Cold Steel

“How dare you speak to her like that!” Bee stepped between him and me with such an aggressive movement that both catch-fires turned. “Cat did not murder the cacica! It’s unjust of you to blame her just because you need someone to blame!”

I set Bee firmly to one side. “No, he deserves an answer.”

Prince Caonabo and I were the same height, so we matched, eye to eye. “I held no animosity toward Queen Anacaona except that she conspired with General Camjiata to exile me to Salt Island. At least her motives seemed disinterested in that regard. But at the ballcourt on Hallows’ Night, she was going to kill me. You know it is true.”

“I heard her words. She called for the death of salters, as was her right and obligation to protect the kingdom from illness.”

“She would have killed your twin brother, too, and other people as well, people whose only crime was to have been bitten by salters and healed by fire mages like yourself. As you once healed your brother. Isn’t that right?”

He hesitated, then frowned. “It is true.”

“Haübey would have died on Hallows’ Night, too?” Bee whispered. “You never told me that!”

A flare of emotion blushed his cheeks.

I leaped into silence, for I wanted him to be angry at me instead of Bee. “I couldn’t possibly kill a fire mage as powerful as Queen Anacaona. It seems to me you Taino should direct your anger at the personage who wielded the power to kill the cacica. We Europans call him the Master of the Wild Hunt. I suppose you Taino would call him a spirit lord. But he’s beyond your reach, so you cast your spears of revenge at me.”

His eyes tightened at the corners as he glanced at Bee, then back at me. “Even with the cacica alive, I would have needed the woman who walks the dreams of dragons to strengthen my position when I travel to Sharagua to claim the cacique’s duho. Haübey was the son my mother trained for the duho, not me. But he can never set foot in our land again because, as you say, he was bitten by a salter. That I healed him makes no difference to his exile. He has taken a foreign name, Juba, to show he is dead in Taino country. He has already departed over the sea. Yet I would dishonor my lineage if I allowed a different branch of the family to wrest the duho from me. So you will travel to Sharagua with me, Beatrice. I have the right to ask that of you. And the means to make you do it.”

He offered her the sketchbook. She hesitated to take it, for his gesture had an air of finality that made my neck prickle.

He opened his hand. The book fell. Bee grabbed it before it hit the floor.

“When the duho has passed to me and I am proclaimed as cacique, you will leave Taino country and never come back. You didn’t just lie. You made use of the pure and sacred vision that is the treasure of dreams you guard, to try and cheat me and my people.”

“You forced me to choose between you and my cousin,” Bee said. “You accused her unfairly. It looks to me as if you want to sacrifice her in order to gain the throne. I think I am the one who may doubt the purity of your intentions!”

“You have no idea what my intentions are, or how I intended to thread this labyrinth, to find a way to satisfy justice. We Taino do not sacrifice servants forced to obey their master’s command. But you treat me as a foreigner who cannot be trusted. Yet you were willing to exchange your body and your dreams for the wealth, security, and knowledge my rank and my people offered you.”

She flinched as if his rebuke had been a physical slap. “I have done what my heart told me to do, Your Highness.”

“What of your duty?” His calm gaze and measured words fell more harshly than anger would have.

I embraced her, resting my cheek on her hair as I whispered. “Kofi and Keer have a plan for my defense. Kayleigh has money if we need it for berths on a ship. I will support you whatever you choose, Bee. Do what you must.”

She took in a shuddering breath. “Hassi Barahals may be mercenaries and spies, but we are never, ever cheats.”

“Then go. We can leave messages for each other at any of the law offices of Godwik and Clutch, here or in Adurnam or Havery.”

She wiped her cheeks as she released me. Majestic in presence, she faced the man she had agreed to marry believing his exalted position and powerful kingdom could protect us. “I will do my duty toward you, Your Highness. Never think otherwise.”

I could not read the book of Caonabo’s emotions as I had learned to read Andevai. Despite his vanity and arrogance, or perhaps because of them, Vai had far less restraint. That he believed he had a great deal of self-control while having very little had become one of the things that charmed me about him. Not so with Prince Caonabo. As I watched him watch Bee walk with dignity to the door, I could not tell if he yearned for what they had so quickly lost or if he was simply measuring the odds that he could trust her to do the part he needed her to do.