Kate Elliott - Cold Steel

His gaze was steady, not angry. “I heard what you said to the maku spirit lord that night. You addressed him as ‘Father.’ You said, ‘Are you going to let that fire weaver destroy me? I guess you can’t stop her.’ Do you not think those are strange and careless words with which to ask for the death of another person? Because I do.”

The cavalcade reached the boulevard that fronted the sea, a long stone-built jetty. Waves sighed against rocks and piers; it was a gentle evening, with a gentle wind and a gentle swell. A wagon drawn by a dwarf mammoth trundling along the boulevard caught the prince’s attention. When his gaze flickered that way, it was all the distraction I needed.

Born to a human mother, I had been sired by a creature of the spirit world. That meant I could reach into the interstices that wove together the mortal world and the spirit world and draw those threads around me to hide my body from mortal eyes. With satchel and cloth-covered cane clutched against me, I wrapped myself in shadow. A bounce on the forward seat gave the impression I had leaped out of the carriage.

Prince Caonabo’s attendants shouted in alarm. I held my breath and rode the jolt as the driver hauled the horses to a halt. Soldiers scattered to search for me. The prince passed a hand over his face. For no more than a breath, he smiled as if my audacity reminded him of something that amused him greatly. Then a captain ran up, and Caonabo’s expression settled back into cool reserve. He beckoned to the soldier. As the captain mounted into the carriage, rocking it, I stepped off.

The shouts of the soldiers covered the thump I made on landing. I dodged away and caught my breath under a hissing gas streetlamp, in full sight but entirely veiled by my shadows. Carters and wagoners on their way home pulled aside. One old carter lit a cigarillo nervously, puffing smoke. Young toughs swaggered into view, as if hoping the Taino would push them into a fight. A young woman with a baby strapped to her back grabbed a ripe papaya out of the basket she was carrying and cocked her arm to fling it at the prince, but an older woman grabbed her elbow to stop her.

A whistle shrilled. As the Taino soldiers resumed formation, I crept away down a side street.

The victory drums heard from a distant ballcourt ceased as I hurried down dim streets too unimportant to warrant street lighting. The smoke of cook fires coated the air. Merchants and artisans were closing up shop. The last transport wagons and carts shared the roadways with people making their leisurely way home from work, the market, or the batey game. No volley of shots disturbed the night, so presumably the prince had moved on before trouble started.

Still hidden, I crept into the compound belonging to the household of my husband’s trusted friend, Kofi. Vai’s sister Kayleigh was busy in the big open-air kitchen, laughing with other young women as they helped with the cooking, supervised by Kofi’s mother and aunts. Wheels scraped behind me. I stepped out of the way as the household menfolk entered, pushing empty carts. Kofi was at the end of the line, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with scarred cheeks and his shoulder-length black hair in locks. Falling in beside him, I tweaked the hem of the sleeveless singlet he wore.

“Kofi, it’s Cat,” I whispered. “I’m in trouble. Meet me in the back.”

He startled, eyes going wide, but without a word he helped the other men sweep out the carts and store them for the night. Then he grabbed a lantern and beckoned to Kayleigh. She looked surprised but excused herself to his mother. I walked behind them as they made their way to the back courtyard and entered a shed for broken axles and wheels not yet repaired.

When I unwrapped the shadows, Kofi jumped back in alarm. Kayleigh chuckled. My secret ways did not trouble her, for she had grown up in a hunters’ village and with a grandmother who was a wise woman with strong magic.

He frowned, glancing at Kayleigh as his shoulders tensed. “I tell yee, Cat, yee shall not ever do that in front of any but them who know yee well. It don’ seem natural.”

“My apologies.” I kissed Kayleigh on the cheek and Kofi likewise. “I’ve been accused of the murder of Queen Anacaona by Prince Caonabo. He came to the boardinghouse and arrested me himself. Once we were away from Aunty’s, I fled.”

“Whsst!” Kofi rubbed his forehead. “Now yee’s a fugitive, Cat. It make yee look guilty of the crime.”

“How can I be sure the Assembly won’t hand me over to the Taino?”

Kofi rested a big hand on my shoulder. “Cat, every Expeditioner shall call the cacica’s death an act of war, and yee a soldier fighting against the Taino in defense of Expedition.”

“That will scarcely help me if I’m brought to trial and everyone believes I killed her!”

“I don’ have the authority to let yee seek refuge here. I must ask permission of the elders of the house.” He shifted broken wheels off an overturned wagon bed so we could sit. “Wait here.”

As he stepped outside, I said, “I told Uncle Joe to send Rory here. I don’t want the Taino to take him into custody. Because he’s the one who killed the cacica.”

“I don’ see it that way.” The lamplight made his scars shine, a reminder that he had endured torture in the cells of Expedition’s Warden Hall for being a radical and revolutionary agitator. Few things intimidated him now. “’Tis true yee made the suggestion and yee brother struck the blow, but ’twas the maku spirit lord, the one yee call master and sire, who had the power to command it done. Seem to me the spirit lord is therefore the killer.”

He walked off, taking the lamp to light his way. In the darkness, Kayleigh took my hand. She was a sturdy, big-boned young woman, not more than seventeen, who looked like her older brother if not nearly as striking. We had not always gotten along, but I was very glad to have her next to me tonight. “What do you mean to do, Cat?”

“I have to get to Europa. I just have to figure out how to get there, for I’ve no money for a berth on a ship taking passage over the Atlantic. I’ve already been warned off trying to walk into the spirit world here in the islands. An opia came to me looking just like Vai.”

She snickered. “That must have startled you.”

Heat burned in my cheeks, for I had kissed the opia quite passionately before I realized he was the spirit of a dead ancestor, wearing Vai’s face. Being dead, opia could wear any face they wished. “Yes, it was quite disconcerting. He’s the one who explained why the Taino spirits are so angry at me.”

“Why is that? For it seems to me that here in the Antilles, living people and their dead ancestors are not often hostile toward each other. But perhaps the spirit people here wish to protect the spirit lords of Europa, who might be in some manner their cousins.”

“Quite the contrary. Long ago, Taino fire mages wove a protective spirit fence around their islands to keep out the Wild Hunt and any other spirit visitors from other parts of the spirit world.”

Kayleigh nodded. This casual talk of the spirit world seemed perfectly normal to her. “I suppose that spirit lords protect their territory just like princes and mages do in the mortal world.”

“So it seems. Anyway, I was able to cut a gate in the spirit fence. The Wild Hunt rode through the gap I made. My sire would never have been able to reach the cacica if not for me.”

“It’s not as if you did it on purpose! You were just trying to save your cousin’s life, for it was her the Wild Hunt wanted to kill.”

“Yes, but the cacica died regardless.”

“You’ll need to sail to Europa, then. If we can’t get the bank to open Vai’s account to you, you shall have the money Vai settled on me when I married.”