Fey 02 - Changeling (19 page)

"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.

He had a feeling she would need one.

TEN

Titus stood on the road outside of Jahn.
 
Half a dozen Danites and a dozen Auds stood with him, although he had told Elder Eirman that only a handful of men would do.
 
But Elder Eirman had had an edict from the Rocaan to meet the King's body with the highest contingent possible, and to bring it to the Tabernacle unmolested.
 
Titus had wanted to argue even that order, for the true procedure would be to take the King's body to the ceremonial burial grounds on the hill north of the palace and prepare a casket of proper size.
 
But the Rocaan wanted the King in the Tabernacle, and the Blessing to take place in the Sanctuary, and then have a processional to the grave site for the Burial Service.

Titus thought it all blasphemy.

The church taught that the Services were designed by the first Rocaan with the Roca's wishes in mind.
 
Even though the Roca had been a man, he had been Beloved of God.
 
He sat on God's Hand, and had God's Ear.
 
His wishes were the closest man had to God on the Isle.
 
Titus believed that this made them sacred.
 
The new Rocaan, the former Elder Matthias, believed that this made the Services of mortal design and subject to the whim of the Rocaan.
 
No Rocaan had thought so before, but no Rocaan had claimed the kind of scholarship Matthias had.

Scholarship, Titus was beginning to believe, was the root of all the evil within the church.

But he had no say over this.
 
He was a lowly Danite, appointed to his post after the death of the 50th Rocaan, to which he was a witness.
 
That day still haunted his dreams — the Fey creature attacked the Rocaan and then seemed to change
into
the Rocaan.
 
When the Fey/Rocaan got hit with holy water, he had melted,
 
leaving the small kirk near Daisy Stream filled with blood and bones and water.
 
Later, the Elders had said the Fey were trying to learn the secret to holy water from the Rocaan.
 
According to tradition, only the Rocaan was to know the secret, although at the time, Elder Matthias had known it too.

The Fey had failed in their attempt to take over the Tabernacle and learn the secret of holy water — which they called poison — but they had succeeded in destroying the richness and the unity of Rocaanism.
 
On his most pessimistic days, Titus believed Rocaanism changed forever.

A breeze blew from the south.
 
The road was empty, blocked below by his fellow Danites.
 
No travelers could enter Jahn from the southern roadway today.
 
No one could have the opportunity to tamper with the King's body.

The Auds were milling around Titus.
 
Although some of those Auds had once been his colleagues, and a few of them were older than he was, he felt as if he had years on them.
 
The 50th Rocaan had died when Titus was fourteen, and the experience had added ten years on his life.
 
Even though he was only nineteen now, he felt as if he had seen the entire world.

The road was flat and wide here, reflecting all the traffic that came into Jahn from this direction.
 
Before the Invasion, people came up from the south every summer and fall to sell goods, to shop in the city, and to attend at least one Sacramental service in the Tabernacle.
 
Such travel had stopped after the Invasion, and Titus found that he still missed it.
 
He always had a chance to see his family in the summer, and he hadn't seen them since the Rocaan died.