Then the servants marched in. They were wearing spotless white, and carrying platters on their shoulders. Three men carried the roast beef that had smelled so good. They put that large platter on the head table. The roast pheasants were on smaller platters. They went on various sections of the long table. Potatoes, breads, mincemeat, vegetables, and fruits were set alongside each section.
Stowe hadn't seen this much food since banquets before the Fey invasion.
"Oh, my," Sebastian said, his voice high and strange. It seemed as if the solemnity of the occasion hadn't reached him until that moment.
The King put his hand on his son's and squeezed. Stowe noted the movement from the corner of his eye. If something ever did happen to the King, it would be incredibly difficult for Sebastian. Stowe had never seen quite as close a family, and he suspected it had to do with their power, their isolation, and their strange heritage.
The conversations rose around them. The Hall grew warm with the added bodies and the steam from the food. The King cut the first slice of beef, signaling the start of the dinner. Then plates clanged, and laughter rose.
The King filled his plate, followed by Sebastian. Then Stowe helped himself. This meal had been long delayed, and he was very hungry. It almost felt like the old days, when the King's father, Alexander, used to hold banquets to celebrate holy days or to reward his men for long service. Stowe hadn't realized how much he missed them.
Behind them, servants climbed on ladders, and unhooked the large tapestries from their holders. Then they brought them down slowly, so that the tapestries would not put dust in the food. Night had officially settled. The candelabrums and the chandeliers were lit. The room had a soft glow.
Sebastian ate slowly, as if he weren't certain whether or not he was enjoying his meal. He watched everyone around him. The King also picked at his meal. Stowe wondered if they would tell him later what had really happened this day. He suspected something major.
Then Sebastian tilted his head up. His eyes were moving rapidly. A shiver ran down Stowe's back. He wasn't certain if he could get used to this new, improved Sebastian. Then Sebastian tapped the back of his father's hand.
The King stopped playing with his food and followed Sebastian's gaze. So did Stowe. A spark flew around them, circling as if it were looking for a place to purchase. Stowe didn't quite understand the degree of tension he felt from the King and Prince. Sparks were common in a candle-lit room. One had to keep an eye on them to make certain they didn't flare, but that was it. They certainly didn't need that rapt attention.
Then, as he watched, the spark grew bigger. It came closer to the table and he saw — or thought he saw — a little man with wings. A glowing little man with blue wings.
The King wiped his mouth with the linen provided at his place setting, then put the linen on top of his food.
"Daddy," Sebastian whispered.
"What is it?" Stowe asked.
The King didn't answer either of them. The little man grew until he was the size of a bird. The conversation at the head table stopped.
The little man was definitely Fey, but Stowe didn't ever recall seeing him before. The little man flew over the head table, and landed behind the King.
Sebastian whirled, moving so fast that Stowe almost couldn't see it. As Stowe turned, the little man grew to full human size. His wings grew as well, large gossamer things that folded against his back. He was fully clothed, but in material that Stowe found unfamiliar: dark blues mixed with golds that caught the flicker of the candlelight.
The Fey man studied Sebastian for a moment, then smiled. Sebastian gripped his table knife, but the King put his hand on his son's and lowered it.
"This is a private ceremony," the King said. His voice was remarkably calm. It silenced the rest of the room. Guards moved from their posts, but the King held up a hand to stop them.
"Then I shall be brief." The Fey's Islander was oddly accented. It had a trace of Nye pronunciation, combined with a gruffer twang.
The Hall was completely silent now. The King stood so that he was of the same height as the new Fey. Stowe stood behind him. Then the rest of the head table stood, with the exception of Sebastian. The guests on the lower tables also stood, probably so that they could see.
The Fey's smile grew. He bowed to the others, as if he were the guest of honor. "My name is Flurry," he said. "I am new to your Isle."
Sebastian finally stood. His face had gone gray.
"I come," Flurry said, looking at Sebastian, "in the name of the Black King."
Stowe's heart made an awkward twist within his chest. The moment had finally arrived. He made himself breathe.
"He asks me to make an announcement." Flurry seemed to be enjoying the suspense he was creating. "He says that while he is enjoying your southern climes, he believes them too small to hold his troops. He will be moving northward."
Someone moaned behind Stowe. Sebastian started to say something, but the King grabbed his arm and held it so tightly that Stowe could see the whiteness of the King's knuckles.
"He claims Blue Isle for the Fey Empire. He says it would be better for you all if you surrender now. An invasion would be unpleasant, and would cause many deaths."
"You can't beat us," a man yelled from the lower tables. "We have holy water."
Flurry nodded. "Indeed. And we have an antidote."
Other voices rose. The King held up his hand, and silence reigned again. Stowe was breathing shallowly. The reports he had heard, then, were true. The Fey had invaded. From the south.
"Let me speak with your Black King," the King said. "I'm sure we can settle this without surrender or war."
Flurry tilted his head. His wings opened and then closed, sending a small puff of air toward Stowe. "You are, of course, referring to the Black King's great-grandson." Flurry reached a hand toward Sebastian's face as if to caress it. Sebastian ducked, and snarled. The King pulled his son closer. "The Black King told me to remind you that his great-grandson has Black Blood and belongs exclusively to the Black Throne. No harm will come to the boy. But he cannot promise that for the rest of you."
"This child," the King said, "also has the blood of the Islanders' royal family."
"How fortunate for you," Flurry said. "Upon your surrender, the child will be put in charge. Then your unbroken lineage will continue as it has for generations."
"I wish to speak to the Black King," the King said.
Stowe was holding his breath.
Flurry shrugged. "He does not wish to speak to you. He gives you a choice, which is more than he has ever given any nation he has conquered. You may surrender now, or surrender later. The difference is how many of your young people you care to waste in a fruitless war."
"Blue Isle will never surrender," Sebastian said. His voice was high, and it cracked.
Flurry smiled. "Is that the word, then?"
"The word is," the King said, "that there is a third option. Tell your Black King that I will meet with him on neutral ground. Any place he chooses."
"I shall tell him," Flurry said. "But in case he chooses not to meet, what shall I say? Surrender? Or will we fight?"
"He cannot fight my family," the King said.
"But he can fight your people."
"My people are my family."
Flurry's wings extended, narrowly missing a candelabrum. "I shall tell him. It will make no difference to him. Blue Isle belongs to the Fey."
Stowe glanced at the King. It was now or not at all.
"Blue Isle remains independent," the King said. "The Black King may ally with us, but he may not invade us."
"He doesn't need your permission to invade," Flurry said.
"But he needs my permission to stay."
"We shall see," Flurry said. He nodded toward the King, and then grinned at Sebastian. "Good luck to you," he said more to Sebastian than anyone else. "You do not know what you are up against."
"Neither do you," Sebastian said, but Flurry had already shrunk to his original size. Th
e spark floated around the room, then slipped through a crack in the closed door.
"The Black King is here," Stowe said, his voice shaking.
The King stared after the tiny spark. "The wait is finally over."
TWENTY-FOUR
Flurry flew through the crack in the main doors and into the night air. He executed a small circle in the courtyard, buzzing a dog sleeping near the stables, then rose toward the moon, chuckling as he went.
It had been easy, so easy. He hadn't expected to find the great-grandson at the King's side. And no one would have trouble recognizing Rugad's Blood in the boy. He had the look of his grandfather along his narrow chin and in his high cheekbones. He was pale for a Fey, but Islanders were pale. The odd thing was his eyes: they were a strange blue. He found them unnerving. In the right light, they seemed to disappear in the boy's face.
Flurry flew higher and followed the main road. Near the river, a rank mist rose off the bridge. He sneezed and veered away, shivering in disgust. The Nye always used their waterways as garbage dumps; perhaps the Islanders did as well, although he had never heard of it in all his studies of them.
The night was clear, and the city appeared mostly empty. He was tired but had to continue forward. Rugad would want to know what happened here. Even though he predicted they would not surrender, he hadn't predicted that the Islander King would want a meeting.
A meeting. As if they were all bankers on Nye.
Flurry chuckled and flew on. He sneezed again. That stench had been incredible, like something off a battlefield. Rotting flesh and burning skin mixed into a fog. Garbage didn't smell like that.
He paused, wings fluttering, keeping him aloft. Then he veered back, toward the bridge.
The fog had risen like a cloud against the moon. He peered up at it, a sickly green color against the moon's brightness. The cloud was an isolated thing. It seemed to come from nowhere. The river was clear, although a slick ran down its center.
The slick looked like blood.
A battlefield? In the middle of a city that claimed to have achieved peace?
He lowered himself slowly, then saw movement in the reeds on the north side. He flew toward it, and watched as a wounded Islander crawled through the grass. The Islander was mumbling to himself about disproving magick. He was leaving a small blood trail, and his skin looked fish-white in the moonlight. Wounds gaped in his upper arms and on the side of his face.
He had been stabbed repeatedly.
Flurry floated higher and saw no one else. Some sort of Islander murder, caused by a robbery, perhaps, or a personal grievance.
Or magick.
Only those with magick had no need of knives, and Foot Soldiers, who cut the skin with their fingers, flayed it off, leaving gouges, not cuts.
Magick.
He flew back to the bridge. Only the memory of the stink remained in the moonlight. He sneezed again, knowing the sound would be so tiny as to be inaudible to full sized ears, and slowly lowered himself.
There was a lump on the bridge, and a water trail that ran off down the south side.
He descended, feet first, wings fluttering to keep himself balanced and landed on the stone walls. A moth landed beside him, attracted by his small light. The moth was large and ugly, its eyes empty holes in the darkness.
"Shoo," he said, and shoved the moth with both hands. Its wings flapped, nearly knocking him down, and then it flew away.
He walked to the edge of the stone and peered down. The lump was large and round. It was the source of the smell, and it still stank. He would have gone down to investigate if a moonbeam hadn't caught one detail.
An ear.
A slightly pointed, dark-skinned ear protruding from the lump.
And, on the far side, a hand clutching at nothing.
He flew upward in surprise, hands over his mouth. That had been a Fey below him. The stories he heard about the poison then were true. They could dissolve a Fey as if he were made of sugar. He brushed off his wings, his feet, his legs, anything that might have touched the poison. Although he had been told by the same source who had told him about the melting, that the effect was instantaneous.
If he had touched the stuff, he would have melted already.
At least he had an antidote. That poor Fey on the Bridge hadn't. That Fey could not have been one of Rugad's troup. That Fey had been one of the Failures. They had no way to fight the poison.
Flurry shuddered and flew along the road. His physical exhaustion was gone now; adrenaline raced through him. Things were not as peaceful as the good Islander King made it seem. The only Fey at the banquet was his own son. And a Fey had been murdered on the main bridge.
Perhaps the Islander King was right. Perhaps these were a people to be wary of. He would mention that to Rugad. In fact, he would stress it. Rugar, the Black King's son, would never listen to reason, but Rugad would. Rugad always did.
Flurry flew on, so fast and so hard that he nearly missed the only people on the road. A couple walking side by side, heads down as they passed the Islander Tabernacle, intent, as if they didn't want to be seen.
He glanced at the Tabernacle himself. It was a large building, much as the Nye described it, more like a palace than the palace. It had ornate swords carved into its outside walls, and tapestries on every window, lights on every floor. Such extravagant waste of resources on such a meaningless pursuit.
As he flew by, though, he shuddered. The Tabernacle had an air of power. He had encountered such places before, and he learned to never underestimate them.
The couple was tall for Islanders. They wore shirts, breeches, and boots that had the softness of Fey design. He swooped lower and stopped in surprise.
The King's son was here. The boy he had seen in the palace. Only this boy had a thinner face, rounder eyes, and a look of complete exhaustion. The girl beside him hadn't reached her magic yet. She wore Rugar's infantry colors, and she had a knife hilt on one side, a sword on the other.
She had stabbed the Islander climbing out of the bushes. Had the Islander murdered the Fey?
But that didn't make any sense. If the girl had stabbed the Islander after he murdered the Fey, it would have taken time. How had the boy managed to change his clothing, get down here from the palace, and accompany the girl this far?
If he had a flying magic, why was he wasting effort — and taking so much risk — in walking past the Islander Tabernacle?
Flurry licked his lips nervously. Rugad would want to know what happened here. He would chastise Flurry if he didn't discover all he could.
But Flurry wasn't certain he wanted to talk with them. The girl was clearly a Failure, and Rugad didn't want the Failures to know that he had arrived. The boy, if indeed it was the same boy, had been extremely hostile in the banquet hall. Outside of it, he might have no qualms in using his position to attack Flurry.
Flurry did not want to pit himself against anyone of Black Blood.
He would report on what he saw. If Rugad wanted a deeper understanding, he could send someone else.
Flurry hesitated above them for a moment. They weren't speaking. They were walking with purpose, even though no Islanders were near them. They were the only ones on the road.
And if the girl was raised with the Fey, she would know what Flurry was.
If he wasn't careful.
He would only have one chance. He would have to make the best of it.
He flew ahead of them and stopped near a bush. He was lucky that the moon was full; it gave him a clear vision of the two behind him. It camouflaged him well. He crouched among the leaves, trying to block his own small light. If he grew to full size, his light would wink out, but he couldn't risk that either.
Instead he watched as they approached, hoping his tiny light would be unnoticeable. He stared at them, ignoring the girl for the boy beside her.
He was tall, like most Fey, only his skin was nearly two shades lighter than the girl's. His hair was so dark that it reflected the moonlight in a
single sheen. His eyes were that same electric blue. But his chin was different, rounder, without the slight cleft that Flurry had noticed on the other boy. His hair was longer, too, worn down his back in the traditional Fey military manner. His clothing looked as if it had been slept in. It was certainly still wet from an encounter with the river.
The differences were subtle, but they existed. That and the timeline meant that something was afoot.
Why would the son of the King be wandering the streets like a common criminal? Why would his only protection be a girl too young to come into her magick? And why wasn't he at the banquet?
Flurry had to take one more risk. The boy at the banquet had spoken Islander. Quickly and naturally, as if it were his tongue of preference. Flurry couldn't quiz this boy, but he could discover if the differences extended farther than the physical.
Flurry climbed out of the bush, careful to be as silent as he could. He floated upward on the wind, like a spark would do. When he was directly above the boy, he dove, heading for the boy's face. Flurry crashed into the boy's nose and kicked off it, heading upward again.
"Hey!" the boy said in Fey.
"What is it?" the girl responded in the same language.
"Something hit me in the face. It looked like a Wisp."
"Was it Wind?"
"No." The boy sounded perplexed. "He knows how much this trip means to me. He'd be beside me, not running into me."
Wind. Flurry remembered him. One of Rugar's favorite Wisps who had come along on that futile mission, thinking it was the trip of the future.
The girl looked up. She pointed. "I see it!" she said.
Flurry flew directly upward until he was out of their sight. He was trembling, but exhilarated. Apparently the boy did not have the right kind of magick to bring Flurry down.
Which was good. He had wasted enough time. He had to report to Rugad.
And his report would be interesting. Rugad had two great-grandchildren on Blue Isle. One raised by the Islander King, and the other raised by Fey. There was no telling who the first-born was, but it didn't matter.
Two mixed children of Black Blood made this trip doubly worthwhile.
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