Gradually the glare faded. The ramp leading from the warehouse was empty. She stepped onto it. The wood was warm from the sun. She turned her face toward the light, letting a chill she hadn’t even realized she felt slip from her body. The Cardidas River slapped against the docks in the harbor. She paused. People had been screaming a moment before. There. If she listened hard enough, she could barely hear them. The sounds of battle had been closer a moment before.
The hair prickled on the back of her neck. She was no longer alone. She turned her gaze toward the road. A man stood behind her. He was barefoot, as she was, but he wore a black robe that hung on his body like a bag. He was holding a bottle in his hands and looked confused, as if searching for something. She slipped into the shadow of the building but did not go inside. He was one of the humans. He had to be looking for Fey.
A great smell was rising off the river. Fetid and thick, it hung in the air like a fog. She glanced across the water. There, at the large building, she could see Fey, and more Black Robes. Only the Fey were screaming. That was what was missing: the victory cry.
No wonder Caseo was frightened. Fey never lost battles.
She had to get back inside. She slid along the side of the building when the man in black saw her. He let out a small squeal of surprise, then ran toward her, shaking the open bottle like a weapon.
Like a weapon.
He seemed to think he could kill Fey.
Across the river Fey were screaming, dying, surrounded by Black Robes.
Fear coursed through her, quick and sudden. If she ran back inside, he would find her. He would find the blood. He would find the lamps. He would hurt their stash, and Caseo would never forgive her. Her panic made her freeze.
The Black Robe had such a silly face, chubby and pink, his eyes a pale blue that she had never seen before, his lips chapped where he bit them, his head balding. His eyebrows were straight and pale on his light skin. His fat hid his cheekbones, and his eyes were round. Even the Nyeians had more color to their skin. She couldn’t die at the hands of a man as ugly this one. And she wouldn’t.
She felt her body slide into itself, felt her mass compact into the smaller form. The man had stopped running, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and then he started again, making little frightened eeps as he ran. Finally her change completed. She glanced down at her hands, pleased to see the familiar golden paws, the soft fur, the whiskers sticking out of the side of her nose. She twitched her tail and jumped off the ramp, running away from the stupid Islander as fast as she could.
Under the side of the warehouse, past the fish stink, her movements lightning quick and silent. His feet squished on the marshy ground, the sound a heavy counterpoint to her fear. She kept to the side of the warehouse until she saw a hidden place behind the stairs in the back. She crawled beneath the stairs, deep in the shadows, remembering to keep her eyes covered. A real cat would never have thought of that, but she had learned young that the eyes reflected, giving everything away.
She was panting, her heart pounding. Those bottles. They held death in those bottles. And he had seen her change. Silly fool. She would have to remember his face now and kill him when she had the chance.
The squishing sounds grew closer. She peered over her paws, careful to keep her eyes half-covered. He stopped beside the stairs. His toenails were long and yellow, curling upward, dirt spattering them. Hair grew on the top of his feet, blond and curly. She was glad she was too far away to smell them. The heightened sense of smell was both an advantage and a disadvantage.
The fish stink made the emptiness in her stomach grow. She wanted him gone so she could eat. Then she would find someone who could help her. She would find this annoying Islander and kill him.
He squished past and she remained motionless until she could no longer hear him. His footprints were wide and filling with water from the saturated ground. Her paws were cold, and she hated the dampness on her fur.
The screams and cries were growing again. Then she heard voices, speaking a language she didn’t understand. She peered through the slats in the stairs, saw more Black Robes standing together, holding bottles as if they were swords. Her Black Robe wasn’t with them. They talked for a moment, then sneaked off in different directions.
She leaned back on her haunches, a feeling she had learned to trust rising in her gut. Caseo had thought the problem was across the river: the stink, the dying. He made the decision to find Rugar and warn him not to cross the river. Perhaps Caseo would warn Rugar away from the Black Robes.
But the problem was here now. Here. On the warehouse side. Caseo would not be able to come back. And the Black Robes were hiding, ready to launch a secret attack.
Solanda licked her right leg nervously, her sandpaper tongue catching on the soft fur. The grooming soothed her, a soothing she missed in her human form.
She would wait there until the Black Robes went away. Then she would hurry into the city and see if she could find someone—Caseo, Rugar—anyone to warn, anyone to send the message that the Black Robes were coming, the Black Robes were hiding, all ready to kill.
She finished working her way down the leg, stopping at the paw to clean the mud from her pads. A purr she couldn’t repress started in the back of her throat.
The trip had a purpose after all. She would not be useless, as she had been in the Nye campaign. Those hours getting splashed, feeling her coat get soaked, waking up with rats the size of her cat form staring at her face, were not in vain. She would prove once again that Shape-Shifters were the most superior Fey.
She was pleased to have the chance.
EIGHTEEN
His arm was getting tired. Nicholas stood halfway up the steps in the kitchen, hacking and slashing at the tall, slender creatures who threatened to overwhelm him. Fighters were packed along the stairs and into the kitchen itself, spilling into the pantry and beyond. The last time he had had a chance to look, kitchen staff clubbed at the Fey with any weapon they could find. Women were sticking wood into the hearth fire and making torches. Still the Fey poured in from the door beside the ovens. The room was stifling and smelled of fear.
Nicholas had forsaken grace and finesse and all the fine points of sword fighting that Stephen had taught him. Nicholas’s entire sword had become a weapon. He had slapped a man in the face with the flat of the blade, chopped a woman’s thumb off with the sharp edge, and knocked another man unconscious with a rap of the hilt against the crown of his head.
Weapons clanged, and people were shouting. All through the pantry, the kitchen, and into the courtyard he could hear that eerie call that marked a Fey victory.
He and the other Islanders wounded the Fey, caused them to stop, step back, and disappear. But still the Fey were gaining. Most of the kitchen crew had no weapons. The servants had gone into the hall and taken weapons off the walls. Nicholas had ordered the steaming bucket brigade that had worked for nearly an hour before the Fey surged into the kitchen.
They had caught him between floors and probably would have killed him if he hadn’t been working with Stephen. But Nicholas’s expertise with the sword had caught his attackers by surprise, and he had managed to hold two steps and the space around them for longer than he had imagined possible.
The stairs were slick with blood.
Nicholas’s hair was plastered to his head. His body was drenched in sweat. Only his grip on his sword was firm. He had been standing in the same position—his right foot two steps up, the other braced against a wall—long enough for the muscles in his right leg to cramp. He heard the clang of swords behind him, and he could see the chef fighting at the base of the stairs. The butler guarded the door to the pantry, using carving knives. Other servants fought with the weapons they found, but they had no experience. The Fey were relentless. For each one Nicholas wounded, another appeared, and for each one killed, another slipped past him and disappeared up the stairs.
He had no idea what was happening anywhere else. He was afraid that no one was defendin
g the front stairs as well as he was, and that the Fey were already swarming the entire palace, and his father was dead.
Nicholas’s arm moved on its own. He was fighting a Fey who appeared to be younger than he was. The details blurred: all the Fey had black hair, dark skin, and startling upswept eyebrows. But they had differences in fighting, in the degree of fear they brought to Nicholas and his sword.
Bodies were scattered on the steps and on the floor of the kitchen. The brick-lined ovens were open, and someone had shoved the wounded inside, adding to the stench. One young servant lay on his back, his chest split open, his head smashed against the stone floor. Nicholas would look away and bodies would disappear, or they would get stepped on, trampled beyond recognition, but every time he looked back, that young servant remained, sprawled on the steps in that awkward position, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling as if in silent supplication to the God Matthias served.
The Fey in front of Nicholas was fighting with an unusual style. She—Nicholas was finally getting used to the females in battle garb—was stabbing frenetically, her movements so quick, he sometimes couldn’t see her arm. She had nicked him more than once, drawn first blood on him where no one else had been able to touch him all day. He parried her thrusts more with logic than through any visual acumen. Finally he shoved the sword toward her belly, and she failed to defend. She toppled backward, and it took all the strength of his tired arm to keep his sword in his hand. As she rolled down the steps, she took two more Fey with her, temporarily blocking the tide of Fey swarming at the stairs. Nicholas used the moment to glance over his shoulder.
“I need help here,” he said. “Please get someone down here.”
“‘Tis none,” a voice answered from above.
Swords clanged around him. The Fey were recovering below. Nicholas peered around the corner and saw the baker and three other Islanders fighting more Fey. He didn’t recognize any of the three, but they recognized him. “Please,” he repeated.
“Lor,” said someone higher above. “‘Tis Good Nicholas.”
People shoved around him, and more came down, pushing the Fey away. He moved off his steps and was about to climb up the rest of the stairs when something hit him from behind.
He toppled forward, clinging to his sword and keeping it away from his body as he fell. He skidded down the blood. His free hand landed on the sprawled servant’s chest, and Nicholas cried out in disgust. He snatched his hand away and started to get up when someone grabbed him by the hair and tilted his head back.
A woman stood over him, with the same upswept eyebrows, the same black hair tied in a long braid. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed with exertion, her free arm extended as she prepared to stick her knife into his throat.
He had never thought the angel of death would be so beautiful.
“Lor!” came the voice from above. “Unhand him! ‘Tis Nicholas! They got Nicholas!”
The cry caught her attention for a crucial moment. He couldn’t swing and hit her, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled. Her grip on his hair loosened, and he yanked his head away. She thrust her knife and he brought up his sword. They clanged together, but he wasn’t braced properly and he fell.
Voices rose, calling his name. She reached around him, and her knife scratched his Adam’s apple.
“Drop the sword,” she said in Nye. He froze. He couldn’t pull on her ankle without jeopardizing his neck, but he didn’t have the leverage to stab her himself. Her action stopped the Islanders beside him from saving him. The sounds of the battle continued, uninterrupted. Voices shouted near the hearth fire, and he heard his chamberlain yell for help from the direction of the pantry.
The Islanders on the stairs had gathered around as if the other Fey presented no danger at all. His people, the servants in the castle, the people who recognized him, encircled him, but held their weapons helplessly as if they didn’t know what to do.
The nearby Fey had stopped fighting as well. They were watching the woman with the same intensity that the servants were watching Nicholas.
The woman smiled. She wasn’t much older than he was. “You’re important to them,” she said. “I think maybe you should come with me.”
He would be damned if he went with any of them. But he had no choice. He was not Roca. He would not be a martyr for any cause, particularly one he didn’t yet understand. She pressed the point of her knife in harder and pushed on his chin, indicating that he should stand.
“Drop the sword,” she repeated.
He could do nothing with it, so he let it go. But his grip on her ankle tightened. She wore leather boots so soft he could feel her ankle bones through them.
“And let go of me.” Her eyes sparkled as she spoke. She seemed to like the challenge he was presenting her.
The cool blade of the knife still pushed on his chin. He could feel the metal slowly warm beneath his skin. “I do not believe you will kill me,” he said. The words had a choked sound thanks to the pressure of the knife tip. His Nye wasn’t as fluent as hers.
Her lips parted and her face paled. The sparkle left her eyes. “What does orma lii mean?”
He started. Orma lii was Islander. She spoke the words with the accent on the second syllable instead of the first, her pronunciation slow with incomprehension. He almost didn’t understand her. The clash of swords and screams of pain continued. Only in their small circle near the base of the stairs had the fighting stopped.
A Fey beside her, a tall, excessively thin boy with large eyes, hissed, “Jewel!” as if he were shocked that she had lost the focus of her attack. But Nicholas was curious. She had seen him before. Her eyes held recognition.
“It hurts to speak with a knife scratching my throat,” he said.
“If you think I will remove it to ease your discomfort, then you think me a fool,” she said. “Answer my question.”
“I do not believe you slashed your way into my home to ask me the meaning of a simple phrase. You could have asked anyone once you docked, and saved lives.”
“I don’t find your wit amusing,” she said, but the sparkle had returned to her eyes. She was enjoying the verbal battle—and enjoyment was out of place.
Murmurs ran through the group around them as translations flew in two languages. More people had joined the crowd. The fighting had stopped in the pantry. Voices carried over the din: They’ve got Nicholas!
“It was not wit,” he said. “I have no knowledge of why you are here.”
“I believe it’s obvious.” She pressed the flat of the blade harder against his chin. She hadn’t altered her stance, but she had become a conqueror once again. “Stand up.”
He tightened his grip on her ankle. She winced, more in exasperation, it appeared, than in pain.
“So you really want me to cut off your pretty head?” Her tone was casual, as if they were discussing a second helping of pheasant.
A slight gasp echoed behind them. Then the baker pushed his way down the steps. “Me, take, ma’am,” he said in broken Nye. “Please.”
She ignored the baker. Instead she looked at Nicholas, and a full smile spread across her face. Her beauty took his breath away. He had never seen the combination of ethereal features and sheer power.
“You appear to be worth more to me alive than dead,” she said. She moved her head, command style. “Burden, Rielle, get him to his feet.”
The fighting had stopped all the way to the hearth fire, although Nicholas could still see movement near the door. The Fey were holding their weapons against their sides, all staring at the woman.
The skinny Fey who had spoken before and another male Fey came to Nicholas’s side and pulled him to his feet. The woman moved her knife away. They trussed his hands behind his back, yanking so hard, his shoulders cracked. The leather thongs they used cut into the skin on his wrists.
She shoved the knife into her belt, obviously trusting the Fey around her to protect her back. She took a step forward until he could feel the heat of her
body. She was as tall as he was. He had never met a woman of his height. It felt odd to look into her eyes as if she were a man.
The hair around her forehead was damp with sweat. “What is it about you that they so admire?” she asked. “Are you someone important?”
His heart was pounding hard, and he had to work at keeping his breathing even. They were so unprepared. He had no idea who or what this woman was, only that she could kill him if she wanted. He didn’t know if surrendering was best, or if dying was. All he knew was that he didn’t want to die.
“‘Are you all right?’” he said.
Her eyebrows straightened as she frowned. “What?”
He had thrown her off again. He felt an odd power in that. She was used to being in control. “It means ‘Are you all right?’ “
Her lips parted, and that haunted look returned to her eyes. “Say it for me in your language,” she said softly, as if they were alone and she were asking for words of love.
He replied with equal softness in Islander. Tears rose in her eyes, but she didn’t look away.
The skinny Fey holding Nicholas spoke in a language he didn’t understand. She waved her hand at him with a downward, dismissing motion, and then replied in the same language. She never took her gaze off Nicholas.
“Who are you?” she finally asked in Nye.
“Does it matter?” he said. The disagreement between the two Fey added a level of panic he had not felt before. “You are going to kill me anyway.”
She shook her head once, then wiped the blood off his throat with her thumb. Her skin was warm and calloused. “No,” she said. “I will not.”
The sudden tenderness confused him. He glanced at the skinny Fey holding him and saw anger in the boy’s eyes. Nicholas’s own people were watching, standing very still. The crowd had grown huge. All movement in the kitchen had stopped except near the door. The battle cries were now coming from the courtyard.
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series) Page 13