Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  Afterward he left me a sphere of cold fire and went outside. I uncovered the skull. I had grown so accustomed to the skull that it was easy to chat to her, although I was grateful there was no actual conversation or the chance that she would reveal by expression or unguarded comment what she might have seen. As I lit a fresh fire in the ashy hearth, I remarked that as difficult as it was to cope with the lack of fire, it certainly was pleasant to have cold fire as light. I explained that I had grown up in an impoverished household where beeswax candles were too expensive and tallow candles so smoky and foul-smelling it became a chore to sew or read by their light. I set a slab of fish to soak, and softened the dry barleycake in a hot parsnip-and-bean soup.

  The water in the tub held a ghost of warmth in which I scrubbed his clothes. I went through them first, but I did not say anything to the cacica when I discovered three of the prophylactic sheaths tucked up one of his cuffs. The rascal! On Hallows’ Night he had been prepared to reunite with me. Of course, he hadn’t known I’d been imprisoned on Salt Island.

  Washing done, I tidied up part of my sewing kit, and mended one of the tears in his much-abused dash jacket. The fire roared, drenching me with blissful heat. But I missed him.

  How Bee would mock me!

  Let her. I had faced worse than her mockery.

  I dressed as warmly as I could and went out. Snowflakes spun on a trickle of wind. With clouds overhead, the air wasn’t nearly as frigid. In summer this shoreline would be marshy and plagued by bugs, but it was breathtaking in the winter evening with the snow shining and the water sparkling with the reflection of the magic he casually unleashed in cascades of bursting rainbows. He was throwing the illusion of light around in gouts of color that fell in waterfalls, spilling from image to image. A magnificent stag lost its antlers to become a horse pulling an elaborate chaise that became a Kena’ani ship with its prow cutting through the waves in the shape of a leaping horse. There was no reason or purpose for it. He was just doing it because he could.

  He walked to meet me.

  “It’s so beautiful, Vai.”

  “Mmm,” he agreed as he kissed me with unexpectedly warm lips.

  “I missed you.”

  “Of course you did, love.” He put an arm around me as we stared south toward an unknown shore. Snow winked where it dissolved into the water. “We need to find a mage House or inn, or we won’t last long in this cold. Even with a fur blanket.”

  “I feel like a thief taking the blanket with us. A fine beaver pelt blanket like that costs a year’s wages in Adurnam.”

  “I’m taking no chances with you and the cold, love. Now go in. You’re shivering.”

  We set out at dawn, glad to be moving. It took all morning to row across the sound. The water was so formidably calm that I was able to take several turns at the oars. By sighting on an unusually tall tree, we came in fairly close to straight across from where we had started, working back against a placid current. There we found a pier and cabin very like the one we had just left, except it had a shed for drying fish.

  A path led south through woodland of stunted pine and scrub birch. We stowed the boat and started walking. When a freezing mixture of snow and sleet began to fall on the wings of a stiff east wind, we were forced to turn back and shelter indoors for the rest of the day and night. To be snuggled together with the fur blanket wrapped around us was no hardship, but in winter we could not survive long on love alone.

  Thank Tanit, the next morning dawned clear. We walked all morning. I was hungry, and he actually looked tired, although I was not about to tell him so.

  Instead I talked. “Kofi said you would be the net that Expedition’s radicals threw across the ocean to Europa.”

  “If the charter the Assembly is writing in Expedition can be displayed in towns here, that may encourage people to demand that communities should have a say in ruling themselves.”

  “That’s why Kehinde wanted the portable press from Expedition so badly, isn’t it? To escape princely censorship of her pamphlets.”

  “Kehinde?”

  “Professora Nayo Kuti, the scholar and radical pamphleteer. The prince of Adurnam imposed martial law when the people demanded the right to elect a single tribune to the Adurnam council. If electing a single tribune to represent all the people is too radical for such a prince, imagine what he would say to the idea of an Assembly!”

  The trees and ground with their coat of snow sparkled in the sunlight. The sky was so blue it seemed to have no limit, only to fall away forever as into a spirit world where every layer fit inside another layer without ever reaching an end.

  “That’s not the only thing I carried away from Expedition,” he said. “In Europa, cold mages have always stood at odds with the blacksmiths who wield dangerous fire. What if cold mages and fire mages could work together, as they do in the Taino kingdom?”

  “I thought fire banes were slaves in Taino country.”

  He smiled as at a jest I ought to understand. “The situation is more complex than that. In the Antilles those with cold magic are generally so weak and untrained that it’s no wonder they are considered an inferior breed of magister.” He indicated the basket. “Even the cacica was startled and impressed by my magic.”

  I opened my mouth to joke about how she had been ogling him on Hallows’ Night, but when I considered the contours of his pride and the respect due to her dignity, I decided against it.

  Fortunately he had gone on. “She explained to me how catch-fires work. It is exceptionally dangerous both to the fire mage and to the catch-fire. That is why when a Taino man or woman first blooms with fire magic, a kinsman volunteers to become their catch-fire. To the outside eye it may look like slavery. But it is just the family taking responsibility until the new fire mage learns to properly control the weaving.”

  “But I heard of fire banes being sold against their will into the Taino kingdom.”

  “I don’t know, love. It may be. People also act wrongly at times. But I can’t help but think about how much more we could do in Europa if cold mages worked in harness with fire mages. Not that the mansa would ever listen to me.”

  “Honestly, Vai, the prospect of fire mages and fire banes working together alarms me. We’ve seen what James Drake is capable of.”

  “Not every person is like James Drake.” His breath misted the air before its heat faded.

  “If cold mages and fire mages worked together, then people would fear them more and hate them worse. What would stop magisters from taking over everything? I mean, besides the Wild Hunt? Any magister who learned how to hide from the Hunt in a troll maze would tell every other magister. If mage House magisters hide, then someone else will die. Someone has to die to feed the courts. As some unknown person did when we were in the spirit world. As Queen Anacaona did.” I tapped the basket.

  “People will die regardless.”

  “Yes, but we don’t have to accept the things we might change. ‘Risks must be taken if we mean to get what we want,’ as Brennan Du once said to me.”

  “No doubt hoping to impress you so you’d give him a kiss,” muttered Vai ungraciously.

  “Not every man admires me just because you do.”

  “That is exactly my point, Catherine. As long as clientage remains part of any legal code in Europa, as long as princes and mage Houses can bind entire villages into generations-long servitude, then how can things truly change? Camjiata is the only one with a legal code that will abolish clientage. There is no benefit to the princes and mage Houses to abolish clientage, because they prosper by it.”

  The skin of frozen snow crunched satisfyingly beneath my boots as I smashed each step into the ground just as I planned to smash my foes. “Did Camjiata charm you like he charmed Bee? He’s not our friend.”

  “Perhaps not, but he is our ally in the fight to abolish clientage. ”

  “How can you say so? He shelters Drake. Who, may I remind you, wants to kill you, after you’ve witnessed me being humiliated!”<
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  “I can crush James Drake.”

  “Never let it be said that you lack confidence.”

  His tone sharpened. “Do you doubt me, Catherine?”

  I halted in the middle of the path. “Of course I don’t doubt you! But James Drake nearly burned me alive. The backlash of his magic didn’t pour harmlessly through me as it did through you. Even so, the worst thing was that he meant to kill you, if he could have. When I saw him again, I was so angry and scared that I kept insulting him until he lashed out at me. He would have done something dreadful if the general hadn’t stopped him. I don’t know how to stop myself from provoking him if we see him again.”

  He grasped my arms. “That man will never hurt you, Catherine. Never.”

  “That’s right, because I will kill him.”

  He was silent for so long I thought he might be displeased by my bloodthirsty rejoinder. At length, with a frown, he spoke.

  “I know you hate your sire, love, and I understand why you do. But don’t forget there is a part of him that gives you strength.”

  “He’ll never truly let go of me,” I murmured, shuddering, for an unreasoning fear seized me. What if he could hear and see all I said even here in the mortal world? How could I ever escape, with his claws already in me?

  “James Drake?”

  “You’re the one James Drake can’t let go of. He doesn’t really care about me. I meant my sire will never let go of me, never stop hunting me…”

  Perhaps the wind whispered. Alarm, like a dagger, pricked my neck. I pulled away from Vai to examine the woodland. Flakes of half-forgotten snow drifted among the slender trunks.

  Vai drew cold steel and spun a breath of magic to waken my sword.

  Sometimes the danger that stalks you stays hidden because it comes in plain sight.

  A black wolf trotted down the path toward us, out of the south. When its uncannily golden eyes met mine, I knew it was some manner of kin. The wolf flicked a look over its shoulder and loped into the trees. A chittering bird fell silent. Tremors brushed the soles of my booted feet. A metallic jingle chimed.

  “There’s someone coming,” I said. “Horses and men.”

  Where the path dipped, curving to the right, nine men came into view. Four riders had spears braced in their stirrups, with bowcases slung from their saddles and primed with arrows. One carried a musket. Five men walked alongside lugging packs and traps. They wore sturdy winter clothing and fur hats. Some had the white skin of northern Celts, while others had mixed coloring. Seeing us, they halted in surprise.

  Vai touched my arm. “Be ready to hit the ground. I will stun them all.”

  The man with the musket gave a curt command. The horsemen dismounted, and all knelt submissively. The leader handed his musket to a comrade. With hands open and extended in supplication, he walked forward. He was an older man with a dusky, weathered face and a beard streaked with gray. Something in the shape of his blue eyes and the cut of his cheekbones struck me as familiar, although I had never seen him before.

  Where I had grown up, young people showed respect to their elders by never looking them directly in the eye. Although we were younger than he was, the man kept his gaze lowered subserviently. Twenty paces from us he pulled off his hat to reveal a thick head of dark red hair, veined with white and pulled back into a braid. Ten paces from us he dropped to both knees.

  “Salve, my lord.” He enunciated each word carefully. “Of your presence, we know nothing before we are coming upon you. We would not be displaying our spears in your face if we knew. To us, grant forgiveness, at your pleasure. To our households, your coming brings honor. What do you desire?”

  “Who are you?” Vai demanded.

  The man glanced up as if to gauge how angry Vai was. In that moment, his gaze skipped to take me in. He ducked his head, hands clenching into fists.

  “My lord, I am of the people called the Belgae. I am Devyn, son of the priest Mad Kirwyn, he who is beloved of Carnonos the god.” He studied me. “Your pardon I ask, my lord. How is this beast come to be walking beside you? Have you caught a spirit woman on the ice? She wears the black hair and golden eyes of the hunter. But the face she wears is the face of my dead sister.”

  Vai looked from the man to me and back to the man. The shape of Devyn’s face was familiar because it was the same as my own.

  24

  Vai knew he could hammer them into the dirt, and because he knew it, they believed it.

  “I am a magister of rare potency and considerable influence. My wife and I washed ashore north of here under unexpected circumstances. We seek shelter and assistance in continuing our journey south.”

  “Your wife?” Devyn glanced at me with a puzzled frown. The other men cast surreptitious looks at me. “My lord, if you say so, but no shame is there to a man who is capturing a wild beast to burnish his standing in his House.”

  Vai stared down the man until Devyn opened both hands and bent his head. “I expect my wife to be shown the same courtesy as you show to me.”

  “Your pardon, my lord. My duty it is, to be escorting you.” He spoke to the others in a lilting run of words I could not really understand. To judge from Vai’s look of concentration, he was having a better time picking out meaning from the heavy dialect, and it didn’t appear he liked what they were saying.

  Nevertheless, he handed over the food supplies we had taken from the cabin. In exchange they gave us all four horses, one for our gear. The two groups separated: We and Devyn rode south, while the village men continued north.

  “How can they know you’re a cold mage just by looking at you?” I said in a low voice. “It can’t just be your good looks. Not every handsome man is a cold mage.”

  “You can be sure I am wondering that myself.”

  “Why every handsome man is not a cold mage?”

  He smiled but did not take the bait. “We’re fortunate they were headed out to trap.”

  “I thought with the horses and bows they might be hunting the wolf.”

  “They consider the wolf to be the servant of their god, Carnonos. The god’s servant cannot be hunted. They’re troubled by you.”

  “That wolf could be my half-sibling,” I muttered. “Blessed Tanit, Vai. Are these my mother’s people?” I glanced toward Devyn to find him watching us.

  “The resemblance is remarkable.”

  “If this is her village, and the channels we crossed are part of the Baltic Ice Sea, then it makes sense that the expedition she and Daniel were part of used her home as a staging point.”

  “An interesting consideration. I will ask.”

  But Devyn put off Vai’s questions by insisting only the priest could answer. We rode with little conversation for the rest of the day and well into the evening.

  Night wrapped the world in silence. A full moon bathed the trees and the snow-clad earth in a glamour, painting the world in contrasts: the white shine of birch bark and the heavy branches of dark spruce. I felt like a forgotten ghost drawn back to an unremembered grave. It was so cold. Vai wrapped the fur blanket around me.

  The road brought us to a clearing.

  The moon overhead poured light on a princely hall that sat amid untended shrubbery gone wild. Its arched doorway was staved in as if kicked by a giant. Every window had shattered, and the roof had collapsed. On the lintel above the entrance was carved a crescent moon. Though the manor house rose two stories and had wings flying back on each side, a coat of ice as clear as glass encased the entire building.

  Vai sucked in a breath. The mare, taking his mood, sidestepped skittishly before he brought her back under control.

  Not a single plant had woven its way inside, despite the age of the ruin. The smashed floor revealed the rubble of a hypocaust beneath. Intact corpses were caught and preserved within the ice as if they had been frozen as they tried to escape.

  “Blessed Tanit!” I murmured. “Gracious Melqart, protect us. Noble Ba’al, watch over your faithful daughter.”

  “
The spirit knows this place because she visited here before in her other form.” Devyn signed a ward against evil tidings.

  “I am not a ghost or a wolf,” I said in a choked voice, but he would not look at me. To look at his face slammed me with the axe blow of memory. As a child, I had looked into a similar face, my mother’s face, as she bent to kiss me. A scar had ripped a lightning-like seam across the right side of her face, and she was missing one eye. The hole gaped like a skull’s socket, a gate onto the pain she had suffered. Yet her expression was serene and loving.

  “Tell no one. Keep silence,” she had murmured. “Just until we tell you we’ve reached the safe place we’re traveling to. Sleep, little cat. Your father and I are right here beside you.”

  The memory opened a pit inside my heart. There was no safe place.

  “Bad fortune to be here at midnight, haunted by spirits,” said Devyn. “Best we ride on.”

  Vai did not budge. “This is the mage House that was destroyed by the Wild Hunt. Crescent House, it was called.”

  “To this place the Hunt came, it is true, my lord. On Hallows’ Night, they were riding with claws and teeth. Bad fortune it is, my lord, to be lingering. Please let us be moving on.” He glanced toward me as if expecting me to turn into claws and teeth, and rend him.

  I hated him for fearing me. The frozen shell of the House was a grave for those trapped within, woman, man, and child. The ice had spared no one.

  “I am Tara Bell’s child!” In the muffled night my voice rang like a shout. “That’s why I look like her! I’m your niece!”

  He looked at Vai. “I have no niece.”

  “Don’t you understand?” I cried. “Don’t you see who—?”

  “Silence!” Vai’s voice snapped.

  I dragged in a bitter breath, fighting a flood of anger and an ebb of despair. Of course he was right: The last thing I needed to do now was make them more suspicious by informing them that their worst fears about me were true.