"She doesn't hate you," Nicholas said. "She's confused right now."
Sebastian took a deep breath. " … Do … you … hate … me … ?"
That was the question, then, wasn't it? Nicholas rested his head on Sebastian's shoulder. He couldn't imagine his life without this boy. Not now. Not after so many years.
"I love you, son," he said. "I've loved you since you were a little boy, and I always will."
Sebastian shuddered. Then he raised his head. He was taller than Nicholas. Nicholas wondered if his own son, his blood son, was as tall. " … Do … I … have … to … leave … , then?"
"Who said you had to leave?"
" … Gift … "
"He seemed to have a different agenda than the rest of us. You're my son, Sebastian. You'll stay."
" … Ari? … "
"Arianna will forgive you when she realizes that this isn't your fault. She's young, Sebastian. She thinks she knows a lot, but she doesn't." And that was Nicholas's fault. He had protected her, coddled her, thinking he was giving her strength. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he had been making things harder for her.
He patted Sebastian's cheek, and pulled out of the hug. Solanda had opened her eyes slightly. Cat's eyes, alien, untrustworthy.
Cold.
He could be cold too. "What did you do to my daughter this afternoon?"
"Nothing," Solanda said. Her voice was flat.
"How did she get those marks?"
"She was going to attack Gift. She was going for his eyes. I was in my cat form. I stopped her the only way I knew how."
"She's hurt."
"Superficially. I was careful not to do any damage."
"Why did you protect the boy? He was trespassing."
Solanda sighed. "Are all you Islanders so obtuse?" She shoved herself away from the fireplace.
Nicholas grabbed her arm so tightly he knew he would leave marks. He hadn't realized how angry he was until now. "You're not going anywhere. You're going to tell me exactly what's going on. You injured my daughter."
"To save your son."
"If he is my son."
"Oh, he's yours, all right," Solanda said. She shook her arm as if she were trying to free it. Nicholas tightened his grip. "You're hurting me," she said.
"I'll hurt you worse if you're not careful."
"Ooo," she said. "Threats from the great King."
"Solanda," he cautioned.
"All right." She turned her head toward his. Her eyes had slits in them, like cat's eyes did. Arianna never had those slits. Maybe that had been a clue to her abilities. "The Shaman explained what happened when the Black Blood warred on itself. I'm sure Jewel told you too."
"Arianna didn't know."
"It doesn't matter."
"And she wasn't trying to kill him."
Solanda shook her head. "She was going to peck out his eyes. Do you think it would have stopped there?"
"My daughter wouldn't kill."
"Your daughter is Fey. She'll do whatever's necessary." She shook her arm free. "Gift is your son, by blood at least. And, surprisingly, so is the lump in his own way. He's got Gift inside him, and that makes him — real enough, I guess." She looked at both of them, then rubbed her arm, more for show, it seemed, than anything else. "Tell Arianna that I'm leaving. She obviously doesn't need me any more. And neither do you. You have enough servants."
Nicholas ignored the jibe. He wasn't going to apologize. He was too angry. "What about that Vision? The one in which Sebastian dies?"
"What of it?" Solanda asked. "We all die."
"Solanda," he said.
She straightened, frowned at him, then sighed. "A Vision is personal. It's up to Gift to decipher its meaning. Gift and Sebastian look alike. He might have seen his own death and decided to substitute Sebastian."
" … No … "
She shrugged. "Or maybe not. It'll work itself out. Visions always do." Then she swiveled and shook her hands, like a cat did when it was disgusted.
"Solanda," Nicholas said softly. "You're not really leaving, are you?"
She stopped but didn't turn. "I told you I would stay until Arianna no longer needed me. It seems she hasn't needed me for some time."
"She's still young. She needs you."
Solanda shook her head. "It seems I get in her way. It seems that she can't abide my attitudes or my prejudices. Or my person." She took a deep breath. "I've done my good deed for this lifetime. I'm finally free of this place."
And then she walked out of the room.
Nicholas watched her go. He should have gone after her. He had so many questions, so much to consider. But he couldn't. She had betrayed them all by not telling him about Gift.
He didn't trust himself around her any more. He didn't know what he would do the next time she made him truly angry.
A shuddery, grating sob sounded behind him. Nicholas turned. Sebastian's face was covered with tears.
"Every-thing's … wrong," Sebastian said.
Nicholas took his son's hand. "Not everything," he said.
"Gift … is … gone … So-lan-da … is … gone. … Ari … hates … me." The boy shuddered. "And … I … am … not … your … son."
"You are my son," Nicholas said. "In every way that counts."
In every way except one. The lineage of the Kingship had been unbroken from the days of the Roca. The King had to be a first-born son. Of the Roca's line.
Sebastian was not.
And the Coming of Age ceremony was that night.
Nicholas closed his eyes and wondered if he had the strength to put Sebastian on the throne.
Or the strength not to.
SIXTEEN
Matthias stood on the banks of the river. The sun had set, and the air near the water was deliciously cool. Mosquitoes flourished, buzzing around him, but he merely wiped them away with one hand.
He hadn't been here in years, and never had he stood on this side of the Cardidas. He used to sit on the other side, the Tabernacle side, staring at the palace and the city surrounding it.
It had been the only place where he felt at peace.
He had found other places since. There were sites on the Cliffs of Blood that made him feel an almost religious calm, something the Tabernacle had never been able to do for him.
He took off his coat, and set it down carefully so as not to break the bottle of holy water in the side pocket. He never went anywhere without holy water. It was as much a comfort to him as it was a protection. He sat in the grass and straightened his legs before him, not caring that his pants got soiled. He pulled off his boots and stuck his bare feet in the river water, letting its coldness run through him.
Across the great bridge, past the small lights of the insignificant city dwellers, the Tabernacle rose like a beacon. Its white walls, kept that way by diligent Auds, glowed in the darkness. The tapestries over the windows were closed, but inside, the candles burned brightly. He remembered summer evenings like this. The Tabernacle was always too hot, but tradition had said that the breezes of the night brought danger.
Tradition. The Tabernacle lived by tradition. It would eventually die by it.
He leaned back. A small group of gnats swarmed his face. He moved over a few inches, and the gnats remained in their place, still swarming. In the darkness, the swords painted on the side of the Tabernacle looked liked dirt stains. Some shadows moved across the tapestries. Titus and his minions. The boy who became Rocaan by default. Not a position Matthias would want to have.
Not a position Matthias kept.
Sometimes it amazed him, the power he gave up when he left his post as Rocaan. He hadn't realized how great the power was until it became clear no one would pursue him. No one would come after him for murdering a prisoner in his cell. Not because the prisoner had been Fey, but because the killer had been an important religious leader.
The important religious leader.
He could have used the power. He could have made changes in the entire country, changes
Nicholas wouldn't have been able to object to, changes Titus had been too young to make. But Matthias hadn't been prepared to do so. He had many flaws, but he wasn't a hypocrite. And he truly thought that the man who led the Rocaanists had to believe in the religion's teachings.
He had never believed.
He never would.
Although he did miss it sometimes, the comfort of routine, the consolation of ritual. It had a rhythm that his life now lacked.
But he no longer had to apologize for using his mind. And he was now followed because of his own teachings, not because of someone else's.
Yeon had already found two smiths to work on the sword. He promised more by the end of the week.
And the banquet was set for the next evening.
Matthias had high hopes for both.
His followers didn't care what happened, as long as they would be able to go about their business. And they would, soon enough.
The mosquito was back, buzzing his left ear. He brought up his hand and caught the mosquito, then crushed it, and wiped the remains in the grass.
His feet felt like ice. His body had grown cooler. After the day in the smithy, he had thought he would die of the heat. He didn't know how most smiths stood it, being near that furnace all the time. Once he had his sword, he would never go back into that heat again.
His sword. The second of the Secrets. Poor Titus, guarding a hoard of information rendered useless by the very things that ensured its passage from one generation to another. Matthias would change that. The Fiftieth Rocaan had been right. The Fey were the Soldiers of the Enemy. Only the Roca had left dozens of ways to fight them. The Islanders had given up after using only one.
The Islanders hadn't really given up. They had been stunned by the loss of the Fiftieth Rocaan, but they would have rallied. Nicholas had given up. Nicholas and his father. They had sold the Isle to the Enemy without even realizing it.
The Soldiers of the Enemy had been chased off Blue Isle once before.
They would leave again.
Then voices traveled across the water. Matthias looked up. He hadn't seen anyone when he had come through the bushes, and he had been looking. Sometimes he knew that some of the unfortunates slept on this side of the river. A few got up before dawn and fished. But since the Fey invaded, the river was mostly quiet. The great sea-going trading vessels were gone. The harbor and its warehouses were empty buildings, left to decay. Most of the piers were half-rotted hunks still sitting in the river. Only a few still survived, and those were used for private vessels, the play barges of the remaining rich.
Matthias drew his knees up to his chest. He dried off his feet with his socks. His toes were like ice.
As he slipped on his boots, he heard the voices again. They were soft, but one of them had a bite.
And they were speaking Fey.
He froze. The Fey didn't come inside Jahn any more. They had their own places outside of the city, at least those who no longer lived in Shadowlands. The rest remained in that invisible place, hiding, unable to show their faces because their invasion had failed.
The voices were coming from the bridge. Slowly he turned his head, careful not to make any sudden moves. If he moved quickly, they might see him. And there was no telling what Fey would do with an unarmed Islander, even in the middle of Jahn.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust after the brightness of the Tabernacle. The darkness facing east was immense. Only the lights of the city broke it. The bridge seemed especially dark. After nightfall, the traffic on it was almost non-existent.
Then he picked out several shapes on the bridge itself. Three Fey, talking as they crossed, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. His mouth was dry. Perhaps they were Nicholas's children and their Fey guardian.
But that didn't seem right. Nicholas had planned the coming of age ceremony for this day. His children wouldn't be on the bridge at this hour. Any royal ceremony, even an invented one, took time.
Perhaps these Fey were attending it. But they were going to the Tabernacle side of the river, away from the palace.
And they sounded young. At least the main speaker did. Too young to have any ties to Nicholas.
Besides the obvious one.
Matthias finished slipping on his boots. It was clear the three Fey didn't see him. They would leave him be. And he would leave them alone too.
For now.
He wasn't ready to face them.
But he would have words with his own people. He had been told that the Fey rarely came to Jahn. When the Fey did come to Jahn, they worked hard at fitting in. They spoke Islander. They dressed inconspicuously. And they always had something to trade.
He had also been told that they never went on the Tabernacle side of the river.
Someone had lied to him. Or perhaps his people weren't as well informed as he thought they were.
These Fey were up to something. They had plans. And whatever the plans were, they couldn't be good.
Matthias clenched his fists. The last time he had watched the Fey from the side of the river, he had been an Elder. He had watched them take their wounded into a Shadowlands. And he had done nothing.
He would do nothing no longer.
He touched the bottle of holy water.
Those Fey would tell him what they were about.
Or they would die trying.
SEVENTEEN
Adrian stood outside the kitchen door, sweat trickling down his back. He had put off the baking as long as he could, but they were out of bread and breakfast rolls. He had spent most of the morning in the kitchen, and somehow, despite his best planning, morning had become afternoon. By then he was so hot, it no longer mattered, so he threw together some stew. The boys would appreciate solid food for dinner. He might even be able to get Scavenger to come up from his plot of land to the south.
Or, at least, that had been the plan.
But he had gotten as far as the kitchen door. He was going to call Luke and Coulter in from the fields, and send one of them down to Scavenger.
But the sight of Coulter made Adrian hesitate.
Coulter sat at the edge of the tall rows of corn. His legs were crossed, his hands resting on his knees, and his head was upturned. He was staring at the night sky.
A shiver ran down Adrian's back. Coulter had done that for nearly a week. When Adrian questioned him about it, Coulter had said simply that he was feeling the sky.
Adrian didn't understand. But then Adrian never understood Coulter. He just loved the boy, and felt Coulter was his responsibility.
They had met in Shadowlands, both prisoners of the Fey. Coulter had been brought in as a baby, and ignored until, as a young boy, he saved their Prince's life. Then they had experimented on Coulter to see why he, a true Islander, had such fantastic magickal powers. They didn't have time to find any answers. Adrian managed to get the boy out of there, and with the help of Scavenger, a renegade Fey, keep Coulter out of Shadowlands for good.
No one had come after them. The Fey seemed to have forgotten them.
And Adrian liked it that way.
But raising Coulter had been one strange incident after another. During a particularly wet planting season, he had stuck his hand into the ground and pulled out root worms. Most farmers never saw root worms, didn't even realize they were eating the crops until the crops were mostly dead. But Coulter found them.
And he stopped the birds from landing in the cornfields.
And one memorable afternoon, he had prevented lightning from striking the wheat.
But he had never just sat in the field like this before. He had never studied the night sky in this way.
It made Adrian nervous.
"Dad?"
Adrian didn't turn. He didn't have to. He felt Luke's presence beside him. His son, despite their encounters with the Fey, had grown into a sturdy man. He had not married, which disturbed Adrian, but Luke said it was because he feared getting close.
And after all the Fey had put Luke thr
ough, Adrian certainly understood. They had spelled the boy, used him as a weapon, and set him loose among the Islanders. He managed to survive that, but he was afraid they had tampered with more of him. He claimed it wouldn't be fair to bring a wife and children into his life only to discover another Fey booby-trap, one that could cost his family their lives.
"What's he doing?" Adrian asked.
Luke leaned against the side of the building. The wood walls groaned under his weight. Luke studied Coulter. Over the years, they had developed an understanding. They weren't quite brothers, and they weren't quite friends. They were something in between. "He says something's changed in the Isle's energy."
"Whatever that means."
"He says it's not good."
Adrian sighed. "That's more than he told me."
"He says you worry too much."
"I worry? He's the one sitting in a field because the energy has changed." Adrian glanced at Luke. His hair was wet and slicked back against his sunburned head. He was muscular and strong, his hands powerful from the work in the fields. He would give Adrian good grandchildren if he only overcame that fear, the fear the Fey gave him of himself.
"He's usually right about these things," Luke said.
"I know." And that bothered Adrian. Coulter had never talked about a global change before. Only small ones. "I was going to send you for Scavenger. I have fresh bread and stew."
"No wonder it's so hot here. I can't believe you had a fire on a day like today."
"It's been this hot all week," Adrian said. "We need food."
Luke shrugged. "I guess it's no different than me picking rocks in the far field."
"I thought we weren't going to plant that."
"It's been a good summer," Luke said. "If we use that field, we can get a third corn crop."
"We can't sell that much food, Luke," Adrian said.
"I wasn't thinking of selling it," he said.
Adrian looked at him. "What else did Coulter tell you?"
Luke grimaced. "Nothing. It's just I've been talking to one of the Danites. He says they're not getting enough food down south."
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