Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

Yet the behica saw me at once. She saw me, and she knew me. But she said nothing.

The assembled people sang in call and response. The melody seemed familiar, a tune I heard whistled on Expedition’s streets, but the pulse and winding rhythm of the song made it seem like a proclamation. Only I did not know what for.

When they finished, we proceeded along another walkway to a large wooden building raised on stilts and surrounded by a veranda lit by gas lamps. Bee strode toward the building as toward her destiny, head high. She was so beautiful.

We climbed three stairs onto the porch and its carpet of matting. Past open doors lay a large room draped with fine netting over the furnishings, a lovingly lathed and polished table set with gold-plated dishes and shining silver utensils that was flanked by two Europan-style chairs, and a matched pair of plush Turanian couches suitable for conversation. On the far side of the chamber, hands clasped behind his back, Prince Caonabo stood looking out a window onto the night beyond. He turned, hearing us. He was so like to Juba in feature that it was only by the length of his hair that you could tell them apart. Incongruously, he wore trousers, and a dash jacket that had certainly been tailored in Europa—or on Tailors’ Row in the Passaporte District from a pattern off one of Vai’s jackets—out of sober sea-green cotton. One might think he was endeavoring to make his foreign bride comfortable with familiar things, although he was also, even more incongruously, barefoot.

As we paused on the porch for Bee to catch her breath and steady her nerves, a woman came hurrying around from another side of the building. With a gesture at me, she explained something to the most senior of our escorts.

Bee’s serene expression creased into confusion and then darkened to dismay. “They are saying you cannot enter with me. That you cannot stay at all, Cat. There’s a misunderstanding… They’ve changed their minds.” She took my hand, but her gaze was on the prince. “But it’s too late for me to retreat now. You have to go. I’ll be all right.”

I shook my hand out of hers. “Wait just a moment.”

I charged into the chamber and right up to him as he blinked in astonishment. “Prince Caonabo, I have brought your bride but I have two things to say to you first. If you harm her or let her come to harm, I will gouge out your eyes and then eat them. That is one. As for the other, she must go to troll town in Expedition before the sun sets on Hallows’ Night. Promise me you will see that she is taken safely there until a full day has passed.”

“Perdita!” he exclaimed, eyes wide with astonishment.

Soldiers swarmed out of the alcoves and herded me back to the porch without touching me.

“That was rash,” said Bee, pulling me close as the soldiers melted away under the sting of her glare. “Cat, I shall be fine. I’m sorry to lose you, but Andevai will be glad to have you back.”

I crushed her against me, murmuring, “You must be inside troll town before Hallows’ Night falls. The maze will hide you. Promise me.”

She kissed me on each cheek and gently put me away from her. Her gaze was clear and her expression determined. “I promise you I will live.”

She went in as Prince Caonabo stepped forward to greet her. Women blocked the doors with screens of translucent muslin and lowered beaded curtains to close off the view.

I put up no fuss as the two fire mages and their four attendants ushered me to an adjoining building whose limbs and wings made it resemble a sleeping frog. We entered a small chamber meant, I thought, to be humble, but fitted with wall hangings encrusted with priceless shell and pearl beads. They left me there alone. Baskets and gourds hung from the ceiling, interspersed with unlit lamps. I sat on a mat beside a low table. A woman brought a tray with two cups and a steaming pot of pungent herbs. She did not pour but left me in darkness except for my cat’s sight that even in darkness could discern the angles and corners of the room. My skin felt inflamed, and it itched. I was tired and thirsty and hungry, and I had eaten nothing since midday and was coming to the unpleasant conclusion that while Bee enjoyed a feast with the prince, I might be held here all night in disgrace. I hesitated to sneak out since my disappearance could cause trouble for Bee. I wondered where Vai was.

The door opened. Four women entered, one sitting at each corner of the room. Their presence made my sword tremble with a pulse of cold magic. Flames leaped, and the women—north, south, east, and west—shimmered with a glow like the gilding of moonrise on still waters.

The behica entered the room.

“Blessed Tanit,” I said, more to myself than to anyone, “they are all fire banes, and you are using them as catch-fires.”

The behica measured me as Vai’s boss at the carpentry yard had once done: marked and tallied. Sitting, she poured two cups, sipped at both, and offered one to me. She lifted to her lips a cigarillo. With an intake of breath, embers gleamed red and smoke curled up. She sucked twice, the smoke quite pungent, then offered the cigarillo to me.

It seemed dangerously rude not to accept. I set the unlit end to my mouth and inhaled. The jolt went straight to my eyes, and I racked out a spasm of coughing as smoke swirled around my face. The room tilted and, as I put out a hand to catch myself on the table, settled upright once. She took the cigarillo back. I gulped down the drink to rinse the harsh taste from my mouth.

“Why have you to Taino country come?” she asked in serviceable Latin.

“Isn’t it obvious I came for my cousin’s sake? For her only?”

Licking my lips, I tasted too late the chalky flavor of the drink Juba had given me to ease the burn. Was she intending to drug me? I grasped at the shadows and pulled them tight.

But as she drew in the cigarillo’s smoke, she merely watched with interest as a cat watches the struggles of a trapped mouse. “That you came surprises me. Your feet rest on Taino earth, Perdita. Thus you are subject to Taino law.”

I tried to rise, but my legs had turned to stone. I would have dragged myself out of the room with my arms, but a tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired man blocked the door.

I knew him. He was Camjiata.

My mind produced words, but my lips remained silent.

Watching me, the behica spoke to him. “Was it your intention to send this one across the border when you know the law would compel me to arrest her? The same law that forced me to bury my son when he was bitten by a salter?”

“It was my intention, Your Majesty. I regret it, but it was necessary.”

I could not find the hilt of my sword.