Page 81 of Lord of Fire and Ice

He secreted it away in the leather pouch at his waist. When he reached home, he’d ask someone with a much wiser head about the figurine and the power he felt emanating from it.

Silence drew out between him and Katla, a wall of separation growing higher as the moments slipped by. He turned and looked back at the sethus. The last of the roof had collapsed into the main room, and the charred walls began to sag inward.

Say something.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked.

He turned back to her. Had she heard his thoughts? No, that was fanciful in the extreme. Katla was many things, but fanciful was not one of them. She was the practical sort. If she had an ability to hear another’s thoughts, she’d have used it on him long before now.

“Say you understand,” he suggested.

“How can I? You don’t even understand it.”

He had to give her that one.

His leg was starting to throb. He swallowed back a foul curse.

“There’s no need to be vulgar,” she said primly.

“Wait. Are you telling me you heard that?” He hurried back to her and settled by her side.

“I’m not deaf. Of course I did.”

“But I didn’t say anything,” Brandr said. “I only thought it.”

A smile burst over her face. “Oh, then I didn’t imagine it. I heard you, your thoughts, in my mind when I was trapped in that awful place.”

“You did? What did I say?”

“Encouraging things mostly,” she said. “Things to give me hope.”

“Can you hear my thoughts now?” he asked, imagining her on his bed of furs in Jondal with a whole night of loving before them and nothing of this sorry night in their heads.

She studied him for a moment then shook her head.

“Pity,” he said with a waggle of his brows. “You’d have enjoyed it.”

She gave his chest a playful swat.

“Maybe it works only under duress.” Katla frowned, tapping her front teeth with her fingernail. “While I was in the house, I tried to send my thoughts to you as well. I told you how many men were in the house and to be careful. Did you hear my voice in your mind?”

She looked so hopeful he wished he could say yes. If she had a special gift, perhaps she’d be more inclined to accept his.

But truth would serve him better than hope at present.

“No, I didn’t hear your voice,” he admitted, “but as I said, I was distracted at the time.”

“But not too distracted to make fire out of thin air.”

“No, I set the cattle byre ablaze before those two came out of the house.”

That was how his gift worked. He needed to be able to empty himself of all fury, all feeling. A double-minded mage is mute to his element. The fire wouldn’t be able to hear him. If he’d been able to control his emotions, he’d have put the fire out before he engaged in swordplay. But with Katla in danger and armed men between them, there was no use seeking that dispassionate, calm center he needed to draw the flames out or make them dance to his will.

And he certainly didn’t need to go into a long, drawn-out explanation of how his gift meshed with the secret of Greek fire.

“So,” she said with a sigh, “I’m married to a fire mage.”

“Ja, you are. Any regrets?”