that went with them. There was no room for love, or lust-especially not with
Kama.
“You needn’t have stayed with me,” he said softly, shifting the focus of his
analysis and persuasion away from politics.
“I was curious. All winter I’ve been hearing about the Torch. Almost everything
that worked had your fingerprints on it. Nobody seems to like you very much,
Molin Torchholder, but they all seem to respect you. I wanted to see for
myself.”
“So you saw me falling off my horse and foaming at the mouth?”
.She gave him a quick half-smile. “Will the Third actually share that brandy and
meat?”
“I don’t have the Empire or the priesthood behind me anymore,” Molin admitted.
“I can’t coerce a man’s loyalty and I can’t inspire it either-I know my limits.
I bribed the cooks myself long before I left the palace.” A stream of water
broke through the branch-and-straw roof, hitting him full in the face. “No one,
if he’s done work for Sanctuary, should be out on a night like this without some
reward. If the Third went to the barracks, they got their share.”
“What about you?”
“Or you?”
Kama shrugged and picked at the loose threads of a bandage tied around her right
palm. “I won’t find what I want at the barracks.”
“You won’t find it with the Third-“
Kama turned to stare darkly at him.
Stormbringer, the witches, the children: everything that was important in the
larger scheme of things fell from Molin’s thoughts as he sat up, closing his
hands over hers. “-You won’t find it with any of his people.”
It was a thought that had, apparently, already occurred to her, for she unwound