed and slammed down both his arms; a gray shimmer flashed before them, and the red fire snuffed out.

   He gave a satisfied toss of his head and turned his mount.

   "Where are we going?" asked Cass, blinking tears from her eyes, the smoke still shrouding the street.

   The general frowned at her. "Back to the palace."

   "But… but what of the people?"

   "I have dispatched men to assist where they can, to quell any ensuing riots. The healers will see to the injured."

   Cass prayed for patience. She must remember that he'd walled off his heart a long time ago, and even now he'd opened only a part of it to her. And she might be asking more of his power than he possessed. "But the city healers have but a whisper of the blue fire that you can call. Did the summoning of the gray flame exhaust you, then?"

   "Of course not."

   Ah, how she loved his arrogance. "Then we must do what we can. Even if we save only one life, it is worth the cost."

   Without another word, the general turned his mount in the direction of the black wreckage, ordered his men to find and bring the injured to him. He dismounted near the edge of the burned street, sat upon an old planter as if it were a throne. Within moments, his men started bringing him the injured. Cass stayed by his side, made sure he did indeed have the power to use the blue flame without draining himself completely. He became absorbed in the healing as his soldiers brought one after another person to him.

   After barely an hour, Cass felt near tears. So much suffering… and all of it her fault. She had to do something, anything to atone for what she'd done.

   "Dominic," she murmured. "I'm going to help the men find more survivors."

   He looked at her with dazed eyes, his face composed despite the suffering he witnessed. Despite the magic he was expending. Cass held her breath. She had promised to tell him her intentions, but she could not stop from doing what her heart bade her to. She didn't know if he had understood that.

   Dominic nodded and turned back to his task, and Cass could breathe again. Her husband did indeed accept that she wouldn't be a normal wife. He would not deny her freedom in fear for her safety. With the exception of her challenging Mor'ded, he seemed to think she could take care of herself. Or at least, that's what his agreement proved to her.

   Lady Cassandra leaned over and kissed her husband's cheek, much to the astonishment of several of his men, and then leaped onto her stallion's back.

   And quickly joined the general's troops in the hunt for more survivors.

   The buildings along the fire's path had suffered from the strength of the blaze, parts of them collapsing, especially the older structures. Her stallion picked his way through the rubble, suddenly perking up his ears in the direction of an old workhouse. It took a few moments for Cass to hear the cries as well.

   She dismounted and gingerly made her way through the fallen stone and mortar, entered the collapsed building by ducking under fallen beams. "Where are you?" she shouted.

   A faint response came from the left. Cass crawled through the wreckage, heading toward the sound, hoping that the way ahead wasn't completely blocked. She coughed again and again from the smoke and black dust, and the half-buried people continued to call out hopefully toward that sound.

   Cass was brought up short by a tower of rubble with no way around it. For a moment she could hear nothing but the pounding of her heart. She focused on that rhythm, using it to build a dance. But she hadn't been taught one that could make her scale small mountains.

   So she would have to improvise. She took the speed and power of a death dance, the strength of a love dance, and combined them into a new pattern that allowed her to spin and twist her way up the wreckage, through the small crevice that brought her face-to-face with four small children.

   Their faces were so layered with soot that the whites of their eyes stood out in startling contrast.

   "Bugger me, it's a lady."

   Cassandra smiled at the boy. "Indeed, but I shall need the help of a man to get us all out. May I depend upon it?"

   Green eyes widened, and he quickly nodded.

   "What's your name, sir?"

   "Henry, at yer service, me lady." He pointed at the ground beside him, explaining why he hadn't already rescued the others by himself. "This one here's too heavy ta carry, and I couldna jest leave her."

   She glanced down in surprise at a black, unmoving bundle. Without the whites of her eyes, Cass hadn't seen her. She picked up the child, who despite her size, didn't weigh as much as she should.

   "Now then, Henry. Please take the hands of the other children and lead them after me. It will be easier going down than up, but we must take care not to jostle anything and to go as quickly as we can." She stepped out of the dark crevice, squinting at the comparative brightness of day shrouded by black smoke. "Step where I step, do you understand?"

   All the children nodded warily. Cass descended the mountain of rubble, the dance still thrumming through her blood, and managed only one misstep. The blackened beam gave way beneath her and she slid, holding the girl up as high as she could, praying they wouldn't slide all the way to the bottom. But another beam brought them up short; the pile shivered in response for a moment, then settled again.

   "That was a close one, Henry," she called behind her.

   "We'll be more careful, me lady."

   And indeed, they were. Without further mishap they reached the bottom, snaked their way through the rest of the collapsed building. To Cassandra's relief, the stallion stood waiting for them, nickering at the sight of her. She had feared he might be stolen while she was inside, but apparently no thief dared to approach the devil of a horse.

   The rest of the children followed the horse, giving him a wide berth, while Cass carried the unconscious girl with her in the saddle. When she returned to where she'd left Dominic, her brown eyes widened with surprise. Tents had been erected in the bare area, pallets beneath them, and now several healers, distinguishable by their blue robes, mingled alongside the general's men.

   Cass awkwardly dismounted, the girl now heavier than she had been at first, and approached the largest tent. Word had spread quickly for a line of people awaited the healing blue fire of her husband's magic.

   A stout woman with a blackened apron and a motherly smile herded the rest of the children over to a steaming pot above an open fire, although Henry refused to be ambushed and stuck by Cassandra's side, his eyes fixed on the girl within her arms.

   A healer with a soldier escorting him appeared at her side, lifted the eyelids of the girl. "You should take her to the general's tent." He nodded his head at the line. "This isn't something my powers can heal."

Henry rubbed stubbornly at his eyes.

   "She will be fine," Cass assured him, glancing down at the boy.

   The soldier standing next to the healer gasped. "Lady Cassandra?"

   He looked so astonished that she felt sure she must look a sight. "Yes?"

   "Please follow me." The soldier gently but firmly grasped her arm, as if afraid she would disappear, and tugged her toward the large tent. The healer stared after them with an open mouth. The soldier took the girl from her arms and then nodded for her to enter first, and Cass sighed, knowing she deserved whatever scolding Dominic would give her. But she hadn't realized she'd been gone so long—it felt but a few moments since she'd heard those first cries.

   But he gave her only one long look and turned his attention to the soldier. "Put her on the table."

   "Aye, sir."

   Dominic held his hands over the child while Henry shuffled from one foot to another, his green eyes widening as the general's hands began to glow. Blue fire bathed the girl, and Cass watched in admiration as the child's eyes blinked slowly open.