Fey 02 - Changeling (74 page)

"I can't leave her side," Solanda said.
 
"She Shifts at whim."

The Shaman tucked the blanket under the baby's chin.
 
"A morning or two to yourself wouldn't matter," she said.

"It would," Solanda said, "if she Shifted while I was gone."

"You worry too much, child.
 
Shifters have grown without round-the-clock care."

Shifters had grown. Of course they had.
 
But they weren't like Arianna.
 
Solanda didn't know how she would convince the Shaman of that.
 
The Shaman clearly didn't listen to what Solanda was saying.
 

The Shaman's gnarled fingers played with the baby blanket.
 
Arianna was so tiny.
 
It was so hard to believe something that small could totally control another person's life.

"I don't complain too much," Solanda said.
 
She walked to the corner, picked up the burned blanket and tossed it at the Shaman.
 
The Shaman caught it with her other hand.
 
She gazed at it for a moment, noted the brown tinged holes through the middle and ran her fingers along them.
 
"Last night, she was fire.
 
A day before that, she was half cat --the wrong half.
 
A day before that, water.
 
She Shifts whenever she's awake, and she does so based on what she sees.
 
You and I may think she is too young for this, but the fact is that she does it.
 
The Islander nurse and I guard her.
 
I can only sleep when the nurse is in the room."

The Shaman let the burned blanket fall to the floor.
 
She bent over the crib until her face was as close to Arianna's as she dared.
 
She touched the baby's cheek.
 
Arianna cooed, and brushed at the Shaman's finger with her small hand.

"Don't wake her," Solanda said softly.

The Shaman stood, wonder on her ancient face.
 
"She hums with magic.
 
It flows around and through her as if she were the bed for a river."

"Please don't give her that image," Solanda said tiredly.
 
"She might try it."

The Shaman walked to the window.
 
Her back was bowed.
 
She looked out.
 
"The garden extends around the palace?" She sounded surprised.

"It's large," Solanda said, wondering at the Shaman's change of subject.

The Shaman placed her hands flat on the sill and stared out, much as Solanda had been doing the last few days.
 
"It seems that the wild magic here is stronger than we thought."

"I know," Solanda said.

"It will require a deep commitment from you, one that will last until this child can control her Shifts and maybe beyond."

Solanda said nothing.
 
She didn't have to.
 
She had already made the commitment in her heart.

"You cannot allow this child into Shadowlands," the Shaman said.

"I may not be able to control that," Solanda said.
 
"She already has a mind of her own."

"Never," the Shaman said.
 
"It will ruin us all."

"If she can't go there," Solanda said, "then I need help here.
 
I need a Domestic, someone to assist me.
 
The Islander nurse tries, but what if I'm asleep and Arianna decides to become fire again?"

The Shaman sighed and pulled away from the window.
 
"You will have to trust in the Powers and Mysteries," she said.
 
"They gave you to Arianna.
 
You are up to the task."

"I did not ask for this duty," Solanda said.

"You were destined for it the moment you boarded a ship for Blue Isle," The Shaman said.

"I had no choice in boarding," Solanda said.

The Shaman stared at her for a moment.
 
"No," she said.
 
"I suppose you did not.
 
But you need to make choices now."

Solanda shook her head.
 
"You just told me I had no choice."

The Shaman leaned against the sill as Solanda had been doing earlier.
 
"We are not speaking of Arianna now.
 
We're speaking of Rugar.
 
You can no longer do as he says."

Solanda smoothed the hair on Arianna's forehead.
 
The girl's skin was warm with sleep.
 
"He doesn't know I'm here.
 
I won't come back when he calls."

"I know, child, but it is more than that.
 
He will try to steal Arianna to Shadowlands as he did her brother.
 
He cannot succeed."

"Why can't she go to Shadowlands?
 
She is part Fey."

The Shaman stared at Solanda for a moment.
 
A flush built in Solanda's cheeks.
 
She had asked a rude question of the Shaman.
 
The Shaman often spoke in riddles.
 
It was the duty of the Fey to abide by those riddles, not to question the riddles, but to live with the future that the Shaman spoke of, to allow the Shaman to lead in the small, yet important things.

Then the Shaman reached up and pulled the tapestry over the window.
 
She went to the other two windows and did the same, leaving the room in darkness.
 
Only the glow of the fireplace provided any light at all.
 

The Shaman walked toward it and sat beside it, her face in profile.
 
"I am a young Shaman," she said, "far from my peers and learning as best I can.
 
Jewel died because I was not clear to her father about his role in the future of the Fey.
 
I will be as clear to you as I know how.
 
On some of this I do not have clarity.
 
I have only knowledge."

Solanda stayed beside the crib, unwilling to leave Arianna unguarded in the darkness.
 
Once, in a Shift, Arianna had made no noise at all.

"Arianna is a Shape-Shifter, born to a Visionary.
 
Such a birth is rare, but would be thought part of the Mysteries if not for two other things.
 
Her brother had his first Vision this year, and nearly died with his mother, so their Link was strong.
 
He was saved by the child you rescued."

"Coulter?" Solanda asked.
 
She remembered the trail of grief she had followed, the trail Coulter had left when he was not much older than Arianna, a trail he hoped would guide his parents to him.
 
His parents had died the same day he was rescued by a kind old woman whose heart Solanda shattered.
 
One of the few completely cruel acts Solanda had ever committed, and the only one she regretted.

"The boy has the ability to Enchant."

"But he's not Fey."

"Exactly," the Shaman said.
 
"We have traveled halfway across the world before we meet a people like our own."

"But they can't Shift.
 
They have no Doppelgängers or Warders."

"They have no need," the Shaman said.
 
"They are the most protected peoples we ever encountered.
 
They only had to defend themselves against each other.
 
They did that through their religion."

"The poison," Solanda said.

"And their god, the Roca."

"He isn't a god," Solanda said.
 
"But a man they claim was Beloved of God."

"Who ascended, but still lived."

"Like a Power," Solanda said as the realization sank in.

"Which creates a Mystery we may never solve."

The baby sighed and rolled over in her sleep.
 
Solanda kept a finger on the baby's shoulder, to make certain nothing changed when she wasn't paying attention.

"But if they're like us," she said, "then this child is not unusual."

The Shaman bowed her head.
 
"If the races intermingle, we will have even more powerful children."

"So we should be encouraging that," Solanda said.
 
"We are always to follow the magic."

"As long as we have the approval of the Black Throne," the Shaman said.

"The Black King is in Nye.
 
We don't need his approval."

"Then the approval falls to his son."

Her words hung in the room.
 
A log snapped in the dying fire and sparks scattered like red Wisps.

"Rugar doesn't understand this, does he?" Solanda asked quietly.

"Rugar is a warrior," the Shaman said.
 
Her hair caught the firelight like cobwebs.
 
She might be a young Shaman, but she was an old woman, with an old body that was carrying the weight of Fey on its shoulders.

"Rugar has always been a warrior," Solanda said.
 
"But you no longer trust him."

"I —" the Shaman's voice broke.
 
She turned her head away from Solanda, toward the fire.
 
"I never trusted him.
 
Never.
 
I only came along because I could not get out of it.
 
I was the youngest of the Shaman, and the Black King decreed that one had to go on this trip."

"Do you think he knew that Rugar was Blind?"

"I think he knew that we would be trapped on Blue Isle," the Shaman said.

Solanda shuddered.
 
No wonder Rugad had opposed Jewel's travel here.
 
No wonder he had let Rugar go so easily.
 
No wonder he had insisted that Solanda come as well.
 
"Does he know, then, of Arianna?"

"I can only guess," the Shaman said.
 
"And my guess is that he could not See past the loss of Rugar.
 
If the Black King had known of the magic here, he would have come himself."

"But to send his own son away, to almost certain death …" Solanda shook her head.
 
"It seems wrong somehow."

"It's been done before."

The Shaman spoke softly.
 
It had only been done a handful of times before, each time to prevent the Blood turning on itself.
 
Murder within the Black King's family, his legitimate family, was unspeakable.

"You don't think Rugar's crazy enough to kill for the Black Throne, do you?" Solanda asked.

"What I think doesn't matter," the Shaman said.
 
"What the Black King thinks is all that is important."

Solanda longed to pick up Arianna and hold her tightly.
 
Instead, she wrapped her forefinger around the baby's fist.
 
"So Rugar truly didn't care when we thought Gift died.
 
And all he wants Arianna for is her power."

"And what she can give him."
 
The Shaman folded her hands together and looked away from the fire.
 
The side of her face nearest Solanda was in darkness.
 
The Shaman appeared to be a shadow of herself, surrounded by a halo of light.

"But if he's Blind, she can't give him anything," Solanda said.