Free Hell on the Heart by Nancy Brophy

about another girl.”
    Any other man in the Universe might have backed down, but not if his last name was Romney. Why did she even bother to argue?
    “Bull. This is about you and those two gajikané. And it’s about your mother’s words.” He rose out of his chair and leaned across the table to put his nose within touching distance of hers.
    Despite his attempt to intimidate her, she refused to believe the prediction. Granted her mother had been renown for her gift of sight, but seventeen years is a long time to accurately foresee.
    Rolf’s eyes gleamed as he watched her. Without looking at the cards, he gathered up the deck and thrust it at her. “Summer solstice is right around the corner. Are you dancing?”
    Cezi blinked. Rolf was punching all her buttons tonight. No matter how much she tried to ignore her situation, her family was like a dog with a bone. They just couldn’t let it go.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t love the solstice, but with the feasting and the festival came the claiming dance. Whoo hoo. All unmarried girls above the age of sixteen were expected to dance in the hopes some man would join her around the bonfire and take her for his bride. By the age of nineteen, most had been claimed. At twenty-six Cezi was the lone hold out.
    She’d been claimed once. Five years ago. Theron Davenport had jumped into the fray. No way would she have married Theron. He’d been raised with her cousins. It was too incestuous to consider. Plus she’d never been certain her cousins hadn’t put him up to it.
    “I refuse to dance anymore. None of the out-of-towners have indicated interest.” The compound had about twenty visiting families. All with sons supposedly looking for wives, but it was their mothers who were actively pursuing the right bride.
    “Nor are they likely to, after you stormed off leaving poor Theron alone.”
    Considering that her family had long memories and her aunts were notorious gossips that story was probably making the rounds. Still, she defended herself. “It wasn’t like he was brokenhearted, six months later he married that insipid girl whose name I can never remember.”
    “Ramona. And I’d be careful if I were you. Theron’s ambitious. There’s already talk about him joining the Counsel of Elders. You don’t need one more voice adding to the dissension about your unmarried state.”
    Cezi refused to think about the consequences if the Elders insisted against her wishes, she marry. She exhaled, blowing the air between her lips.
    No point in borrowing trouble, nothing had happened. Yet. She changed the subject. “Why are you struggling? Don’t you usually dispense some pithy answer with a nebulous meaning?” She lowered her voice and intoned. “You have eyes, yet you can not see. Love is close by. The gift-wrap is meaningless. Listen for the beat of his heart to determine the truth of his words.”
    “Hey, that’s pretty good. I can use that.” He sat down to type into his laptop. Cezi rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion in case he looked up.
    He didn’t.
    “I can’t believe how much these poor women pay you to respond with that drivel.”
    “Others believe in love even if you don’t,” he mocked.
    “Oh, yeah. Tell me about it, Mr. Twenty-eight and still a bachelor.”
    “We marry late in this family.” None of his five brothers, two of whom were older, were married.
    “Perfect, that’s what I’ll tell the Elders.” She wheezed. Her lungs tightened. Automatically she gripped the table as she reached for her inhaler, shook it, took a puff and held it in her lungs. The metallic rush of medicine entered her mouth and lungs.
    “Don’t get agitated,” Rolf warned in a low tone, rising from his chair and coming around to stand beside her.
    Her asthma was barely under control even with the illegal inhalers Rolf acquired through the Internet. It was the family secret. Cezi relied on outside medical help. Had the group healer, Vadoma, known she would have