Fey 02 - Changeling (35 page)

"I'm not hiding," he said.

"But you're not fighting, either.
 
You're not negotiating, and you're not cooperating.
 
What are you doing, Father?
 
Waiting for the Spell Warders to find the secret to holy water?
 
Waiting for Grandfather to show up and save you?
 
Is this how you became the Greatest Warrior of all time?"

Rugar grabbed her arm and pulled her close.
 
Her skirts rustled in protest.
 
"At least, I don't prostitute myself in exchange for safety."

Nicholas took a step toward them, but Jewel shook her father's hand free before Nicholas could get any closer.
 

"Safety?" she said.
 
"Does this look like safety to you?
 
Every day, I face the threat you hide from.
 
Every day, I put my faith in the bargain you deny.
 
Every day.
 
And if Grandfather does arrive, I will tell him about your courage, Father.
 
I will tell him how you hid
 
while I found a way to save our people."

"Our people haven't been saved.
 
Look at your friend Burden.
 
His Settlement is as useful as that thing you call a child."

"Integration takes time," Jewel said.

"That's what we used to tell the conquered," Rugar said.

"And who defeated us, Father?
 
It wasn't Good King Alexander.
 
It was you.
 
Mistake after mistake after mistake.
 
The first being your refusal to admit you have gone Blind."

"I haven't gone Blind."
 
But he had to look away from her as he said that.
 
He hadn't had a real Vision since the Invasion itself, and Jewel was convinced that the Vision that led them all the Isle had been one of their defeat.
 
"Don't go in there, Jewel.
 
Don't ally yourself with them any farther.
 
Take that child you carry and come home."

"This is my home," she said.
 
"I still have Vision.
 
I know I made the right choice."

Nicholas reached across toward her.
 
"She is my wife.
 
She belongs beside me."

"No," Rugar said.
 
"She is the Black King's Granddaughter.
 
She should be beside no one.
 
If she didn't marry you, she would rule half the world someday."

"Wrong, Father," Jewel said, taking Nicholas's hand.
 
"If I hadn't followed you on a crazy scheme to save your reputation, I would have been Black Queen.
 
Now the best I can hope for is Queen of Blue Isle."

"When the Black King arrives, you will regret this," Rugar said.

"If the Black King arrives," Jewel said.
 
"And if he does, you had best hope I have this Isle unified because I will give you sanctuary."

"I won't need sanctuary."

"You'll need it," Jewel said.
 
"If Grandfather is still Black King, he'll have the Soldiers slaughter you and send the pieces of your flesh to the far sides of the globe.
 
No Fey makes the mistakes you made and lives.
 
If Bridge comes as Black King, he will have his faithful kill us both to save his throne.
 
You will have to ally with me, my husband, and the child you refuse to acknowledge.
 
Because if you do not, you will die."

Her words had a truth he did not want to admit.
 
Jewel made the only choice for peace, the Shaman said on the day of Jewel's wedding.
 
Would that you always do the same, Rugar.

"Now," Jewel said, her voice grim and low, "if you want to support this alliance, you go inside and do not make a fuss.
 
If you want to declare war against the King of Blue Isle, and his Queen, leave.
 
But rest assured that I have the blood of a Black Queen, and I will do everything in my power to win any battle I find myself in.
 
Do I make myself clear?"

Rugar smiled.
 
She made herself very clear.
 
She just hadn't discovered that in war, he held the most important piece.
 
Her son, the most powerful Visionary ever to appear in the Black King's line.

"I'll go inside," Rugar said. He slipped around his daughter's hand, clasped with that of her husband.
 

"Promise me," Jewel said, "that you won't make trouble today."

Rugar met her gaze.
 
She had finally asked of him something he could do.
 
"I promise," he said.

EIGHTEEN

Jewel put her free hand on her chest.
 
Beneath the brocade, she could feel the warmth of her skin and her pounding heart.
  
Her father turned and, cape flaring, marched through the doorways.
 
From the back he looked like something a Dream Rider would bring, black hair, black cape, black boots, all firmness and power.

And it was a sham, all of it.
 
Rugar had no power.
 
He had never had power off the battlefield, and even then had had to answer to his father.
 
The bid for Blue Isle was a bid for power, and it had failed.

He answered to her now, and he didn't like it.

Nicholas squeezed her hand.
 
His beautiful blue eyes were wide, his face pale.
 
"Is what you said to him true?" he asked in Nye, apparently not wanting the nurse to understand.

"Which part?" Jewel asked.
 
She allowed herself to be pulled closer to Nicholas's side.

"The part about fighting him if he starts the war again."

"Yes," she said.

"But he's your father, Jewel.
 
They're your people."

"I didn't say I would fight my people, Nicholas.
 
I said I would fight him."
 
She let her free hand drop.
 
Nicholas didn't know how ruthless the Fey could be.
 
She had tried to warn him, but he couldn't seem to fathom it.
 
"The only hope for the Fey on Blue Isle is to follow me."

"Or the Black King will slaughter them when he arrives?
 
Will he arrive, Jewel?"

She nodded.
 
"Maybe not in your lifetime or in mine, but certainly during Sebastian's.
 
My Grandfather is too old for battle, and I think he's Blind, too.
 
If my brother Bridge becomes Black King, he will consolidate power on Galinas.
 
He is not a warrior and he doesn't need to be.
 
It will be understood that he took the job when the true powers died at sea."

"At sea?" Nicholas asked.

She nodded.
 
"Failure is talked about only in the context of living Fey, Nicholas.
 
My father and I can become victims of a storm easier than we can lose a battle.
 
But once Bridge dies, his child, his successor will have to come to Blue Isle because it is the next stop on the way to Leut.
 
The Fey are warriors.
 
Their leaders are conquerors.
 
We have stopped in our travels for a generation or two, but we have never stopped, and we cannot stop until the whole world is ours."

"Then the Isle should be preparing for this," Nicholas said.

She squeezed his hand.
 
"No.
 
I am already preparing.
 
If the Isle is integrated when they come, Nicky, it becomes part of the Empire without bloodshed.
 
The government remains the same, and stays in the hand of your family.
 
But if the Isle isn't integrated, then all the holy water on Blue Isle won't stop the Fey.
 
The Spell Warders my grandfather has make Rugar's team look like infants.
 
They will find the secret to your weapon, and they will turn it on you."

"What about you?"

"If I am still alive, I'll be executed.
 
My line will be eradicated.
 
We'll all die, Nicky.
 
You, me, Sebastian, and this little one."
 
Jewel patted her stomach.

He dropped her hand. "You never said that they would kill us.
 
You said we would become honorary Fey.
 
An important part of the Empire.
 
I remember that.
 
You said it at the meeting when we decided to be married.
 
You made it sound like a promise."

"It is a promise, Nicholas.
 
It is."

"But you would betray your own father."

She didn't know how to explain this to him in the corridor while the entire Isle waited in the Hall for his coronation.
 
Yet she knew it couldn't wait.
 
He had been urged to throw her aside.
 
He would do so if he felt that he had no choice.

"Like you," she said slowly, "I have been raised to rule from birth.
 
But unlike you, I was raised in a world of war.
 
Betrayal, coup, assassination.
 
Alliances and counteralliances.
 
My people can make themselves look like the enemy.
 
In the Fey world, no one can be trusted lightly.
 
No one, Nicky.
 
Any betrayal of trust gets tallied, and when the score grows too high, the friend becomes the enemy.
 
There is no other way."

"So I can trust you as long as I treat you well," Nicholas said.

She held up her hand.
 
To her surprise, it was trembling.
 
"Let me finish.
 
The true Black King — or Black Queen — has to be ruthless.
 
It is the only way to survive.
 
No one wants to kill a Black King more than his closest sibling or his child.
 
But the Black King's family cannot kill within its ranks.
 
That causes untold turmoil.
 
So we have to do it subtly, by hiring assassins and not giving direct orders, or by finding other methods.
 
My grandfather sent my father away for a reason.
 
But my father took me as a guarantee that he would not lose his position.
 
His guarantee failed because he had not counted on the strength of the Isle.

"My father was the leader on this Isle and I took that leadership from him, without bloodshed, when I made the alliance with you.
 
He knows it, and I know it.
 
And until the power balance settles, he needs to know I can be as ruthless as he is.
 
Not just for me, but for you. For Sebastian. For this baby.
 
If we don't ally with my father, we will fight a guerrilla war with my own people until the Black King comes.
 
And on that day, we're all dead."

"But what about me, Jewel?
 
How do I know if you'll turn on me?"

Sebastian was watching them, his little mouth moving as he sucked his forefinger.
 
The nurse was staring into the Coronation Hall.
 
She probably understood some Nye.
 
They should have been speaking Fey.

Jewel swallowed.
 
She had no easy answer for this question.
 
"Because I haven't turned on you yet," she said.
 
"And I won't."