Free Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

back of his hand he wiped the sweat off his face and smiled to himself. He left through the open back door, kicking aside the bones the kind-hearted chef had left for the dogs.
    Outside, the air was still cool with a touch of damp. But he could feel the heat of the morning was not long away. The sun felt good on his bare arms. There were lots of voices in the breeze, odd cries and shouts he hadn’t heard before. But, then, he had never been in the yard this early before.
    The cats were sitting outside the dairy barns, grooming themselves after their morning treat of fresh milk. One of the grooms had a mare by the leg, and he was examining her hoof in the brightness of the sun. The cobblestones were still wet, and mud from too many boots had been squelched on top of them. The surface would be slick for his workout, but he could handle slick. He relished a challenge that would allow him to push his own limits.
    He went to the swordmaster’s rooms at the very edge of the servants’ quarters. Nicholas knocked on the door, a sharp report over the palace’s early-morning sounds. The door opened, and Stephen stood in front of him, looking sleepy and old in the early-morning light.
    “The sun is out,” Nicholas said. “I thought we shouldn’t wait another moment.”
    “Boys,” Stephen said. He scratched his tousled graying hair and then rubbed the silver bristles on his chin. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
    He closed the door without letting Nicholas inside.
    Nicholas paced outside the door, staring up at the sky as if he were afraid the sun would go away. But the sky was a perfect blue without any clouds at all. If it weren’t for the standing water, the mud, and the wet stones, he would not have believed that the rains had drenched Blue Isle in the dry season.
    The shouts in the streets grew louder, and he thought he heard a woman cry in pain. Nicholas frowned. He glanced at the high stone wall as though he could see through it. Sometimes the sounds were too close, as if the peasants could get inside with no effort at all. He was raised with stories of the Peasant Uprising, of the day they had stormed the wall, and only his great-great-grandfather’s quick thinking and a chefs vat of oil had saved the palace from being overrun. As a little boy, Nicholas used to enact that battle all by himself, standing on the flat part of the kitchen roof and pouring cups of water down the side of the wall. A manservant had finally stopped him when he’d seen how perilously close Nicholas was to falling into the newly built open ceiling.
    Then he heard the pounding of horse’s hooves, and he moved away from Stephen’s door so that he could see the wooden side gate. The guards signaled down from the towers, and the men double-teamed to pull the ropes so that the gate would go up. Two horses, ridden by Danites with red trim on their hems, marking them as having come from the Tabernacle, came inside. The men let the gate drop behind them as if they were infected by the wild expressions on the Danites’ faces.
    “We need to see the King!” the rotund Danite said. His voice carried all over the yard.
    Nicholas ran forward, his date with Stephen forgotten. One of the guards was speaking to the Danites in a lower tone. The horses were covered with sweat, and one of them reared when Nicholas approached. The Danite struggled to keep hold, but it was a guard who grabbed the reins and calmed the horse.
    “On what business do you need to see the King?” Nicholas demanded.
    The Danite looked at him, then bowed as best he could on the horse. “We come from the Tabernacle, Highness. The Rocaan saw ships in the harbor this morning, strange ships that arrived in the rain. There are strangers all over the city, and as we rode here, we heard screams in the streets. A woman ran from the alley not far from this place, her clothing in tatters, shouting that she had seen the devil.” The Danite’s words were clipped. His face was red, and he