Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (70 page)

Rugar shook his head. “You need complete confidence in your Visions. One way to achieve that is to believe that they will always come true unless your actions change the future.”

“Is there history of craziness in our line?” she asked softly.

“No,” Rugar said. “But in the last three hundred years, several of our ancestors have reached the end of their Vision. Some died before that end could be achieved, but anyone who has lived to your grandfather’s age has become Blind.”

She made herself swallow. Her mouth was dry, and it felt as if she were swallowing air. She grabbed her cup of tea and drank it, even though it had got cold. When she was finished, she set the cup down. It rang softly on the wooden tabletop. “That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?” she asked. “You wanted to get to the end of your Vision.”

He set the poker down and wiped his hands on his pants. He looked older than he had when he had emerged from the mist not an hour earlier. “If your grandfather dies when the seers say he will, I will be an old man. I will never be a Visionary Black King. Just a placeholder for you or your brothers. I will be Blind. I owe it to myself, to our people, to follow my Vision as far as it will lead. And if I never become Black King, so be it. I will enable you to be a better Black Queen.”

“You’re afraid to be King without Vision.”

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture he rarely used because it gave away his discomfort. She had seen it only a few times in his life, always when he was under great stress. “It is one thing to rule with Vision and to have lost the Vision. It is another altogether never to rule with Vision. We hold our power through Vision, strength, and political skill. I have never been much of a politician. I am a wonderful Visionary, but that will go someday. And my strength will go with it. I would bring nothing to the throne and jeopardize my family’s place if I was to believe otherwise.”

Jewel blinked, feeling disoriented. “Why can’t I see beyond the single Vision, Father? Why don’t I See myself as Black Queen?”

“Sometimes,” he said softly, “a single Vision is so strong that it overpowers all the others until it happens. And sometimes a single Vision is all that we get of our lives.”

“How do I know that I will See more than that?”

“Because your mother and I both had Vision. It should be very strong in our children,” Rugar said.

“Should be,” Jewel said. “But what if it isn’t?”

“It will be,” Rugar said. “I watched you have a Vision. It commands all of you. Sometimes Visions come to people in dreams or in flashes, but when the Vision is strong, it takes over the entire person, as it did you.”

She swallowed, wishing for another cup of tea, but not willing to make it. “My Vision has us with the Islanders, and yours has me in their palace. What if fighting them is wrong, Father? What if our destiny is something else entirely?”

He stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her. “We fight, Jewel. That is what we do.”

She pulled her braid forward and fiddled with the end. She had been thinking this for some time, but she hadn’t known how to approach him. Even now she wasn’t sure if this was the correct method. “I know,” she said. “But what happens if this place is different? We can’t seem to conquer it by force. Perhaps we’re here to learn something new. Perhaps that is what our Visions mean.”

His expression hadn’t changed. He crossed his arms over his chest, much as Caseo had done. “I’m listening,” he said.

“We have many powers,” she said. “We can enchant and beguile. We seem to use those skills only when we have conquered a people, but what about before? In my Vision the Prince cares for me. It is very, very clear. And if the Prince cares for me as strongly as he seems to, then perhaps we have another way into their world, another way to take control of this place.”

“Jewel, you’re talking about methods that take years. We don’t have years.”

“We have already spent a year here, Father, and all we have to show for it is this gray temporary home in the woods outside their city. We have lost half our people, and we are no closer to finding a solution. The Black King won’t save us, and we can’t find a way out of this place without risking even more lives. It seems that years spent conquering these people subtly are years better spent than hiding in the Shadowlands.”

He flinched as if she had hit him. Then he looked into the fire as if it would provide answers. “I need time to think about this,” he said.

“I know,” she said softly.

“We may need to see the Shaman.”

She nodded. Then she flung her braid back over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if she had won a victory or lost something precious. “There’s one more thing, Father,” she said.

He didn’t look up. “Go ahead.”

“I think I’m going to let the prisoner Luke go free. The young boy. I believe if I do that, I can get somewhere with his father.”

This time Rugar did look at her. “You’re convinced of this?”

She nodded. “It was a deal I made with the father. He’s had time to think of it. If I let the boy go free, I will do so only after I have received valuable information.”

“If you let the boy go free,” Rugar said, “make sure he will still be useful to us.”

Jewel grinned. “I’ll make sure he’ll help us whenever we want him to.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

Theron’s hands were shaking so badly that Kondros had to double-check his knots. The little Fey man sat docilely in the chair, his hands tied behind him, and his feet tied to the chair legs. They had come to Kondros’s house, as close to the palace as they could get without going into the gate. To call the place a house was to be charitable. A bootmaker had the front of the building, and Kondros a room in the back, off the bootmaker’s apartments. The building smelled of hides and tanned leather, appropriate since the little man reeked almost as badly.

The little man hadn’t struggled at all. He had gone to the chair willingly and not protested when Theron tied his hands behind his back. Theron wouldn’t let the little man out of his sight. His neck still hurt from the knife cut, and he was terrified that the little man was going to use some kind of spell on him, make Theron do his bidding because he had now touched Theron’s blood.

Cyta had gone for Monte. The three men had decided on the way back that they wanted to involve someone close to the King, but they didn’t want to risk anyone too close. They didn’t know if the little man planned a trick on them or not.

The room was small for three people. It would be crowded with five. The little man had one of the four chairs that surrounded a table, and Kondros sat on the mat in the far corner of the room. The fireplace took up one wall. There was no window, and the door opened onto an alley with a lot of traffic. They kept the door closed, even though the room was stuffy.

Theron didn’t even have room to pace. His forefinger touched the slash on his neck. The scab was in place now, and he didn’t feel any different. Maybe the stories he had heard were lies made up by the Fey so that the Islanders would be frightened of them.

Kondros had placed a bottle of holy water on the table. After checking the knots on the little man’s wrists, Kondros sat down beside the bottle and let his fingers play with its sides. The little man’s eyes kept darting to Kondros’s fingers, and then to Theron’s face. Clearly, the little man was frightened of that water. That fear, more than anything, made Theron believe the little man had told them the truth.

Without warning the door opened inward, making Theron scramble backward. Kondros grabbed the holy water, and the little man squeaked his protest. Cyta came in, his face red and sweaty from exertion, followed by the captain of the guards. Monte was a small man, powerfully built, who stood straighter than any other Islander Theron had ever met.

Monte slammed the door behind him and walked over to the little man. He wrinkled his nose as he got close, as if he couldn’t believe the stench. “Why didn’t you men clean him up?” Monte asked.

“He won’t let us bring water near him,” Theron said.

“Smart creature, aren’t you?” Monte asked.

The little man licked his lips. “Who are you?” he asked in Nye, his voice shaking.

Monte hooked his booted foot around the leg of the chair behind him, pulled it forward, and sat down. “I understand you want to join our side,” he said in Nye. “That’s an odd request.”

“They tried to kill me,” the little man said.

“It’s their job,” Monte replied. He glanced—once—at the holy water near Kondros’s hand.

“No,” the little man said. “My people. They tried to kill me.”

Monte leaned forward and put his elbow on the table so that his face was closer to the little man’s. “And why would they do that?”

Theron’s shaking had grown worse. The situation bothered him. He pulled a chair and sat on it too, arms crossed tightly over his chest. What if the little man was the beginning of some odd invasion force? What if he was going to take over Monte and the rest of them, and then get to the King?

“I’m not important to them,” the little man said.

Monte chuckled softly. “Not important? With as many men as they’ve been losing, everyone has to be important to them.”

The little man shook his head. “I’m a Red Cap. I take care of the dead, and that gives me no value. I have no magick. I am not worth anything to them.”

“It seems,” Monte said, “that you have a lifelong problem. It would make no sense for you to defect now.”

“They tried to kill me.”
The little man spit out the words with such force that Theron resisted the urge to back away.

“You said that,” Monte replied as if the little man had shown no anger at all. “But I don’t understand why.”

“They’re trying to find out how that works,” the little man said, nodding toward the vial of holy water. “They wanted to experiment with some of it on me.”

“Why would they want to do that?” Monte asked. “They already know it will kill you.”

The little man shook his head. “They think it might have no effect on people who lack magick.”

Cyta and Kondros glanced at Theron. What an explanation. If it was true, then the Roca had given them a very potent weapon indeed. Only Monte didn’t move.

“How do we know you lack magick? We have only your word on that,” he said.

“If I had magick, I would not be sitting here trussed like this.”

“Unless you were trying to infiltrate us. Unless you were trying to make us believe you are something other than what you are.”

The little man bowed his head and shook it once, as if he couldn’t believe the position he was in. Then he licked his lips and tilted his head back. “I have never done anything like this before,” he said. “I wouldn’t even consider it if I were back in Nye or on the continent. I would just run away, resign, or join some of the Fey who have chosen to stay away from the wars. But I have no choice here. I can’t stay in the Shadowlands. If I do, they will experiment on me in my sleep, and I can’t live alone outside of the Shadowlands, because if I do, one of you Islanders will kill me. So I thought if I came to you, if I told you things you didn’t know about us, maybe you could help me, but you won’t trust me.”

“We have no reason to,” Monte said. “We have only your word. And that is worth nothing to us.”

The little man exhaled loudly. Theron sat stiffly, his fingers again creeping to his neck. “He didn’t kill me,” Theron said, uncertain why he was defending the little man.