Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (4 page)

He looked down at the creature. The gull Rider, Muce, let go of the neck feathers, straightened his arms as if they were cramped, and tilted his head until he could see Rugar. Then Muce grinned and slowly grew. As he stretched to his full height, the bird’s body slipped inside his own. The gull cried as if in protest. The cry halted as the bird’s features flattened against Muce’s stomach.

Muce, in fully human form, was taller than Rugar, but had a broadness that seemed almost unformed. Muce’s dark hair, including the hair on his chest, had a feathered quality, and his fingernails were long, like claws. His nose was not tiny, as a Fey nose should be, but long and narrow, hooking over his mouth like a beak. The nose, combined with his dark eyes and swooping brows, gave his face a nonhuman cast.

He was naked, but didn’t seem to notice the rain.

“The Guardians are ahead,” he said. His voice had a nasal quality. “Beyond them is the Island.”

Rugar grinned. “So our schedule is right. We will be there tomorrow.”

Muce shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder at the water before them, a furtive, birdlike movement. “From the air it looks as if there are no passages through the Guardians. The water froths, beats against the rocks, and then deadends. I swooped down and saw crevices, but the waves reared at me like live things. I don’t think one ship will survive, let alone an entire fleet.”

“The Nye had to trade with the Islanders somehow,” Rugar said.

“Perhaps there is an easier way. The Nye have no reason to tell us the truth.”

“No one lies to the Fey,” Rugar said.

Muce shuddered and, Rugar suspected, not from the cold. The Fey had a gift for torture.

“You need to gather the rest of the Gull Riders and see if they can spot a way through those rocks,” Rugar said. “The more backup we have, the better off we will be. These ships need to go through intact. The Islanders have never experienced battle. We’ll teach them what war really is.”

“It sounds like a slaughter,” Muce said.

“A morning’s worth,” Rugar said. “Once they see that they have no way to defeat us, they will capitulate. The Guardians are our only obstacle.”

“All right,” Muce said, although he sounded doubtful. “I will gather the others and see what we can discover.”

Without waiting for a response, he stretched out his arms and slowly shrank to his gull form. The gull, as it appeared from his stomach, finished the cry it had been making when it absorbed. It took a few tiny steps backward before launching itself into the air. Muce grabbed the feathers he had held before and, as he flew away, did not look at Rugar.

The gray skies and thick rain drops obscured the Gull Rider quickly. Rugar watched it go. He clenched his fists. He hoped that what he had said to Muce was the truth. Rugar had had no Visions since the ships had sailed.

He had expected to have a Vision before now. As the ships drew closer to Blue Isle, he had thought the proximity would draw more Visions from him or expand on his last Vision, the one that had brought him there. He had seen Jewel—as a woman fully grown—walking through the palace on Blue Isle as if she belonged there. But that Vision was nearly four months old now, and he had not had another one. For a while he was afraid they were going into this battle Blind. Then he had practiced making tiny Shadowlands, as he used to do as a new Visionary. The Shadowlands would capture the cups he had placed in the room and conceal them in a space he had made, proving that his powers were fine. On this trip, then, the Mysteries had given him only one Vision to plan with.

He had spoken to no one about his lack of Vision, not even the Shaman who had consented to go on this trip. Visions were unpredictable things. Perhaps, once he was inside the Stone Guardians, he would be able to See Blue Isle clearly.

No one has conquered Blue Isle before.
His father’s voice rose out of the mist. The Black King’s arguments had haunted Rugar since the ships had left Nye.

No one has tried,
Rugar had replied, even though he knew he was wrong. The Nyeians told stories from the dawn of their history which told of a force of long boats, twenty strong, that had been turned away from Blue Isle. The stories were so old that some thought them myths.

When his father had learned of that attempt, his protests had become even stronger. The last fight, when the Black King had learned that Rugar was taking Jewel, had been blistering.

She is the only hope for the Empire.
His father had leaned on the heavy wooden desk in his office at the former Bank of Nye.
You cannot take her from here.

I can do as I please,
Rugar had said.
She is my daughter.

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?”