Fey 02 - Changeling (71 page)

When he had control of his voice, he said, "It does us no good now."

"Perhaps," the Shaman said.
 
"Perhaps not.
 
A try is always good, Nicholas."

He shook his head, and placed his hands flat on the window sill.
 
The stone was cold against his palms.
 
It was all too new.
 
He had steeled himself for this meeting, and the Shaman had immediately seized control of his emotions.

"I have been thinking of this since I last saw you," she said.
 
"I wonder if I could have done more."

"You did all you could to save Jewel," he said.
 
His voice had a roughness to it that it didn't normally have.

"I did," she said.
 
"But I wasn't talking of that.
 
I meant on your marriage day."

That caught his attention.
 
He turned and rubbed his cold hands against his breeches.
 
"My wedding day?"

She was staring into the fire.
 
In repose, her face had a gaminish quality.
 
"I said to Rugar that Jewel made the only choice for peace.
 
I asked that he do the same."

"Rugar?" Suddenly Nicholas's hands weren't the only part of him that was chilled.

"I was too subtle.
 
I should have told him to stay away from Islanders.
 
I should have told him he would bring disaster."

"Rugar."
 
Nicholas swallowed.
 
"Rugar said he had nothing to do with my father's death."

The Shaman turned her head.
 
Her eyes absorbed the sunlight coming in the windows.
 
"Did he?"

Nicholas frowned.
 
He didn't remember the words exactly, only the impression.
 
"I thought he did —"

She smiled.
 
The wrinkles on her face deepened.
 
"Rugar is good at making people think what he wants them to think.
 
He is a master at it.
 
Did Jewel believe he was uninvolved?"

"She never said."
 
Nicholas was silent. Their last night together, they had sat in front of that fireplace, his hand on her taut stomach, Arianna kicking from the womb.
 
"At first she thought Burden did."

"But?"

"She went and spoke to him.
 
She was convinced he hadn't."

"And still she thought a Fey had killed your father."

Nicholas nodded.
 
He returned to his chair, sat, and put his hands on his knees, guarding himself but remaining as open as he could.

Rugar.
 
He had the most to benefit from giving Jewel a step closer to the throne.

"You mentioned the boy when I told you of the attack on Matthias."

The Shaman nodded.
 
"Before I tell you more of this, young Nicholas, I must tell you I believe you to be a good man who has an affinity for Fey.
 
We are a warrior people.
 
When in battle we make interesting choices."

He raised his head.
 
Something in her tone caught him.
 
She was warning him.
 
"Jewel told me that."

"Good," the Shaman said.
 
"Then you will find it easy to forgive her."

His hands tightened on his knees.
 
"Jewel?
 
What has she to do with this?"

"She made the agreement."
 
The Shaman leaned back in her chair.
 
"With Adrian and young Luke.
 
The idea was Jewel's."

"The agreement to exchange Adrian's life for Luke's?
 
She never told me that."

"There is much she never told you," the Shaman said.
 
"The Fey are warriors.
 
We share secrets on a need-to-know basis.
 
If we believe that the information will hurt us or our cause, we will not impart it. Unfortunately, that tendency becomes part of our private relationships as well."

He knew that.
 
He had learned a lot in the last few days.
 
Even that, however, did not diminish his feelings for her.
 
All he had learned made sense.
 
He had not been living with the Fey.
 
Jewel had been hoping to change her own people.
 
She had been living as an Islander, with an Islander.
 
Some of what she had known would have interfered with his response to her and her people.

"It strikes me that there is more to this agreement than the exchange," Nicholas said.

The Shaman nodded.
 
"For the agreement to work, we needed to be able to find Luke at a moment's notice.
 
That way, if Adrian escaped, we would punish his son.
 
Since we were spelling Luke, we added two other spells, one at Rugar's request."

Rugar again.
 
Nicholas's father-in-law had a lot to answer for.
 

"He asked that we place a Charm on Luke, a suggestion, that if something were to happen to any of the Fey leaders, he would get revenge.
 
The Charm was powerful.
 
It lasted for years.
 
Someone in Shadowlands triggered the Charm after Jewel died.
 
Someone seeking revenge."

"Rugar?"

The Shaman shook her head.
 
"He lacks the skill to enact a Charm without help.
 
Someone else.
 
I have speculations, but no proof."

"What was the other spell?"
 
Nicholas asked.
 
"Is Luke carrying another suggestion that will kill us in our beds?"

The Shaman shook her head.
 
"The Night Riders gave him false memories.
 
Of Jewel.
 
To keep him attached to Fey and Shadowlands."

Jewel had seen Luke and left cursing her own people, claiming she could do nothing to help him.
 
Luke, who had a strong, eerie crush on Jewel.

False memories.

Nicholas should have asked Jewel more about the Fey when he had the chance.
 
His father had tried to learn everything he could about the Fey.
  
First he had interviewed that odd little man, the spooky Red Cap who had disappeared years ago, and later his father talked with Jewel.
 
Nicholas's father had always worried that Jewel wouldn't tell him everything, that she was keeping things hidden from him.
 
He had feared that she and her father were planning something.

But she had assured Nicholas that she wouldn't do that.

It had been the last thing she had done.

And she had risked — and lost
 
— her life to prove that.

The Shaman was watching him, as if she were waiting for him to stop remembering.
 
He wondered how well she could read him.
 
It seemed that she could read him very well.

When she saw him staring at her, she said, "I cannot guarantee that Luke will stay away from your Rocaan."

"Between you and me," Nicholas said, "I wish he wouldn't."

The Shaman didn't move.
 
It was as if she were waiting for him to say more.

"Jewel worked very hard, and lost her life, to make certain that the Fey and Islanders were united," Nicholas said.
 
"Yet one of her people killed my father, and one of my people killed Jewel.
 
Both acts are enough to start the fighting again.
 
I do not want to preside over a war.
 
Both sides will lose — the Fey early on, and the Islanders later, as attrition takes the young away.
 
Jewel believed her grandfather would come eventually, and so even if the Islanders won, the Fey would take over the Isle after a few years."

The Shaman's hands were still folded.
 
She hadn't moved at all as she watched him.
 
He had only seen Sebastian be that motionless.
 
His son had more Fey than he thought as well.

"I have a proposal," Nicholas said.
 
"I will give your people the Rocaan, if you give us the person who murdered my father."

"Give?" the Shaman asked.

"Trade," Nicholas said.

"To do with as we will?"

He nodded.

She stood, her calm shattered.
 
She hadn't expected this, clearly.
 
If he hadn't seen her agitation the night Jewel died, he wouldn't have believed this now.

She walked over to the fire, crouched before it, and held her hands over the flame as if for warmth.
 
Her hair shimmered red and gold in the fire's light.

"It's an elegant solution," she said.

He frowned.
 
Something in her tone sounded sad.

"Elegant."
 
She bowed her head.
 
"But impossible."

"Impossible?" He had expected that argument.
 
"I think you can make it possible.
 
We both face difficulties here, but what are two lives compared with hundreds?
 
I will give you the religious leader of Blue Isle in exchange for your killer.
 
I will shatter centuries of unity with the Church and the Crown for this.
 
I think the Fey can make the same sort of sacrifice."

"You don't know what you ask," she said.

"I do," he said.
 
"I know.
 
Rugar has not led your people well since he brought them here.
 
No one has supported him.
 
Jewel did tell me that."

The Shaman put her hand on the stone wall of the fireplace, bracing herself as she stood.
 
"So you know, but you do not understand."

"I understand that twice now he has interfered in ways that have nearly destroyed our two peoples.
 
Just as Matthias has done.
 
If we get rid of them both, we can live in peace."

"Peace cannot be built on death," the Shaman said.

"Nor can we survive more battles.
 
We have some semblance of peace now.
 
Let's work to keep it."

She grabbed her skirts and walked away from the fire.
 
She appeared to have aged since he saw her face a moment before.
 
"What you suggest," she said, "is too horrible to contemplate."

"More horrible than your people dying as we throw holy water on them?
 
More horrible than the kind of war we saw years ago?"

The Shaman raised her dark eyes to him.
 
"The Fey are trained in war.
 
We expect death.
 
I do not object to the death.
 
Were it anyone but Rugar, I would do what I could to make certain my people comply."

"You have no reason to protect Rugar," Nicholas said. Her words were all the confirmation he needed.
 
"The man single-handedly slaughtered your people.
 
He murdered the 50th Rocaan.
 
He murdered my father."