Cold Steel

Page 1

1
I was serving drinks to the customers at the boardinghouse when a prince came to kill me.
I had my back to the gate and had just set a tray of empty mugs on the bar when the cheerful buzz of conversation abruptly ceased. Behind the counter, Uncle Joe finished drawing a pitcher of ale from a barrel before he turned. His gaze widened as he took in the sight behind me. He reached under the counter and set my sheathed sword next to the tray, in plain view.
I swung around.
As with most family compounds in the city of Expedition, the boardinghouse’s rooms and living quarters were laid out around a central courtyard. A wall and gate separated the living area from the street. Soldiers stood in the open gate, surrounding the man who intended to be the next ruler of the Taino kingdom.
Prince Caonabo had a broad, brown face, and his black hair was almost as long as mine, although his fell loose while I confined mine in a braid whose tip brushed my hips. He wore white cotton cloth draped around his body much like a Roman toga, and simple leather sandals. Had I doubted his rank because of the plainness of his dress, I might have guessed his importance from the gold torc and gold armbands he wore, as well as the shell wrist-guards and anklets that ornamented his limbs and the jade-stone piercing the skin just above his chin.
The prince raised a hand, palm up. A flame sparked from the center of his palm, flowering outward as a rose blooms.
“Catherine Bell Barahal, you have been accused in the council hall of Expedition of being responsible for the death of the honorable and most wise cacica, what you call a queen, she with the name Anacaona. As Queen Anacaona’s only surviving son, and as heir to her brother, the cacique, I am required to pursue justice in this matter.”
I met his gaze. “I would like to know who made that accusation.”
“I made the accusation.”
He knew what I had done.
I took a step back, but I could not move faster than magic. Warmth tingled across my skin as the backlash of his fire magic brushed across my skin and stirred heat within my lungs and heart.
Yet as the light of the growing flame shimmered across his face, his features melted quite startlingly, like candle wax. He was as poured into a new mold and began to transform into a different person. I had not known that fire mages were skilled in the art of illusion, able to make themselves appear as someone else! Even the bar and courtyard were cunningly wrought illusions that, like his face and body, dissolved into mist. A gritty smoke filled my lungs, choking me.
Leaping back, I grabbed for my sword, but before I could grasp the hilt, my hand burst into flame. A blast of hot wind dispersed the stinging veil of smoke. As my vision cleared, I found myself standing on grand stone steps that led up to the imposing entry of a palatial building. Its walls and roof blazed. Sheets of fire crackled into the air like the vast wings of a molten dragon. Flames clawed searing daggers into my flesh as I groped for my sword. I had no cold magic with which to kill the inferno. Only if I could wield cold steel had I a chance to save myself.
My fingers closed over the smooth hilt. I tugged, but the blade stuck in its sheath. An icy wind poured down in gouts of freezing air that battered against the raging flames, as if fire and ice were at war and I was at the center of the battle. The flames shimmered from gold to white, and in the blink of an eye the fire transmuted to become falling snow. Brushing away the snowflakes icing my eyes and lips, I tried to make sense of what had happened.
Where was I? Why was everything changing so fast? Was I dreaming?
Instead of a burning building, the sheer cliff face of an ice sheet loomed over me. The pressure of its glacial mass slowly advanced, grinding and groaning. I pulled on my sword, but the blade was crushed in the ice and my hand had frozen to it. I simply could not move.
Beyond my frozen body lay a hollow cavern that bloomed with the harsh glamour of cold fire. In that lofty cave, the melted form that had first appeared to me as Prince Caonabo glittered as it changed. Frost and crystals shaped themselves into the figure and face of a man I recognized: the Master of the Wild Hunt.
My sire.
His expression was as cold and empty as his heart. “So are you trapped, little cat. You will never be free.”
“I will be free! All of us will be free!” I tugged at the sword with all the heart and might I had in me.
Instead, the sword yanked me back the other way so hard that it hauled me right off my feet.
“Cat! Fiery Shemesh! You are talking nonsense in your sleep and besides that trying to drag me off the bed.”
My cousin Beatrice loomed over me, her thick black curls framing her familiar and beloved face. Her fingers clutched mine, and I realized I had been holding her hand for quite some time. For fifteen years, since I was orphaned at the age of six, Bee had been my best friend, as close as a loving sister. Just to see her helped me relax enough that I could take stock of where I was and what I was doing.