Tithe (18 page)

Flesh. Maybe some kind of fruit? And the stone could be a pit? Oh—a cherry. Was that supposed to be funny?

Kaye bit her lip. If she answered the riddle correctly, she could walk out of here, something she desperately wanted to do. She cast her eyes to both sides of the Queen, looking for Spike or Lutie, but if they were in the crowd, her surreptitious glances did not find them. Walking out of here was not part of the plan. Right now she wasn’t sure she cared much for what was part of the plan.

She bit her lip harder when she realized how far Roiben had already gone for her. Had Lutie and Spike realized that she might need protection while she was a prisoner in the Unseelie Court? If the various comments she had heard tonight were any indication, Roiben was being a prude—clearly a knight of the Host could do whatever he wanted with a human prisoner. Now, knowing all this, if Spike thought Roiben was such a scumbag, why convince her to go along with a plan that left her in his hands for the better part of a night?

No, she was going to answer the question before things got out of control. She was going to answer the question, tell Roiben everything—above all how sorry she was—and hope he understood. Then she was going to find Spike and get some real answers.

“A cherry,” Kaye said as firmly as she could.

Roiben exhaled with a sharp hiss although he remained on his knees. She wondered how long he had been holding his breath.

“My Lady, you cannot … ,” the fox-faced scribe began, but the Unseelie Queen quelled him with a gesture of her hand.

“Rise, my knight. You have chosen well. She is yours.”

Roiben rose and turned slightly toward Kaye, an expression of unguarded relief on his face. Kaye reached out her hand toward him. She would explain everything as soon as they were dismissed. She would make him understand.

“Now, I order you to offer up your prize to be sacrificed for the Tithe,” the Queen said.

There was laughter in the crowd.

She saw fury and shame coalesce into something horrible. She saw Roiben’s hand drop, twitching over the hilt of his sword.

Then he seemed to regain control of himself, and he bowed to his Queen with a smile. Turning to Kaye, he pressed his lips against her neck, his hand holding her hip, speaking against the skin so that only she could hear him. “What belongs to you, yet others use it more than you do?”

His mouth moving against the skin of her neck made Kaye shiver. She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head, raising his hand to run his thumb over her jawline. “Think on it.”

He let go of her and stepped primly to the side to join the other knights.

Three white-robed figures strapped Kaye down, their heavily gloved hands careful when handling the iron. First they shackled her ankles, then her wrists. The iron cuffs burned softly against her skin.

Four knights of the Unseelie Court stepped to the north, south, east, and west points. Roiben stepped to the south, below her feet. His eyes did not meet hers.

What belongs to you, yet others use it more than you do?

Four short, squat men carried braziers blazing with green fire to the four points around the circle where the knights stood. The little men went down on their knees, balancing the braziers on their backs like living stools.

The Queen’s fox-faced scribe raised both his hands, and the brugh was entirely quiet. Eerily quiet. Kaye searched the crowd for some familiar face. For a moment she thought she saw Spike, but then she couldn’t be sure. There were so many creatures.

More green flames flared around the edge of the brugh, casting strange shadows.

Somewhere, far outside the circle, a single drum began to beat.

The Unseelie Queen began speaking, her voice echoing in the near silence. “We gather
on this sacred night to fulfill our sacred debt. Tonight, we who rule must kneel.”

As one being, the Unseelie Court moved to their knees. Only the solitary fey remained standing. Even the Queen knelt, her gown puddling around her.

“We, the Unseelie Court, keepers of the earth’s secrets, rulers of blood and bone, offer a willing sacrifice in return for the willing obedience of those who dwell in our lands.”

Obviously, it didn’t bother anyone that their willing sacrifice was in chains, Kaye thought. The slow beat of the drum was maddening. A calm contrast to her heart, which was beating itself to death against the cage of her ribs.

The Unseelie Queen went on speaking. “What is the sacrifice we offer?”

The Court spoke as one. “Mortal blood. Mortal spirit. Mortal passion.”

Off to one side of the Queen, Kaye’s eye finally settled on Corny, blankfaced beside Nephamael. His pale brown hair had been cut much shorter and combed toward his face. That and the absence of his glasses made his face look thin and vulnerable. He was dressed all in blue velvet, tricked out as though he was expected to perform Jacobean drama once the sacrifice was over.

Nephamael was watching her with his implacable yellow eyes. She hoped he was going to do something very soon.

Experimentally, she reached out her own magic to tug at the glamour that was over her. It did not budge, heavy as a wet sheet. She couldn’t even feel her wings.

“What do we ask in return?” The Unseelie Queen’s voice rang out, beautiful and terrible.

Again the Host spoke. “Obedience. Restraint. Submission.”

Kaye’s gaze shifted, and she met Roiben’s eyes. On his knees, speaking the words of the ritual, his eyes blazed as he tried to communicate with her through the improbable channel of expression.

What belongs to you, yet others use it more that you do?

It was another riddle, obviously. What belongs to you? In the world of riddles, it’s the basics—body, brain, spirit. She was pretty sure that she used all of those more than she let the next person use them.

“We ask: Do you understand the compact we offer?”

This time it was the solitary fey who spoke, their voices not as well timed, creating the effect of echoes. “We do understand.”

She was looking at it backward, she decided. He wanted her to do something. The riddle was about something she already knew.

She looked into his drawn face and understood so completely that it knocked the breath out of her.

What belongs to you, yet others use it more than you do?

Your name.

The Unseelie Queen’s voice broke her concentration. She seemed to be speaking in time with the distant drum. “Do you accept this mortal as your sacrifice?”

“We do accept.”

Kaye looked around, in a panic now. What the hell did he want her to use his name
for
? The brugh was huge and it was full. Did he really think he could somehow get her out of here?

“Do you so bind yourselves to us?”

The solitary fey spoke as one. “We do bind ourselves.”

Kaye couldn’t help the frantic pulling on her chain. Panic was spreading through Kaye like liquid, turning her blood to ice.

“What is the term of your service?”

Dawn was coming. Kaye saw the red glow out beyond the burning green flames.

“Seven years is the length of our binding.”

The Queen raised her dagger. “Let the compact be sealed in blood.”

No one was coming to save her. Kaye pulled hard on her chains, throwing her whole weight against them, but they were tight, and the heel of her palm could not slip through them. They burned even more as she shifted. The Unseelie Queen looked surprised. Dimly
Kaye realized that her calm and silence must have made her seem as though she were still enchanted.

She struggled to damp down her panic long enough to think.

She had to use his name. She had no idea what to command him to do.

A specific command … save me … stop this … get me out of here?

Roiben was glaring at her.

How could he want her to do this? It made no damn sense, but there was no more time to think.

“Rath Roiben Rye.” Her voice was soft, the words running together in her panic. She realized what she was doing, and her throat almost closed up. “Cut my bonds.”

Roiben drew his finger-slim sword, and the Unseelie Court seethed with noise. A moment of hesitation, and then he smiled. It was a dark, horrible smile, the most terrible expression she had ever seen.

Three knights were on him before he was even inside the circle. The green knight’s heavy sword crashed against Roiben’s at the same moment that a red-clad knight slashed at Roiben’s back. He twisted, faster than she would have believed, and his blade sliced the red knight across the face. The faerie clutched at his eyes, staggering, his sword clattering into the circle.

Roiben tried to parry a blow from the third knight, a female wielding an axe, but he was too late. The blade bit into his right shoulder so hard that it probably hit bone.

Roiben staggered back, gasping with pain, sword drooping in his right hand, the tip dragging along the metal circle. It came up just in time to stab through the green knight’s chest as he rushed forward. The knight fell on his side, completely still. There was only a small hole in his armor, but it was already welling with blood.

Roiben and the female knight circled each other, exchanging tentative blows. Their weapons were not suited for this kind of combat, his sword too slight and her axe too slow, but both combatants were dangerous enough to compensate. She lunged forward, swinging the axe toward his arm rather than his torso, hoping to catch him off guard. He sidestepped, dodging her blow but missing her with a wide sweep of his own blade.

Other Unseelie troops were surging forward, too many and varied for Kaye to count—trolls and hobmen and redcaps. The Queen was still, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

Kaye pulled at her chains, arching her body up hard. Nothing gave.

Blood had darkened the cloth at Roiben’s shoulder in a disturbingly wide stain. Even as she saw him slash the other knight’s side hard
enough to throw the woman to her knees, there were ten more opponents surrounding him. There was a blurry of parry and lunge, his body spinning to slice at a clawed hand, to gut an exposed belly.

And still more came.

Kaye turned her head as far as it would go and spat at her hands, vainly trying to lubricate them enough to work them out of the manacles, muttering, “No, no, no.”

The Queen was shouting now, but Kaye could not make out her words over the ring of blades and the shouts of onlookers.

A small form slid beside Kaye on the metal. Spike was scrabbling at her wrist cuffs with a small knife.

“It’s all very bad,” the little man said. “Oh, Kaye, it’s all gone bad.”

“He’s going to die!” she yelled. Then it occurred to her, what she could do. As loud as she could, she shouted, “Rath Roiben Rye—run!”

The Unseelie Queen whirled at that, her face savage, advancing on Kaye. Her lips twitched over words, but Kaye still could not hear them.

Roiben slashed at another opponent, keeping his back toward Kaye. She wasn’t sure whether he had even heard her command. Perhaps he had run as far as he could.

“Hurry, Spike,” Kaye said, struggling to
keep her body from the wild, trapped animal thrashing that would prevent Spike from having any chance at popping the lock.

The little man’s brows were narrowed in furious concentration, fingers burning where they touched the iron. Suddenly he was knocked aside as if by invisible hands.

“While you have been most diverting, I find this tiresome.” The Queen of the Unseelie Court placed a slippered foot on Kaye’s throat. Kaye rasped, the pressure cutting off her air, threatening to crack her neck.

Then the pressure was gone, and the Lady was falling. Droplets of blood spattered across Kaye’s cheek before the body fell across her. There was a sickening hiss where the Queen’s cheek hit the iron. She was dead.

Roiben looked down at her, but his eyes were unfocused and wild. There was a smear of blood across his mouth, but she didn’t think it was his own. He raised his sword, and she only had a moment to scream before it came crashing down on the chains binding her ankles, hitting the metal so hard that it rang.

Spike was crawling close again, poking at the motionless body of the Unseelie Queen and muttering to himself. A hush had fallen over the court.

There was a sudden rippling in the air around Kaye. She could feel the magic swirling over her, making the iron cuffs that
still clutched her wrists and ankles burn unbearably. Her skin was suddenly too tight, too hot, peeling back as it had done on her lawn, but this time it was not gentle. Her wings ripped free from the thin flesh that bound them just as Roiben slammed his sword against the chain binding her right hand.

His eyes went wide, and he stumbled back. He was so stunned he missed the parry as another redcap rushed him. He turned, almost too late, and the redcap’s small curved blade cut his thigh.

Without the protection of the strange, strong glamour, the iron burned Kaye’s wrists and ankles like hot brands. She howled in pain, struggling to get the things off, struggling to get out from under the weight of the Queen’s body.

Spike seemed to recover himself enough to get work on the cuffs again, and this time he managed to pick the lock of the only one still attached to the chain. Her flesh was blistered where the iron had touched it.

“We have to go! Move!” Spike was pulling at her hand, his face blank with fear.

The court had erupted in chaos around them. She could not tell which of the creatures battling or running or hiding was a foe, or whether in fact she had any friends here except the hob who was urging her to her feet. And Roiben, whose sword was spinning in an
arc, crashing against a spear held by a spotted creature with shining golden eyes.

Blood was running over his right hand; blood had soaked the left leg of his trousers. His movements were stiffening; she could see that.

Kaye tried not to concentrate on the pain of the iron, tried to focus on standing up. “We can’t leave him here.”

A volley of pinecones flew around them, bursting into flame where they fell.

“Oh, yes we can,” Spike said, pulling her with renewed determination. “Better he not get a hold of you after you used his name like that.”