The Fire Seer Read Free

and pounded on it. “Taya! Let me in! I’m your quradum !”
    Taya’s heart beat wildly. To provoke Mandir was madness, but she had to establish some boundaries. Without limits, there was no telling what he’d do. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she called through the door.
    The pounding stopped. She waited by the door, hardly daring to take a breath, until she caught a glimpse of movement through the window. Mandir was actually leaving. He crossed the courtyard to his own house, went inside it, and disappeared.
    Taya breathed a sigh of relief. She went to her saddlebags to begin unpacking. As she searched through them for the most critical items, she kept vigil at the window to make sure Mandir didn’t come back. She was just pulling out her silk dress when she realized where he might have gone instead. She ran to the front door just in time to see it fly open with a bang.
    Mandir stormed across the tiny house like an enraged bull. “Don’t you ever bar that door to me,” he said, lifting the bar from the courtyard door.
    Taya clenched the silk dress in her hands. “Don’t you come barging into my house!”
    “I am your quradum ,” said Mandir. “As your assigned protector on this mission, I require free access to your person at all times.”
    “Access to my person,” Taya repeated incredulously.
    “At all times.”
    “I trust I get to keep my clothes on?”
    Mandir grinned. “Your mind goes some funny places, banana girl.”
    Taya despised that nickname. She hadn’t even grown up on a banana farm; her family grew date trees. Mandir had never bothered to ask about her roots. He’d just made assumptions.
    Mandir pointed to the dress in her hands. “Is that your silk?”
    Taya glanced down. She’d nearly crushed the dress in her hands. “Yes.”
    “Flood and fire! Have you no respect for fine fabric?” Mandir took it from her, gently shook it out, and laid it on her bed, straightening the wrinkles. “Also, your hair’s a mess.”
    “Thanks for noticing,” said Taya. “So how was your Year of Penance?”
    “Enlightening.” Mandir pulled out a chair and sat down, making himself at home.
    Taya fumed. Clearly her old nemesis hadn’t changed a bit. “You never served it.”
    He looked up in surprise. “Of course I did.”
    “You couldn’t possibly have!” cried Taya. “If you had, you would have missed a year of your studies. You would have become a qualified ilittum not this year but the next. Yet here you sit in your green and silver.”
    “When my Year was up, I spoke to the Triarch about my situation and was granted an accelerated schedule of classes that allowed me to finish on time.”
    Taya frowned. That might actually be true. She didn’t doubt Mandir could learn the material faster than anyone else; he’d been the top student in nearly every class at Mohenjo Temple and mocked her while she’d struggled with the basics of reading and writing. But it wasn’t fair that he was always granted special dispensation. People of low caste made one mistake and they were out. Mandir made mistake after mistake and was granted what seemed to be an unlimited number of second chances, plus extra opportunities to catch up when he was behind. Caste wasn’t supposed to matter in the Coalition. But in some ways it did. “Funny how you always seem to bounce back,” said Taya. “Yet there were three Coalition boys who were expelled because of you.”
    “Honestly, Taya,” said Mandir. “You don’t care a fig about those boys.”
    “You’re right. I don’t care about them. I care that you weren’t expelled along with them.”
    “How long are you going to carry that grudge?” asked Mandir.
    “Forever,” said Taya. She had every reason to hold a grudge against someone who’d tried to kill her, and for as long as she deemed necessary. “Is this your first mission?”
    “Yes.”
    “Wonderful,” she muttered.
    “Your first as well?” asked Mandir.
    Taya nodded.
    “Relax, we’ll