Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  “I have every right,” Nicholas said. “They need this alliance more than we do at the moment. But when they killed the Rocaan, they almost destroyed the Tabernacle. Matthias doesn’t have the strength to lead the Rocaanists. He can’t give them the moral direction that the Rocaan did, and he can’t make enough holy water for a war on his own. I’ve talked with him. Have you?”

  His father crossed his arms. “A bit.”

  “Then you understand his dilemma. If he gives someone else the secret to holy water, they can overthrow him as Rocaan. The last thing we need in the middle of this crisis is a political crisis in the Tabernacle.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” Lord Stowe said. His cheeks were ruddy with the cold, his blue eyes pale as the sky. He actually seemed to believe what he said.

  Couldn’t he see that the loss of the Rocaan was the loss of the spiritual heart of Blue Isle? For all of his father’s complaining about Nicholas’s lack of religious training, it seemed Nicholas was the only one who understood that the death of the Rocaan was the beginning of a crisis, unless someone acted. His father had got even more indecisive since the Rocaan’s death. The news of it had paralyzed him for days.

  Nicholas brushed his forehead with the back of his hand. On the other side of the rocks, the sea boomed. “It’s worse than you both think. Forgive me, Father, for speaking plainly, but you missed another opportunity when the Rocaan died. Instead of letting everything in the Tabernacle fall into disarray, you should have gathered an army and attacked the Shadowlands. Everyone would have backed you. We might have been able to get rid of the Fey.”

  “We can still do that,” his father said.

  Nicholas shook his head. Cool water dripped down his cheeks and onto his shoulder. “No, Father. You had a window of maybe a day where the Fey were in as bad a condition as we were. After that, they expected it.”

  “I thought Scavenger—”

  “You put faith in one of their people,” Nicholas said, still unable to believe in his father’s trust.

  “You would do the same,” Lord Stowe said.

  Nicholas ignored him. “Have we heard from Scavenger? Do we know that he actually left Jahn? No. We are not skilled at intrigue. Someday we will make a bigger mistake than the Rocaan made. Someday we might lose Blue Isle for good.”

  His father glanced over his shoulder. Nicholas had been speaking too loudly. The Fey didn’t seem to notice. They, too, were arguing. Jewel—the name suited her—was speaking with force, using her hands to punctuate her thoughts.

  “And,” Nicholas said, “Jewel brought another point we rarely talk about. The Black King.”

  “I thought about the Black King,” his father said. “That’s why I haven’t allowed the Fey to leave, why we no longer have any trade at all.”

  “But you did not think beyond that,” Nicholas said. “She’s right. If we destroy them, we are asking for a greater retaliation somewhere in the future. It may not happen on your watch, Father, but it will happen on mine.”

  “So we prepare for it,” Lord Stowe said. “Holy water, and lots of it. Guards here at the mouth of the Cardidas.”

  “And what if they find a way around holy water? What if they bring other kinds of Fey with them, kinds the young Fey did not describe to you? How do you know that your friend Scavenger told the truth about any of the others? You don’t. We have nothing now. We were better off before the Rocaan died.” Nicholas was almost shouting again. He took a deep breath.

  “You want to do this,” Lord Stowe said. “You want to bed the girl. Your Highness, tell the boy such lusts pass.”

  Nicholas flushed. He couldn’t deny his lust for her. They probably saw it in each of his glances. Since the negotiations started, his dreams had been intense, and she had been in all of them, naked and beguiling.

  His father was studying him. “You believe in this, don’t you, Nicky?”

  Nicholas nodded. “I think this will work.”

  “The Fey, Scavenger, told me that the Fey won’t keep their agreements.”

  “Obviously, since he didn’t,” Nicholas said. “But how can they go back on this one, without sacrificing the Black King’s granddaughter?”

  “They’re ruthless, Nicky,” his father said softly. “They might be willing to sacrifice her for their own good.”

  Nicholas swallowed. That made no sense to him. “But it’s her idea.”

  “It appears to be her idea,” his father said.

  Nicholas hadn’t considered that. He glanced over to the table. Jewel was pounding on the table. She looked strong enough to defend herself. She couldn’t be anyone’s pawn. No one would dare treat her that way.

  “What if we don’t take her up on this, and she’s right?” Nicholas asked. “How many other creatures do they have? Can they kill Matthias too? Or you?”

  “And what if this is a ploy to get closer to us?” Lord Stowe asked.

  “Then they could have done something here, like they did with that meeting with the Rocaan.” Nicholas shook his head. “This offer is on the level. It will help all of us.”

  “It won’t return things to the way they were,” Lord Stowe said. He leaned against the rock, his face half-shrouded in mist.

  “Our lives changed forever the moment the Fey passed through the Stone Guardians,” Nicholas said. “No matter what we do, we can never go back. We have to figure out a way to live with the changes. A way that will benefit all of us.”

  “If you wed this woman,” his father said, “it will be something else that we can’t turn away from.”

  “I understand that,” Nicholas said. “I think it’s time we take a risk. I am willing to.”

  “She might kill you the moment she’s alone with you,” Lord Stowe said.

  Nicholas didn’t want to think about the magicks that she might have in store for him. He hoped she wouldn’t trick him that way, but he would have to come up with a way to protect himself. Asking for children, as he had done, might be enough. “I think she’ll work with us,” Nicholas said.

  “Perhaps we can wed her to someone else,” his father said.

  Nicholas shook his head. He didn’t want anyone else to touch her. “She’s the Black King’s granddaughter. Someday she could rule the Fey. To offer her anyone less than you or me would insult her, Father. Do you want to marry her?”

  His father started. He apparently hadn’t considered it. The look of revulsion on his face was answer enough.

  “We insist that she stay in the palace,” Nicholas said. “Then she is taking an equal risk. I could just as easily kill her the moment we are alone as she could kill me.”

  His father sighed. The sound was shaky. “If this doesn’t work, we will lose Blue Isle.”

  “If we don’t try something, we will lose Blue Isle anyway,” Nicholas said. “The question is whether we will take a chance to save her.”

  His father took Nicholas’s hand. His father’s fingers were cold. “You’re my only child, Nicky. If something happens to you—”

  “If something happens to me, you appoint a regent in case of your death, and have another child. You’re still a young enough man. It’s possible, maybe even advisable, given the fact that at the moment we’re at war.”

  The coldness of Nicholas’s tone surprised even himself. Someone had to make a decision, and this seemed to be the best one. No country had stood against the Fey. Even the ones that had fought for decades eventually fell to Fey ingenuity, Fey magick. If Nicholas played this right, he would capture a bit of Fey magick for himself. He wouldn’t be able to fight the Fey on equal terms, but his children would if they had to. And being half-Fey, they might not need to.

  His father was staring at his hands. Lord Stowe was waiting for someone to speak.

  “I will marry her,” Nicholas said. “And you will have another child, father. And we will make certain that we negotiate everything we can before the ceremony, and we will cover our backs.”

  “Nicky—” his father started
.

  Nicholas shook his head. “Do you have a better idea?” he asked. “Something that will make the Fey leave us alone forever?”

  Lord Stowe was staring at him as if he had never seen Nicholas before.

  “Look at a map, gentlemen,” Nicholas said. “To get from Galinas to Leut, you must pass Blue Isle. The Fey, in their attempt to conquer the world, will not sail past Blue Isle. At one point they will try to conquer us again. And at some point they will win. We’ve been lucky, but luck doesn’t hold forever.”

  “I don’t like this kind of risk,” his father said.

  Which was precisely why they were in this position. Nicholas took a deep breath. Maybe if his father had prepared even as the Fey were attacking the Nye, then Blue Isle would have been safe from Fey aggression. But he hadn’t, and he hadn’t fought well against the Fey, and because of all that, the Fey had a toehold on the Isle, and they killed the Isle’s heart.

  “We still have negotiations to do before we can hold any kind of ceremony,” Nicholas said. “Let’s see how much of the risk we can minimize.”

  He broke out of the huddle and headed back to the table. The Fey stopped talking among themselves as the Islanders approached. Jewel watched Nicholas, her lips parted. She was as tall as he was, and perhaps even more powerful. But he was just as smart.

  Nicholas smiled at her. “What does a Black King’s granddaughter bring to a marriage besides herself?”

  Jewel’s answering smile was warm and playful, as flirtatious as a maid in the hall. “Those terms we need to discuss.” She held out her hand and he took it, desire for her suddenly so strong, it was as if he had never felt desire before.

  Nicholas would not lose himself over a woman. He would not lose Blue Isle to his own drives. He took his hand from hers and sat between his father and Lord Stowe, directly across from her.

  “We have a lot to negotiate before we reach any sort of agreement,” Nicholas said, “including where to hold the ceremony.”

  Jewel’s glance was measuring. “I’m sure,” she said softly, “we’ll have no trouble reaching a compromise.”

  THE SACRIFICE

  (Two Months Later)

  EIGHTY-NINE

  Jewel wore green, the color of joy, which Rugar found to be an abomination. The gown had wide skirts in the L’Nacin tradition, a narrow bodice that revealed a lot of breast. For the first time Jewel looked not like his soldier daughter, but like a woman.

  Rugar braced himself at Jewel’s side, his sea legs not with him yet. The Islander’s new Rocaan—a man as tall as the Fey but with the face of a child—had insisted on holding the wedding ceremony over water since he could not use their holy poison in the joining. Jewel’s hair was down, a flowing black mass that draped to her knees.

  Rugar wore his war clothes: his black leather and tunic. He had thought of ordering the Weather Sprites to make certain that it rained, but he decided it would gain nothing, only make him seem more petty than he was. Still, the war clothes kept him alert. He had to pay attention to every detail. He had tried to convince Jewel that some Visions couldn’t be controlled, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She believed if she was in charge of this ceremony, her Vision would not come true.

  The barge was flat and undecorated. It floated in the center of Jahn Harbor, too far away from any shoreline for a successful attack by Islander or Fey. King Alexander had forbidden his people to watch from the streets, and Rugar had advised against his even coming to Jahn for fear of fights breaking out between the two groups. Still, he knew that Islanders watched from windows, and some Fey had taken over the abandoned warehouses from which Rugar had fought the initial attack. Everyone wanted to see the strange joining of a Fey and a nonmagickal being.

  Only a handful of guests were allowed on this barge. Jewel had even insisted that the barge be jointly constructed—the first project completed by Fey and Islanders. Of course, the Fey had done most of the work, with the Islanders looking on to make certain there were no magickal traps (as if they could spot them), but the plan appeared to ease everyone’s mind. For now. Jewel’s truce with the Islanders seemed like a good idea, but Rugar didn’t think it practical. The Fey might trust this arrangement for a while, but then they would get impatient, especially the seasoned soldiers. Jewel had told Rugar that it was his duty to keep the Fey in line.

  He would do his best.

  King Alexander stood to the left of his son, Lord Stowe behind him. Both were wearing formal black robes, but the Prince wore a coat with long tails, and pants tucked into his boots. His hair hung freely too—he had decided to do that after Jewel had told him that for Fey, unbound hair meant a gift happily given. Rugar stood beside Jewel. She permitted no one else to attend her.

  She also permitted no symbols of the religion to be hung on the barge. She had seen a worship sword as well as a bottle of poison in her Vision. She didn’t want them near her. If she could have prevented the Rocaanists from wearing their robes, she would have. There had been a moment of diplomatic crisis when the new Rocaan had refused to perform the ceremony, but somehow King Alexander had convinced him to do so anyway. Jewel had had to compromise on the clothes.

  The Shaman stood beside the new Rocaan. She looked even older next to his blond youth. Her hair was white and it sprung off her head like weeds. Her face was wizened, her mouth a small oval amid wrinkles. Only her eyes were bright—sparkling, black circles of light in a dying face. She had said nothing about this union. She offered no suggestions for the ceremony; indeed, she had not even seemed surprised by the whole thing.

  Jewel had used that as another example of the correctness of her position, but Rugar wasn’t so certain. He had spent all of his life thinking about Visions. The Shaman was less inclined than he was to interfere in a Vision’s course. She might have seen the moment. She might even know where it was heading. But she might not be willing to do anything to change the future. Her job was to provide sanctuary in the present.

  Rugar had been on alert for nearly two hours waiting for the ceremony to start. It would be in two parts. The Fey part would go first. The Shaman and the new Rocaan had been talking for several minutes. Finally the Shaman clapped her hands.

  “We are ready,” she said in Nye. “These children shall be watched by our Powers and your Roca. We shall appeal to the Powers first.”

  The guests became silent. The new Rocaan stood to the side. Rugar took one step back so that he could watch the man.

  The Shaman smiled at Jewel and the Prince. “Please join hands,” she said in Nye. They glanced at each other—shyly, it seemed—and then their hands entwined. Rugar let out the breath he had been holding. He remembered that moment of uncertainty from his first marriage.

  Then the Shaman waved her wand over the couple’s heads. “The Powers will watch over you,” she said in Fey. “And your children shall be a credit to you. May you add to the Magick.” Then she smiled at them. “You may join your other hands.”

  They had to face each other to do so. Rugar saw the Prince’s face clearly. His eyes were sparkling as he looked at Jewel. She had said the boy had been tender in her Vision. Maybe that part was right. Their other hands met.

  “You have completed the circle,” the Shaman said. “You shall be One, always.”

  Then she turned to the new Rocaan. He shook his head. King Alexander and Lord Stowe frowned. Apparently they didn’t understand that the Fey ceremony was done. But the Prince did. He kissed the backs of Jewel’s hands before turning to face the new Rocaan.

  “It’s yours now,” the Shaman said in Nye to the new Rocaan. He glanced at the King, who shrugged. Rugar would have smiled if he hadn’t been so intent on this part of the ceremony. The religious Islanders were tricky, and this new Rocaan had a motive for revenge. If he brought out any water at all, Rugar would run to him and knock the water away from Jewel.

  The new Rocaan was speaking in Islander. Rugar did not understand a word of it. He watched the new Rocaan’s hands move with the words. Th
e man had thin fingers, magickal fingers. Perhaps the magick for the poison came from within the soul of the Rocaan and not from without. A few Fey had such abilities—Shape-Shifters, Shamans, Visionaries.

  Then Jewel and the boy bowed their heads. The new Rocaan looked at Rugar. Rugar frowned, then remembered. He pulled the cloth Jewel had instructed him to bring from his breast pocket and placed it on her head. She had explained that it would protect her from the touch of the Rocaan, in case he had any poison residue on his fingers. Rugar was shaking. He stood so close to Jewel that he could feel the warmth of her skin.

  Then the Rocaan put his hand on the cloth and on the Prince’s bare head and spoke again. This speech seemed to go on forever. Rugar stood at attention, his gaze focused on the new Rocaan’s hands.