Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “No,” she said, unwilling to look at him. The change in him when she mentioned her own Visions unnerved her. Part of the problem with Caseo’s charges was that they felt too true. Why would her father treat her this way if his own Vision was working properly?

  Rugar let go of her arm. “It seems to me, daughter, that you more than anyone have a stake in helping Caseo determine the root of that poison.”

  Involuntarily she touched her forehead. She could almost remember pain she hadn’t felt yet. She hadn’t thought of the Vision in terms of something that would happen, but in terms of something that had happened. Even though she knew that Visions were preventable, she hadn’t thought of it with this one. It was her first Vision, her badge of adulthood, and she was clinging to it as that and nothing more.

  She sank into a chair. The remembered pain made her forehead tingle. “What should I do?”

  Her father smiled and crouched beside her like a supplicant. He took her hand. His was warm and rough from the work he had been doing in Shadowlands. “We don’t always know what we can do,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t discover how to change the Vision until too late. And sometimes we misunderstand the Vision. That’s why we usually ask for interpretations. Maybe we should take this Vision of yours to the Shaman.”

  She shook her head. If she could avoid the Shaman, she would. “It seems straightforward.”

  “So did my Vision of you in the Isle palace, walking through it as if you own it. But taking that Vision into account along with yours gives it a whole new meaning.”

  Jewel frowned. She squeezed his fingers. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you in the palace because of the young Prince?” Rugar asks. “Or because they injure you and you cannot leave?”

  “Was I injured in your Vision?”

  He shook his head. “You looked like your mother, regal and lovely.”

  She shrugged. “Then how can our Visions be related? Or if they are, then we did discover an antidote to the poison.”

  “Perhaps,” Rugar said. “But I am not as trusting as I once was of the simplicity of these things.”

  Jewel let that sink in. Then she bowed her head. “Did Grandfather ever have a Vision about this place?”

  Rugar dropped her hand and stood up. “Your grandfather has reached the end of his Vision.”

  “He’s Blind?” Jewel asked.

  Rugar picked up the poker, moved the grate, and rolled a log over so that the fire could get some air. The flames spouted as he put another log on top.

  “You left him knowing he was Blind?” Jewel asked. “You left him to rule without Vision?”

  “Most Black Kings have no Vision at the end of their reign.” Rugar slid the grate back into place.

  “Is that why he opposed this mission, because he needed your Eye?”

  Rugar laughed. “No, child. He has other Eyes, lesser Visionaries. He knows, like I do, that a man must follow his own Vision or change it. His Vision led him to Nye. Mine led me here.”

  “But if he can’t See—”

  “He can still rule. A man does not rule by Vision alone. He leads, he directs with Vision. Once he has achieved that Vision, he maintains. If my father does nothing else in his life, he will be remembered as one of the most successful Black Kings. He conquered the rest of Galinas for us. He gave us control over half the world.” Rugar stood and leaned against the stone fireplace.

  Jewel looked down at her hands with their short, stubby nails and calluses. “Are you losing your Vision?” she asked softly.

  “What makes you ask that?” His voice had a harshness to it she heard him use only with the troops.

  She didn’t want to tell him about Caseo. She wasn’t sure why. She certainly had no reason to protect him. But it felt as if she were protecting all of them by not saying who had planted the idea in her mind. “It stands to reason that if Grandfather has lost his Vision, you might too.”

  “Not all Visionaries go Blind,” Rugar said. “Nor do all of them reach the end of their Vision.”

  “I have heard that some have false Visions, and that it leads to craziness.” She spoke that last softly. She had heard it in the schoolroom from one of her many teachers when she’d been a girl. When another teacher had overheard the exchange, Jewel’s teacher had been dismissed. Jewel never saw her again. She couldn’t even remember her name.

  The color in Rugar’s cheeks was high. “I have seen Spell Warders reduced to gibbering fools by a single mistake. I have seen Beast Riders get stuck in their animal and die because of the change. I have seen Shape-Shifter babies die because their caregiver left them alone too long and a Shift came unbidden. I have never seen a Visionary lose his mind. Ever.”

  Jewel nodded. The force with which her father spoke had some fear behind it. “But have you ever heard of it?”

  He picked up the poker and pushed at the grate, closed his eyes and sighed. Then he rubbed his left hand over his eyes, opened them, and put the poker away. “It is said that after the Fey started spreading away from the Eccrasian Mountains, the Black King lost his Vision. He was a young man and had not yet fathered children. He had false Visions and led the Fey in circles. The Shaman tried to depose him, but there was no procedure for that. The Warders refused to develop new spells, and the Fey refused to follow him. They camped at the base of the mountains for almost a generation while he followed his false Vision, then went Blind. With his Blindness came a deep despair, and gradually he lost his mind, memory by memory, until he was little more than a child. The Warders and the Shaman met and tested Visionaries until they found one who could see beyond the next battle. She became the first Black Queen, and her line was long-lived and strong. They ruled well until the entire family was murdered hundreds of years later.”

  “Have any other Visionaries lost their minds?”

  Rugar nodded. “A few. But none were in power like that. They were always removed, or sent away quietly, or made into regents. It is not something we talk about much.”

  Jewel was breathing heavily, as if she had been involved in quick swordplay. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

  “Because,” he said, his eyes full of the same fear she felt, “if most of our people knew about it, they would doubt all Visionaries. How can we tell a true Vision from a false one? And how do we know when a Vision has been averted? Or when it is one that was never meant to happen at all? How do we tell a mental breakdown from a successful use of foreknowledge? We can’t, Jewel. We have only our minds and our reality to rely upon. We must trust in ourselves completely.”

  Her forehead still tingled. Remembered pain that never happened. Visions and insanity. She hadn’t really linked them, not even when she had seen her father get the Look or fall into one of his Visions as he had in the middle of the Nye campaign. That was the way things were. All Fey knew that Visionaries sometimes acted strangely, just as they knew Red Caps stank of offal and blood.

  Caseo. Caseo was an evil man who wanted to get his way and would use any method to do so, even by undermining her faith in her own father. “You weren’t going to tell me about this, were you?”

  Rugar shook his head. “You need complete confidence in your Visions. One way to achieve that is to believe that they will always come true unless your actions change the future.”

  “Is there history of craziness in our line?” she asked softly.

  “No,” Rugar said. “But in the last three hundred years, several of our ancestors have reached the end of their Vision. Some died before that end could be achieved, but anyone who has lived to your grandfather’s age has become Blind.”

  She made herself swallow. Her mouth was dry, and it felt as if she were swallowing air. She grabbed her cup of tea and drank it, even though it had got cold. When she was finished, she set the cup down. It rang softly on the wooden tabletop. “That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?” she asked. “You wanted to get to the end of your Vision.”

  He set the poker down and wiped his hand
s on his pants. He looked older than he had when he had emerged from the mist not an hour earlier. “If your grandfather dies when the seers say he will, I will be an old man. I will never be a Visionary Black King. Just a placeholder for you or your brothers. I will be Blind. I owe it to myself, to our people, to follow my Vision as far as it will lead. And if I never become Black King, so be it. I will enable you to be a better Black Queen.”

  “You’re afraid to be King without Vision.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture he rarely used because it gave away his discomfort. She had seen it only a few times in his life, always when he was under great stress. “It is one thing to rule with Vision and to have lost the Vision. It is another altogether never to rule with Vision. We hold our power through Vision, strength, and political skill. I have never been much of a politician. I am a wonderful Visionary, but that will go someday. And my strength will go with it. I would bring nothing to the throne and jeopardize my family’s place if I was to believe otherwise.”

  Jewel blinked, feeling disoriented. “Why can’t I see beyond the single Vision, Father? Why don’t I See myself as Black Queen?”

  “Sometimes,” he said softly, “a single Vision is so strong that it overpowers all the others until it happens. And sometimes a single Vision is all that we get of our lives.”

  “How do I know that I will See more than that?”

  “Because your mother and I both had Vision. It should be very strong in our children,” Rugar said.

  “Should be,” Jewel said. “But what if it isn’t?”

  “It will be,” Rugar said. “I watched you have a Vision. It commands all of you. Sometimes Visions come to people in dreams or in flashes, but when the Vision is strong, it takes over the entire person, as it did you.”

  She swallowed, wishing for another cup of tea, but not willing to make it. “My Vision has us with the Islanders, and yours has me in their palace. What if fighting them is wrong, Father? What if our destiny is something else entirely?”

  He stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her. “We fight, Jewel. That is what we do.”

  She pulled her braid forward and fiddled with the end. She had been thinking this for some time, but she hadn’t known how to approach him. Even now she wasn’t sure if this was the correct method. “I know,” she said. “But what happens if this place is different? We can’t seem to conquer it by force. Perhaps we’re here to learn something new. Perhaps that is what our Visions mean.”

  His expression hadn’t changed. He crossed his arms over his chest, much as Caseo had done. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “We have many powers,” she said. “We can enchant and beguile. We seem to use those skills only when we have conquered a people, but what about before? In my Vision the Prince cares for me. It is very, very clear. And if the Prince cares for me as strongly as he seems to, then perhaps we have another way into their world, another way to take control of this place.”

  “Jewel, you’re talking about methods that take years. We don’t have years.”

  “We have already spent a year here, Father, and all we have to show for it is this gray temporary home in the woods outside their city. We have lost half our people, and we are no closer to finding a solution. The Black King won’t save us, and we can’t find a way out of this place without risking even more lives. It seems that years spent conquering these people subtly are years better spent than hiding in the Shadowlands.”

  He flinched as if she had hit him. Then he looked into the fire as if it would provide answers. “I need time to think about this,” he said.

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “We may need to see the Shaman.”

  She nodded. Then she flung her braid back over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if she had won a victory or lost something precious. “There’s one more thing, Father,” she said.

  He didn’t look up. “Go ahead.”

  “I think I’m going to let the prisoner Luke go free. The young boy. I believe if I do that, I can get somewhere with his father.”

  This time Rugar did look at her. “You’re convinced of this?”

  She nodded. “It was a deal I made with the father. He’s had time to think of it. If I let the boy go free, I will do so only after I have received valuable information.”

  “If you let the boy go free,” Rugar said, “make sure he will still be useful to us.”

  Jewel grinned. “I’ll make sure he’ll help us whenever we want him to.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Theron’s hands were shaking so badly that Kondros had to double-check his knots. The little Fey man sat docilely in the chair, his hands tied behind him, and his feet tied to the chair legs. They had come to Kondros’s house, as close to the palace as they could get without going into the gate. To call the place a house was to be charitable. A bootmaker had the front of the building, and Kondros a room in the back, off the bootmaker’s apartments. The building smelled of hides and tanned leather, appropriate since the little man reeked almost as badly.

  The little man hadn’t struggled at all. He had gone to the chair willingly and not protested when Theron tied his hands behind his back. Theron wouldn’t let the little man out of his sight. His neck still hurt from the knife cut, and he was terrified that the little man was going to use some kind of spell on him, make Theron do his bidding because he had now touched Theron’s blood.

  Cyta had gone for Monte. The three men had decided on the way back that they wanted to involve someone close to the King, but they didn’t want to risk anyone too close. They didn’t know if the little man planned a trick on them or not.

  The room was small for three people. It would be crowded with five. The little man had one of the four chairs that surrounded a table, and Kondros sat on the mat in the far corner of the room. The fireplace took up one wall. There was no window, and the door opened onto an alley with a lot of traffic. They kept the door closed, even though the room was stuffy.

  Theron didn’t even have room to pace. His forefinger touched the slash on his neck. The scab was in place now, and he didn’t feel any different. Maybe the stories he had heard were lies made up by the Fey so that the Islanders would be frightened of them.

  Kondros had placed a bottle of holy water on the table. After checking the knots on the little man’s wrists, Kondros sat down beside the bottle and let his fingers play with its sides. The little man’s eyes kept darting to Kondros’s fingers, and then to Theron’s face. Clearly, the little man was frightened of that water. That fear, more than anything, made Theron believe the little man had told them the truth.

  Without warning the door opened inward, making Theron scramble backward. Kondros grabbed the holy water, and the little man squeaked his protest. Cyta came in, his face red and sweaty from exertion, followed by the captain of the guards. Monte was a small man, powerfully built, who stood straighter than any other Islander Theron had ever met.

  Monte slammed the door behind him and walked over to the little man. He wrinkled his nose as he got close, as if he couldn’t believe the stench. “Why didn’t you men clean him up?” Monte asked.

  “He won’t let us bring water near him,” Theron said.

  “Smart creature, aren’t you?” Monte asked.

  The little man licked his lips. “Who are you?” he asked in Nye, his voice shaking.

  Monte hooked his booted foot around the leg of the chair behind him, pulled it forward, and sat down. “I understand you want to join our side,” he said in Nye. “That’s an odd request.”

  “They tried to kill me,” the little man said.

  “It’s their job,” Monte replied. He glanced—once—at the holy water near Kondros’s hand.

  “No,” the little man said. “My people. They tried to kill me.”

  Monte leaned forward and put his elbow on the table so that his face was closer to the little man’s. “And why would they do that?”

  Theron’s shaking had grown worse. The situation
bothered him. He pulled a chair and sat on it too, arms crossed tightly over his chest. What if the little man was the beginning of some odd invasion force? What if he was going to take over Monte and the rest of them, and then get to the King?

  “I’m not important to them,” the little man said.

  Monte chuckled softly. “Not important? With as many men as they’ve been losing, everyone has to be important to them.”

  The little man shook his head. “I’m a Red Cap. I take care of the dead, and that gives me no value. I have no magick. I am not worth anything to them.”

  “It seems,” Monte said, “that you have a lifelong problem. It would make no sense for you to defect now.”

  “They tried to kill me.” The little man spit out the words with such force that Theron resisted the urge to back away.

  “You said that,” Monte replied as if the little man had shown no anger at all. “But I don’t understand why.”

  “They’re trying to find out how that works,” the little man said, nodding toward the vial of holy water. “They wanted to experiment with some of it on me.”

  “Why would they want to do that?” Monte asked. “They already know it will kill you.”

  The little man shook his head. “They think it might have no effect on people who lack magick.”

  Cyta and Kondros glanced at Theron. What an explanation. If it was true, then the Roca had given them a very potent weapon indeed. Only Monte didn’t move.

  “How do we know you lack magick? We have only your word on that,” he said.

  “If I had magick, I would not be sitting here trussed like this.”

  “Unless you were trying to infiltrate us. Unless you were trying to make us believe you are something other than what you are.”

  The little man bowed his head and shook it once, as if he couldn’t believe the position he was in. Then he licked his lips and tilted his head back. “I have never done anything like this before,” he said. “I wouldn’t even consider it if I were back in Nye or on the continent. I would just run away, resign, or join some of the Fey who have chosen to stay away from the wars. But I have no choice here. I can’t stay in the Shadowlands. If I do, they will experiment on me in my sleep, and I can’t live alone outside of the Shadowlands, because if I do, one of you Islanders will kill me. So I thought if I came to you, if I told you things you didn’t know about us, maybe you could help me, but you won’t trust me.”