Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (47 page)

“They don’t have Healers here.”

“They must.”

“Butchers is more like it,” he said. “They have no knowledge of the Mysteries.”

“Well, the wounds don’t really matter,” she said.

He stopped wiping. “They want me back?”

“No.” She sat with her front paws pushing on the feather bed, her back paws braced behind her. She couldn’t relax in this room. The smells, the dust, were driving her crazy. “Just a moment.”

She closed her eyes, willed and imagined her human form. Her body grew and stretched, the power surrounding her. At some point the tickle of the dust was gone, replaced by the faint odor of mildew and sunshine. The bed’s softness eased the jolt of her change. When she finished, she was sitting in the same position, only her knees pushed into her breasts, and her hands were flanked by her legs.

The avid and shocked expression on Quest’s face made her stay that way. She had forgotten about the heightened sexuality of Doppelgängers.

“Sorry,” she said, wishing she had something to cover her nakedness. “I’ve been a cat too long today.”

His smile held understanding and irony, neither of which she wanted to see. He set the cloth down on the stand and sat beside her. She didn’t move away. No sense in antagonizing him.

“They don’t want you back,” she said, continuing the conversation, hoping it would distract him.

It did. He leaned away from her so that he could see her face. “My information’s been good,” he said.

She nodded, liking his defensiveness. “But it’s not the information we need. The power here is diffuse, it seems.”

“The Rocaanists make no state decisions.”

So he had already thought of this. “No,” she said. “But they know the secret to the potion.”

He paled. She did admire a Doppelgänger’s ability to absorb everything about its host.

“You’ve already thought of this,” she said.

“I’ve heard rumors,” he said. He ran a hand through his thinning hair, then winced when the movement pulled at the scratches. “They found bones over there. And then one of the Auds melted. Only they think that a Fey was hiding in an Aud’s clothing.”

“We lost two in the Tabernacle,” she said. “Rugar was hoping not to send anymore, but we can’t find the secret to their poison.”

“How do you expect me to do that?” His voice rose just a little. “The holy ones have to touch that stuff every day.”

“Not all of them,” she said. “Even I know that.”

He didn’t even have the grace to smile at trying to fool her.

For a moment she wished she were back being a cat. It was hard to hide the anger. Both of these cowards were fighting her. “You should know better than to let your fear overcome you,” she said. “We need the answer to this. We need it or we will all die. Do you think you can avoid this poison forever? What happens when they start testing loyalties with it? You know they will. They just haven’t thought of it yet.”

“Oh, they’ve thought of it,” he said. “All of the King’s advisers have been touched.”

All? She wondered at that. “Well, then,” she said. “You’d best discover the secret.”

“You have no sympathy,” he said, the smile finally crossing his face. She wondered why her coldness amused him.

“None.” She let the word hang between them.

He touched her arm. “I’d forgotten how beautiful Fey women are.”

She looked down at his hand. “I find Islanders repulsive.”

He flushed and pulled his hand away. “I’m not an Islander,” he said despite his movements, but with a resignation that meant he understood.

She brought her legs down and stretched, deliberately taunting him now. The movements felt good. In the space of a single night, she had forgotten how wonderful long limbs felt. When she finished the stretch, she turned to face him and sat cross-legged. He let his gaze roam her body, but he did not touch her.

“Rugar did not send me to entice you or to reward you,” she said. “He isn’t pleased with the information he’s received from you. He was hoping that the Doppelgängers would give him the knowledge he needed to defeat these people. Instead, you have all grown comfortable in your imitation Islander lives.”

“All?” Quest asked.

“We’ve spent too long here, and they’ve discovered Shadowlands. If they can find a way in, they can defeat us. We will never see our families again. We will never leave this place.”

“That’s not my fault,” Quest said.

“No,” she said. “It’s not. Completely. But I’m appalled to know you have thought of going to their religion and have not done so for fear of your own life. You are our sacrifice. That is what your powers make you. And instead, you hide here and then talk as if you are doing us all a favor by cleaning their King’s palace.”

“It’s not like that—” he said.

“Really? It certainly seems that way.”

“I thought I was getting enough information here.”

This time she was the one who smiled. Coldly. “If you were getting enough information here, then you would have known that they had found their way to Shadowlands.” She put up a hand. “Don’t deny it. I saw the surprise on your face. You shouldn’t have to hear it from me.”

He leaned his head back against the stone wall and closed his eyes. She stood and splashed some of the water onto her face, then wiped it off with another of his ripped cloths. Some of her feline habits never went away. Whenever she was nervous, her face felt dirty.

This fear disturbed her. How many others did it paralyze? Perhaps that was why the Spell Warders couldn’t find the secret to the poison. They were too afraid of it. She would have to talk with Rugar when she got back. The Fey, in the shock of their defeat, had lost their ability to take risks.

“You’re right,” he said, his voice soft. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. How soon does Rugar want me to leave?”

“Now,” she said. “Only give me time to get out of this hellhole. That woman heard me talking to you.”

She set the damp cloth down and faced him. The color in his cheeks remained high.

“You understand what you need to do?” she asked.

“I need to find the riddle of that poison.”

“As quickly as possible,” she said.

He nodded. “I have some ideas. I have choices as to who to take on. I will get it for you. For Rugar. Tell him, Solanda.”

She smiled—a real smile this time. “I will tell him,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She settled on the rug, then let her body slip into itself, her mass compacting and somehow lessening, although the Warders had never figured out how that happened either. The feline form felt like an old friend—she hadn’t been out of it long enough—and she sneezed at the dust and mildew.

“I wished we could do that as simply,” Quest said.

Her tail twitched. His magick would never come as easily. Her kind were the only true Fey. The rest were imperfect, unable to achieve even half the magick she could.

He stood and grabbed his shirt. The wounds had dried on his skin.

“One other thing,” she said.

He slipped the shirt on and adjusted it, then looked down at her.

“Rugar expects to hear as soon as you are settled in your new form. A messenger will meet you tomorrow night at the base of the bridge just crossing the Cardidas after dark. Make sure you are there. If not, we will assume that you did not survive the transition.”

He swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. “I’ll survive,” he said.

FORTY-FOUR

Alexander entered the War Room alone. He shut the door on his guards and leaned against it, still winded from the climb up the stairs. He was not as young as he used to be, and his body reminded him of that fact daily. When he crouched, he needed to brace himself to rise, and when he climbed stairs, he had to pause on every other landing to rest.

The room smelled of candle wax. Someone had thought ahead and lit the lamps inside. It was not bright enough, but it would do. Such a waste to spend a sunny morning in a room with no windows.

He sighed and brushed the hair from his face. His hand was shaking. He hadn’t slept more than an hour or two—and that was in snatches. He kept coming awake at every noise, waiting for the messenger to tell him what had happened on the raid against the Fey. When the news came, over a light breakfast of freshly baked bread and milk, it left him stunned. He had been expecting the worst, but somehow, when the worst had happened, he found himself ill and shaken. He had been unable to finish eating. So he faced this meeting tired and hungry, his mind full of images of the men he had sent to their deaths for nothing more than to satisfy his own suspicions.

The War Room had changed in the last year. It had the polished shine of a room well used. The table glowed. He had replaced the odd assortment of stools and benches with padded chairs. The washbasin he had asked for sat on the other occasional table, along with a matching pitcher. An assortment of knives and swords stood in a specially built case. A sleeping mattress was rolled against the wall, and a plush carpet with a blue, gold, and brown-patterned weave covered the floor. Some dried meat, pickled vegetables, and kippers were stored on the shelves, along with regular water. Vials of holy water covered a lower shelf. He wanted supplies up there in case something trapped them inside.

New maps had been copied and hung on the wall. On one of them, the artist had marked the sites of all the battles and skirmishes since the Fey had arrived. On another the artist had noted all the battles of the Peasant Uprising, in the vain hope that it would show the King where to stage current battles. But so far, the Fey had chosen the sites.

He pushed off the door and walked around the room. Soon the others would arrive and he would have to take action. But for the moment he was alone and able to think. So much of this was new: the constant vigilance, thinking in terms of war instead of commerce. No ships had left the Isle since the Fey had arrived because Alexander feared giving the Fey a map of the correct route. The Islanders were complaining of shortages, but mostly in exotic goods. The only area that concerned him was that of cloth, since the Island woolens were coarse and uncomfortable. But for centuries Blue Isle had been self-sufficient. With a little time and patience it would be again.

All of that planning he could handle. The loss of life, on the other hand, kept him awake. The nightmares were getting worse instead of better.

Alexander stopped pacing in front of the vials of holy water. Unlike his son and all of his advisers, Alexander had killed no one in this war. On this night that would change.

Yet what he was about to do was different. He wasn’t killing in the heat of the moment. He had planned this, and already his stomach was churning. He didn’t want to think about all the possibilities. But he had to.

For the sake of the Kingdom.

He took a deep breath, grabbed one of the vials, and pulled off the stopper. The slight pop made him wince. He set the stopper down, fighting the urge to sneeze when the faintly dusty aroma of the water reached his nose. He gripped the vial by the neck, took it to the basin, and poured it in. That way the water was easily available. He also half hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it at all, that he could think of a way to get them to dip their hands into the basin voluntarily. But he knew that would never happen.