Page 25 of Curse the Flame

His eyebrows lift. He says something else, slower this time, pointing first at himself, then toward the camp.

I think I get it. “Are you asking me to come down there with you?”

He nods.

Huh. Maybe he does understand me. Or perhaps my tone and the way I gesture at the camp, then me, then the camp again makes my meaning obvious.

Either way, I’m back to shaking my head.

“No, thank you. I’m just looking for my puppy.”

He frowns.

“Small dog?” I hold my hands about a foot apart. “Dark brown fur. Fiery eyes. Smoke comes out of him sometimes.”

The soldier stares.

Yeah. He has no idea what I’m saying, does he?

He speaks again, then points at me, and any hope that I can grab Sir and quickly head off in the opposite direction dies a quick death as he drops his hand, slowly removing the sword from its place on his hip.

That time, I managed to catch one word.

Femina.

Feminine.

Woman? He’s gotta be pointing out I’m a chick.

I laugh nervously. “Yes. I’m a woman. Very observant.”

His gaze drags over my bare legs before settling on my face again. He says something else. There are a few words I almost recognize from when I made mythology my complete personality as a pre-teen, Sunday School and holidays at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or because his word sounds like the same as one we use in English.

There’s Roma.

Rome. Yup. Figured that one.

Serva.

Serve? Is that what one means?

Uxor.

Wait. I know that one, too, from a recent episode of Jeopardy of all things, and I really, really hope that I’m remembering the translation for “wife” wrong. Considering the way the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, a nervous pit forming in my belly, I’m thinking I’m not.

“No,” I say, sudden nerves making the word come out harsher than it probably should’ve.

Instantly, his expression hardens.

Uh-oh. But, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound… “No ‘wife’. No husband, either. I’m not anyone’s wife.”

Actually—

Hush, I hiss, cutting Persephone off. She’s been a trusty hitchhiker so far, but I can’t see how her commentary is going to help me right now.

She sniffs. Fine. If that’s how you want it.

She’s gone. Well, no. Not gone, but recessing deeper inside of me, somewhere she can sulk as—crap!—here he comes!