Fey 02 - Changeling Read online

  "We were talking about taking you to Shadowlands," Solanda said.

  "— then it was Rugar, wasn't it?" Burden frowned. "But Rugar would never hurt Jewel."

  "Who said the Islander King's death would hurt Jewel?" Solanda asked.

  "Jewel did."

  Burden's words hung in the air. He rested his head against the mantle. The afternoon had clearly been too much for him. He would have a thousand questions, and by morning, a thousand more. Sleeping on his rug would be a very bad idea.

  "Come back with me," Solanda said. "Let's talk to the Shaman."

  He shook his head. "Bring the Shaman to the Settlement. We need a Visionary here."

  "You need to leave this place," Solanda said. "It's not healthy here."

  "It's no healthier in Shadowlands," Burden said. "No matter what you think of me, Rugar's worse. What was he thinking, killing their King?"

  "Perhaps he wanted Jewel closer to the throne."

  "Perhaps," Burden said. "But Rugar's motives are rarely that simple."

  Solanda knew that quite well. It had been a fact she had been unwilling to think about. Rugar's complexity had gotten her into trouble more times than she cared remember. "He does what's best for us," she said.

  "Yeah," Burden said. "Like coming to Blue Isle in the first place."

  TWELVE

  Three layers of Domestic-made clothing had not kept her warm. Jewel put her hands over her distended stomach, willing the baby to move. All this tension, all this turmoil, could not be good for the baby.

  She moved closer to the fire. Nicholas was kneeling before it. He had been feeding logs into it, but he had stopped mid-movement. His eyes were glazed, and his lower lip was trembling.

  Their bedroom was cold, as cold as the gravesite had been. The household staff had forgotten a fire in the King's room, and placed one in hers instead. Nicholas and Jewel had almost slept there, but Sebastian had whimpered in his sleep in the next room. The sound brought tears to Nicholas's eyes and, without saying a word, he had taken Jewel's hand and led her across the gallery and into his suite.

  The King's suite now.

  She slowly eased herself down beside her husband, placing a hand on his back. The muscles were stretched tight. He didn't move at her touch, not a flinch, not any kind of response at all.

  "Nicky," she said. "I have something to tell you."

  He finished placing the log on the fire as if he had never stopped. Then he put the iron grill back in front of it. "Let it wait, Jewel. I don't need more tonight."

  He was right. He didn't need more. He needed his sleep. The ceremony had been grueling. Jewel had skipped the ceremony in the Tabernacle, pleading fatigue, and had met them at the gravesite. She had come to that out of respect for Alexander and concern for Nicholas. His ability to function had decreased dramatically since the news. Sometimes he appeared to be sleeping with his eyes open. Other times, he seemed too bright, too energetic, as if his movements were all a sham.

  "It's good news," she said. "Something you'll want to hear."

  He sat back and placed his head on her shoulder, his arm around her, his hand carefully resting on her spine. He rarely touched her belly, and never mentioned the child within her. When she had told him she was pregnant, he had looked at her and said, "Are you sure that's wise?" Later, one of his men had asked her if the Fey had ways of forgetting pregnancies ever happened. She always pretended that the query had not come from Nicholas.

  "It's about the baby," she said.

  A shudder ran through him. "Not tonight, Jewel," he said.

  "Nicky, she's kicking. She's healthy."

  He sighed. "Sebastian kicked. He was healthy. All the healers said so."

  "The healers weren't Fey. They didn't know."

  "Please. Let's not talk tonight."

  "Quickly, Nicky. Let me tell you. I had a Vision."

  Nicholas took his hand off her back. He didn't move away from her, but his body tensed. "Sometimes I don't believe in the magic, Jewel. All that talk about Sebastian being more powerful than any other Fey, it seemed like a special dream. I could never have magic, but my son could." Nicholas's voice broke. "He can't even smile at me."

  It had been a long time since Nicholas visited Sebastian. "He can smile now," Jewel said.

  Nicholas shrugged and sat up. The loss of his warmth made her chill greater. "We buried my father today. Let me be a person tonight and not a head of state."

  Jewel took his hand, unwilling to let him get far from her. This closeness she felt with him always amazed her, as if somehow they were fated. Even when they didn't understand each other, the closeness was there, working between them like a subtle magic. "I thought the good news would help."

  Nicholas shook his head. "I stood in that glinting sunlight and watched them lower my father's casket into the ground. The Rocaan was saying his Blessing, and I was thinking that I was too young for this. I wasn't even thinking about my father, Jewel. I was thinking about all the burdens of statehood, about all the things we face, and how I'm not ready."

  She squeezed his hand. This she didn't understand. Her father was still alive, and she had never really known her mother. Jewel had broken relations with her father — she had found a separate path — but she still knew how to find him, how to talk with him, and even how to argue with him.

  "I'll be beside you," she said.

  "Matthias thinks — God." Nicholas put a hand over his mouth. His other hand, not the one Jewel was holding.

  "Matthias thinks a Fey killed your father so that I could be closer to the throne."

  Nicholas looked at her, astonishment on his familiar features.

  "I was there when he made that accusation," she said gently. She was right. He wasn't paying attention to everything he should.

  Nicholas brought his hand down slowly. His fingers were long and slender, Fey fingers on Islander hands. It always seemed odd to her that Sebastian's fingers were short and stubby when neither of his parents' were.

  "No," Nicholas said. "Matthias came to me later. He said I should disavow you and…Sebastian…for the good of the country. He said the next child would be like the first and we would have no heirs. The Roca's line would die. He said you will probably try to kill me now so that you can control the country. He said I should choose an Islander wife."

  Jewel's mouth went dry. She knew that Matthias believed all these things, but she hadn't realized he would plead his case so strongly with Nicholas. She glanced around the room they shared, the big feather bed with its heavy Islander blankets and the single Fey quilt given her by Mend. The tapestries on the window depicted scenes from Kings' lives, and the stone walls were damp in the winter. The chairs weren't comfortable, and the food was often bad. If the servants thought she was going to be alone in a room, they did not light a fire for her in advance. And she never drank water, not even four years after moving to the palace.

  She had made a hundred tiny sacrifices.

  She never thought about the ones that Nicholas made.

  The loss of respect. The trouble he would have securing his throne.

  Sebastian.

  The little boy broke her heart, but she saw him as a child. Nicholas saw him as an heir, as a disaster waiting.

  Jewel lifted her hand, the one joined with Nicholas's, and placed it on her stomach. "I had a clean Vision," she said. "As clear as if I had lived it. I saw a girl, a teenage girl, who looked like you if you had Fey coloring. She was here in the palace. She was watching someone move in the garden. She had bright eyes, Nicky, and each gesture, each step, showed a lively active intelligence."

  His fingers tightened on hers, raising his hand just above her stomach. "A girl," he said.

  "A brilliant girl," Jewel said.

  "And you know it was this child?"

  "Yes," Jewel said. "The Vision came when I was touching this spot. Always a sign of Seeing the child within."

  "A girl," Nicholas said again, and Jewel understood finally what he was saying.
She lowered his hand, then flattened it and felt its warmth on her skin

  "A child," she said.

  "Jewel, a girl can't rule."

  "If she's Fey, she can." Jewel held his hand in place.

  "But this is the Isle."

  "And we're supposed to be unifying two cultures."

  He sighed again and slid his hand off her. "It won't work, can't you see that? That's what Matthias is talking about. People won't accept us or our children."

  The baby kicked as if she felt the anger Jewel did. The sharp sudden pain gave Jewel a moment to think of a reasoned response. "You are the Roca's direct heir and Sebastian is your first child. You rule under Isle law. I am the Black King's Granddaughter. When my father dies, I lead our people. And when I die, my son does. We have not worked toward acceptance. We have let men like Matthias and my father taint the public response to us. We do not let people see Sebastian, and they probably think he is some kind of freak."

  "He's not healthy, Jewel."

  "But his sister will be."

  "The second born cannot lead. It's written into our laws. And women — it's unthinkable."

  Jewel clenched her right fist, hiding it at her side. "But you can set me aside?"

  "It's been done only when the woman is barren."

  "And the Roca's descendants are notoriously fertile?" Jewel asked.

  Nicholas nodded. "Generation to generation, first born sons have led this kingdom."

  "Were daughters ever born first?"

  "Not and lived," Nicholas said softly.

  This time the anger forced Jewel to move. She tried to push herself to her feet, but her bulk got in the way. Nicholas grabbed after her, put a hand behind her to brace her, and eased her down.

  "I would never kill one of our children," he said. "Never."

  "But you would set me aside." She gritted her teeth, then decided to speak anyway. "It would start the war again."

  He took her chin between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand and turned her face toward his. His grip was light, his expression tender. "I have seen you in battle, my demon wife. I don't ever want to cross swords with you again."

  She didn't laugh. She couldn't. The matter was too serious for that. But he pulled her face closer and kissed her so tenderly that the remaining anger eased out of her.

  He paused between kisses. "I would never set you aside. Ever."

  She put a hand on his chest to hold him back. "But you considered it."

  "No," Nicholas said softly. "I never did. In fact, I told Matthias that if I die, he will have to serve under a Fey queen. I told him that he'd better get used to the idea. I'm not going to set you aside or Sebastian. We need to wait to see how he grows. If he can have children, he can be king. You can be his brains."

  "Or his sister can," Jewel said.

  "Or all the other little half-breeds we make." Nicholas pulled her even closer, then looked down at her belly pressed against his. "I hope she comes soon. I don't like this distance she puts between us."

  Jewel laughed despite herself. This was what she liked best about Nicholas. He always made her laugh. "The more children we have the more advice Sebastian will get."

  "Is that a proposition, dear wife?"

  "I thought it was demon wife."

  "Sometimes it is." Nicholas kissed her again, then caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. "I will always stay beside you. Always."

  She nodded. She sensed the shift within him, though. He still had things to say to her. She leaned into his caress.

  "But Matthias has a point. None of the Islanders will accept a Fey queen or Sebastian, not without help."

  Jewel nodded. She covered his hand with her own, then pulled it down again. This time he guided their hands to her stomach. The warmth was comforting. "I went to the Fey Settlement yesterday," she said. "It's a disaster, Nicky. And none of my Fey help have stayed in the palace. Everyone has retreated to Shadowlands. The ones who haven't are living like filth in the Settlement."

  The baby kicked again. Nicholas looked at her in surprise. "She is active."

  Jewel nodded.

  He let go of her hand, and ran his palm over her belly as if he could trace the shape of his child. Then he put his ear against her. Jewel prayed that he would hear the child laughing with delight, as the old stories said active babies did in the womb.

  "What were you doing in the Settlement?" he asked as if the question had no consequence.

  But she had known him long enough to know these kinds of casually asked questions meant the most to him.

  "I went to ask Burden if he had killed your father."

  Nicholas sat up. His face had gone white, but his hand remained on her stomach as if protecting the child inside. "You believe Matthias, then."

  "I believe Matthias may have a point," Jewel said.

  The shadows under Nicholas's eyes were prominent. He hadn't slept much since his father died, and when he had, he had pulled Jewel so close that his grip around her shoulders almost hurt.

  "I thought it was a lone assassin."

  "A lone assassin who had that kind of success with one shot and who disappeared into nothing," Jewel said. "It sounds Fey to me. But Burden said I was imagining this. He may be right. If there is a shot as good as all that, I'm sure Lord Stowe will find him down in the Marshes."

  "You don't sound convinced."

  Jewel shook her head. "It's too convenient. A King dying in the place where an assassination attempt had been made before. The assailant using one arrow and getting away across flat, marshy ground."

  "Why didn't you tell me before?" Nicholas asked.

  "We haven't had much opportunity to talk in the last few days," Jewel said.

  "Did Burden kill him?" Nicholas's voice held fervor. His eyes had narrowed. He looked fierce like her father rather than his.

  "No," she said. "If you saw the Settlement, you would understand. They're working too hard to survive. They haven't time for schemes."

  "Then someone from Shadowlands, your father, maybe —"

  "Nicholas." Her tone was purposely stern. She didn't want to lose him on this tangent. "We don't know."

  He closed his eyes, and tilted his head back. "You're right." He let out a long breath of air. "Jewel, I'm too volatile right now. I'm not thinking clearly. I need to be thinking clearly."

  "You're doing fine," she said, although she would have preferred cold Fey rationality at this point. She didn't even dare tell him that she would help him. He might hear it wrong, think that Matthias truly was right.

  The new Rocaan. Her father had made a lot of mistakes in killing the old Rocaan. The worst was that the death forced this new man into power, a man with a hatred for the Fey so deep that he discovered and promoted the use of holy water as a poison. She and Nicholas would have made more progress on unifying the Isle if Matthias hadn't been in the way.

  When she had approached Nicholas with this plan, almost five years ago now, she had thought that if it didn't work, she would take over the palace with the help of the other Fey. The Black King, if he ever arrived, would accept her children and they would all rule the Isle. It was a slower method to accomplish the same end.

  But her desire to take over the Isle had lessened with time and the goal she had verbally expressed to Nicholas — that of unifying Fey and Islander — had become more important to her. The Islanders lacked magic, but they had something, a kind of strength, a resilience, that the Fey had lost. She no longer wanted war with her husband's people. She actually believed that both groups could find a kind of parity.

  She also believed that, after all this time, the Black King was never going to come. Her grandfather would die in Nye as he had said he would. He would go down in Fey history as the man who conquered the Galinas continent. When he finally died — and it might be decades from now since some Fey Visionaries lived a long time — one of her brothers would take his place. Then and only then would the Black King venture forth again.

  By that
time, she would be a grandmother, and her children would be part of the Isle.

  Even though Sebastian was flawed, he had forced her to think with that long-term perspective. Sebastian and the child in her belly. When her brother arrived, Jewel wanted to have the Isle a Fey stronghold, but one with powerful magic, one that kept the Islander customs intact according to Fey tradition, and one that required no more bloodshed.

  Perhaps she should have been a Shaman. Her Vision was much more Domestic than a Black King's relative's should have been.