Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  “Are you all right?” her father asked.

  She nodded, feeling a dislocation, as if she had been in two places at once. “I haven’t had enough sleep,” she said.

  He eased her toward the chair. “You had a Vision.”

  She had to squint to see him. He looked older than she remembered. Maybe she hadn’t looked at him, really looked at him, in a long time.

  “Didn’t you?”

  The tone was off as well. He had never spoken to her with that mixture of awe and anger. Only to his father. What had gone wrong?

  She put a hand to her head, unable to think, wondering why she felt like lying to him, why she had been lying to him about her Visions all along. “I suppose I did,” she said.

  “Tell me what you Saw.” Not a request, a demand. And he didn’t seem to care how she felt, even though she had nearly passed out. Was this how it was supposed to be between them? Was this how his father had acted toward him when the Visions had started?

  “I think it was personal,” she said, wishing her brain would clear, knowing that it wouldn’t, that she needed to sleep before she could think clearly.

  “In our family Visions are never personal,” Rugar said.

  She took a deep breath and then pulled her hand away from her head. The echo of the burning pain remained there, and for a moment she thought she felt scarred skin under her palm. Then she touched her forehead again. Smooth, as it should be.

  “Does it matter what I Saw?” she asked.

  “Of course it matters!” he said. “We have to do this together now.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me what you See?” she asked.

  He blanched. His face went from its normal dark to a grayness as deep as the Shadowlands within a matter of seconds. His eyes glittered. “You don’t need to hear about my Visions.”

  “I think I do,” she said, “if I am going to tell you mine.”

  “When did we find ourselves on opposite sides?” he asked.

  “When you got so intense.”

  He laughed then and sank into a chair beside her. He took her hand. His palm was clammy. “I was worried, Jewel. That’s all. I had never seen you do that before. It’s startling when it happens to me. I never realized what it looked like.”

  “You never saw your father have a Vision?”

  He shook his head. “You’re the first.”

  The oddness again, but she decided to trust him. Perhaps he was right; perhaps her faint had startled him. It had certainly startled her.

  She closed her eyes and recited the Vision as closely as she could. She didn’t tell him she had seen the same thing twice before, nor did she tell him that this Vision had altered slightly. She understood it better, knew the language, knew the people involved. The Vision’s evolution startled her more than the Vision itself.

  When she finished, he was staring at her. “What do you think it means?” he asked.

  Finally she had had enough. “You’re the expert,” she said. “You tell me.”

  For a moment his gaze seemed empty. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t know.”

  FORTY-SIX

  The air smelled odd in the sanctuary. Goose bumps ran up Matthias’s arms as he quietly closed the oak doors behind him. The carvings dug into his palms, and he knew without looking that he had just placed his hands over the scenes of the Roca’s birth. Normally he loved those: the water funnel surrounding and protecting the baby; the frightened faces of his parents; the face of the Holy One etched in the clouds. But on this day he didn’t stop to look. On this day he pulled his hands away from the door and stood in the silence.

  A faint scent, one he had learned to recognize in the last year. Blood. In this, the holiest of places.

  His mouth had gone dry. He wanted to swallow, but couldn’t. He clenched his fists so that he wouldn’t touch the tops of the pews as was his custom to make sure no one had altered the carvings there. Instead he pulled off his sandals and set them by the door so that his feet would make no sound on the polished floor.

  When the Rocaan walked down this aisle, the Auds walked before him, rolling a red carpet. Other Auds followed, rolling up the red carpet where he walked, so that no other feet touched it besides his. Matthias had often thought that the ritual made the Rocaan look as if he were walking on an island of red.

  Blood-red.

  Matthias’s feet were sticking to the polish. Ahead he saw no one. He seemed to be alone, a fact that unnerved him even more than the odor.

  The sanctuary was usually his favorite place. It made him feel refreshed. And sometimes, when the choir sang, he almost felt as if he could touch the Ear of God.

  Nothing appeared to be disturbed. Rows of pews glistened in the light flowing down from the stained-glass panels inserted into the ceiling. The panels also depicted various events in the Roca’s life, and as the sun revolved in the heavens, the sanctuary’s interior light reflected different colors on the floor below. At night the lights were invisible, and the place had a dark, mysterious air not disturbed by the candlelight.

  The pews had red cushions that so far appeared unstained. Ahead, the red rug covering the altar also appeared clean. No one had touched the silver bowl containing the holy water, and the vials in their shelves under the Sacrificial Table appeared undisturbed. If an attack was to happen here, someone would go for the water immediately.

  He was being foolish.

  He was being cautious. The smell was faint but ever present.

  The air was cold. He shivered once, then continued his measured pace. Finally he reached the center of the sanctuary, where the pews were truncated to form a small circle on the floor. Above him, the largest replica of the Rocaan’s sword hung, pointing downward. He had often wondered what would happen if the sword fell in the middle of a service. But it never had. It was held with ropes that the Auds constantly replaced—a different rope done on a different day by a different Aud, always overseen by a different Officiate. The sword was four times larger than a human being, and encrusted with jewels. Its point gleamed menacingly in the multicolored light.

  Matthias had half expected to find something unusual in the circle, but the floor was polished there too. The smell seemed to have grown stronger, though. He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers tangling in the curls, glad he hadn’t worn his biretta. He had planned to come there to plead with Roca to give him faith—the attack on the Fey hiding place had shaken him somehow—but this distraction had taken all resolve from him. A man couldn’t speak to his God when the sanctuary smelled of blood.

  Past the circle, the pews jutted back into the aisle and continued until they reached the stairs leading to the altar. The carved wooden chairs on the altar lacked the shine they normally had. Someone had been sitting in them since the morning cleaning.

  It could have been one of the Elders. Matthias wasn’t the only one who used this sanctuary, instead of the tiny chapel on the third floor, to pray. But that thought didn’t stop his heart from racing even faster than it had a moment before.

  He made himself walk slowly so that he looked at each pew as he passed, making certain they were empty. He wished he had a small vial of holy water in the pocket of his robe, as he used to when this war first started. He had become lax of late: he had seen no Fey in so long, only the dead reminded him that the country was under attack.

  His breath was coining in short gasps as he walked up the steps. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. The square Sacrificial Table, nicked with the cuts of a hundred consecrated swords, was empty, but the rug beneath it had a dark blotch, as if someone had spilled water and forgotten to mop it up.

  He knelt and touched the spot. It was damp. He brought his fingers to his nose and winced. Blood. Just as he suspected.

  He glanced around quickly to see if he was still alone. He was. He saw no one else, but he couldn’t be sure he was alone. Stupid, stupid of him not to have got help the moment he noticed the smell.

/>   Matthias swallowed and rocked back on his heels. Now he had reason to get someone. He started to stand when his gaze caught something near the leg of one of the chairs. With a shaking hand he reached over and grabbed it—

  —and nearly dropped it. It was smooth and white, but still damp, as if someone had wiped it clean. He kept it in his hand and brought it closer to his face. A bone. A tiny one. Like the bones of a person’s fingers.

  His trembling had increased. He sat down on the carpet, away from the blood spot, and looked closely at the weave. No more blood, no more bones. Whoever had caused the blood had missed this particular piece of evidence just by chance.

  “Matthias?”

  Matthias started and almost stood but forced himself to remain sitting. He recognized the voice. It belonged to Andre, one of the Elders. “Come here,” Matthias said, slipping the bone into his pocket. He would save that surprise for later, once he determined what was going on.

  Andre came down the aisle that Matthias had walked on. Matthias’s throat was dry. He hadn’t heard the door open. He hadn’t realized he was concentrating that hard. But it made sense.

  “Smell something odd?” he asked as Andre walked.

  Andre stopped, sniffed, and shook his head. “Candle wax, a bit too much polish. Nothing else.”

  Matthias frowned. Were his senses that much more finely tuned than Andre’s? It seemed strange to him. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I could ask you that,” Andre said. “I have never seen anyone worship here by sitting on the floor.”

  Matthias again resisted the urge to stand. Andre made him nervous. His piety seemed so pure compared to Matthias’s scholarly approach to religion. His ignorance was equally irritating, and his recent friendship with the Rocaan even more so.

  “Come here,” Matthias said again.

  Andre came closer. His shoes squeaked on the polished floor. Matthias’s feet were cold. His entire body was cold. Andre crouched beside him.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  Matthias bit back an angry retort. “Nothing. I found this. Touch it.”

  Andre extended one finger and pushed on the carpet. It made a slight squishy sound. He glanced at Matthias as if confused, then brought the finger to his own nose and sniffed. “Blood,” he whispered. “In the sanctuary?”

  Matthias nodded. “We need to find out what has happened. I want you to assemble the staff as well as all the Auds and Danites who are assigned to this place. I will speak to the Rocaan and gather the Elders. Between us we should find out who saw anything, if anyone did, and who is missing, if anyone is.”

  Andre wiped his finger on a dry spot on the carpet, as if he couldn’t stand the feel of blood against his skin. Matthias watched him, then asked, “Did you see anything?”

  Andre started as if he hadn’t expected Matthias to speak again. “No,” he said. “Except you. I just got here.”

  Matthias nodded. Someone had to have seen something. Someone had to know what caused the blood. Perhaps an Aud was injured. Perhaps someone had driven an enemy from the building.

  “Do you think the Fey did this?” Andre asked.

  Matthias looked at him, not willing to hear that thought, but now that it was out, it chilled him. “I hope not,” he said.

  “It could be a miracle,” Andre said hopefully.

  Matthias smiled. “There have been no miracles for hundreds of years.”

  “Life is a miracle,” Andre said primly.

  “Perhaps,” Matthias said, “but I prefer to think of it as business as usual.”

  Andre shot him a look that Matthias had never seen before. Something cool and calculating lurked behind the man’s eyes. “It is a miracle,” he repeated, but for the first time since he had known Andre, Matthias didn’t believe him.

  Matthias stood up. His perceptions were probably off, thanks to the desecration of the sanctuary. The Rocaan would be heartbroken, and Matthias wasn’t sure the old man could handle more upset. He seemed not only distant, but a bit crazy these days, as if he heard the word of God when no one else did. The Rocaan’s actions worried Matthias. Porciluna hadn’t mentioned a meeting of the Elders recently, but Matthias kept expecting him to. With this new crisis it became even more important for the Elders to be unified.

  “Get an Aud in here,” Matthias said. “Don’t let anyone touch that spot.”

  Andre nodded. He stood too, and for a moment Matthias considered telling him about the bone. But then he decided that the detail could wait. The Rocaan would need to know first.

  Matthias retraced his steps down the aisle. Andre went out the Danite door toward the back, the one the Rocaan always used when he conducted the ceremony himself. Matthias took one more glance at the sanctuary. The blood smell was stronger than it had been before. He didn’t know what had happened there, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to guess.

  He didn’t like the idea of anything going wrong in the Tabernacle itself.

  When he reached the doors, he stopped to grab his sandals. His feet were icy cold, his toenails blue. He suspected the reaction was as much from fear as from the chill in the room. He had lied to Andre: the incident was probably Fey related. He had spent some time studying the incident in the dungeon tunnels with Lord Powell and Stephen. There had been blood there, too, and bones.

  Just like the invasion. In the barracks, the morning of the attack, a guard had discovered bones littering the floor, and another body beside them. A few other sites had found bones, some very close to the palace. Monte, head of the guards, had guessed that they were somehow connected to the Fey, but whether the bones belonged to dead Fey who had been completely destroyed by the holy water, or whether the bones were human, no one could say.

  Bones and blood. Bones and a body. His grip tightened on the prize in his pocket. Something had happened there, and someone had cleaned it up. He was determined to discover who.

  He ran a finger along the carvings on the door, touching the sword held aloft by the doomed Roca. The Roca was in profile, his features grim. His eyes, though, did not look human because the wood did not have real expression. What did the Roca know that they had forgotten? What gave Him all the power, the ability to be remembered, to be Beloved by God?

  Matthias leaned his head on the door. For the first time in his adult life, he wished that he had real faith, not knowledge. Because, for the first time in his life, he was beginning to understand that only faith would get him through.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Solanda cocked her head. The voice mewed again. She sat on the side of the road and washed her face with her right paw. The sound didn’t come from the forest; she heard the voice inside her head. She sighed. Shape-Shifters often had spillover magick from the other disciplines, but she had never experienced it before.

  The trees seemed impossibly tall. The sunlight filtering through them had a sparkly quality. Birds chirped behind her, but the birds near her were silent. She didn’t mind. She hadn’t been hunting. She had been heading to the Shadowlands.

  The voice had been bothering her since she’d left Jahn. At first she thought she was being followed. Then she realized that the voice was saying nothing, just making small whimpering sounds. Panicked sounds. It called to her, warning her that she was missing something important.

  She dug her paw into the corner of her eye and rubbed hard, getting the dirt out. She didn’t have to return to Shadowlands right away. Rugar always let her follow her own whims. He already knew about the Doppelgänger appointments; he didn’t need her for more than errands anyway. And this latest errand was done. If this voice turned out to be a simple trick on the part of the Mysteries, she would come back as quickly as she could.

  Better to get this voice out of her head.

  She stood up and looked both ways before she continued down the path.

  The way to the Shadowlands was along the river. But the voice urged her to go north, away from the river into the forest. The path had originally been an Isla
nder travel route, rarely used now because of the Fey’s stronghold there. Few Islanders had lived in these parts in the first place, and most were gone by the time the Fey had arrived.

  The farther north she went, the more the path narrowed with disuse, although footprints were carved into the dirt—probably formed with the mud that had been so thick from the rains. She passed a small wooden building—not a cabin, but something that she would have thought a lookout station if the Islanders had been military people. The wood was worn and weathered, and the roof was falling off. Obviously it hadn’t been used since the Fey had arrived. She wondered what it was originally for. The path forked there, and she was about to follow the better-traveled portion when she glanced at the other fork. No. She needed to see what had been abandoned first.