Rugar crouched. He couldn't be afraid of this child. The boy was his best hope for the future. "I am your grandfather, Gift, the only blood relative you have."
"Lies," the boy hissed. His composure startled Rugar more than the words. If he had shouted or thrown a tantrum like most children his age, Rugar would have been able to ignore the boy. But he couldn't. "The yellow man, he's my father. And the baby, that' s my sister."
"Where did you hear all this, Gift?" Wind asked.
"I Saw it. I Saw it all."
Niche looked over her shoulder at her husband. "I'll explain later," she said.
"Gift," Rugar said. He had to quiet the boy. He wasn't sure how. "I would never want you dead."
"I didn't say you wanted me dead. I said you didn't care," Gift said.
Rugar closed his eyes. He had heard that from too many people this week. Couldn't they see that Jewel's death had torn him apart? He had not planned for this. Blue Isle was supposed to be his triumph, not his torment.
He opened his eyes again. Gift was staring at him, his small face contorted with rage. Rugar had been wrong. If Niche let go of Gift, he would attack Rugar and beat him with his fists. "I can't leave you alone, Gift," Rugar said. "To do so would be to betray everything."
"You let her die. You knew and you let her die."
Rugar had to calm the boy. He had to get Gift back on his side. He needed the boy's Sight. "There are many things you don't understand about Visions, Gift."
"You're going to lie to me again, aren't you?" he said.
Niche was biting her lower lip. She swallowed hard. Wind was behind her, supporting her so that any sudden change in Gift's position would not send her flying back and break her fragile bones.
"Gift," Wind said quietly, "you're not an expert just because you had one Vision."
"But I told him my mother was going to die and he didn't listen! He said it would be all right."
"I didn't understand your Vision," Rugar said. "It was powerful, but you're very young."
"That's what you all say!" Gift was shouting now. "But I Saw her die. I Saw it. You can't change that. I Saw it and you did nothing. You didn't even believe me."
"I believed you." Rugar reached out his hands. "I just didn't understand."
"Her dying almost killed me."
"I know," Rugar said. "I'm sorry. Your Vision was unusual, Gift. How much more can I explain this?"
Gift's features narrowed, and then his lower lip trembled. "She loved me," he whispered.
Rugar held his breath. Niche put a hand over her heart.
"She loved me. She didn't even know I was here, and she loved me."
"You saw her?" Rugar asked.
Gift nodded. "She came to break the tie. But she thought I was going to be someone else." He raised his eyes to Rugar. "She cursed you."
Rugar worked to keep his features impassive. Jewel had given her last energy to save her son. She had known that the ties weren't broken, and she had slid along the Links to save him. Only instead of finding the golem, which she had been looking for, she found Gift.
And knew what Rugar had done.
If only he had had a chance to explain. If only he had been able to tell her that he had taken Gift for the good of the Fey.
"Rugar?" Niche asked.
He glared at her, this Wisp. Just because he had deemed her worthy of watching his grandson didn't mean she was worthy of talking to him.
The fierceness he felt must have seeped into his features. Gift backed into his mother, looking for the first time since Rugar arrived, like the child he was. "I don't get it," he said, and despite the fear he was displaying, his words held bravado.
"Get what?" Niche asked softly.
"If a person can See the future, how come he can't change it?"
The words were an attack. The boy was leaning on his adopted mother, taking her strength, and using his protected position to bait Rugar.
He wouldn't be baited. He would win the boy any way he could. "Sometimes a person can change the future," Rugar said. "if he understands."
Gift crossed his arms. "But you didn't understand?"
The difficult admition. The one that would reveal he was not all powerful. But if Gift thought him all powerful, then he would always blame him for Jewel's death.
"No," Rugar said softly. "I didn't understand. That's not unusual. Sometimes I don't understand my own Visions. No one does. They become clear when they happen."
Gift bit his trembling lip. "So what's the point of having them?"
Rugar wished he knew. He had thought he had known once, but Blue Isle had changed that. "I was told," he said, "that a man has Visions of things he cannot change so that he will believe the Visions he has of the things he can change."
"That's stupid," Gift said.
Rugar grinned in spite of himself. "I thought so too."
Gift looked at him, expression young and suddenly trusting. "You did?"
"I did," Rugar said.
Wind bent over and took Gift's hand. The boy looked at his adopted father, the moment with Rugar broken. Rugar almost admonished Wind. Almost. But to do so might mean alienating the boy again, and the boy was alienated enough.
"Come on, Gift," Wind said. "Your mother needs to talk with your grandfather alone."
Gift sighed. He glanced again at Rugar, that look of trust gone. "I'm not going to say I'm sorry for yelling," Gift said.
"Gift!" Niche said.
"It's all right." Rugar stood. "He has a right to his anger. He has been through a lot."
Even though he spoke to Niche, he made certain he looked at Gift. He wanted Gift to forget that moment when Rugar had dismissed Gift's death, when Rugar had tried to reach to a future the Shaman had shut him out of forever.
"I want to talk some more," Gift said. "You gotta tell me how to make the Visions go away."
"They don't go away," Rugar said. "But I can teach you how to use them."
"Come on," Wind said. He led Gift around Rugar and out of the cabin. As soon as the door closed, Niche crossed her arms.
Such anger around him. It was as if he were suddenly attracting it. Now, when he couldn't handle it any more.
"What happened to your wings?" he asked so that she wouldn't be able to start the conversation.
"I fell on them," she snapped. "Tending my dying son."
"You blame me for that, don't you?"
"Gift is right," she said. "You should have listened to him."
"And done what? He thought you were threatened. You were warned. There was nothing I could do." Rugar kept his hands loosely at his side. He held his place in the center of the floor like it was a battlefield he had conquered. He would not show her the depth of his own despair. She needn't know that he was already defeated enough.
"None of us were warned. I spoke to the Shaman. She says he had the Vision because he was threatened."
"If she knew that," Rugar said, "then she should have stayed."
"I spoke to her after she returned."
Niche's words hung in the air. Behind Rugar, wood snapped in the fire. He jumped, despite himself. She noted the movement and he wished he could take it back, make it go away.
"We had no way of knowing that he was threatened," Rugar finally said.
"The Shaman said that a Vision which comes young is usually of a child's death."
"The Shaman would be wise to share such knowledge with other Visionaries." Rugar couldn't keep his own temper in any longer. "Is that why you wished to talk with me alone? So that you could tell me my failings? I already know them. I lost a daughter this week and almost lost a grandson. I am very well aware of where I stand."
"I asked you to talk with me alone because I am concerned about Gift," Niche said. Her haggard features told him that more eloquently than she ever could. She and Wind must not have slept at all since Gift's illness. "He is too young for these Visions. He is too young to be saddled with the burdens you're placing on him."
"I have placed
no burdens on him. I can't control his Visions."
"But you brought on the first," Niche said.
Rugar raised his eyebrows. "Did the Shaman tell you that too?"
Niche shook her head. "I saw it. I was here, remember?"
"If Visions were that easy, Visionaries would be infallible." Rugar sighed. If only he could have a Vision whenever he wanted one. "He touched me. That triggered the first Vision. And he was so young he didn't understand half of what he Saw, and he communicated it even more poorly. If I had known, truly known, what he Saw, then I might have been able to help Jewel."
"But not Gift."
Rugar shook his head. "None of us knew of the boy's link to Jewel. Not even the Shaman. Had she known, she might have stayed here to care for the boy. She was doing her best to save Jewel."
"You should know," Niche said. "You're the Leader of this pitiful troop. You should know about Links and you should See what will happen next. You didn't even warn me that Gift might die. I could have used warning."
"I didn't know," Rugar said. "I can't know everything."
"You should know," Niche said. "My son is alive because of luck, nothing more."
"Your son?" Rugar glared at her. "Your son? My grandson, woman. You care for him because of my good graces. Not because of any blood tie."
"My son," Niche said. "And you're right. I care for him. You do not. You took the Shaman, the Domestics and the Healers with you that day. If Coulter hadn't been here, Gift would have died. Wind and I certainly weren't able to help him."
"Coulter?" Rugar put out a hand to steady himself. The anger that had held him dissapated with the shock of the name. Burden's words came back to him. Have you ever wondered what really saved him? The Shaman thought your grandson died.
Died.
Rugar sank onto a cushion and sat there for a moment, his heart pounding hard. "Coulter?" he asked again. "The Islander child? The one Solanda stole?"
Niche nodded.
"What could an Islander do?"
"He wrapped him in strings of light."
A chill ran through Rugar. "You were here? You saw it?"
Niche was standing over him. She smelled of a fresh breeze blowing off the ocean. "I saw it all," she said.
"Was there a Vision? In the light? Did you see something other than light?"
She frowned, as if she hadn't expected him to ask that question. "I saw both boys as men standing on the Cardidas river."
Rugar closed his eyes. The contents of his stomach churned. He wondered if Burden knew of this or if Burden would have known what to make of it if he heard.
The Islanders don't have magic, Rugar had said when Solanda told him of the child.
This one does, she had replied.
This one does.
She had known. She had known from the beginning. Which was why she took him and brought him here.
We can't use the powers of a baby to fight a war, Rugar had said.
Not yet, she had replied.
Rugar swallowed, and opened his eyes. Niche was watching him, her features furrowed in concern.
"Are you sure that Gift didn't do this himself?" Rugar asked.
Niche nodded. "He was screaming, his eyes rolled in the back of his head, and …" her voice faltered a bit "… and it smelled like burning, like someone had poured that poison on him. He couldn't have done anything."
"Are you certain?" Rugar said. "The boy has powerful magic."
"Coulter came in," Niche said. "When I wouldn't move, he pushed me aside. That's how my wings broke. I was watching. The light came from him, and cradled Gift. He saved Gift. He did. I saw it."
Rugar shook his head. "It's not possible."
"It happened."
"But the boy is Islander."
Niche shrugged. "Gift is part Islander, and you say he's powerful."
"But that always happens when Fey breed with outsiders. The magic runs truer." Rugar looked away from her. The fire was burning high and bright, the flames orange with a blue center. The wood glowed.
An Enchanter. Only Enchanters could do that sort of spell. Shamans had all sorts of talents, from healing to Visions, but they could not do light or fire spells.
Enchanters could do everything.
"What does Gift think of this?" Rugar asked.
"He asked for Coulter when he woke, and Coulter came to the door. They seem closer now."
They would. They were bound. Gift wouldn't be free until Coulter let him go.
An Enchanter.
An Islander Enchanter.
This made everything different.
"Do you know where the boy lives?"
"Coulter?" Niche asked. "I thought the Domestics cared for him."
"I need to find him and discover what he's done." Rugar stood. He started for the door, then felt Niche's light hand on his arm. Her expression was fierce.
"Coulter saved Gift's life. Don't do anything to reverse that."
Rugar put his hand on hers. She flinched at his touch. "Believe me, woman," he said, "I would never harm my grandson."
"You have before."
He gripped her hand just tight enough to threaten her hollow bones. "Gift belongs to me. I can take him any time I want."
She nodded. "He may be your blood, but he loves me."
"Love is worth a bucket of piss in the end."
"A bucket of piss is worth a fortune in a drought."
He had no answer for that. One of the reasons he had chosen her to raise Gift was the fierceness she showed now. He had thought it would protect the boy.
Maybe it had.
"I will not harm Gift," Rugar repeated.
"Perhaps not intentionally since he is all you have now," she said. "But if he needs those cords to survive, and you cut them, you will hear from me --and from all the others. Coulter said that Gift lives because Coulter lives. Remember that. Don't harm my son."
"Have a little faith," Rugar said.
She pulled her hand from beneath his. "Even a little faith is difficult given your record," she said.
THIRTY-TWO
The Warders stared at each other across the long table. From Touched's point of view at the foot of the table, their bald heads looked identical, their long robes costumes they put on when they became Warders. Due to his youth and inexperience — in six years as a Warder, he had yet to develop a working spell — he sat nearest the fire. Sweat ran down his forehead and dripped off his chin onto his cowl.
Rotin was supposed to lead the group, but more and more often, she ground her herbs, placed them on her tongue and lost herself to the ecstasy. Warders were forbidden any sexual contact and the herbs mimicked the experience. When Touched first became a Warder, Rotin did her herbs in private. Now she did them whenever she felt like it, and she didn't care who watched her round face go red and her eyes glaze.
The remaining Warders, the dregs of the Warding group, would wait until her spasms were done, then continued as if nothing happened.
More often than not, nothing would happen.
Four years before, a Red Cap had murdered Caseo, the most talented Warder who had come to Blue Isle. No one knew who the Red Cap was, only that Caseo had challenged him. Red Caps had no magic, and Caseo believed that the Islanders' poison would not work on someone who lacked magic. He demanded that the Cap take part in the experiments. The Cap had fled. When he returned later, he murdered Caseo.
Red Caps were unimportant Fey. They tended the dead during and after battles, and no one paid attention to them. The Warders knew that the Cap who had killed Caseo was named Scavenger, but they didn't know any more about him. He looked like any other Cap, short, squat and ugly. Magickless. A search of the forest never revealed him. He got away after the murder, and no one really cared.
Except Touched. Touched was startled to discover he missed Caseo. They had been at odds when Caseo was alive, but at least Caseo had led the Warders. Rotin did not.
They still worked in the same cabin, and still had a few vials o
f poison to experiment with, but they had ceased using the poison in the experiments two years before. They never took the skin and blood from the last battles out any more either. And Rotin only called group meetings once a week. Most of the Warders had gone their own way, trading tiny spells with the Domestics in exchange for extra food or a private cabin.
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