LC02 Crystal Flame Read online

  “I don’t understand,” she said calmly.

  He didn’t turn around. Instead, he braced one arm against the windowsill and continued to stare out into the darkness. “You heard me. I came up here a short time ago and couldn’t find either you or your travel bag. I assumed you’d taken your leave.”

  Slowly, Kalena moved away from the door. “That wouldn’t be possible, Ridge.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, searching her calm face. “Why wouldn’t it be possible? You could have taken a creet and ridden until you found some farmhouse where you could have paid for shelter for the rest of the night. You’re not frightened of the darkness and you don’t lack intelligence. It would have been easy enough for you to escape me.”

  Her mouth curved faintly. “I can’t escape you, Ridge. I’m bound by a trade marriage contract, remember? I signed the document.”

  “It’s nothing but a piece of paper.”

  Kalena began to grow indignant. “It’s a legal document. By signing it, I bound myself to the provisions of that contract. It would shred what’s left of my pride and honor to walk away from you before the journey is finished.”

  Something suspiciously akin to admiration gleamed in the depths of his eyes. “You speak as if you have very little left of your pride and honor. But I can vouch for the fact that you have more than enough of both for any one woman. More than enough for any one man, come to think of it.”

  “Is it so hard for you to understand that a woman’s sense of honor can be as great as a man’s?”

  “Before I met you, it would have been hard for me to believe such a thing,” he admitted softly. “But you have taught me differently. There have been times, my lady, when your notions of pride and honor have made life very difficult for me. But tonight I am grateful for them.”

  She realized he meant every word he was saying. Kalena’s brief flare of anger faded quickly. “You can be a thickheaded man, but you’re an honest one.” She smiled faintly. “Honesty is a good trait in a husband.”

  “I’m glad that on one point, at least, I’m proving satisfactory.”

  She blushed at the direct look in his eyes and turned away to busy herself retrieving her travel bag from the privacy chamber. “You were virtually tricked into this marriage by my aunt’s manipulations. You’ve had every right to be annoyed with me from time to time.”

  “Kalena.”

  She paused and looked back at him “ Yes Ridge?”

  “I am satisfied with the conditions of our marriage.”

  She had the feeling he wanted to say a great deal more but couldn’t find the words. Poor Ridge. He was far more adept with a sintar than he was with words. Quickly, she sought for some way to lighten the tense atmosphere.

  “Well, as to that, I’m reasonably satisfied myself,” she said easily.

  “Are you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? When I return from the Heights of Variance, I will have a sizable quantity of Sand to sell, won’t I? Freedom will be much more enjoyable if I have the financial resources to afford it.” The lightness left her voice as a sense of bitterness returned. “It’s true that under Olara’s original plans I was never meant to get the Sand, but the Spectrum has balanced itself differently than Olara expected. I have disgraced myself and my House, but I may find myself rewarded for failure in a way no one could have predicted.”

  Ridge’s gaze hardened abruptly. “Are you saying you’re staying with me not because of your honor, after all, but because of the chance at the Sand?”

  “What do you think, Ridge?” she asked coolly.

  “There are times, lady, when you have me so confused I don’t know what to think,” he muttered and turned to pull down the cover of the sleeping pallet with an angry gesture. “If you’ve finished playing Healer for the evening, let’s go to bed. We have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

  “We always seem to have a long ride ahead of us.”

  “You didn’t expect to get your hands on the Sand easily, did you?” he shot back as he sat down to yank off his boots.

  “Does it anger you that I might be thinking in a practical fashion now about this journey, Ridge? You’re hardly one to complain. You’ve made it quite clear that your main goal on this trip is to return with access to enough Sand to found your House. Why should it bother you that I might also be looking forward to what the Sand can buy for me?”

  He wrenched off his shirt and tossed it aside. “The freedom you seek isn’t going to satisfy you, Kalena”

  “How do you know?”

  He slid under the pallet cover and folded his arms behind his head. He watched her as she turned out the firegel lamp and began to undress in the darkness with her back to him. “Because I’ve held you in my arms,” he said deliberately. “And I know you for the woman you are. You’re a creature of passion. You won’t be happy unless you accept that aspect of your nature. You will need a man to share your dreams.”

  “Men are always so sure of themselves when they make pronouncements about a woman’s needs,” she whispered. She pulled her sleeping shift over her head and crawled into the pallet beside him.

  “I said you will need a man, Kalena, and it’s true,” Ridge insisted stubbornly.

  “If that’s so, then I will just have to find myself one, won’t I?” she countered lightly.

  “You’ve already found yourself one. Me.” He turned his back to her with an abrupt movement. “One of these days you’ll admit it.

  Kalena could think of nothing sufficient to say in response. She lay on her side of the pallet, vividly conscious of the heat of his body, and wondered at the complexity of the luck of the Spectrum. Kalena lay in the dark for a long time and was certain Ridge was asleep when he startled her by saying half humorously, “I’m glad it wasn’t me you were yelling at out there in the corridor. You have a formidable tongue, woman.”

  “Sometimes a sharp tongue is a woman’s only weapon.”

  “Ha. Your end of the Spectrum has armed you well. Ask any man. To tell you the truth, though, I found your lecture somewhat amusing. After all those arguments we had about the role of the male as protector of the female, you had a lot of nerve to use my side of things against that young man.”

  “He deserved to be scolded,” Kalena declared firmly. “Right or wrong, he took the vows to protect and care for his wife when he married her. He should have honored those vows. He had no business being downstairs drinking the night away while his wife went into labor alone.”

  “He’s just a kid.”

  “He’s old enough to father a child, isn’t he?” Kalena muttered.

  Ridge mumbled something to himself, in response, then said to Kalena, “Just the same, I’m glad he was your target tonight instead of me.”

  “It would never have been you. Not under such circumstances as existed tonight,” Kalena said simply.

  Ridge was silent for a moment, then asked, “Why do you say that?”

  “There would have been no need to remind you of your responsibility and commitment to your wife. You would never forget such matters. You would have made certain she was safe and protected when her time came.”

  “Thank you for your faith in me, wife. And now I’ll tell you something I have decided about you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t think you’re honoring your marriage contract just because you’ve decided to get your hands on some Sand. It isn’t greed that keeps you by my side.” He sounded absolutely sure of himself.

  Kalena wasn’t sure just what he meant, but she didn’t dare ask.

  Kalena greeted the sight of the little town of Hot And Cold with more enthusiasm than she had felt for any of the other villages where they had chosen to stop. They were at the end of eight days of hard riding. The inns along the way had ranged from primitive to minimal, and the villages had run the gamut from small to very small.

  But Hot And Cold promised an intriguing change of pace. Kalena urged her mount closer to Ridge’s c
reet as he drew to a halt at the top of a hill and looked down at the tiny village.

  “Is it true they have natural hot springs here?” Kalena demanded.

  Ridge glanced at her. “It’s true. The caravans always try to stop here. The pools are much appreciated after two eightdays on the trail.”

  “Two eightdays? But we’ve only been on the trail for one,” Kalena said in surprise.

  “We’ve been moving a great deal faster than a normal trade caravan with all its baggage and pack creets. The caravans make other trade stops along the way, too. It generally takes at least three eightday periods to reach the mountains that guard the valley of the High Healers. If all goes well, we’ll start into the mountains tomorrow. We should arrive at the valley soon after that.”

  “If we can get into the valley” Kalena reminded him.

  “We’ll get in. That’s what I’m here to do.”

  Such confidence was undoubtedly based on a lifetime of success in similar situations, Kalena thought with a sigh. She examined the tiny village below, which sat in a wooded valley nestled in the mountain’s foothills. This was strange country. There was little gradual incline as the plains gave way to valleys and the valleys gave way to mountains. Everything seemed to happen abruptly. The plains simply stopped. After only a short range of low valleys and hills, the mountains took over.

  “Are you disappointed that you haven’t yet encountered an explanation for the failure of the other caravans?” Kalena asked. She knew Ridge had had little luck in his conversations in the inn taverns.

  “No, I’m relieved,” Ridge assured her dryly. “I’m paid to handle Quintel’s problems, but that doesn’t mean I don’t prefer the quiet trips.”

  “This hasn’t exactly been a quiet trip. What about those two men who attacked us back in Adverse?” Kalena mused slowly “You don’t think they had any connection with the problems that have plagued the route?”

  “If they did, the trouble has been easily resolved, hasn’t it?” He tugged lightly on the reins of his mount and started down the hill into the valley

  Kalena thought of the two dead men and their black glass pendants and she shivered. She hoped Ridge was right in thinking there was nothing more to worry about from that direction. She urged her creet after him.

  “I have heard of natural hot water pools such as the ones you say are in this village,” she remarked. “Olara told me they can be very useful for certain types of healing. She has sent more than one old person from our village to a town that had hot pools. Once she sent a small child who was crippled from a fall.”

  “All traders love the way the pools feel after a long day’s ride. They’re much better than a normal bath. Apparently, there’s something in the water that’s unique.”

  “It’s hardly surprising, is it?” Kalena noted. “We’re very close to the Heights of Variance. It’s possible hot waters that feed the pools have their origin somewhere in the mountains. It’s said that the Light Key is sealed somewhere in the Heights of Variance and that its influence pervades the mountains. That’s why the High Healers live and work there. The presence of the Key supposedly lends power to their medicines.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in myths,” Ridge mocked.

  “Well, I don’t, but one wonders sometimes. After all, no one else has been successful in creating a version of the Sands. And we all owe much to the medical knowledge that has come to us from the High Healers. It’s obvious they have some extraordinary abilities.”

  “The High Healers are very clever, very wealthy women who have been smart enough to build a powerful reputation based on one very marketable product, namely the Sands of Eurythmic.” Ridge’s voice was mildly scornful. “They shroud themselves in mystery primarily to keep everyone in awe of them. There is no good reason why they should not be willing to deal directly with men. Their insistence on trading only with married women has been a nuisance from the start. Quintel has had his hands full over the years working around their various demands and restrictions.”

  Kalena grinned at Ridge’s display of typical male irritation. “Working around those demands and restrictions has brought a great deal of wealth and power to the House of the Gliding Fallon. You yourself are planning to make a sizable profit off this venture. Just think, Ridge. If you do return to Crosspurposes to found your House, you will owe it all to a bunch of uppity, unpredictable, difficult females.”

  “You have a way of viewing things from a strangely skewed perspective, Kalena.” She saw the reluctant amusement in his golden eyes when he glanced back over his shoulder.

  “A woman’s perspective,” she confirmed with some satisfaction.

  More and more she found herself enjoying these moments when he gave in to his sense of humor and shared some small joke with her. Kalena knew she often deliberately provoked him just to see if she could tap into that indulgent side of his nature. The risk in such provocation, of course, lay in never being certain she wouldn’t hit a vein of temper instead of good humor. But every time they were able to share this closeness, she knew the risk was worth taking. When she won an outright laugh from him, Kalena felt as though she had uncovered a cache of buried treasure.

  There were times, Kalena knew, when she walked on thin crystal. Ridge’s legendary temper was never far from the surface, and she had been scalded more than once by a burst of it. On such occasions she immediately ceased her provoking ways and set about placating him. It wasn’t difficult. She was learning rapidly that dealing with Ridge’s fiery nature was a relatively simple matter. Arrisa and the others would have been startled to hear her say so, but Kalena was beginning to feel she had a distinct and unique talent for it. It was an odd sort of talent, and probably wouldn’t be of much use in the long-term, but while she was around Ridge, it came in awfully handy.

  On one point, Kalena was very careful not to provoke Ridge. That was the subject of his own honor. At times, Ridge would grow quiet for long periods on the trail and she would wonder if he was thinking of how close she had once brought him to dishonor. He had absolutely no sense of humor about that, and she could hardly blame him. She realized now that that was how Ridge viewed the entire beginning of their relationship: As a near disaster for his honor. It wasn’t just Quintel’s life that had been at stake, but Ridge’s keen sense of personal honor.

  He took his role as Kalena’s husband seriously; if it had been discovered that his wife was Quintel’s assassin, his honor would have been savaged. Ridge owed his loyalty first and foremost to the austere man who had been his employer and his benefactor. As far as Ridge was concerned, his wife owed her loyalty to her husband. One way or another, Ridge’s fierce sense of pride made him feel totally responsible for the actions of his wife.

  He would make a good lord for a Great House, Kalena decided grimly. Ridge had the convoluted, overly fierce notion of responsibility necessary for the job. Any woman who committed herself to be his wife on a permanent basis would find herself trying to manage a very difficult husband. Managing him for only eight days on the trail had been hard enough.

  Kalena wasn’t absolutely certain she had done well by her own honor since Adverse. She had reluctantly come to that conclusion that her duty was clear. She couldn’t deny that by the terms of the contract she had signed she owed Ridge the respect and loyalty of a wife. The fact that she had never intended to carry out that contract was a side issue, one that was no longer important. Ridge had a right to share her pallet. But she had come to that decision only to discover that Ridge no longer seemed interested in doing so. Even last night, when she had tried to explain that she felt obliged to honor the terms of the marriage contract, he had made no move to touch her.

  The way he had ignored her presence in the sleeping pallet since Adverse confused and alarmed her. She had kept her uncertainty to herself, of course. Honor might demand that she accept her husband’s claim on her, but it did not demand that she throw herself at him. Ridge was not yet getting his morning yant tea served t
o him in his pallet.

  When all was said and done, Kalena knew only that her emotional reaction to Ridge wasn’t clear, even to herself. Almost against her will she found herself respecting his authority, his ability, and even, in some ways, his outsized sense of pride. He was a tough, honest, capable, honorable man. The core of self-confidence and determination about him commanded respect.

  But a very feminine part of her was extremely wary of Ridge, and not only because of what had happened the night of her wedding. He was a Houseless bastard, a paid employee of a Great House. Furthermore, he had a temper that surely originated at the Dark end of the Spectrum. Kalena knew she would never forget the sight of the sintar glowing in his hand. Nevertheless, she couldn’t escape the fact that he was her husband. For the duration of this journey, this bastard son of a Great House had full authority over her. She wondered why he hadn’t used that authority since Adverse.

  They found the village inn at the north end of the dusty street that ran the length of Hot And Cold. Kalena dismounted with her usual sense of relief and examined the sign over the inn door. The design was a crude rendition of a mountain cave with what appeared to be a steaming pool. Her spirits picked up quickly.

  “I want to try the hot pools, Ridge,” she said. She had made it a point to ask very few favors from him during the past eightday, but Kalena had no intention of missing out on something as interesting as an underground hot spring.

  Ridge frowned slightly as he started into the inn. “Perhaps. It’s a little late.”

  Kalena’s mouth firmed, but she said nothing. As far as she was concerned, there was no “perhaps” about it. She was very curious about the natural hot waters and this difficult husband of hers was not going to stop her from exploring them. She followed him into the small lobby.