Free Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel by Kate Elliott

We said nothing, for we knew what
     we needed to know of each other. Our love was our promise and our security. She left,
     leaving the door open behind her for Caonabo to follow.
    The prince paused, turning to give me a last look. “The blood of my mother lies between
     us, Catherine Bell Barahal. But because I respect the law, I act as the law requires.
     Do you? Will you take responsibility for your actions, or will you seek the chance
     to escape what you have brought about without accepting your part in it?”

7
    I had to trust in the plan hatched by Kofi and Keer. With Rory wounded, I had few
     options.
    We spent the rest of the afternoon quietly. When Rory woke up, he seemed far better
     than he had any right to be, but he developed a sulky whine that Luce was better able
     to tolerate than I was. She demanded that wash water be brought so I could bathe and
     change my clothes. I sewed buttonholes on the two winter coats because the tailors
     hadn’t had time to finish them. To pass the time, she and I discussed the chamber
     murals. The paintings depicted the history of the First Fleet: the eruption of the
     salt plague out of the salt mines of the Sahara Desert; the crossing of the Atlantic
     Ocean by the multitudes fleeing with the Malian fleet; landfall on the southern shore
     of the island of Kiskeya in the Sea of Antilles.
    Luce traced the adventures of her ancestors with a look of dizzy excitement. “I shall
     have an adventure, too. I shall come with yee to rescue Vai. I’s old enough to leave
     home. I always wanted to travel, like me father!”
    “No, you shall not!” Leaning my forehead against hers, I captured her gaze with mine
     to bind her to my will. I was implacable; I had to be, because she was a sheltered
     girl with a sunny good nature from having grown up in a loyal household whose family
     members cared for each other. “We can’t afford your passage to Europa. You can’t walk
     into the spirit world anyway.”
    Her frown developed a stubborn kick.
    “Rory and I can cross into the spirit world because of what we are. People aren’t
     meant to walk there. Hunters apprentice for years tolearn the secret lore passed down among them. You will die, or be changed beyond recognition.”
    Luce glared, trembling. “Everyone say I shall be a great help to me mother to run
     the boardinghouse. But what if that is not what I want? I don’ want to work in them
     factories neither. And the ships me father sails don’ accept women as sailors, for
     that is the Roman way. I don’ have the connections nor the apprentice fee a gal need
     to get a berth on a ship run by a troll consortium.”
    “It would just kill your family if you left, Luce. They love you!”
    Her dark gaze accused me, as if I had betrayed her.
    Rory stirred. “I’m thirsty,” he whimpered. She went to him.
    At nightfall I went to the doors that looked over the courtyard. Kofi joined me.
    “How old is that ceiba tree?” In the night breeze stirring its branches I was sure
     I felt the breath of the spirit world. Its scent wound through my bones.
    Kofi rocked from toe to heel and back. “’Twas a sapling planted here on that very
     day the Taino caciques and the captains of the fleet met to seal the First Treaty.
     The story go that they who ruled chose one beautiful gal who did come over with the
     Malian fleet and one handsome lad who was Taino-born upon this island. They two were
     sacrificed and their blood and bones set in the earth to feed the tree and bind the
     treaty.”
    I pressed a cheek into the glass. I tasted on the air the ancient power of blood to
     bind the living and the dead.
    He put a hand on my forearm. “The Taino believe the ancestors hold them to the right
     and proper way of living. There was never one thing to stop the Taino all these years
     from invading Expedition except so far as they held to the law.”
    “No, I suppose not. The Taino kingdom is so powerful, and Expedition Territory is
     tiny