Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  Titus swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

  Then the Fey chucked Titus’s chin and smiled at him. “Now, tell me where this meeting will take place.”

  “Two days hence in the kirk near Daisy Stream.”

  “A kirk?” The Fey raised one eyebrow. “Isn’t that a religious spot?”

  “Yes, sir, but he begged me to remind you that you may come armed.”

  “I would prefer to meet in a place that does not hold religious significance to your people.”

  “He says he understands that, sir, but he begs your forgiveness. He says if he meets you in a kirk, no one will question him, and the King will not send troops.”

  The Fey’s smile faded. “Your Rocaan is a wily man.”

  “No, sir,” Titus said. “He is a good man who wishes for peace before he dies.”

  The Fey crossed his arms, leaned against the table, and sighed. “All right. Tell your Rocaan that I agree to his terms, and warn him that if anything is different from what you have told me, I will take revenge. Warn him that Fey adore taking revenge.” Then the Fey smiled, a cold, forbidding smile. Titus shuddered in spite of himself.

  “You’re dismissed, boy. You’ll find Burden outside where you left him. He will let you out of Shadowlands.”

  Titus stood. His legs wobbled beneath him.

  “And, boy, be sure to tell your Rocaan everything that I have told you, because I will hold you responsible for that meeting as well as him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Titus bowed his head, uncertain what the Fey meant by that comment, but it frightened him nonetheless.

  “You’re dismissed, boy.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Titus made himself walk to the door. He couldn’t run, couldn’t show weakness in front of these people. He pulled the door open and stepped into the grayness. The boy who had brought him was waiting with a group of other Fey by a nearby building. When the boy saw Titus, he came over.

  “So,” the boy said. “He decided to spare you.”

  Titus put his chin up. “I have a message to take back to Jahn.”

  The boy shrugged. “I won’t stop you, not when our illustrious Rugar thinks you should go free.”

  Titus didn’t answer. He hurried down the steps and walked through the ground mist back to the place where he had come in. Only there was no door.

  “You shouldn’t hurry, little mouse,” the boy said. “You can’t leave without my help.”

  Suddenly Titus’s throat went dry. What was to stop the boy from killing him and not telling his leader? Then they would have an excuse to rain terror on the Rocaan. But if they could do that, they already would have. “Your leader said I could go.”

  The boy smiled. “And so he did. This time. But when he decides that you will do as we want, you’ll be mine. I’ll make sure of that.”

  He waved his hands, and the door opened. Titus jumped out, rolled on the grass, and landed outside the dirt circle. The barrier was gone. He grabbed his bottle of holy water and looked up in time to see the door close. Darkness surrounded him, but for the first time since he had left Jahn, he felt safe.

  SEVENTY-NINE

  The cabin had an odd smell to it. Jewel pushed aside with her foot the chair the Islander boy had sat on. She would have a Domestic clean it. She refused to sit on it herself. Her father was watching her closely.

  “All right,” he said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “That you’re a fool.” The words hurried out of her, almost unbidden. She hadn’t realized how angry she was until she said them. “You shouldn’t have agreed to their meeting. You should have set up your own. And with their religious leader? What can he do except kill you? You should be seeing their King.”

  “Their King can’t help me.” Rugar leaned against the fireplace. The morning’s fire had burned to ash.

  “And this religious leader can?” Jewel threw her braid over her shoulder and faced her father. He was smiling at her. That irritated her even more.

  “He is the keeper of the secrets. We will learn about their magick.”

  “If they don’t do away with us first. Papa, this is a trap. Go after that little boy and make him change the meeting.”

  Rugar shook his head. His eyes crinkled with an amusement he couldn’t hide. “Jewel,” he said quietly, “once we learn their secrets, we can win this war.”

  “I refuse to believe he would set up a meeting with you in order to teach you the secrets that give them an advantage.” She stood, too, so that she faced him. She was as tall as he was, and it gave her a feeling of power. “He is probably planning to kill you, and if any Islander can, he can.”

  “He won’t kill me. He’s letting me go in there with weapons.”

  Jewel bit back anger. She had never seen this stubborn side to him before, although she had heard her grandfather speak of it. This was the side that had brought them all to Blue Isle in the first place. “If you go in with weapons, he’ll go in with weapons. He’ll kill you one on one, and then where will we be?”

  “You’ll be in charge.”

  “And our people will want to return to Nye. They won’t listen to me. I’m still a young girl to many of them. They don’t even know that I have my Vision.”

  He raised an eyebrow in that measuring look she hated. “And whose fault is that?”

  “One Vision does not a Visionary make,” she said. Then she put her palms on the back of her chair and leaned toward him. “What does your Vision say about this meeting?”

  Color rose in his cheeks, but he didn’t pull his gaze from hers. “I have had no Vision about this.”

  “Well, then,” she snapped before she could help herself, “at least we know you won’t die.”

  “That’s a folktale,” he said. “If Visionaries see their own death, they don’t talk about it.”

  “I know it’s a folktale.” She said each word with such force she spit as she spoke. She resisted the urge to cover her mouth. “I was being sarcastic, and underneath it, I’m frightened. Caseo says you have lost your Vision. Is that true?”

  Rugar stared at her for a long time without saying a word. The color in his cheeks grew deeper.

  “Is that true?” she asked again.

  “Not all events require a Vision.”

  “No,” she said. “Only the important ones. I think a meeting between the Fey and their local enemy leader is an important event, particularly since one or both of you could die. And you have no Vision about it? Has anyone? Have you checked with the Shaman?”

  “She would tell me if she saw something bad.”

  “Would she? Does she know that she is supposed to do that, or will she assume that you have Seen as well?”

  “Why are you being so forceful, Jewel?”

  “Because you’re being stupid. And I don’t want you to die.” Her voice shook a little on the last word. His death would devastate her, and she would have to be the one to carry on, not just for herself but for the force on Blue Isle. “I’m going to talk to the Shaman.”

  “No, Jewel.” Rugar used the commanding voice he had used when she and her brothers had misbehaved as children. The voice stopped her, even now. “The Shaman is not supposed to be disturbed on mundane matters. If she has a problem, she will come to me. Now, let this go. I will take care of this. You aren’t thinking it through.”

  Jewel crossed her arms. “I am thinking very clearly. Why don’t you tell me what you believe I’m missing?”

  “Quest.”

  Jewel frowned. “Quest?”

  Rugar nodded. “He goes, takes over the Rocaan, and we know the secret to their holy water. It is the opportunity that Quest missed in the Tabernacle. And we have guards around him so that nothing will happen to him.”

  “He’ll have Islanders around. They won’t let that happen to their religious leader.”

  “Who is going to stop us? How fast can we kill a handful of Islanders?”

  “And what happens if one of them manages to spray poison on you or o
n Quest?”

  “We’ll protect him.”

  “What happens if that Rocaan has some kind of force in his body, some magickal force that will kill Quest on contact? What happens if there are powers in his robe, like the one that Quest brought back?”

  “It didn’t hurt him before. It won’t hurt him now. And if it does, we’ll designate a runner. We’ll bring one Warder, so that Quest can blurt the secret immediately, and we’ll send them both back to Shadowlands.”

  Jewel rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger. “This seems like quite a risk to me.”

  “Funny,” Rugar said quietly. “It seems like our last chance to me.”

  EIGHTY

  Alexander sat in the sun on the courtyard bench, not far from the door to the kitchen. It was just after sunrise, and he had been awake all night, the stories he had heard from Scavenger whirling in his head. He had been thinking of the little Fey since the man had left, wondering how he was doing—and how he would know if Scavenger succeeded. Scavenger would come back if he could, but Alexander held that as faint hope. Alexander knew if anyone murdered him, that person would die instantly. The guards would see to that. He suspected the Fey would have the same methods.

  The air still had the dampness of early-morning dew, and the cold that came with the night hadn’t yet burned off. The stone bench was cold beneath his legs. Four guards stood as unobtrusively as possible near him: one beside the palace, one near the stable, and two behind him. Still, anyone looking for them would see them.

  He was staring at the kitchen door, and just as his chamberlain had predicted, the chef came out with scraps of food and bowls of milk. Dogs and cats came running from all parts of the courtyard.

  Alexander watched the cats. Five black cats, some with white markings, several gray cats, and three orange tabbies. The chef clucked at them as he knelt, petting the few who would let him get close. Some of the cats sat behind the bowls, waiting for the others to finish. The dogs didn’t have that politeness. They wrestled over bones and growled over scraps of meat. The chef ignored them, watching the cats instead.

  Even more cats came from the stables: some pure white, others with brown markings, as varied and diverse as horses. Alexander had had a cat as a boy, a young female who neglected him only when she had kittens, and who had died, trampled under the hooves of his father’s favorite stallion.

  Alexander hadn’t allowed a cat near his rooms since. The heartbreak had been the greatest he had felt up to that point, and he hadn’t wanted to feel it again. Banishing cats, of course, hadn’t protected him from sorrow—he still felt the death of his second wife as if it had happened that morning—but it gave him the illusion of control.

  Just as this new measure would.

  Everything that he had been able to check about Scavenger’s stories had been true. The little Fey hadn’t been lying to him—or if he had, he had done it in a way that was extremely subtle. Then the stories that confirmed what he said, stories that the little Fey couldn’t know, like the one Nicholas had told him the night before, about the woman whose infant had been stolen by a cat. An orange tabby, like the ones seen in the palace and the stable before the two servants had disappeared.

  Shape-Shifter, Scavenger had said. She’s considered the purest Fey, the best of all of us. I’ve never understood it, since Shape-Shifters are prone to odd lapses. In their old age they steal children because they can’t have any of their own. They raise those children as if they were Fey.

  The Shape-Shifter also carried messages back and forth, according to Scavenger, and often learned much about enemies by living in their houses. Scavenger had apparently hated her, for reasons he would not explain, but even that didn’t prevent Alexander from seeing what a threat she was to his own people.

  All the Fey were a threat. They had destroyed much of his faith in himself. He no longer trusted his perception. He wasn’t as quick as Nicholas, who tossed an open vial of holy water at anyone who came near him, but he had the same suspicions. He was afraid that no one was the person he had once known. Sometimes he even doubted himself.

  The cats had finished eating and had scattered about the yard, cleaning themselves, wiping scraps off their whiskers, and enjoying the meal all over again. Any one of the orange tabbies could be the Shape-Shifter. Any one of the cats could be her. Scavenger had not said that her form was limited in color, only in shape. She had a feline counterpart. Some of the Shape-Shifters took on other shapes, but once the secondary shape was chosen, it was theirs forever.

  But there was only one Shape-Shifter on Blue Isle. And Alexander had a good chance of getting rid of her if he took one action.

  He stood and stretched. The guards all came to attention, watching him closely to see what he would do. The cats scattered at his movement, some going into the shadows and the crooks of the palace walls to finish their baths.

  Until last year his reign had been easy. He had had to make political decisions regarding various matters. He had had to find ways to move crops across the Isle to help with a bad harvest or two near the Snow Mountains. He had had to resolve disputes and decide matters of property. But until the Fey had arrived, he had never had to make a difficult decision. In the last year he had sent men and boys to their deaths, and he had fought, as best he could, against a foe that threatened to take over his whole world. He felt lost with each decision he made.

  The decree was simple, and it was the right decision: no cats inside. No cats near the palace. No cats. Any cat found should be sprinkled with holy water or killed outright. No cats allowed in the city limits, no cats anywhere in Blue Isle.

  And maybe, just maybe, the Isle would get rid of one of the biggest threats the Fey had yet presented.

  He wanted this war to end—the sooner the better, for all concerned.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  The Rocaan’s rooms were a flurry of activity. Auds racing back and forth, Danites rolling bits of the Words Written in tiny scrolls and placing them next to the filigree swords on the Rocaan’s special sash. Porciluna, Reece, Vaughn, and Fedo were sprawled on couches, looking comfortable. Eirman stood near one of the windows, holding up a tapestry with his right hand and staring out. Matthias leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed, watching the Rocaan, who was supervising all the activity with a liveliness neither Tel nor Andre had ever seen before. The other three Elders had not arrived yet.

  Tel didn’t like all the movement. He found a corner and stood in it, a careful distance away from everyone else so no one could spill anything on him. He held his hands behind his back and watched closely, wondering what was going on. He knew it was futile to ask. Porciluna had asked once, and Matthias had snapped at him to wait until the Danites were done.

  Linus, one of the Elders, came through the door. His blond hair was cut in a bowl shape, making his face round, his eyes even rounder. He was squat and older than most of the Elders. He often used that as an excuse to get out of some of the duties, an ability that Tel wished he had, but one that Andre used to hate. Linus didn’t even bother to ask what was going on. He just sank into a chair beside Porciluna and watched the activity.

  The Rocaan smiled at Linus and continued directing the Auds. They were packing another bag, this one with a silver ceremonial sword the size of a real sword. This kind of behavior was extremely abnormal: Andre had no memory of it at all. Tel’s skin crawled. He was terrified and he didn’t know why.

  The door opened again, and this time Ilim entered. Tel had never seen this Elder up close. Ilim always managed to keep to himself, taking on the spiritual leadership of the lowliest servants as his main task. Unlike Linus, Ilim worked all the time. But they looked like brothers, except Ilim’s hair was long and worn in a ponytail that ran down the middle of his back.

  Behind him came Timothy, the last Elder. Andre had considered him a boy, even though there were Elders younger. Perhaps it was because Timothy wasn’t very bright and his naïveté gave him a youthful quality no measure of years could take
away. His hair had touches of gray in it, but he moved with the quickness of youth. He came over and stood by Tel, trapping him in the corner.

  “Ah, finally,” the Rocaan said. All the Elders had arrived, which was apparently the moment he had been waiting for. He took the sash from one of the Danites, saying that they had put enough on it, and then fastened it around his robe. “We’ll finish later,” he said to the others.

  The Auds and Danites bowed their heads and left through the main chamber door, a few of them casting curious glances over their shoulders. Tel could feel their desire to be included, and most of them never would be. There were countless Auds (although he was sure someone —probably Linus—knew the exact number) and exactly half that number of Danites, an even thirty Officiates, ten Elders, and one Rocaan. Yet each Aud believed he would someday become Rocaan, only to find himself old and stuck somewhere in the Church system without power, and without a future.