Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  And if you fail, what then? If she dies, what will we do? Her brothers are too young, and at their births the Shaman did not predict great things. Jewel will be great—the best Black Queen of all. If you allow her the opportunity to become Queen.

  Rugar had taken a step toward his father. I saw a Vision of Jewel happy on Blue Isle. Have you had any Visions about this trip?

  His father had not replied.

  Have you?

  A man does not need Visions to know you’re making a mistake, the Black King had said. We need a rest. We’re no longer ready to fight.

  So you have seen nothing, Rugar had said. Nothing at all.

  Rugar took a deep breath. Rain dripped off his nose onto his lips. The water was cool and tasted fresh. Rugar had had the Vision; his father had not. Rulers followed Vision, even if it was someone else’s. Rugar had reminded his father of that, even though it had done no good.

  He still made this trip without his father’s permission.

  But permission didn’t matter. Rugar had seen Jewel walking the halls of the palace. He knew the history of the Isle. He would fight the easiest battle in the history of his people.

  The Fey would own Blue Isle within a day. The Islanders wouldn’t even know they had been invaded until it was too late.

  FOUR

  An unexpected gust of wind blew aside the red-and-gold tapestry of the Peasant Uprising, which his mother the Queen, God rest her soul, had stitched in the second year of her marriage. Rain splattered against the flagstone, and the fire in the hearth flared. The room was small, having once served as a bodyguard’s bedchamber, and the dampness added a chill. Alexander shivered in the unnatural cold. He reached over the arm of his chair and gave the faded bell-pull a harsh yank.

  The rain was making him cranky. He had overslept that morning, spent the afternoon reading and signing long-winded hand-copied state papers, and eaten his evening meal alone. Now, during his private time, he still had to focus on business. Not even a King turned away an Elder of the Tabernacle. Already Matthias had overstayed his welcome, and he hadn’t yet mentioned the reason that he had come to Alexander’s suite on this unseasonably gloomy night.

  Matthias’s blond curls hung in ringlets around his shoulders, and his mustache was damp from steam from his mulled wine. He still wore his vestments for Midnight Sacrament, the long black robe with the bright red sash and the small filigree sword on a chain around his neck. He had removed his biretta and set it on the carved wooden table beside him. The curls on the top of his head had been crushed flat by the weight of the cap.

  “Highness,” he said with a smile, “you realize you are waking some poor sod from a sound slumber.”

  “I don’t care.” Alexander stood and ladled more wine from the small jug hanging over the fire. Near the flames, the flagstones were hot against his leather slippers. “They should have tacked those tapestries well in the first place.”

  Matthias set his brown mug down and smoothed his robe. “This weather has us all upset, Sire, but that does not mean we must abuse the servants.”

  Or engage in small talk. But Alexander said nothing. He had long ago learned that if he suffered Matthias in silence, Matthias would figure out that Alexander no longer wanted company.

  Alexander hung the ladle in its place beside the hearth. Then he returned to his chair, careful to hold his mug tightly lest it spill. “I do not abuse the servants,” Alexander said. “If anything, I treat them too kindly. They run the palace when I should. Unlike the Tabernacle. The Auds go barefoot. Don’t accuse me of abusing my servants.”

  “Auds aren’t servants, Sire. By the time they get shoes, they’ve learned to appreciate them.” Matthias stuck out his sandaled feet, still scarred from his years without shoes. “Believe me, they appreciate all the comforts they get.”

  Alexander sighed. As boys, he and Matthias had been educated together. But Matthias, a second son, was destined to go into the Church. Alexander, an only child, was meant to rule Blue Isle from the moment he was born. Matthias always found a way to remind Alexander of their difference.

  “Servants can be disturbed to see to my comfort on a rainy night,” Alexander said a bit too harshly.

  “Of course they can.” Matthias smiled. “But you might want to note that the loose tapestry is the one that depicts the revolt that left your great-grandfather a cripple.”

  Alexander laughed. Some of the tension flowed from him. The rain was making him melancholy. It reminded him of last winter when his second wife had died, the victim of a spirit that had entered on a chill breeze and had lodged in her lungs.

  Alexander missed her more than he cared to admit, even though she had been frail and silent through most of their union. Evenings she sat across from him and allowed him to muse while her needle whispered through cloth. Her tapestries were never as lovely as his mother’s, but the subjects were always happier.

  Alexander took a sip of the wine. Its spices were heavy, and its warmth muted the alcoholic bite. He preferred mead, its honeyed flavor more to his taste. This night, though, he bowed to his guest’s wishes. Matthias couldn’t get mulled wine in the Tabernacle.

  “Much more of this rain and the crops will rot at the root,” Matthias said.

  Alexander sighed deeply into his mug. Matthias was neither taking the hint nor getting to the point. Alexander didn’t want to run this visit like a meeting of the Council of Lords, but he would if Matthias looked as if he was staying much longer. “It has been raining for only two days,” Alexander said.

  “But there is water standing in the fields.” Matthias leaned back in the chair, his slender form almost buried in the cushions. “I spoke with an Aud this morning who is riding across the Isle on a pilgrimage, and he says every field he passed since Killeny’s Bridge looks like a lake.”

  “Do Auds know what lakes look like?”

  “My, you are in a mood.” Matthias sipped his wine loudly, and the sound echoed in the room.

  Alexander shook his head. “No. I would merely like to relax.”

  Matthias peered at him over his mug of wine, his blue eyes glinting with humor. “You are being polite this evening? You could have told me that you didn’t want visitors. I would have ridden back to the Tabernacle.”

  “All that way in the rain. I figured I owed you at least one warm drink.”

  “I am almost through with it.” Matthias took another loud sip. He still wasn’t getting to the point. The topic, then, had to be one he was reluctant to discuss.

  “So,” Alexander said, deciding to force Matthias to leave. “You did not abandon your warm room on a night like this to discuss crops with me. Tell me about Nicholas. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  Matthias nodded and cupped his mug between his hands. “Your son, Sire, has the heart of a warrior. He arrives to class each day with cuts and scars on his fingers. He relishes every wound and would waste the Danites’ time describing each if I didn’t stop by each morning and cut the conversation short.”

  Another gust of wind blew in, rattling the tapestry. Where was the damned servant anyway? Alexander would have to make sure the downstairs staff was reprimanded in the morning. “I know that Nicholas enjoys the new physical program. But I want to know if allowing him to fight has improved his study habits.”

  Matthias sighed. “He does study, Sire, but he argues too much. He claims that religion has no bearing on his future as King.”

  Faith had no bearing on his future as King. Alexander grabbed his mug, feeling the warmth of the clay against his fingers. He didn’t quite know how to explain the study of religion to his son. Without the Rocaanists, Alexander’s rule would be twice as hard. Often Alexander and the Council of Lords decided an issue, but the Rocaanists spread the word and enforced the King’s bidding through prayer and suggestion of the Church. Nicholas would be an ineffective King if he did not learn the subtleties of the relationship between Church and State.

  “I will speak to him,” Alexander s
aid.

  The door to the chamber opened, and a servant, his gray hair sleep tousled and a tattered brown robe hastily drawn over his breeches, stepped inside and bowed. His feet were bare and red with cold. “‘Tis sorry I am, Highness, for me tardiness. The rain has started a flood in the kitchen, and it threatens the hearth fire.”

  The hearth fire never went out. It was used all night for baking and cooking delicate sauces. It also fed the other fires in the palace.

  Alexander nodded. “We have a potential flood of our own. The tapestries need to be nailed more tightly to the windows. The Peasant Uprising is loose and has been dousing us for most of the evening.”

  “Forgive me, Sire,” the servant said, bowing again. “I’ll tend to it right away, I will.”

  He stepped back out the door. Matthias grabbed his biretta and positioned it over the crown of his head. “I think I’d better go, Sire.”

  Alexander felt a slight, perverse twinge. Much as he wanted to be alone, the fact that he would finally get his wish made him feel lonely. “I’ll speak to Nicholas tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Matthias said. He stood, and his slenderness unfolded into uncommon height. Matthias’s family had always leaned toward tallness, but Matthias himself would have been considered demon-spawned if he had not shown faith so early. “And I’ll let you know if there is a change in his behavior.”

  The servant entered, carrying a hammer and some wooden nails. Matthias caught the door before it closed and nodded his head slightly, the closest thing he did to a bow. Then he disappeared down the hall. Alexander watched him go. In a way, Nicholas was lucky that Matthias supervised his study. None of the other Elders would have approached Alexander about his son’s laxness. A few of the others would have deemed it unimportant, and a few would have used the opportunity, once Nicholas became King, to seize the extra power for themselves. Matthias cared less about power than about preserving the status quo.

  The servant pulled aside the loose tapestry, sending more chill air into the room. Alexander stood and wandered next to the fire. He didn’t want to catch a chill as his wife had, and if he was going to catch one, it would be now. These rains were unnatural. The summer was usually dotted with rainstorms, but not the constant downpour that the entire Isle was suffering.

  “‘Tis rotted the wood is, Sire. Whole hunks are breaking away in the wet.”

  “Then repair it,” Alexander said. He didn’t care that the silly wood frames his mother had installed to hold the tapestries were rotting any more than he cared that the hearth fire was threatened by a small flood. Something nagged him about this weather. Something more important than small domestic disasters. Something he didn’t dare name aloud for fear of inviting the suspicion of the entire Kingdom.

  The weather felt unnatural. In all of his thirty-five years, he had never seen the summer sun blotted for days by rain. He wished he could send a man off to Nye to consult with the Seers there, but the Fey had captured Nye in their last campaign across the Galinas continent over a year ago.

  The Rocaanists did not believe in second sight, unless it was prophetic vision sanctioned by their God. And there had not been any Rocaanist prophets for nearly five hundred years. Once he had complained of this to Matthias, and Matthias had told him to listen to the still, small voice within.

  But the still, small voice within had told Alexander that Kings were not meant to rule alone. He wished he had had enough sense two years earlier to smuggle a Seer back from Nye, so that now he could speak with someone about this fear in his belly, this feeling that the rains were only the beginning of something deeper, something darker, than anything he had ever faced before.

  FIVE

  The cabin was close and smelled of damp. The tick mattress felt clammy, and the indentation Jewel’s body had left when she’d risen in the darkness was still there. She hadn’t slept well. She never slept well before a battle. She always imagined herself in the middle of a melee, the smell of blood and fear around her, the ring of swords nearly deafening.

  Her father had been right. The Fey lived for battle. Jewel could not keep still for all the excitement running through her.

  She had lit her lantern and hung it from the ceiling, where it swayed back and forth with the rhythm of the ship. The light’s constant movement made it seem as if the walls themselves were moving. Sometimes she could have sworn they had. In the month since the ship had set sail from Nye, she had grown, and now as she sat on the edge of the bed, her knees brushed the rough-hewn wall. She had to bend as she walked into the cabin, and part of her wished to be sleeping below, with the rest of the Infantry, for she could stand upright in the middle of the hold.

  But she wouldn’t have to wish much longer. By daybreak she would be walking on land again, and she didn’t know if she would be sleeping on the cold ground or in her bunk come nightfall. This time she would camp with the Infantry. Her little brothers remained in Nye under her grandfather’s care, so she did not have to return to her father’s quarters each evening. For the first time she would be a full member of the troop she had been assigned to.

  The first time and the last time. When her father learned of her Visions, he would pull her out of the Infantry and he would keep her by his side. She was almost disappointed that she could See. She had been hoping for more battle-worthy skills. Visionaries were leaders, and too valuable to be in the thick of fighting. She had always known that her talents lay in the direction of leadership, but she had hoped she would get fighting skills, like those of a Foot Soldier or even a Spy.

  She grabbed her long black hair and swung it over her right shoulder. Then she braided it, quickly and nimbly, wrapped it around her skull, and covered it with an oversize beret. She slipped into breeches, boots, and a leather jerkin. Over that she placed a woolen cape, knitted by one of the Fey’s most renowned weavers. The magic woven into the strands repelled liquids, including blood.

  She could stay on her bed and wait until the ship made its way through the Stone Guardians. She knew they had been sighted that afternoon. But she would go crazy if she didn’t move. Besides, she wanted to be awake to get her first glimpse of Blue Isle, the site of her last campaign.

  Then she took the lantern down, opened the glass, and blew out the flame. The darkness was soothing. She set the lantern in its customary position beside the door and let herself out of the cabin.

  The deck was slick with rain and sea foam from the unruly waters. She grabbed the wet wooden railing and used it to help her keep her footing. The air was cold and her chill deepened. As she passed the Spell Warder’s cabin, she noted light and peered through the portals. They held a Nyeian navigator in thrall. Five of the Warders had circled the Nyeian and were chanting in front of him. They had deepened his trance. His knowledge was critical for this part of their journey. They would not get through the Stone Guardians without the Nyeian’s knowledge.

  She took the stairs leading up to the prow, where she had last seen her father. He would be planning now and would have no time for her. Still, she wanted to be beside him. She wanted to watch him on his way to his first triumph.

  On Nye she had seen the point of the Black King’s arguments against fighting. But since the fleet had left, she had come to believe her father more, even though she had not discussed the attack with him. She was a young soldier, having fought only through the last years of the Nye campaign, and she still missed the fighting. She could only imagine how the career soldiers felt. Most of the Fey fought the wars. The Domestics, while necessary, were never valued. Anyone who lacked fighting skills lacked the heart of a true Fey.

  Her grandfather was proposing years, maybe even a generation, without a true battle. The Fey would lose their identities, become as soft and cowardly as the Nye. Her father was right; such a thing should never happen.

  When she reached the prow of the ship, she found her father surrounded by some of his lieutenants. The rain was still falling steadily, and she could make out only a few faces in the gloom. Oswel
, head of the Foot Soldiers, stood hatless near the railing, his long, slender features bent in a grimace. Caseo, leader of the Spell Warders, was speaking, his cowl down and his hands raised toward the heavens. Her father had his back to her, his head shaking slowly from side to side as he listened.

  Jewel approached, walking carefully on the wet deck. She slipped beside her father and put her arm around him. She wasn’t supposed to hear the highest-level negotiations: she was a soldier of the lowest rank, a member of the magickless Infantry, often used as advance troops to shock the unwary. But since she was the Black King’s granddaughter, no one dared order her away.

  Her father’s woolen coat was dry, but his hair was plastered against his face. On this trip she had reached his height and had only to look across to him. His lips were chapped, his nose red with cold. Only his eyes were unchanged—black and shiny, their almond shape more appropriate to his hawklike features than to the softer Fey faces. He was of medium height for a Fey—Caseo was taller—but her father seemed to tower over all of them.

  He acknowledged her by placing his arm around her waist.

  Caseo frowned at her, then glanced at Rugar as if telling him to make her leave. Rugar pulled her closer, his gesture clear. Warders might think they were the most important Fey, but they would get nowhere without the Visionaries. Even Warders were subject to the Black King’s family.

  The Weather Sprite, Hanouk, was speaking. “We cannot time things exactly, Rugar.” The only protection she wore against the rain was a thin chemise. Her ribs and collarbone were visible through her skin, her neck and face so tortured by the elements that she appeared four times older than she was. “You must choose to end the rain early or wait for it to end after we land.”

  Caseo sighed, the sound barely audible above the thud of the rain. “We can barely see to navigate as it is. Our Nyeian thrall is terrified. Before we placed him under, he swore he could not get us through the Guardians without a current map.”