Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

Yet what if it referred to the same choice my mother had been forced to make? What if my sire meant to force me to sleep with him to save Vai’s life, as he had forced my mother to have sex with him to save the lives of Daniel and the other men in the Baltic Ice Expedition?

“Cat, why are you shaking? I’m sorry I said anything.”

I swallowed a huge gulp of rum. Some things I refused to speak of even to Bee. “The point is, James Drake has stayed alive this long by murdering unwilling people as catch-fires. Beggars, the rootless poor, people no one will miss. Salters and dying men. Meanwhile, the general means to allow Drake to go on killing people as long as it helps him win the war he means to wage in Europa. That’s why Drake obeys him, because he knows Camjiata will turn a blind eye to his crimes. Who will miss enemy soldiers who perish in war? So how can we trust Camjiata, knowing he employs a criminal like James Drake?”

“Listen! After Caonabo divorced me, I went to the general. I really didn’t have anywhere else to go, as you can imagine. Of course I demanded to know what his intentions are toward you. He promised me that you have nothing to fear from him. Your life is his life. As long as you are alive, he knows he is alive. The general has offered us employment as spies and couriers in his army.”

“I’m not spying for the general!”

“How do you plan to eat? In what bed do you plan to sleep with your handsome husband? Do you have any money at all, Cat?”

“No,” I admitted sullenly. I groped for the flask, but Bee had hidden it. “Didn’t Caonabo give you a dower, some pittance from the Taino treasury?”

“Why, yes, he rewarded me very generously. I was granted the right to collect taxes from two towns on the northern coast of Kiskeya. It’s a fine income, but one I have no access to. I received also several thousand cowrie shells, which make me quite wealthy in the Taino kingdom but are worth nothing in Europa. A chest full of exceptionally fine cloth, as well as several crates of excellent tobacco. All of which are on the ship you and I were meant to sail on, together with Vai’s other chests. We’re destitute, Cat. We haven’t a single sestertius to our name. All we have is the gear that is in this chest, which fortunately is the one Luce packed for you.”

I crossed my arms fumingly. “I don’t even know how I’m going to rescue Vai.”

“I do have some gold jewelry I can sell,” she mused. “The dash jackets can be sold. We won’t starve, not for a while. But those things will run out. At least hold the general’s offer in reserve, just in case we need it.”

Every road led away into darkness, and while normally I could see unusually well in the dark, my eyes could not penetrate the future. I yawned again, eyelids drooping. The heat made me sleepy. Rory was sprawled out like a big warm comforting purr. He snored in a catlike way with little huffs between times as if he was dreaming of chasing down plump deer. Bee and I leaned against his belly. The rocking motion of the beast had a soporific effect.

I rested my head against hers. “Whatever happens, I love you, Bee. Always.”

“Always,” she whispered, holding my hand.

My eyes closed. I sank into sleep.

As in a dream, I bucketed through the heavens on the back of a horse whose coat was as black and sticky as tar. I braced the butt of a spear against my booted stirrup. My arms were bare, the skin marked with blue coils like the ink-painting common among the Celts. With a hawk’s sight I saw our prey running, a girl with long hair streaming out behind her. Her blood smelled of smoke and dreams, and as we galloped up alongside her, I thrust my spear into her back and brought her down. With my hands gripping the spear, I swung off the horse. She was thrashing, trying to crawl, trying to live. I pressed a foot onto her back to trap her and wiped my fingers through the blood pumping out of the wound. Brought it to my lips.

The blood was redolent with the fragrant bloom of powerful cold magic as mouthwatering as spice. But it was not mine to drink. I owed it to my masters. The chain that bound me to them dragged me back toward their presence.

A voice was murmuring, honey words luring me away from the kill. Vai’s kisses sweetened my lips and warmed my flesh. His hands measured the map of my body, fingers tracing each curve as he rolled me over on the bed he had built for us.

I stirred, eyes opening as my hands reached for him.

The basket gaped open and empty across my lap. I blinked, trying to focus, for I was back in the belly of the beast. Its comblike teeth shone with a phosphorescent gleam.

By this light I saw Bee talking to Queen Anacaona. The dead flat shine of the cacica’s eyes had deepened to a warm brown.

“I’m not sure I understand, Your Highness. Is the Great Smoke the ocean of dreams through which I walk in my dreams?”

“Yes. The Great Smoke is the ocean of all existence. The currents which we call past, present, and future mingle together in the sea of mist.”

I was so hungry and hot. I was not meant to journey through the ocean of dreams. My senses rebelled at the stink and the threat.

The dragon’s smoky breath trawled me under, back into sleep. I plunged into the slippery dance of the old ones, the most ancient Taninim. Their intertwining movements created currents that streamed through the smoke like rivers. A ripple caught me, pulling me into a dream so vivid it did not seem like a vision but rather like my body and sight cast into another time and place.

General Camjiata stood with his hand on a door latch. Behind him, the view out an attic window overlooked a town square and a stone castle tower rising above green trees. His hair was tied back with an incongruously bright-green ribbon that matched the old-fashioned bottle-green dash jacket he wore, its cuffs trimmed with lace. He addressed me with a serious look that quite disarmed me. Who would offer such a direct and confiding gaze to an enemy?

“I need you to kill him. You’re the only one who can.”

Golden spears of late-afternoon sunlight lanced into my eyes, blinding me as he opened the door into a lamplit chamber beyond. Darkness smoked up on all sides.

I did not want to be a killer. If only the Master of the Wild Hunt had not been my sire, I would not have had such dreams. Yet if he had not sired me, I would not be what I was. If I had not been what I was, I would not have escaped the mansa. I would have been dead long before I had been forced to make the choice that had killed the cacica. We are bound to our ancestors and to those who made us, whether we want to be or not. What matters is what we make of what we are.

I opened my eyes, back in the belly of the beast. Bee and the cacica were still conversing.

“Do you wish Caonabo had thrown away his honor merely to please you?” Queen Anacaona spoke not with anger, not with pity, but as if pressing Bee to find the answer to a riddle.