Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  Nicholas flushed. He looked down at his hands. Alexander looked too. They were nicked and bloodstained. A long cut still oozed on the back of his left palm.

  “I say that because she had me,” Nicholas said.

  Alexander grabbed Nicholas’s hand and pulled it away from the scab. “What do you mean, ‘had you’?”

  Nicholas stared at their joined hands until Alexander let go. “I was fighting on the steps leading out of the kitchen.

  “I had found a place on the first landing that protected my back and gave me a good brace, as Stephen had told me to do, but I must have moved, because the next thing I knew, someone hit me, and I toppled down the stairs.”

  Alexander resisted the urge to close his eyes. He kept his breathing even. Nicholas’s story was not reassuring him. The more he heard, the more he wanted his son out of the fighting.

  “I landed next to this dead body”—Nicholas shuddered—“and when I looked up, she was there, with a sword at my throat.”

  One quick movement this afternoon and his son would have been dead.

  “She didn’t kill me, Dad. She didn’t even try. It was almost as if she knew me.”

  Alexander’s body was covered with a fine layer of sweat that hadn’t been there a moment before. He gripped his knees to keep his hands from shaking. “She probably knew who you were.”

  “No,” Nicholas said. “She was surprised when the staff volunteered to protect me.”

  By the Holy One. Alexander felt the sweat roll down his back. The boy tossed off details as if he were talking about a riding trip outside the city.

  “She even asked me who I was. I wouldn’t tell her. But she knew me, Dad. And even though her people wanted to kill me, she wouldn’t let them.”

  “Then you got the upper hand?”

  “There was an opening,” Nicholas said. “I took advantage of it.”

  His son must have felt Alexander’s nervousness, because he was no longer elaborating. Alexander didn’t want him to. Nicholas was safe. That was all that mattered. That, and the fact that Nicholas would never get into the same situation again.

  “You have no idea,” Alexander said slowly, “what she might have done to you. She might have been enchanting you. Maybe they wanted someone to infiltrate us. Maybe this is part of a plan.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “She seemed surprised when she realized she was captured.”

  Alexander sighed. They would argue about this forever. “No matter what you think of the girl, you need to be at my side from now on. Think, son. What would have happened if you had died at her feet? How would those servants have felt? Would they have kept fighting?”

  Nicholas’s flush grew deeper. He knew the answer as well as Alexander did.

  “I know you have wanted something to test you your entire life.” Alexander put his hand on the boy’s naked back, surprised at the clamminess of Nicholas’s skin. Nicholas, despite his bravado, had been under a great strain. Alexander softened his tone. “Well, you had that test, and you met it with courage that hasn’t been seen since your great-great-grandfather. Our people will discuss your exploits for years. That’s all we needed. They know now that we will sacrifice everything for Blue Isle.”

  Alexander took off his own shirt and put it around Nicholas. “But we can’t sacrifice everything, because if we do, we lose the only strengths we have. Do you think it was easy for me to hear that girl’s taunts? I would like to be fighting out there too.” He stood, unable to sit still with what he was saying. “Even through these walls I can hear the sounds of the dying. And I would like to be out there, saving just one life—”

  “Yes, Dad, that’s it,” Nicholas said, clutching the shirt around him.

  “—but I forget that by the correct actions in here, I can save more than one life. I can save hundreds of lives. I can save Blue Isle.” Alexander put his hands behind his back, considering his words before saying them. “Nicky, we are lucky to have the holy water. Lucky to be able to drive the Fey away. Lucky that girl was so frightened of the Danites that she came with you. Nye fought for years and lost an entire generation of young men against the Fey. Did you know that? And now the Fey own the country. You heard her. She said, ‘You would not have given it all to us,’ and she is right. We would not have. We are still a people, still a country. We still make our own choices. You heard her, Nicky. She speaks fluent Nye, but Nye is a dead language because the country it represents is now part of the Fey’s Empire. We are small, but we are sovereign, and I mean to stay that way.”

  Nicholas slipped his arms through the shirt. He was cringing just a little, as if the strain of the day was finally getting to him. “How do you plan to do that, Father?”

  Alexander shook his head. “I don’t know. The Fey have practiced warfare since the Roca was Absorbed. We have never fought. We have only traded. It is as if the Roca had given us the holy water all those generations ago to protect us from this very threat.”

  “Faith, Father?” Nicholas said. “You were never religious before.”

  “Then how do you explain it?” Alexander said. “The Fey came here with a strong fighting force, enough warriors to take over the city before night fell. We have no experience, no real knowledge of what to do, and yet we have held them off. Call it luck, call it fate, or call it God’s will, but we have survived. And I mean to continue.”

  Nicholas leaned back. His face was drawn with exhaustion, the shadows under his eyes so deep that his eyes looked sunken.

  “I need your help, Nicky,” Alexander said. “We need to make these decisions together. We need to learn together. Because they will come after us. The Fey are smart. They know the value of leadership, and they will destroy what they can.”

  “But you said we won this time.”

  “The battle,” Alexander said. “We won’t have won the war until the invasion force is dead.”

  “Or sent packing back to Nye.”

  “No,” Alexander said. “If they go to Nye, they will try again. We have to prevent them from leaving here if it is the last thing we do.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Jewel held a torch in her left hand. Her wrists still burned from the pressure of the ropes. She leaned against the exit, the stairs behind her, her breath coming in quick gasps.

  For the moment she was safe. The enclosed landing provided a measure of security that would disappear in a matter of seconds. The King’s people had to have heard the screaming. It still echoed in her ears. She had glanced over her shoulder only once, hoping Silence was behind her, but he wasn’t. It was a vain hope anyway. According to his training, her life was the important one.

  She had to get out of the palace alive. Then she had to make it back to the Shadowlands. Silence had managed to tell her while Stephen was getting a torch that the Fey should meet in Shadowlands.

  Those were the last words the two of them had spoken to each other.

  She pushed the door open and peered through the crack. The hallway was littered with bodies. Fey bodies, hideously deformed. She looked away. She had come so close to dying this day. Only the Prince had saved her with his quick movement. Otherwise she, too, would be lying disfigured on an Islander floor.

  If they saw her, they would kill her.

  The hallway was dark except for the thin light of a single torch stuck into the wall. She could see no one except the bodies. Broken furniture was scattered around them, and the floor was wet. She hoped the magic woven into her boots to protect them from rain would protect them from this false water as well.

  She pushed the door open the rest of the way. The stench of rotting flesh made her want to gag. She bit her lower lip and stepped out, into the wetness. The water beaded on her boots, and she let out a small sigh. Then she crouched beside the bodies, avoiding their twisted faces, looking for their weapons.

  The weapons had been taken.

  The Islanders weren’t completely ignorant about war.
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  She didn’t recognize this hallway. Silence and Stephen had been taking her to the dungeons when Silence had slit her ropes, shoved the torch into her hand, and told her to run.

  And she had, the Powers forgive her. She hadn’t even waited to see if Silence got his advantage. She knew the drill: a Doppelgänger was supposed to defend the Black King’s family with his life. But that didn’t make it easy the first time. She had never needed a real defense before.

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway. She stood and ran across the floor for the stairs. More bodies were sprawled along it, most of them Fey. A few were slaughtered Islanders. They were blood covered, but their bodies were still intact. No Foot Soldiers had made it into the palace, no Red Caps had followed. At least, not obviously.

  All the carnage. She hoped her father had returned to Shadowlands. She would have no way of telling if he was among the dead.

  She hurried down the steps, rounded the corner, and found herself in a Great Hall. More bodies littered the passageway, most of these Islanders. The Fey had made it far before the poison carriers had found them. Her father had been right: if the Islanders hadn’t produced this secret potion, the Fey would have owned Blue Isle by now.

  Whoever had been coming down the hall had not followed her. She stopped next to one of the Islander bodies. This one was slender and male. It also wore a pale-tan robe which, if she could remove it, might give her just enough cover to make it back to the docks.

  Silence had kept his stiletto, and she saw no other weapons on the ground. At least this floor was dry. She wouldn’t have attempted touching anything on the floor above with her bare hands.

  The man’s throat had been cut. The neck and shoulders of the robe were crusty with blood. She untied the string around the collar, then discovered that the string was merely ornamental. She would have to lift the robe off the man. A dirty job, fit for a Red Cap. But she had no choice.

  She stood and placed the torch in a holder on the wall. Then she went back to the body. She pushed the edges of the robe until it gathered around the body’s waist; then she lifted the legs and pushed the back as well. Her breath was coming hard, so hard she was afraid anyone passing would hear her.

  The thought made her move quickly. She set the legs down as quietly as she could; then she pulled the torso up by its arms. Its skin was barely warm and clammy. It felt dead. The thought sent a shudder through her. She put one hand behind the back, and with the other yanked the robe upward. This Islander wore nothing under his robe, and she averted her eyes from its pale, withered flesh. The robe caught on the back of the skull, and she had to work it free before pulling it all the way off.

  Then she slipped the robe over her own head, wincing at the strong, fetid odor of blood. The robe had a hood, also blood encrusted, but which might prove useful as she made her way through the streets.

  She was taller than the dead man. The robe came only to the middle of her calves, revealing her delicate boots. The Islanders did not have boots like hers—at least, not any she had observed. For a moment she paused, looking at the man’s feet, but his shoes were made of a thin leather, obviously untreated. She would risk being seen before she would risk placing her feet in that unreal water.

  Voices echoed from the floor above. They were speaking Islander, its odd, flowing tones almost familiar to her now. She grabbed her torch out of its peg and, stepping over bodies, followed the trail down the Great Hall.

  The windows were filled with glass—an expensive thing, but then, Blue Isle was known for its riches. In the courtyard she saw movement: Islanders collecting weapons off the dead Fey. She followed the hall into the pantry, wincing at the stench of rotted bodies. These comrades she knew. She refused to look at them. The hearth fire still burned, and some of the smell came from there. Part of a corpse lay on the flagstones, partially burned. Someone had pulled it from the hearth fire.

  She stepped around it, past the brick ovens, which were now cool, and through the open door. Moaning came from one corner of the courtyard. With her free hand she pulled up the robe’s hood. A young Islander boy sat near the closed stable doors, his arms wrapped around the body of a dead man. The boy was sobbing.

  A woman saw Jewel and called out in Islander. Jewel shook her head, hoping the movement was universal, and kept walking. The woman followed. Jewel ducked her head deeper into her hood and resisted the urge to run. If the woman stopped her, she would see that Jewel was Fey. If the woman had that poison, then Jewel was doomed.

  She stepped over more bodies and pushed through the destroyed gate. The woman called out one more time, but Jewel shook her head again, wishing for only a few phrases of Islander besides the one her Vision and the Prince had taught her. Are you all right? would start a conversation, not prevent one.

  Jewel hurried down the street. That morning the street had been so full of promise. Now it was littered with the disfigured bodies of her friends. She gave the palace one last glance. Silence was still in there, fighting for his life, or perhaps even dead.

  Because of her.

  And Burden, and Shima, and the others. She didn’t know how many of her friends lay at her feet. How many could she have helped if she hadn’t allowed that Islander boy to take her away?

  The streets were eerily quiet. She seemed to be one of the few people moving about. The Islanders were probably hiding, holding their silly water weapons and figuring a way to destroy the Fey. The only Fey she saw were dead.

  Dead.

  She picked her way over body after body, the stench a live thing in her nostrils. Now that she was away from the palace, she knew she would make it to Shadowlands. No one was out to stop her. And once inside Shadowlands, she would find her father. If she couldn’t find him, she would take over.

  She would make certain the Warders found a counter-spell against the poison.

  Then she would make these Islanders pay.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The torch was warm in Matthias’s hand. He held it out in front of him, using the other hand for balance. He kept close to the wall as he made his way down the stairs. No one had lit the torches on the lower levels of the Tabernacle, and the darkness unnerved him. The bodies were gray lumps; the overturned tables and chairs provided a maze that he had to step gingerly through. A faint odor of burned flesh lingered in the stairwell. The floors were sticky, and he didn’t want to think about what he was walking in—or on.

  His throat was dry. As the stairs leveled out onto the first floor, he repressed the urge to run to the door. So many dead in this holy place. It offended sensibilities he didn’t think he had. The bodies, contorted and gray, also brought superstitions he thought he was clear of to the surface. He had never believed the dead could walk until now: until he saw motionless limbs seem to move under the torch’s shadows, sightless eyes reflecting firelight, mouths open as if to speak. Perhaps, if he pinched himself hard enough, the nightmare would end and morning would come.

  He put his hand down to his side as he left the protection of the stairs. Only a few more feet and he would be outside. The closeness of the bodies there made the hair on the back of his neck rise. He tripped on a chair leg and nearly dropped the torch. For a moment he wrestled with holding the torch or catching himself. An image of his body falling with all the others made him gasp in panic. Finally he reached out and grabbed a hunk of clothing, catching his balance. When he realized what he had done, he bit back a scream.

  The smell of the dead was almost more than he could bear. When he got back, he would have to order some of the remaining Auds to begin cleanup. But before that he would have to figure out what to do with the bodies. They couldn’t just go into the Cardidas.

  He stood slowly, his grip on the torch so tight that his hand ached. When he had volunteered to go to the docks, he hadn’t thought it through. All the dead. All the reminders of the horrors of the day.

  Finally he reached the doors. They were propped open by fallen bodies, but someone had cleared a pathway between them
. As he stepped into the moonlit grounds, he let out a breath of relief. He felt safer without the walls of the Tabernacle around him.

  The bodies were scattered there, not bunched together as they had been inside. The light from the moon augmented the light from his torch, and stars twinkled in the sky. If he looked up, the world was the same world he had grown up in. He could almost hear the sounds of the city at night: the street women calling, the occasional drunken fight. But those sounds were absent now. An odd quiet had fallen on Jahn. Except for splashes near the river, and the lapping of the water against the shore, the city was silent.

  The breeze off the river had a slight, damp chill. Matthias brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. The exhaustion he had felt earlier had left him. It surprised him to note that his body, so bitterly overused this day, had reserves of strength within it.