Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (92 page)

“We’ll have only one chance, then,” Touched said.

Caseo smiled at him. “We need only one. If he dies, our spell will have worked exactly as we planned.” He leaned forward, his tiredness forgotten. “Tell me your spell, boy. Let’s defeat these Islanders once and for all.”

SEVENTY-SIX

 
Titus cried as the road wound into the trees outside of Jahn. He knew he shouldn’t cry, just as he knew he shouldn’t have cried when his parents had sent him to the city two years before. The Holy One was supposed to watch over him, carrying his prayers to God’s Ear. But he had never seen the Holy One, and he had seen a Fey, and, God forgive him, he believed in the Fey. He knew what they could do.

The tears came in bursts. He had been crying for most of the day now, although at the moment he was merely sniffling. His eyes felt swollen, and his throat was raw. If people saw him, they would think him daft.

But he had never been this far to the west of Jahn. He could hear the river burbling far below. The trees overhead provided a cool shade against the hot sun. He had forgotten how much he liked trees—and how much he missed them. When he had agreed to become an Aud (“Second son,” his father reminded him. “Second sons always get religion”), he hadn’t realized he would be sent to the city, where everything was hot, smelly, and dust covered.

His father was proud of him. (“They’re sending you up, son, because you’re smart. Only the smart ones get to go to that Tabernacle.”) His father would be even prouder if he knew the honor the Rocaan had bestowed on Titus. Titus had never met the Rocaan before dawn that morning, had seen him only in official ceremonies. Once he had shaken the Rocaan’s hand, when he had come to Aud’s Day in the Servants’ Chapel, and once, a few weeks before, he had received the Rocaan’s Blessing along with all the other Auds.

This morning he had received the Rocaan’s Blessing again. Only Titus had been alone in the room. Up close, the Rocaan was an old man who smelled. The base of his robe had stains on it, something the Danites would have chastised Titus for. He hadn’t liked seeing that. It almost made him believe the Rocaan was human. When the Blessing was over, the Rocaan had touched Titus’s shoulder and asked him if he was courageous.

He had said yes. What else could a boy say when faced with the link to his God?

The Rocaan had smiled and then given him his first Charge. The other second-year Auds were jealous. What Aud got his first Charge from the Rocaan himself? But if they knew what the Charge was, they would be glad the Charge had come to Titus.

Titus stopped and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He wouldn’t cry anymore. He wouldn’t. The Rocaan had told him it was holy to die in God’s service.

But he was only fourteen years old. Why would God want him now?

Ahead, he saw the huge oak he had been warned about. Soon he would see the clearing that led to the Fey place.

He sniffled, then headed for a large stump off the side of the road. When he sat, he bent over and pressed his face against his knees. The vial of holy water burned like a torch in the pocket of his robe. The Rocaan had told him not to bring any, but Elder Matthias had argued that he should.

He
is not going as an enemy,
the Rocaan had said.

He is certainly not going as a friend,
the Elder had replied.

The problem was Titus didn’t understand why he was facing the Fey at all. Alone.

His feet were cold, and he wished for the millionth time since he had become an Aud that he was allowed to wear shoes. Even more than his shaved head, he resented the bare feet. He hated being cold, and coldness always started with his feet.

The Rocaan had insisted he travel without any protection except God’s. But wasn’t holy water God’s protection? Apparently the Rocaan did not think so. But the Rocaan hadn’t stipulated where the Charge began. So Titus planned to carry the holy water all the way up to the Fey place.

The threat of tears subsided a bit. He stood. He wanted to get to the Fey place before nightfall. He couldn’t imagine anything scarier than being there in the dark.

The bottoms of his feet were hardened by years of being barefoot, so he scarcely felt the rocks. But when he turned at the oak, the chill of the damp grass made him wince. He heard voices echo in the clearing. They used a language he did not understand.

He swallowed. The Rocaan had assured him that the Fey would speak Nye, maybe even Islander. If they all spoke this odd, guttural language, his Charge would be for nothing.

He couldn’t see the speakers. They had to be farther away from him than they sounded. Their voices were raised; it almost sounded as if they were fighting. He sniffled again, but not from any threat of tears. The possibility of tears was gone. He was too frightened for that.

Slowly he crossed the clearing. He saw the dirt circle the Rocaan had told him about. He was supposed to go there and wait, see if someone found him. His entire body was trembling. He tried to tell himself it was from the cold. And he was cold. His toenails had turned blue, and his fingers were little blocks of ice.

Clutched in those blocks of ice was the vial. He had forgotten to put it down before he reached the clearing.

“Forgive me, Holy Sir,” he whispered, as if the Rocaan were sitting on his shoulder, watching him.

He glanced around for a place to leave the vial, but didn’t see any. Finally he set it just outside the dirt circle, letting the vial fall away from the circle onto the grass.

As the sky grew darker, he realized that the clearing had too much light. He glanced up and saw small lights hovering over the dirt circle. The lights were in the shapes of human beings. When they saw him, they all reached toward him, their tiny lips moving.

He couldn’t move. So this was what happened to the people the Fey captured. He wanted to turn and run, but he couldn’t. If he did that, he would fail his Charge. Any Aud who failed his Charge would lose his place in the Church. His father would never accept him back home then.

He closed his eyes and stepped across the dirt circle. When he opened his eyes, the little beings were all crouched, their heads buried in their hands as if his movement had frightened them. A bit of warmth radiated from the lights, and the grass beneath his feet was hot.

This was the place the Rocaan had told him to come to. Titus recognized it from the description of the trees and the circles. The clearing had an otherworldly sense, the same kind of sense he had felt when he’d stepped into the Tabernacle for the first time, as if this were a holy place, and he was trespassing.

But that couldn’t be. The Fey were heathens, godless, and unclean. Some of the Auds even believed the Fey were little demons sent by a jealous rival to destroy the followers of Roca. Titus knew of nothing in the Words to support that theory, but for the first time since he’d heard it, he did not dispute it. There was a power there, a power so great that it made him shudder.

Then the lights went dark, and a shadow moved across the sky. He felt a change in the wind, as if someone had closed all the doors and windows around the dirt circle. The air was still. With a shaking hand he reached behind him, and his fingers hit an invisible barrier like glass over the dirt.

He couldn’t get out. He was in a Fey prison, his holy water outside it. He was trapped. He swallowed down the panic—panic did not suit a man of God—and made himself stand in a place where he was warm for the first time in days.

A door opened in front of him. The door was suspended a few feet off the ground, and it was round. It took him a moment to realize the door’s outlines traced the lights that had been there a moment before. Inside, he saw a gray swirling mass, and beyond it, buildings. A Fey stood just beside the door, with others gathering behind him. This Fey was slender, and just a few years older than Titus, but his face had a fierceness that was both beautiful and terrifying.

“Tel?” the Fey asked in his guttural voice.

Titus didn’t move for what seemed like forever. Tell? Was that a command? Or did it mean something in their language? He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His breath was coming in small gasps. Finally he managed, in Nye, “I am from the Rocaan. I have a message.”

The Fey at the door looked stunned. Then he glanced at someone beside the door whom Titus couldn’t see. They spoke for a moment in the other language; then the door closed.

After all that light, the darkness was absolute. Titus backed up, but the invisible barrier was still there. He couldn’t get out, he couldn’t see, and the Fey knew he was there.

His lower lip trembled, and he bit it. Then his eyes burned. He couldn’t cry in front of them. He had done nothing but cry since he had become an Aud two years before. Every night, in his bed, he would sob silently and wish he could go home.

He wanted to go home now more than ever, but he couldn’t. He might never again.

At least it was warm, and his feet were warm. Something positive. Concentrate on something positive. But that didn’t help him. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. More frightened than he had been when the Danites had come and taken him away. More frightened than the day he’d first seen Jahn.

He crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his thin robe, and stifling the urge to pray. The Danites said that praying for one’s self only angered God, and that all prayers should be for others. He could pretend that he was praying for his father, that his father wouldn’t want him to die in disgrace, but the truth was that his father would never know. He would know only that Titus had died on his Charge, and to die in the Lord’s service was an honorable thing.

The door opened again and flooded him with light. More Fey stood near the door, and he thought he saw a Danite he recognized, although that wasn’t possible. He backed up all the way to the barrier, his feet brushing the dirt circle. An older Fey stood in the door now, his face craggy but still upswept, as if age had given his features wings.

“You’re one of the holy ones, aren’t you, boy?” he asked in Nye.

Titus swallowed. “I—I’m an Aud. I have a message—for you, one of you, from the Rocaan. Please. It is my Charge.”

The Fey who looked like the Danite spoke in the other language, a quick, rapid sentence, which the man waved off. “Is the message for anyone in particular?” the man asked.

“It’s for whoever is in charge. The Rocaan asks forgiveness that he doesn’t know your names.” The sentences were coming easier. Things were progressing as the Rocaan had said they would.

“How do I know this isn’t a trick? That you aren’t covered with poison and won’t try to destroy our homeland?”

Titus glanced at the vial on the outside of the barrier. “I —I, ah, was told to leave my holy water outside and to come to you naked if I had to.” He held out his arms, as the Rocaan had told him to do. “You can search me. I won’t do anything. On the Roca’s Ascension, I won’t.”

The Fey who resembled a Danite spoke again. The older man nodded. He snapped his fingers at the boy who had opened the door. The boy shot a glance of pure hatred at the older man, then stepped out the door.

“You try to kill me,” the boy whispered to Titus, “and I will see to it that your entire family dies.”

Titus shook his head. What if the boy accidentally died? The Charge couldn’t include Titus’s whole family, could it? Still, he didn’t move. The boy searched Titus, then stopped, his hand hovering over the sword.

“Take that off,” the boy said.

“I—I can’t,” Titus stammered. “I made an oath. Auds aren’t supposed to forsake the sword.”

“You said naked if you had to. Well, you don’t have to take off that robe, but you have to take off that sword,” the boy said.