Cold Steel

An incandescent anger transformed Bee’s lovely features. “Did you plot it between you?”

He wiped his bloody forehead with the back of a hand. “I do not understand you.”

“You understand me perfectly well. I have had a lot of time to think. Was Caonabo looking for a pretext to divorce me? One that all of you hoped would force me to return to Europa with the general? Would he have crafted some other reason for me to leave if this one had not come to hand? From the moment you discovered I walk the dreams of dragons, you’ve been plotting to use me, haven’t you? You, your brother, your mother, your uncle: all of you. I thought you were better, that you cherished dreamers, but the Taino court connives no differently from the rest. You want cold mages for whatever war is brewing between you and your rivals. If the general won—with my help, of course!—he agreed to dismantle the mage Houses and give you first pick of the captive cold mages, didn’t he?”

“First pick!” I exclaimed. “Was he intending all along to hand Vai over to you?”

Haübey took the lantern and dismissed his attendant, leaving us three alone with unconscious men. “You cannot think the Taino offer aid to the general in exchange for nothing?”

“He’s trading you cold mages in return for your support?” I repeated stupidly.

“Why do you think I came to Europa in the first place two years ago?” Haübey asked. “Your wars and rivalries do not interest us. I came at the behest of my uncle to learn about cold mages. Instead I saw people living in unpleasant squalor. Children suffer hunger while others throw away food they cannot eat and will not share. People die of diseases any decently trained behique could cure. The streets run with filth, and there is no decent night lighting. The food is awful. And it’s cold. But the music and drumming is good, and many of the women are beautiful.” His gaze lifted to capture Bee’s. He trembled as on the edge of a kiss.

She cut him with an angry frown. “Can it be that even to Caonabo I was nothing more than a tool to be used? Although I grant you that I was well handled and lovingly polished.”

Haübey closed his hands to fists, although I could not be sure if it was her accusations or her insinuation of the intimacies she had shared with Caonabo, ones he had been denied, that upset him. “You see only the shadows that churn the Great Smoke, dreamer. You do not know what thoughts trouble a man.”

Elsewhere a man groaned, begging for water. Rain began to fall with a steady drumming, and water dripped through the many scars in the burned roof to splash onto the wounded, who could not even cover themselves. In the stall next to us I heard Rory humming softly.

“Blessed Tanit!” Bee said. “How is it come to this, that I think only of my injured heart?”

I pulled the cacica’s skull out of the basket. Startled, Haübey took a step away.

“Your Highness, at the request of your uncle and your brother, I deliver your mother’s head to you. With this cemi, Prince Haübey, your kinsmen give you permission to return home. They want you back to lead the Taino army.”

He stared, looking first confounded and then pleased. “So I am answered!”

“Just one thing first.”

Digging into the satchel, I pulled out the sewing kit Vai had so thoughtfully given me. Of course it included a hand mirror, since I could not imagine that Vai could imagine existence without a mirror. I caught the skull in the reflection as I pulled the shadows around me. Haübey gasped gratifyingly when I vanished. Spun in my shadow, the skull shifted to the texture and weight of a living head and met my gaze in the mirror.

“Honored Cacica, my greetings,” I said.

“My greetings, Niece. You have returned me to my son.”

“So I have, honored one. As I promised.”

She blinked to show her approval. “Your debt is paid, even if I cannot approve how my brother went about getting his way. We maintain righteousness because we hold to the law.”

“The world changes,” muttered Haübey. “The old ways no longer protect us. My uncle understands that, even if you did not, honored mother.”

The cacica had not struck me as an impulsive, emotional woman, but judging by her glare, she and her impatient, headstrong son had more in common than I had thought. “Those who cast aside the law will wither like maize under drought. And so will the land!”

Haübey’s brooding expression was sharpened by lips pressed so tight I wondered he did not cut himself. “I have something to say about how you treated Caonabo all those years, favoring me and neglecting him! I always resented it! He will make a noble cacique, even if you never thought so!”