“Yes, we had,” the Rocaan said. He let go of Reece’s arm. His palms were covered with sweat. He had been making the holy water properly. But that meant Matthias hadn’t been. And Matthias had discovered one of the bloodstains. Just as the missing people in the palace had.
“Help me to my room,” the Rocaan said.
“Yes, Holy Sir.” Reece put an arm around him to brace him. The Rocaan leaned in, his mind already far ahead of his body. He would make a new vial of holy water. Then he would wake up Matthias.
They would settle this thing between them once and for all.
SIXTY-ONE
The mist that the Weather Sprites had created left a dewy coating all over the Shadowlands. It also gave the air a chill it didn’t normally have. The weird ground that was not really visible beneath the grayness was as slick as a newly laid marble floor. Jewel slipped once and caught herself before dropping the torch she carried. After that she walked as carefully as she could. She hoped her father would talk the Sprites out of experimenting again soon.
Odd magick, Shadowlands. The Sprites could normally create rain without much effort at all. But something in the Shadowlands itself prevented it, just as it had prevented the sunshine they had tried for days earlier.
Finally she found the building she was looking for. The Domestics, at Rugar’s command, had hastily constructed a shed for the prisoners. The shed was small, and its boards were mismatched. She hoped the prisoners were tied or spelled, because it would take little effort for a man of Adrian’s strength to break through the flimsy construction.
She opened the door and was glad that she had remembered the torch. Only Fire Domestics could have seen in this darkness. She placed the torch in the holder built high into the wall—almost too high; she hoped it wouldn’t start the makeshift room on fire. The prisoners huddled together on the floor, blinking in the light. The close room smelled of unwashed bodies and excrement. No one was taking care of any of their needs.
“Have you eaten?” she asked in Nye.
The older man, Ort, grunted harshly and turned his face away.
“How—eat?” the boy asked. “When no—mouth, ah, toe? toe?”
“Tongue,” she said, impatient with his poor language skills. “And he has a tongue. He just can’t use it unless we let him. Of course, we could remove it permanently if he likes.” And she smiled sweetly at Ort’s back.
Adrian leaned against the wall, just watching her. His hair was plastered against his forehead, and his feet were braced against Ort’s body. Apparently he too had noted how flimsy the walls were and had been trying to push them down.
She ran her gaze over him slowly so that he wouldn’t miss her scrutiny. “And what did you plan to do when you escaped the shed? Stand where you think the exit is and beg someone to open it for you?”
“I would have thought of something,” he said.
She leaned against the door frame, as much to avoid the stink as anything. She couldn’t close the door. Four of them wouldn’t fit in the shed. “Have you considered my offer?”
“You’re treating us like animals,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “No one should be kept like this. We haven’t had water since yesterday.”
“Well, then you’ll piss less, won’t you?” she said. She shoved her thumbs in the waist of her pants. “I see our friend Ort is as rude as ever. The head of our Spell Warders has been asking for prisoners to use in his experiments, Ort. I suspect you would like to volunteer.”
The man didn’t move. He kept his face averted.
“No,” the boy said. “Please. He—ah—means it not.”
“He’s a full adult,” Jewel said. “He knows what he’s doing. One thing you’ll need to learn about life, boy, is that you can’t protect others from themselves.”
“As if you’re so old and wise,” Adrian said.
She stared at him a moment. He stared back. Nights of maltreatment and no food seemed to have strengthened him instead of cowed him. “You did not answer my question.”
“You must want something from us desperately if you’re willing to deal with me,” he said.
She sighed, as if the conversation had been a trial, and grabbed the torch. “I am not desperate. You merely touched my heart the other day. I see that I was wrong about you. I will be letting Caseo know that he can have you. And I’m sorry, Luke. Caseo is not known for his kindness.”
“Papa!” the boy cried in Islander. It was one of the few words she knew.
“I will, however, not tell him that you are all related by blood. It’s the least I can do.” She made certain that her smile was cold. Then she slipped out of the shed and closed the door.
As the latch snicked shut, she heard the boy cry out again, and then Adrian shouted, “Wait!”
She hesitated just a moment. If she opened the door, would she be playing it right? It probably didn’t matter. The man was probably playing her, not allowing himself to bow too far to her whims, but not willing to jeopardize his son.
She pushed the door open and held the torch inside. Adrian had bent his tied legs so that he didn’t touch Ort. “I’ll talk to you,” Adrian said. “But I want to see Luke free first.”
“Nice try,” she said. “But I am a woman of my word. I will set your son free if you talk with me and give me something worth his life.”
Ort grunted again and shook his head. Adrian ignored him. “What would you consider worth that much? I already told you I don’t know the secret to holy water.”
“I thought perhaps the deal might jog your memory.”
“I can’t remember something I don’t know.”
“Then you have nothing to bargain with,” she said. “I would hear what you have to say before I let your son go free.”
Ort grunted louder and turned toward Jewel. Then he shook his head at her three times. She smiled at him. “You’re not part of this,” she said. “Attempt to influence this one more time, and I shall give you to Caseo right now.”
Adrian was staring at her. His face was thinner than it had been even the day before, and there were deep lines under his eyes. The decision had been weighing on him heavily. Ort watched him carefully, as did Luke.
“I—ah—may to speak him—ah—in Islander?” Luke said.
“No,” Jewel said. “I want to hear anything you have to say.”
“Please, lady. I no to speak Nye good.”
She almost relented. But she couldn’t trust the boy any more than she could trust the men. “No,” she said.
The boy blinked away tears. “Papa, please. No. I—ah—I stay. With you.”
“You’re just a baby,” Adrian said. “And there’s no future here.”
“Papa, please. Please.”
Ort watched them both. Then he looked up at Jewel. The fury in his eyes was as palpable as a slap. She stared back at him, unwilling to let a prisoner get the better of her.
“All right,” Adrian said. “I’ll deal with you. On your terms. But with one change. I would speak to my son in my own language before he leaves. You can get someone fluent to listen in, if you want, I don’t care. But I want him to be able to talk with me.”
It was a reasonable request, particularly with someone listening in. “Done,” she said. “But you must realize that your son may not go free. Your information has to be worth his life.”
Adrian swallowed. “I know that.”
Ort turned his head away and leaned his forehead against the wall. Jewel crouched in front of Luke. “Luke,” she said, “I promise you that I will listen carefully to your father and make a sound decision. I know Ort believes that I will listen and then betray my promise. But I will not do that. And neither will you. I want you to understand this: if your father and I set you free, you must recognize that the Fey can be fair. You must speak to that. Is that clear?”
The boy glanced at his father. Adrian nodded once. Then Luke nodded hesitantly.
“I trust you will explain anything he didn’t understand,”
Jewel said to Adrian.
“If you give me the chance,” he said.
“It depends on your information.” She leaned toward him and untied his legs. She wasn’t quite certain where she would take him. She didn’t want him in her cabin again, not after that meeting with Caseo.
He shook his feet as if to shake the pain away. She put a hand under his elbow and helped him up.
“I’ll be back, Luke,” he said. “Don’t let Ort cause more trouble.”
“Yes, Papa.” The terror on Luke’s face made Jewel’s heart twist. She had never seen a people so unused to the ways of war. On Galinas all of the nations had warred with each other. The history of every country from Nye to Alarro was a history of wars.
She helped Adrian out the door, trying not to wince at his odor. Finally she decided to take him to the Domestics. Someone could clean him off while she waited.
She pushed the door closed and secured it. Then she led Adrian to the Domicile. He watched the ground as he walked, as if he couldn’t believe what he was walking on. But he said nothing. She led him up the stairs and knocked on the door, unwilling to drag him into the hospital wing when he was this dirty.
Mend, the Domestic who answered the door, looked as haggard as Adrian. She was tiny, her skin unnaturally pale from being so long away from the sun. Her hands were bent and calloused from all the work she had had to do. Even though she was a mildly talented Domestic, she was one of Jewel’s favorites because she worked so hard.
“I have a prisoner here, and I need him cleaned and placed in an empty room,” Jewel said.
“We don’t have empty rooms,” Mend said.
“Oh, I think you do,” Jewel said. “I’ll take care of that part, if you get him cleaned without unbinding him.”
Mend nodded. She took his arm and led him to the side of the building. Jewel watched for a moment to make certain everything was under control, and then she went inside.
The seven Infantry in the beds were looking better. One was even propped against pillows. The Healers had been working hard. They had sent a group into the forest to pick herbs, hoping that there would be the right ones on the Isle. Apparently there were.
Jewel nodded at them and went down the narrow corridor. When she reached the first room, she pulled it open. It was small, as she had hoped, and filled with weavers. Threads were scattered everywhere and looms clicked and hummed. The weavers looked at her expectantly.
“I need the room,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
They nodded as a unit, as if they were used to being thrown from the place they were in. But they did not move right away.
“Take things with you if the magick requires that they not be touched by anyone but you,” she added. “I’m afraid I will need the room right away.”
Then she closed the door and stepped out, allowing them privacy to finish their spells and to collect their work. From the infirmary one of the men moaned, and the sound sent a shiver through her. Maybe she was making a mistake allowing this man’s son free. These Islanders, for all their naïveté, were adept at harming Fey, something no other people could claim.
Behind her the door opened and the weavers emerged, most carrying their wheels. They walked down the corridor away from her, as if they had a specific place in mind to reestablish their workroom. She waited until they were gone before entering the room.
Wool bits littered the floor and the air still had the taint of magick. She loved Domestic magick. It felt so normal, so warm. The air sparkled with it because it was always used to make something better instead of to conquer something. If she had it to do all over again, she would have learned Domestic skills instead of fighting skills. Not that either of them would do her any good. She was a Visionary, and Visionaries belonged in the military or in government. Only a select few became Shamans, and she—even as a young child—had not had the compassion for that.
Only two chairs remained in the room, set near each other as if waiting for two occupants to have a conversation. Something about Domestic magick allowed them to know these sorts of things, to put out the right clothes, or make the right meals, or make the rooms they were in feel just right. It was that talent she envied more than anything else. Even the ability to see possible futures did not allow her to be that sensitive to other people’s needs.
There was a knock on the door. She turned, but it was already half-open. Mend stood there, her hand on Adrian’s arm. His clothes were cleaned, and he looked refreshed despite himself. And that awful odor was gone.
“Thank you, Mend,” Jewel said softly. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
Mend nodded and blushed just a little as she let go of Adrian’s arm. His hands were still bound.
“Come in and sit with me,” Jewel said.
He walked forward, his back straight, his movements confident. Mend watched him cross the room as if she, too, were fascinated with him. Then she saw Jewel’s gaze on her. Mend smiled, backed out of the room, and closed the door quietly behind her.
He reached the chair and sat. She sat across from him. They were so close that their knees almost touched. “All right,” she said, not willing to waste any more time. “What do you have to offer me?”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She could feel his nervousness, but his gaze never wavered. “Myself,” he said.
“I already have you,” she said. “I want something worth that boy’s life. Worth his future. And I warn you, Adrian. Don’t play with me.”
“I’m not playing,” he said. “You have my body, and at best, you can offer it to your devils for experimentation. But you do not—and will not—have my mind.”
She smiled. “You underestimate us. Just because we have been kind to you doesn’t mean that we can’t take what we need.”
“If you could do that,” he said, “you would not have taken me at my word about holy water. You would have done what you could to pull that secret from me.”
“I thought you said you don’t know anything about it.”
“I don’t.” He smiled. “But you didn’t even try your techniques to see if I was lying.”
“How do you know that?” she asked. “Magick is not flashy. It’s something fine and subtle. Something that seems as natural as breathing, at least to us. Can’t you feel the magick in this room? The weavers were here, doing their work. There are magick traces here. Can you feel them?”
His mouth opened a little and then closed. He obviously hadn’t felt them. Most nonmagickal beings had no real sense of how magick worked. “So,” he said finally. “Why aren’t you going to get the information from me any other way?”
“Information voluntarily given is often more valuable and more complete,” she said. Then she leaned forward and put her elbows on her thighs. “What do you offer me, Adrian?”
“Myself,” he said again, his voice calm and steady. “In service to you until the end of the war.”
“And what do you offer that we can’t get for ourselves?”
“Intimate knowledge of the Isle and its people.”
“No battle plans, no magick formulas. Just information about the way the system works?”
He nodded. His Adam’s apple bobbed again. He was nervous, although he was trying hard not to show it.
“Until the end of the war,” she said, leaning back. Her chair squeaked with her movements, and bits of wool floated in the air. “What if the war doesn’t end?”
“Beg pardon?” he asked.
She smiled. “There are border clashes between L’Nacin and Oudoun that have lasted for centuries. This could do the same.”
“Centuries,” he repeated. “There isn’t room on this Isle for a war that lasts centuries.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said. She placed an arm on the chair back, making her body look as relaxed and comfortable as possible. “You are, what? Twenty years older than your son?”
“Twenty-five,” he said.
“That means that he will, in
theory, outlive you by twenty-five years.” She pretended to consider that. Then she shrugged one shoulder. “I will accept nothing less from you than your life in exchange for his. You advise us on matters Islander. You teach us the secrets of your homeland and keep us apprised of all that we should know, and you do so until you die. Or until your son dies, whichever comes first.”
“My life?” This time he let the anguish show on his face. Such a choice. She wasn’t sure she would make it. “For my son’s.” He took a deep breath. “What happens if we win the war?”
“You won’t,” she said. “The Fey will never allow it. You may win battles, as you did with the First Battle for Jahn, but you will never defeat us. We will fight you until there are none of us left. And even then the Black King will probably send reinforcements. You will never win.”
He looked a bit startled at her vehemence.
“I mean we want you for the duration of your life. Nothing less.” She smiled at him. “And if you lie to us, even once, your son dies. And if you lie to us after your son has children, his children die. We are ruthless, Adrian, especially with people who cross us.”
“How would you keep track of him?”
“We have our ways,” she said. “We will know where he is each moment of the day. This can be of great benefit to you. If there is an attack, one of our people will protect him. And his children, when the time comes. But if you fail us, he will die. We do not give second chances.”
“My life.”
“For his.” She took her arm off the back of the chair. “You get the better part of the bargain. Your life is shorter. We will give him an extra twenty-five years of protection if you live out your normal life span. If you cheat us and kill yourself, of course we will kill him.”
“Do you have that great a need for my knowledge?”
Shrewd man. She liked that about him. “No,” she said honestly. “We have a need for your interpretation. Ways a culture work are easy to discover. Understanding why it works that way is sometimes very difficult.”
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series) Page 48