Fey 02 - Changeling (17 page)

"Only she didn't look like Mommy.
 
Her face was funny and I couldn't see her wings.
 
She was wearing a white dress.
 
It looked like something hurt her head.
 
The man was saying strange things to her.
 
He looked scared.
 
And you were there, Grandpa.
 
You threw water on Mommy.
 
Then she yelled.
 
The other man kept talking to her, but you grabbed her from him and ran with her from the room.
 
He ran after you."

There was a silence when Gift finished.
 
"That's all?" his grandfather asked.

Gift nodded.

"Very good.
 
You remember a lot for your first Vision.
 
Now, I'm going to ask you details and see if you can remember them.
 
Were you in Shadowlands?"

Gift shook his head.
 
"Everything was bright."

"What else was in the room?"
 

"Lots of yellow people."

"Furniture?"

Gift shrugged.
 
"I just saw people."

"What did these yellow people look like?"

"They had yellow hair and their skin was really light."

"Islanders," his mother whispered.

"Shush, Niche, or I will not allow you here the next time."
 
Grandpa Rugar spoke sharply to her without looking at her at all.

"See?" Gift whispered.
 
Grandpa Rugar was always mean to her.
 

She squeezed Gift's arm, but said nothing.

"Was I the only Fey there?"

"Mommy."

"Besides your mother?"

"Infantry," Gift said.
 
"But I don't know who."

His grandfather leaned close, so close Gift could see the red lines in his eyes.
 
"Now, this next part is hard.
 
How did you know the Fey woman was your mother."

"I just knew,"
 
Gift said.
 
He didn't like explaining this.
 
It was like trying to make sense from a dream.

"Did she look like your mother?"

"She was hurt."

"But —." Grandpa Rugar sighed.
 
"Let me try this way.
 
Did you know she was your mother before you saw her?"

Gift looked at him, amazed that Grandpa Rugar could understand.
 
"Yes," he said.

"Did she speak?"

"She cried when you threw water on her."

Grandpa Rugar frowned.
 
The look was severe, and frightening.
 
Gift leaned harder on his mother.
 
She put one arm around him.

"Were you there, Gift?"

"Yes," he said.
 
He looked at his mother.
 
She was watching Grandpa Rugar.
 
"I saw it all.
 
I was just there."

Grandpa Rugar gave Gift's mother one of those grown-up looks, the kind that proved children were bad.
 
He frowned.
 
"I know you were there, Gift, but did anyone see you or talk to you?"

Gift shook his head.

"Do you know where you were standing or how you got there?"

"No."

Grandpa Rugar leaned back as if Gift's answer explained everything.
 
Gift didn't like it that Grandpa Rugar seemed to know more about Gift's Vision than Gift did.

"Is that all?" Gift's mother asked.
 
Her arms had tightened around Gift again.

"For now," Grandpa Rugar said.
 
"You did well, Gift."

Gift smiled at the praise because he knew he was supposed to.
 
But he didn't like it.
 
The whole afternoon had been bad.
 
He didn't want Grandpa Rugar here, and he hated the Vision.
 
If that was going to be his power, he wanted it changed.

To something with wings.

"Will he be all right?" Gift's mother asked.

Grandpa Rugar nodded.
 
"If it happens again, send for me right away."

"It'll happen again?" Gift asked.
 
He hated it.
 
He never wanted another.

"All of your life, boy," Grandpa Rugar said.
 
"It's not so bad.
 
And when it goes away, you might even miss it."

"I won't," Gift said.
 

"Don't be so sure," Grandpa Rugar said.

His words made Gift's mother even more tense.
 
"Are you Blind?" she whispered.

"Of course not," Grandpa Rugar said.
 
"But I have watched too many lose their Vision.
 
I know how painful it will be."

He got to his feet, grabbed his cloak and swung it over his shoulders.

"Rugar?" Gift's mother said.
 
"About the Vision.
 
What can I do?"

He adjusted the cloak over his shoulders.
 
"Do about what?"

"The injury that Gift saw.
 
I thought sometimes the point of Visions is to prevent something from happening."

"It is," Grandpa Rugar said.
 
"But you don't have to worry."

"Gift said —"

"I know what Gift said.
 
I say you have nothing to worry over."

Gift leaned forward.
 
"Mommy was hurt."

"No," Grandpa Rugar said.
 
"You said that your mother was hurt, but that she didn't look like your mother, isn't that right?"

"Yes," Gift said.

"Then Niche here has nothing to worry about."

Gift frowned.
 
Another answer that made no sense.
 
"Why not?"

Grandpa Rugar looked at him.
 
"Because she's not your real mother, boy," he said, and then let himself out of the cabin.

Gift's mother made a soft moaning sound.

"You're my mother, aren't you?" Gift asked.

She didn't answer.

"Aren't you?"

She lifted her head, then kissed his cheek, her lips soft.
 
"Yes, Gift."

"So why isn't he worried about you?"

She put her hand behind the back of his head and pulled him close, so close he couldn't see her face.
 
"Because Visions are odd things.
 
They don't always come true."

"But you're worried."

"Only about you, Gift."
 
She rocked him as she spoke.
 
"Only about you."

NINE

Burden was knee-deep in mud, pounding wooden nails into wooden slabs, trying to repair the wall of the Domicile.
 
The spring rain was cool against his head, and his fingers hurt.
 
He would have to get one of the Healers to pull the splinters from his skin when he was through.

The Jahn settlement was a failure.
 
Only his pride prevented him from returning to Shadowlands.
 
Rugar would say that only Visionaries can start new colonies, and Rugar would be right.

In the past three years, the Settlement had gone from a small camp filled with hope to a place full of frightened Fey.
 
The buildings were badly constructed because most of the Domestics had chosen to stay in Shadowlands.
 
Those who had come were younger Domestics, many with textile experience, and no experience on larger homey matters.
 
The Islanders that Jewel had promised had helped early on, but the fights among the Islanders and the Fey had grown so severe that the Fey refused to work with the Islanders.
 
Many Islanders carried poison onto the premises because they were afraid of Fey magic.
 
Many Fey threatened magic because they were afraid of Islander poison.

The truce was great in theory, but in practice it wasn't succeeding at all.

Burden had managed to create a Shadowlands with weather and less protection.
 
So far, no Fey had died out here, but it was only a matter of time.

"Burden?"
 

He sighed and let the entire piece of wood slide down.
 
The hole still gaped in the side of the Domicile.
 
He turned, his legs squinching in the mud.

The only Weather Sprite to have left Shadowlands, Hanouk, stood behind him.
 
She wore an untreated cloak, hood down.
 
Water poured over her face.
 
Her work with the elements had left her skin so tortured she looked four times older than she was.
 
She had left Shadowlands because she hated the grayness, not because she had believed in Burden's cause.
  
"Jewel has come to see you."

"Her Highness wants to see how well the little experiment is working?" Burden wiped his muddy hands on his muddy pants.
 
She would come to see him when he was like this.
 
Not that it mattered.
 
He hadn't ever mattered to her — he saw that now.
 
Their long friendship, their shared experiences in the Infantry, meant nothing in the face of her lust for the Islander.

Still, understanding didn't help Burden's bitterness.
 
If Jewel had to mate with someone who lacked her talents, she should have chosen someone Fey.

She should have chosen him.

Hanouk ignored his sarcasm.
 
"She is in my cabin.
 
She shouldn't be in the elements."

"I suppose not, now that the Black King's granddaughter is Queen of Blue Isle."

He got up, the mud squishing around him.

Hanouk waited until he stood beside her.
 
"Jewel is with child.
 
We do not want her birthing a mixed baby here."
 
Then she turned and walked back to the path, her feet staying on top of the mud.
 
Burden envied the Weather Sprites their uncanny control of all the elements.

The pregnancy shook him.
 
He had expected the first child — it was an obligation that she had to fulfill.
 
He had been present when she made the agreement with the Islander.
 
But a second child, so late in the marriage, couldn't be obligation.

He shuddered, the betrayal as fresh as if it had occurred the day before.
 

He slogged through the mud to the path.
 
There was mud on the stones, but at least they kept him from sinking in the deep.
 
The Islanders were smart.
 
When they had designated this part of Jahn for a Fey settlement, they knew they were giving the Fey river bottom land.
 
It was a flood plain that washed out every spring.
 
Burden had initially said such things didn't matter; the Fey could work with any problem.
 
He was right, of course, but what he hadn't foreseen — what he had lacked the Vision for — was the knowledge that the most magical Fey would remain with Rugar in Shadowlands.
 
The Fey who moved to Jahn were the young, the rebellious, and the underappreciated.

He had so little help, and he was so very, very tired.

The Settlement was fifty buildings big.
 
They were scattered on a series of paths that followed rises in the ground more than any logic.
 
One of the benefits of being outside Shadowlands was the space and materials to build cabins.