Fey 02 - Changeling (110 page)

It galled Rugar that a three-year-old boy could outsmart him.
 
But the boy had more power than Rugar.
 
When Gift made that mental turn away from Coulter and headed toward the palace, Rugar had been powerless to follow the abandoned Links, even though he had tried.
 
He had had to follow Gift along Gift's paths.
 
Gift could thwart him and his wishes in this way every time.

But if Rugar raised the girl right, she would be able to do nothing to thwart him.
 
She would help him in every way she could.
 
And judging by her instant Shifts at birth, she would be one of the most powerful of the Fey.

When he reached the double doors leading into the Coronation Hall, he stopped.
 
The doors had been bolted shut, and a chain lock had been wound around the handles.
 
Nicholas wanted no one in there ever again.

No one to see where Jewel died.

The Fey had accused Rugar of not mourning her.
 
But they hadn't known what he was thinking or how he felt.
 
She had Seen that moment many times; Gift had Seen it too.
 
But Jewel's Vision had made it sound as if she would live, and Rugar had just listened to the surface of it.
 
Sometimes words were wrong.
 
It was feelings that were important.
 
Jewel had always felt dizzy and injured after those Visions.
 
Once she had passed out in his arms.
 
He should have understood that sign.

He blamed himself that he didn't.

But he knew that such signs were sometimes easy to miss.
 
The one he should have paid attention to was Gift.
 
The boy's Vision had been powerful; Rugar should have realized that the boy Saw a Turning Event, not a Moment.
 
But Rugar had thought it a Moment.
 
The death of Niche would mean nothing to anyone except her close family.
 
The death of Jewel affected lives on several continents.

He had been wrong from the moment he decided to come to Blue Isle, and staying here only compounded the mistakes.
 
He should never have allowed Jewel to marry, or live away from Shadowlands.
 
He should have forbidden her to participate in that ceremony, and he should have raised her son himself.

He would make no more mistakes.

He would raise the girl, no matter what the Shaman said.

The Shaman was another matter entirely.
 
He had heard that she was talking to the King, that she was giving Islanders advice.
 
His father had forced her to come along as a kind of guardian, not usual behavior in an invasion force, and Rugar should have opposed the move.
 
She was incompetent, young for her profession, and too power-hungry.
 

She didn't want Jewel's children in Shadowlands because they were too powerful for a Shaman to deal with.

He touched the door.
 
The wood felt warm against his fingertips.
 
He and Jewel had fought the last time they saw each other.
 
She had berated him for not seeing his grandson — as if she knew — and then she had left him for good.

And he had watched as she died, just as she had predicted he would.

He sighed.
 
He hadn't expected this depth of feeling.
 
Soldiers didn't feel.
 
Soldiers acted.
 

The corridor was long and seemed to extend forever.
 
Jewel and Nicholas had come from Rugar's right.
 
She had looked toward a flight of stairs when she had yelled at him for not seeing the golem she thought was her child.

After she died, he had seen through that golem's eyes.
 

The golem lived where his granddaughter lived.

He adjusted his cowl and hurried down the hall where he last spoke to his daughter, the knife clutched in his right hand.

SIXTY-FOUR

Charissa carried two buckets of soapy water.
 
Rags hung out of her uniform, and she had her hair pulled back with one.
 
Clean the corridors.
 
As if she had no home, no family.
 
She made one comment about the King.
 
One comment and she wouldn't get any sleep at all tonight.

Clean the corridors.

All of them.

She cursed the Master of the House under her breath.
 
He had been after her ever since the night before the Coronation, when the King had taken her to the kitchen for a meal.
 
The Master of the House had changed her assignments, taken her off the royal wing, and made her work in the guest areas.
 

That was bad enough.
 
She rarely saw the King any more, and when she did, he looked haggard.
 
She knew how he felt, losing the King his father.
 
It had left her feeling dislocated and a bit frightened, as it had with the rest of the Isle.
 
But then his wife's death — no matter how much Charissa wanted her out of the way — made things even worse.

And the rumors about the baby girl, well, they gave Charissa shudders.

She would have told the Master of the House that if he had asked, but no.
 
He had ordered her to clean the corridors on the basis of one comment.

One.

And she would scrub until her hands bled.

I think the King is the best looking man in the Kingdom,
she had said.
 
Other maids had said the same thing, and in the Master of the House's hearing.
 
She had reminded him of that.
 
But none of them had airs about being Queen, he had countered.

As if she thought she could be Queen.

Really thought it, instead of just dreaming it.

The King hadn't even looked at her at all lately.
 
What with his father's death, running everything, and that horrible child, he didn't have time to sleep, let alone —

She flushed even though she was walking down the hallway alone.
 
Every time she thought of him and
that
she made herself all flustered.

She set down the bucket, stood and stretched.
 
Her back cracked.
 
She had spent the morning cleaning the fireplaces in the guest suites.
 
The Housekeeper demanded that they keep the spring schedule.
 
Fireplaces all week since many weren't in use.
 
The rest of the fireplaces would be cleaned in a month when the weather got too warm.
 
But no one had used the guest suites in so long that some of the fireplaces Charissa had cleaned looked as if they hadn't been used all winter.

The work had been particularly difficult since the coronation.
 
Once news of the baby got out, half the staff quit.
 
They didn't want to be in the same building as the demon child.
 
Charissa had double the work during the same amount of time.
 
The Master of the House was bringing in new people, but they were slow and their work was not yet up to standard.

She picked up the buckets, and some of the water sloshed on her shoes.
 
The wet seeped through the cloth, leaving little footprints in the corridor.
 
She sighed.
 
It was a good thing she hadn't started yet.
 
She would have been quite angry if she had.

She was starting in the Coronation Hall simply because she liked that wing of the palace. She used any excuse she could find to go there.
 
It reminded her of the night she spent talking to the King. Her second favorite place was the kitchen, and her third the Great Hall.
 
She always thought of him in those places.

She wondered if he thought of her.

No one had been in the wing since the devil child was born, and it showed.
 
Lots of dust, even though the place had been sparkling before.
 
She would start in front of the locked Hall doors and then work her way back toward the kitchen, maybe grab a snack and go onto the Great Hall. By then, maybe the Master of the House would take pity on her and let her get some sleep.

He had done that before.
 

She rounded the corner to the long corridor that led to the Coronation Hall.

And stopped.

An Aud stood before the double doors as if he were confused.
 
He seemed tall for an Aud, but his robe was unusually long.
 
A chill ran down her back.
 
She had heard strange stories about the Rocaanists these days.
 
The King believed that the Rocaan had murdered his wife, and some of the others believed it too.
 
Some of the cooks thought maybe the Rocaan was going to kill the King and take his place.
 

Would the Rocaan use an Aud to do it?

That didn't make sense.
 
This afternoon, she had heard that the Rocaan had been forced to leave Jahn.
 
She had also heard that he killed a Fey in the keep, so she didn't know which story to believe.

Now an Aud standing in front of the Coronation Hall.

An Aud that was too tall.
 
Like the Rocaan.

She swallowed and slowly backed up.
 
Was he trying to sneak in as someone else?
 
Get an audience with the King?
 
Kill him?
 
Whatever was happening, she would have to tell someone.
 
It wasn't normal for an Aud to be in the palace, at least not without a few other Auds, a Danite or maybe an Officiate.

Then the Aud reached up, his hand in shadow, and adjusted his cowl, tugging it down even farther over his face.

Fear shot through her rich and fine.
 
She glanced behind her.
 
Footprints.
 
Her own, going into the corridor and out.
 
He would know he was spotted.
 
He would know he had seen her.

She had only one choice.
 

She hurried back to the spot where she had first seen him.
 
Then she got down on her hands and knees and started scrubbing.
 
It wasn't a logical place to clean, but it got rid of the double and triple sets of footprints.
 
She made sure the buckets were close to him, so that she had to look in his direction each time she wetted a rag.

He hadn't seen her yet.
 
He was looking down the other corridor as if he weren't certain where to go.
 

She scrubbed so hard that her arm ached.
 
She was leaving little streaks in the floor, streaks she would have to clean later.
 
This was one of the marble floors and she was cleaning it wrong.
 
She hoped he wouldn't know that either.

Now he was coming toward her.
 
His footsteps sounded firm and purposeful on the marble.
 
That disturbed her.
 
Auds always moved quietly.

As he approached, she moved her buckets out of his path.
 
"Forgive me, Devoted Sir," she said, thankful that her voice didn't quiver.
 
"I didn't see you."