Over the last few days, he had gotten used to the tea's bitterness. He was beginning to like it.
Then he rinsed out the cup, set it near the spoon, and walked over to the Shaman. She was watching him as he did. He knew what she saw. The past two weeks had aged him. He too had lost weight, making the bones of his face prominent. A webbing of fine lines near his blue eyes gave him a look of perpetual worry. And his blond hair, once the color of the summer sun, seemed to have grown lighter. It was starting to go silver.
She had commented on it the night before. She had said, "A man could not endure the things you have endured without them showing in his face."
He wondered if that was why her face had so many wrinkles. She hadn't changed at all since he first met her, around the time he married Jewel. Her hair was white, and it circled her head like an explosion of light. Her mouth was a small oval amidst all the wrinkles. Only her eyes looked Fey. They were dark and bright and powerful, making her seem ageless somehow, even though Nicholas knew her to be of an age with the Black King.
Young, she said, for a Shaman.
"Morning," Nicholas said.
The Shaman patted a smooth spot on the rock beside her. "The sun has blood in it this morning," she said.
"It's from the fires," he said as he sat beside her.
The Black King had burned most of the city of Jahn. The Shaman had told him that it was the Fey manner of war. Destroy the cities, where much of the useless wealth accumulated. Leave the fields and the farms untouched. The policy destroyed the power bases and left the riches of the country intact.
"Perhaps," she said, but she clearly did not agree.
He felt a twist in his stomach that had nothing to do with the meager meal he had just eaten. "What else could it be?"
She shook her head, her eyes downcast. Something had happened this morning. He was certain of it.
"Did you See something?"
"Nothing I understand," she said.
"So you did."
She nodded. "But things are no different, not yet."
"And you think they will be?"
She raised her eyes. In them, he saw a sadness he did not completely understand. "I hope so," she said softly.
He was silent for a moment. He needed to talk to her, but her mood was odd. He sighed. "Sometimes I envy your Feyness," he said.
His statement clearly startled her. Color flooded her cheeks.
"Because of the Vision?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Because your path is set by who you are. You will always be a Visionary, my friend, just as my daughter will always be a Shifter."
But in the last two weeks, he had gone from King of Blue Isle to a man whose country had been taken from him. From King to soldier at best.
Assassin at worst.
"You will always be King," she said.
"King of a conquered country." He folded his hands over his knees. "I have been thinking for the last two days. My options are few. I can surrender, give Arianna to him, and see what he does to her, how he molds her in his image. And he will. I have never met a man with a will like his."
"And the subtle magicks of an aged Visionary," the Shaman said. "Links, Controls, Constructs. She wouldn't even know what changed her."
His heart pounded. The Shaman had just confirmed what he had feared most. If he gave up, he would lose Arianna completely.
"I could fight him," Nicholas said. "But my armies are decimated, and my people no longer trust me. They haven't since I married Jewel. They believe I will help the Fey. It would take more time than we have to convince them otherwise."
She waited. She was an excellent listener. The best he had ever encountered.
"I could stay here," he said, "And hide my daughter. You could search for Gift, and when you found him, you could bring him to me. The Isle would have to fight for itself, if it could. The Black King needs to find his great-grandchildren in order to move on to Leut. We would stall him until we became careless. And then we would lose."
"What of going to Leut yourself?" she said. "You could rule in exile, gather an army there, and bring it back."
He had thought of that. He had spent most of the last two days thinking about that option. But he knew nothing of the continent beyond Blue Isle. His people had only traded with Nye on the Galinas continent, and that had been before he became King.
"Abandoning Blue Isle to the Black King? Risking death at sea?" Nicholas smiled. "This is my home. And that path carries too much risk, even for me."
The sun had risen higher, but it brought no warmth. The reddish color remained in the light, almost as if the rays were filtered through a bloody cloth. The Shaman pulled her blanket tight. Nicholas felt the chill as well.
"You have found a course," she said. It was not a question.
"I think so," he said. "I can't seem to think of anything else. Perhaps your Vision — "
"Your course first," the Shaman said.
He took a deep breath. It wasn't real until he spoke of it. He bowed his head, ran a hand through his hair. His fingers were cold against his scalp.
"I am going to leave here," he said. "I want you to keep Arianna safe."
"You're not taking her with you?" the Shaman asked.
"I can't," Nicholas said. "She's too impulsive."
The Shaman's eyes widened. She knew what he was going to say. It was all over her face, her fear, her disapproval. But he had already tried this before, and nothing had happened.
Except losing Sebastian.
But that had nothing to do with the Black Throne and its curses. Did it?
"Nicholas, you can't," the Shaman said.
"Someone has to," Nicholas said. He held out his hands, trying to warm them in the growing sunlight.
"You have no magick," the Shaman said.
"I don't need magick. The Black King is as mortal as the rest of us." Nicholas tilted his head. The sunlight streaked his skin, coating it in blood. "But only I can kill him."
FIVE
Rugad, the Black King, stood on a balcony overlooking the garden. Plants he did not recognize bloomed below. Before the Fey came, Jahn must have been beautiful.But now the air had an acrid scent. Some of the fires still burned. The city around the palace was a blackened husk of its former self — most of the buildings that could be burned had been. Only the palace remained completely intact. The palace and its outbuildings. The rest of the city had been leveled.
Or would be. He had yet to give the order, but he would. He would leave buildings between the palace and river, and rebuild the warehouses. The rest of Jahn — most of Jahn — would be completely destroyed. The foolish Islanders had built Jahn on prime farm land. The fires would replenish the earth, as they had done in so many other cities, after so many other campaigns, and then the Islanders, grateful for his generosity, would farm it.
The additional food supplies would benefit the Fey. Blue Isle itself would furnish supplies for the next campaign — the one that took him to the Leut continent.
Conquering Blue Isle had been easy, as he had expected. His son Rugar, who had brought the first invasion force here, had merely been incompetent. And his ncompetence had led to Rugad's other problem.
His great-grandchildren. They were still missing.
Rugad touched the bandage around his neck. Jewel's husband, the Islander King, had nearly killed him a week ago. Only the quick thinking of Rugad's guards and the talents of the Domestic Healers had saved him. He had been without a voice for days, but he would remedy that this afternoon. He had been studying the old magicks, and he knew there was a healing spell that would give him the power of speech despite the damage.
The Healers hadn't told him because they knew the risks.
So did he.
Now.
And the decision was his to make.
Just as the decisions for this Isle were his to make. He leaned on the railing. He was still weak. The injury had been a serious one. He wouldn't be able to stand for long. But he
had been injured seriously several times in his past, and he had learned that staying in bed only made the weakness last. Forcing the body to use its strength kept it alive.
Beyond the garden, he could see the towers of the palace's sister building, the Tabernacle. It stood on the other side of the Cardidas River, a river that Rugad planned to use as a major transportation route sometime soon. He had destroyed the Tabernacle and its Black Robes first, slaughtering the ancient religion before it could even rise from its slumber. The religion had caused the first invasion force much grief. The magick poison, which the Islanders called holy water, killed the Fey quickly and horribly. He had learned of the holy poison's power in a Vision. He had had his guards round up the remaining members of the Rocaanist sect on Nye — decades before, Rocaanists had tried to expand their religion to the Galinas continent, but it hadn't taken. Only a few had followed it, and they had been dying out by the time he learned of them.
He asked for and got a sample of their holy water. Then he gave it to his Spell Warders. They had used some of the blood and bone matter taken from the Fey dead to determine its effects, then to determine how best to combat those effects. Their solution had been a simple antidote, absorbed into the body before the troops entered Blue Isle. Apparently, the holy water had an ingredient, a magick ingredient, that destroyed his people, and the Warders found a way around it.
Rugad wouldn't get caught unawares, unlike his son.
His policy had been simple. Neutralize the magick and destroy its source.
He had won the Isle, and he could, logically, begin to plan his campaign to conquer Leut. But he hadn't come to Blue Isle just for its strategic position.
He had come because he was ninety-two years old. He still had, in the course of a normal Fey lifespan, another fifty years. But in those years, he hoped to train his great-grandson — or his great-granddaughter — in the ways of the Fey.
One of them, not his grandchildren still on Nye, would inherit the Black Throne.
And from what he had seen of his great-grandchildren's powers, his decision was correct. They had the brains, they had the Vision, and they had the power. They would rule as well and as ruthlessly as he.
If he could train them.
The girl was lost to him as long as she remained with her father. She was magnificent. She had the look of her mother, his granddaughter Jewel, and she had courage. She had faced him with fire in her eyes, hatred on her lips, and a plan in her heart. She had the cunning the Black Throne needed.
Rugad had yet to meet his great-grandson. He had touched the boy once, through a Link, and then the boy's protector, a powerful Enchanter, had blocked the Link. It had not been enough to gain a sense of the young man, but from what Rugad had heard, the boy — Gift — was exceptionally talented. Rugad had seen the results of the boy's early Vision during the short campaign. The boy had repaired a Shadowlands, something even an adult Visionary couldn't always do.
The great-grandchildren were his, but in order to get them, he had to find them, woo them to his side, and, in the case of the girl, destroy her loyalty to her father. Those were goals that would take time. And it was more important for him to take that time than it was to move on to Leut. The Leut continent would wait. They probably knew the Fey were coming, but few societies had defenses against the Fey. Leut would be no different.
It had been a surprise that the Blue Isle was.
A knock on the door made him turn. He could not invite the person in — people had been entering without his permission since his injury — but that would soon stop.
The door opened, and Wisdom entered. Wisdom's long hair was braided on two sides, the braids running down his back. His arms bore heavy scarification, a ritual he had learned from the L'Nacin people after the Fey had conquered them. Since Rugad's injury, Wisdom had been his voice, a situation Rugad did not like.
"I have sent for Seger as you requested," Wisdom said, his tone faintly disapproving. Rugad had requested the Healer in writing, using one of his precious pieces of handmade paper. He was getting tired of writing. He wanted to speak, to give orders as he was meant to instead of filtering them through his power-hungry advisor. "She says that I am to tell you that the spell will not repair your voice, but will instead use other muscles in your throat to create a raspy whisper."
Rugad waved a hand dismissively. He knew that.
"She also said to tell you that if you use the muscles too long, there is a chance that you will never recover your real voice."
Rugad nodded once. He knew that too.
"She will remind you of that before she performs the spell, in case you wish to change your mind."
Rugad crossed his arms despite his precarious balance. He wanted Wisdom to leave this topic alone. Rugad had made his decision. Better half a voice than no voice at all. Especially now, when he had to find and recover his great-grandchildren.
When he had to find and execute their father.
Wisdom stared at him for a moment, then nodded, as if he understood. "I will tell her to come, then," Wisdom said, and the reluctance was back. So he didn't like giving up the power that being Rugad's voice had given him.
Rugad made note of it. Time to find Wisdom a new position, one that seemed to have a lot of authority and in reality had none. Rugad had a bit of time. He would find the right position.
Wisdom did not yet realize that he had outlived his usefulness.
"There is one final thing," he said. "The Domestics have found, in the course of their cleansing of this place, a series of secret passages that run throughout. They lead through the dungeons and beyond. I suppose you would like them explored?"
Rugad held up a finger, indicated that Wisdom should wait before assuming Rugad's answer. Wisdom grabbed paper and handed it to Rugad along with a Domestic-spelled pen, one that did not need to be dipped in ink each time it was used. He and Rugad had gone through this ritual a lot in the past week. It was this, more than anything else, that made Rugad realize that the duties of command could not be fulfilled without a voice. Writing and hand signals left too much unsaid, too much room for interpretation.
He sank into one of the iron chairs at the edge of the balcony, and spread the paper on his knee. Holding the paper in place with one hand, he scrawled quickly:
Do not kill any Islanders found in the tunnels. Have our people remain unseen. Place guards on the Islanders and report to me.
He thrust the paper at Wisdom. Wisdom took it, read it, and frowned. "But sir," he said as he too often had recently, "don't you think it would be best to let them know of the Fey presence?"
Rugad slapped the paper with his hand. Then he clenched a fist, narrowed his eyes, and pointed to the door.
Wisdom nodded. "You're right, as always," he said. "I will give the order immediately, and make sure you are kept informed."
Rugad bowed his head once in acknowledgment, then stood, and turned his back on Wisdom. A moment later, he heard the door click shut.
Fool. For all his fancy L'Nacin name, Wisdom had none. He did not realize that only a handful of Islanders had to know about those secret passages. Good King Nicholas and Rugad's great-granddaughter were among them. Even if Nicholas and Arianna were not in those tunnels, the Islanders who were might know where the two were hiding. With luck, they might lead the Fey to the King and his daughter.
With luck.
As long as the Fey remained invisible.
As long as Wisdom gave the correct order.
Rugad clenched his fist and rested it on the balcony railing. Seger had better hurry. Rugad needed a voice before the day was out.
SIX
Con leaned against the cases of holy water. The large open tunnel, where he had first encountered the old Aud "gone bad" and his troop of cutthroats, was filled now with real Auds, several Officiates, and a large number of Danites. They had all survived the Fey attack on the Tabernacle and the subsequent fire by going to the catacombs beneath the Tabernacle and then crawling under the bridge
as Con had done hours before.
In this large man-made cavern that smelled faintly of smoke and the river was all that remained of Rocaanism, Blue Isle's religion. And tragically, the Rocaan, the leader of the religion, the Keeper of the Secrets, was not among them. He had died from a fall from one of the tower windows, and had been eaten by the beasts that were controlled by the Fey.
Or perhaps those beasts were part Fey. Con did not know nor did he understand. He was only thirteen, although he felt as if he had aged a decade in the last two weeks. He was an Aud himself, the lowliest of the low in Rocaanism, as demonstrated by his bare feet, his unadorned flesh-colored robe, and the small silver sword he wore around his neck. The Officiates, members of the highest order to have survived the attack, wore plush black robes, had sandals, and the swords they wore around their necks were filigree, handmade, and expensive.
Not that it mattered any more. Rocaanism without the Rocaan was probably doomed.
Now the survivors were scattered all over the cavern. Many slept. Others tended wounds received in the fighting. Some prayed. Five torches burned in select corners of the cavern, giving faint light. In the days Con had been down here, he felt as if he had lost a bit of himself to the darkness, as if it had sapped much of his strength.
Beside him, he heard a small groan and then an odd creak — the sound of stone grating against stone. Sebastian was awake.
Con shuddered. On the day the Tabernacle burned, he had received the Rocaan's last Charge: go to the palace through the tunnels and warn the King that the Fey had invaded. Con had made a long, tortuous trip through the passageways, nearly getting captured by the old Aud and his gang of cutthroats, and had arrived at the palace in time to see the troops the King had dispatched go up the tunnels to fight the Fey.
It had done little good. The Fey had been victorious anyway. But Con, on his Charge, had gone into the palace, and had arrived in the Great Hall, near the wall of swords. He had pushed the hidden door open to find Fey waiting for him, and he had grabbed a sword off the wall, only to discover that it killed Fey as easily as holy water had.
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 3