Fey 02 - Changeling Read online

  He had so little help, and he was so very, very tired.

  The Settlement was fifty buildings big. They were scattered on a series of paths that followed rises in the ground more than any logic. One of the benefits of being outside Shadowlands was the space and materials to build cabins.

  The severe flooding had damaged most of them. During this last, long winter, Burden had felt that it was the Fey's fate to live in grayness. The only difference outside Shadowlands was that the grayness contained rain. He had finally asked Hanouk to control the rain and the flooding, and she had given him a withering look. He had not had the power to ask, and she always pretended that he never had.

  As he walked, he could see over the walls into the city of Jahn. The walls had gone up shortly after the Fey arrived into the Settlement, another joint project by Fey and Islanders. But unlike the barge on which Jewel and Nicholas held their marriage, this wall was a secret construction. Burden never knew who started it, and he wasn't certain he wanted to know, but one morning he awoke with one side of the gate built. The builders continued during the nights that followed, and he found a few Fey who confessed to adding to the gate. But they never admitted to starting it. He believed that the Islanders started the gate, hoping the Fey would continue it. And they had.

  He wiped his face with the back of his hand, trying not to get too much mud on his features. Hanouk's cabin was straight ahead, its boards the only ones unaffected by the weather which was, Burden had always thought, a supreme irony. Hanouk would help herself, but not her fellow Fey.

  The cabin was larger than the others, since Hanouk outranked most of the Fey in the Settlement. She had four rooms where the luckiest of the rest had two. The wood was still its natural light brown, the building still looking sharp and new. The only signs around the cabin that showed the heavy rains were the standing water on the walk outside.

  The door was open. He took a deep breath before mounting the wide stones Hanouk used as steps. It had been a long time since he had seen Jewel alone. He had spoken to her briefly after her marriage, and she had seemed distant, completely unlike the Jewel he had known. The Jewel he had grown up with had been a fierce adventurer, a worthy heir to the Black King's throne. The woman he had seen had been an Islander wife, content to speak about her husband in soft, admiring tones.

  He had seen her again when she had brought her strange child to his healers. He had refused to look at the boy, hearing rumors that the child was not natural. His response had hurt Jewel then, but nothing like she had hurt him.

  After that, Burden had spoken to Jewel through the Fey channels she had set up with the human palace, and then he had spoken to her only rarely. That she would come to see him was a shock.

  He took the steps slowly, his untreated boots sliding on the stone. He knocked as he stepped across the threshold, and someone moved inside the house. Hanouk had not come back. In a moment he would see Jewel.

  He wanted the meeting under his control. He stepped inside and blinked at the darkness. Hanouk had left a fire, but it was burning out, and there was no more wood stacked beside the fireplace. A small table stood in front of an oversized chair — clearly Hanouk's favorite place — and decorations of cloth hung from the walls. Burden didn't take the time to examine them, however. Instead he glanced around until he saw Jewel.

  She was standing near one of the other chairs, this one filled with stuffing, clearly Domestic made. Her hand rested on its back, and her body was hidden by its frame. Even so, the marks pregnancy had left on her were very visible. Her face was fuller, her hair darker. But unlike most pregnant Fey, she did not seem radiant. Her features were drawn and her skin was ashen.

  Then the possibility that had missed him initially came to mind. Perhaps she needed his help. Perhaps the bargain was as bad as he had feared. Perhaps she needed a way to escape the palace.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, making certain his voice held the tenderness he felt.

  Her smile was small. "The last month is always hard," she said.

  For a moment, he didn't know what she was referring to. Then he realized she was talking about her pregnancy.

  "And there has been a lot of strain." She brushed a strand of hair off her face, a gesture so familiar that it made his heart ache. "I need to talk to you, Burden, as an old friend."

  "Certainly," he said and pulled the door closed. The light from the fire provided the only illumination. For some reason, Hanouk had preferred a Shadowlands tradition — a home with no windows. He took one of the other chairs and pulled it closer to the fire. "Would you like to sit, Jewel?"

  She nodded. She braced herself with one hand on the chair, and emerged from behind its back. He had to work at keeping his expression neutral. Her belly was swollen, and rode low against her hips. She wore a long dress made of a shiny brown cloth he had never seen before. Although she hadn't worn dresses much in the past, this one made sense. Fey women often wore long dresses during pregnancy. She was as thin as ever — the weight gain in her face had probably been his imagination. He had expected to see the pregnancy, but what he had not expected was the slow deliberateness with which she moved. Jewel had always been rapid heat, lightning quick, and full of grace. She had never moved with the care she moved with now.

  She grabbed the arms of her chair to pull it closer to the fire, and he shook his head. "This one, Jewel," he said.

  Her smile was small, tight, and grateful. She brushed past him as she walked, and he recognized her familiar scent of cinnamon and sunshine. A quick flare of desire ran through him. He had forgotten how much he missed her.

  She gripped the arms of the chair he was holding and eased herself into it. Then she sighed. Her long black braid brushed his hands. He stared at it for a moment before letting go.

  He walked over to the fire and peered into it. The flames were tiny, hesitant, just as he was feeling.

  "Aren't you going to sit?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "I don't want to get this mud on Hanouk's furniture."

  "I think," Jewel said in a tone that told him she was really smiling for the first time since he saw her, "that Hanouk of all people is prepared for these things."

  Special Domestic-made furniture. Of course, her furniture would be able to handle the effects of weather. He took the chair Jewel had left, pulled it closer to the fire and sank into it. A tingling along the back of his legs told him she had been right.

  "You look tired, Jewel." He leaned back and rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. "Are you all right?"

  "A lot of strain," she said again. "And the baby."

  She put a hand protectively over her stomach. For the first time since he had come in, he got a real sense of her. She wanted this child, but she was afraid for it. He wondered what had gone wrong with the other one. Mixed Fey were always more powerful than Fey.

  "I need your help," she said, her voice soft. She paused.

  "Is it Nicholas?" Burden asked into the silence. "What's he done?"

  "No. Nicholas has done exactly what he said he would." She sighed, and brushed her hair away from her face. The gesture was a nervous one. Burden had never realized that before. "I don't suppose you heard the news. About Alexander."

  "The King?" Burden hadn't been outside the Settlement in days. Not that it would have mattered. He tried not to pay any attention to news any more. Too distracting. He needed instead to concentrate on the Settlement and his own undeveloped — and unknown — magical powers.

  "He's been murdered, Burden." Jewel leaned back and closed her eyes. "Far from here. In the Kenniland Marshes."

  "The Islanders finally got tired of him, huh?" Burden smiled. He felt no regret about this one, except, perhaps that he should have listened to Jewel in the first place. "So you're in power now. Good. What do you need me for?"

  "It's not that simple." Only her mouth moved. It looked as if she were talking in her sleep. "The Rocaan believes that a Fey murdered Alexander. I think he may be right."

 
"In the Marshes? Really, Jewel. We have enough trouble getting around Jahn." A tension built in Burden's shoulders. The relaxed, listening posture he had adopted had suddenly become uncomfortable. He sat up and took his elbows off the chair arms.

  "The Marshes are apparently flat and wide with few trees. Alexander was murdered with a single arrow through his heart. Even though his guards searched the area, they found no one. The Rocaan says only Fey can disappear that easily. I think he might be right."

  "Jewel, that man hates us. To agree with him —." Burden sucked in his breath. "You really do believe him, don't you?"

  "It would, as you say, bring me closer to power. But they're trying to blame me for this." She opened her eyes. She had deep shadows beneath them. "Not Nicholas, but the Rocaan and the others. They think I did it."

  "So why come to me?"

  She rubbed her hand along the top of her belly. Her eyes opened wider and then her gaze pinned him. In it, he saw the fierce Jewel of old. "Forgive me, Burden, but I need to know. Did you or one of your people assassinate Alexander?"

  He felt a slight chill, even though he sat close to the heat of the dying fire. Assassinate the King? It had been the farthest thing from his mind. Mending the houses, staving off the rain, making sure his people had enough to eat. Those things preoccupied him. It should be obvious to her, but it wasn't. She actually thought he might assassinate the Islander King, as if that would make a different to the Fey plight.

  "Jewel," he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. "If I were going to do something like that, I would slit him with my sword, in the palace, just so that I could get credit for the murder."

  Her lips tightened. "I'm serious, Burden."

  "I am too."

  She stared at him a moment, her eyes moving back and forth as if she were trying to read hidden messages on his face. Then she sighed. "Are you sure none of your people did this?"

  She was determined. She wanted to pin this death on a Fey. "Look around you, Jewel," he said. "No one in the Settlement has time to travel to the Marshes, plan and commit a murder, and return. We barely get enough to eat."

  "It can't be as bad as all that," she said.

  "Oh, but it is." The force of his anger pushed him out of the chair. He had to pace to keep from yelling at her. She had to understand. Didn't she know he had done this as a support for her? And then for her to not see what damage this support had done…. The betrayals repeated — or perhaps they never ended. "Our people are afraid to work with the Islanders. Afraid, Jewel, afraid of that poison. Afraid that they accidentally touched a surface laced with poison and they will die. Nothing grows here. We get flooded every spring and every fall. We have to find plants that will survive a short growing season. And most of the talented Domestics remain in Shadowlands. We lack resources, Jewel."

  He walked to the fire and back to his chair without looking at her. He could hear nothing from her, not a rustle, not a sound.

  "We did this for you. We did this in support of you. We did this because we believed if you could do it, we could too. We could make an agreement with the Islanders work. It hasn't worked, Jewel. And now you accuse us of betraying the very trust we display."

  On the last word, he stopped in front of her, and looked down on her. She had both hands over her stomach now, and she had additional lines around her mouth. "Their King is dead," she said. "Someone killed him."

  "But not me, Jewel, or anyone I know."

  "Burden, the Rocaan has already stated that I should step down. Sebastian will not inherit, and neither will this little one. Worse, the war could start up again. Fey could die as a matter of course. No one has told me of any progress on solving the mystery of the poison. Has there been any?"

  He shrugged. "I don't go to Shadowlands any more than you do."

  All the Spell Warders remained in Shadowlands, theoretically looking for a way to block the Islander poison. They had been unsuccessful last Burden heard.

  She shook her head. The lines near her mouth seemed to grow deeper. He could feel the strain on her. It was a live thing, as alive as the child in her belly.

  He couldn't stay mad at her long. He had never been able to.

  He crouched beside her, and put a hand over her own. She looked up, startled. Her hands were warm, and the skin beneath them stretched taut with the child. He felt a small flutter against his thumb, slid his hand off hers, and onto her belly. The baby was moving inside her.

  Burden had never felt anything like that before.

  His gaze met Jewel's. She smiled. "You're lucky," she said. "Usually she kicks."

  "A fighter," he said. "Like her mama."

  Jewel nodded. "Let's hope. Her brother kicked too, and he has no fight at all."

  So the boy had not improved. Perhaps the Islanders were trying to get rid of her and pinning an assassination on her was the best way to do so.

  "Tell me again why you think a Fey did this," he said.

  "Islanders resolve their differences with words, not murder. There have been assassination attempts in the past, but they were often designed to fail, more warnings than anything else. Except one." The fluttery feeling in her stomach warmed him. She rubbed her hands over it as if to soothe the child within. "That attempt took place in the Kenniland Marshes during the Peasant Uprising. It failed because the Marshes were flat, and the assassins could be seen from miles away."

  "So this time the assassin was successful," he said.

  She shook her head. "Islanders have an odd habit. If something has failed before, they don't try it in the same way again. If they were going to assassinate their king near the Marshes, it wouldn't happen in the same spot as before. It would happen somewhere else, by some other method."

  "That's pretty slim evidence, Jewel."

  "I know," she said. "That's why I was hoping you could tell me more, Burden. I hoped you knew."

  He shook his head. "Jewel, let the Islanders solve this."

  "It's not just their problem any more. It's ours too."

  She was done talking with him. He could hear it in her voice. But he didn't want her to leave. He didn't want to take his hand from her stomach. If the world had been different — if status hadn't been so important among Fey — this would be his child inside her. Instead, it was a mix of Fey and Islander. A mix that had, apparently, failed before.

  Strange then, given what she had just said, that she and Nicholas were trying another child.

  "You never really answered me," he said more to keep her beside him than anything. "How do you know the killer is Fey? Did you See it?"

  She tensed. "No. I didn't See anything." She emphasized "see." He got a sense that she had known something, but didn't want to discuss it. "The attack just feels wrong. If an Islander were to do it, he would do it differently."

  "You can't go by feeling," Burden said. "If a Fey were to kill the king, he would do it publicly, for credit."

  "Unless he was trying something else, trying, perhaps to create dissent among the Islanders."

  "And why would he do that?"

  "To start the war again?"

  "But it benefits none of us to start the war," Burden said.

  Jewel met his gaze. "Really?"

  He let out a small mouthful of air. "Unless we have a solution to the poison problem."

  "Or," Jewel said, "unless someone were to assassinate Nicholas too. Then I would rule as Regent."

  Burden couldn't tell if that were a suggestion or not. "Is that what you want, Jewel?"

  Her lips parted as if she were stunned he asked the question. "No," she said. "I do not. I care for him too much."

  Burden looked away. She put her hand on top of his and continued in a soft voice. "Even if he died, Burden, they would never allow me to lead their government. Sebastian will never be competent enough to take the reins, and none of us know what this child will be like. If Nicholas died, I would have to escape the palace with both children. I'm not sure they'd allow any of us to live."

  "You're
Fey, Jewel. How can they stop you?"

  "I think you know the answer to that."

  He nodded. He did. "A Fey killer makes no sense," he said.

  "I know," she said. "Yet I can't shake this feeling. Can you find out for me, Burden? Can you find out if one of our people killed Alexander?"

  He couldn't refuse her. Not even after all the betrayals. He put his head on her stomach and listened to the baby she made with another man — with an enemy — move inside her.

  "I'll find out, Jewel," he said. And, he promised himself, he would help her set up an escape route.