He wouldn't have the time.
He got up, and came back to her, gripping her shoulders again.
Make it stop, he said.
Get out! she spat at him. It's my body.
It's mine now, he said.
Get out!
Shift back.
No, she said. If you stay here, you do what I want.
Then tell me where you are. Where we are.
Get out, old man. I tell you nothing. If you come to me physically, I will kill you.
You can't do that, girl. I'm flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood. You kill me and everyone will die.
It's a story, she said.
It's the truth, he said. The only truth you need believe.
Get out.
No.
She could feel his determination as if it were her own. As if they were the same person in some odd and undefinable way. He would not leave, and she believed the story just enough to worry about it.
He climbed to the eyes and looked out. The world was multifaceted, the rock before them several rocks, the air temperature affecting the temperature of their skin.
Shift, he said.
No. She sent back the same determination he had sent to her. As long as you're in me, I will control what we do.
They'll step on us. There was no fear in him, only fact.
She shrugged. If they did, they did. It was a risk she had to take.
He came back to her. This time, she did not flinch. Shift back.
No. Then she smiled. You Shift us.
He shook his head. His magnificent hair swayed as he did so. The form he had taken inside her was as young as her form. He hadn't been that young in decades. Her great-grandfather, looking foreign and exotic and very, very familiar.
She had his features. Buried in a face shaped like her father's. She had her great-grandfather's features.
She shuddered. She couldn't stop it. Her smile faded, and she wondered if the recognition had come from him or from her.
He had gone back to the eyes. He hadn't tried to find a way to control the Shifting. Was he trying to control her mind? If so, why did he let her know he was here? Why didn't he just manipulate her?
Because he couldn't. If he could, he would. She knew that of him, and she hadn't really spent much time with him. She recognized the ruthlessness, had felt a small part of it within herself.
She stepped closer to him, then kicked his leg. He turned, those dark menacing eyes glaring at her.
You're not Shifting us because you can't. She smiled again.
He frowned at her. Is your knowledge so limited that you don't know the Fey ways?
She didn't answer it. He knew that she had been raised by her father. He knew that she had limitations.
But she also had more power than he thought.
If you don't get out, she said, I'll force you out.
Big talk, little one, he said. I will not leave until you let me know where you are.
She shook her head and crossed her arms. Get out.
No.
She studied him for a moment. You've never done this to a Shifter before.
His eyes widened slightly and she felt the surprise before he buried it. The bleed of emotion went both ways, then. He could feel hers, and she could feel his, even if he didn't want her to.
So you don't know what I can do.
I know, child, he said. The Shaman's endearment for her sounded odd on his lips. He didn't mean it kindly. He didn't think of anyone kindly.
Except her mother.
He had thought that way of her mother.
You forget, he was saying. I know everything of the Fey.
I'm not just Fey, she said, and Shifted again. This time she went from lizard to robin, feeling the snout change to a beak, the eyes move from multifaceted to binocular, the scales change to feathers. She held the shape for just a moment, and then Shifted again, back to the lizard because the shape trapped her great-grandfather so well.
Already her body was tiring. She had had no reserves when she started this, and she had even less now. Soon it would simply collapse from sheer exhaustion. Understanding dawned on his face.
Her smile grew. I'll do this as much as I have to. You'd better leave.
Eventually, you'll have to stop, he said.
She shook her head. I can do this forever.
His eyes narrowed. You'll run out of energy.
Yes, she said, but I won't stop.
We'll freeze in one shape until the energy comes back, he said. It is no great threat. I can wait.
I got stuck once, she said. Many years ago, and I think I know how to avoid it now.
You think?
She shrugged. It doesn't matter. I'll Shift until I can't any more.
It will kill you, he said.
If you stay, she said calmly, feeling no fear at all, it will kill us both.
FORTY-NINE
Gift rolled his eyes. He was beginning to have enough of this. The cave was cold. The water was still splashing out of the fountain, and he was getting hungry. The Cap and Leen were beside him, looking worried. Leen still had her hand on the hilt of her knife, but the Cap hadn't touched his weapons.
That bothered Gift most of all.
His mother — or the thing that purported to be her — stood in front of him, watching him, as if everything depended on his next sentence.
"The future of all the Fey," he said, and shook his head. "The future of all the Fey. That's been thrown at me since I was a boy. 'You're the future of the Fey, Gift. You belong to the Black King's family. You're the heir to the Black Throne.' Year after year, I had to do things for the future of the Fey. My grandfather used to say that all the time before he died. Then the Shaman. I had to watch what I did because it might affect the future of the Fey."
He took a step toward his mother. "Now you," he said. "Now you say you are a Mystery, and Mysteries control Visions and Visions are scenes from the future, and you tell me that I must chose one future, that you can't advise me, and that I must choose what's best for the future of the Fey."
"That's right," she said softly.
"Then what good are you?" he asked. "What good at all?"
"You'll see," she said.
"I'll see? I'll see? I don't want to see." His voice was echoing off the cave walls. Vials of holy water shook, the water inside reflecting the cavern's odd light. "If you're going to help me, help me. Otherwise leave me alone."
She cocked her head to one side, as if she were listening to something he couldn't hear, and then she closed her eyes and sighed.
"Interesting timing, my son," she said, and vanished.
He hadn't expected her to go away. He reached out, into the space she had been, and felt nothing. "Mother?" he said. "Mother?" He took another step toward the spot where she had stood. "Jewel? Stranger? Please?"
"You told her to go away," the Cap said. "Did she?"
Gift ignored him. He glanced around the cavern, back to the fountain where he had first seen her. She was gone. He had felt her presence earlier, and now even that was gone.
He stood, hand out, feeling that same strange separation he had felt the day Coulter had saved his life. No, that wasn't quite right. He felt as he had felt when he learned that the Black King had murdered everyone in Shadowlands.
Everyone.
Including his adopted mother.
He sat down abruptly and let the feelings wash over him. He had told her to leave, but he hadn't meant her to leave. He had just been so frustrated by her unwillingness to tell him everything. And he had been a bit frightened, too. Just a bit.
No Fey had made it this far north. At least, not Fey that his grandfather had led. He doubted that any of his great-grandfather's soldiers had been here either.
His mother had been a Visionary, like he was, only her powers hadn't been as great. She hadn't escaped. The Shaman had told him later of his mother's death just after his father's coronation, during his sister's birth.
&
nbsp; The Shaman had told him, and he had Seen it.
And nearly died because of it.
"All right," he said. "You've made your point. Now come back."
His words no longer echoed. The place seemed to have more substance than it had had before, as if the walls had gotten somehow closer together. But his eyes didn't see that. Only his ears knew it. It was as if a door had closed, a door to somewhere else.
She was gone.
"You shouldn't have challenged her like that," the Cap said. "Mysteries are capricious."
"I thought you didn't know about the Mysteries," Gift snapped. He wasn't angry at the Cap, not really. He wanted to yell at his mother or that thing that had called itself his mother. He wanted to slap her, scream at her, and cry in her arms.
He wanted her help.
He wanted her comfort.
He wanted her back.
"No one knows about the Mysteries," the Cap said. "Except maybe Shamans. It's said they meet with the Mysteries before they begin their service."
"The Shaman's dead," Gift said.
The Cap shrugged.
Leen sighed. She let go of her knife, then shook her shoulders, as if holding them in readiness had made the muscles tense. "I don't think that she's the issue anymore. She's gone now, and this place terrifies me. I'd like to leave."
"Not until Coulter and Adrian come," the Cap said.
"When Gift was yelling, those bottles moved," Leen said. "I've seen what they can do, those vials. Cover died when one of those got poured on her. I don't want to be here when those things shatter."
"They won't shatter," Gift said.
"Still," Leen said. "This place is full of their religious stuff. It could be harmful."
"To you and me," the Cap said. "But Gift is part of them. It might not hurt him at all."
"You think that's why I saw her, don't you?" Gift said. "You think she wasn't a Mystery. You think she was just part of their religion."
"Possible," the Cap said. "But from what you said, she sounds like a Mystery. I am not quite as frightened by this place as Leen. I think we're safe as long as we're smart."
"Smart?" Leen said. "You mean like not touching any of the religious artifacts? Staying away from the fountain?"
The Cap nodded.
"We don't know anything about their religion. For all we know, this floor is part of it, and we're taking a risk just sitting on it."
"Adrian will know," the Cap said.
Gift cleared his throat. He'd had enough of this arguing. He was still shaking from his mother's disappearance. "We said we'd wait here. Let's. You can wait outside if you want, Leen."
"Beneath all those swords?" she asked. "Oh, no, Gift. I don't trust anything about this place."
She crossed her arms over her chest and stood beside him as if she were standing guard. Gift felt as if he should move, but he didn't have the energy to do so. He wanted to remain where he was, to hold the hollowness his mother's disappearance had created in him close to his heart. Her disappearance was important somehow. Maybe she had done it to teach him that he shouldn't play with her, that he shouldn't question her.
She had said there would be a price for questioning her — actually, for her answers — earlier.
He sighed. He was tired of paying prices. He was tired of being the future of the Fey. He was tired of it all. He wasn't Fey, and he wasn't Islander. He didn't want anything to do with the man who had murdered his family and friends, and he didn't know what to do about his real father.
Maybe he should find him. Maybe that was why she had come.
But none of his Visions had shown that. His Visions had always shown him dying in the palace.
Him or Sebastian.
And Sebastian had died.
Gift winced.
Pick a Vision, she had said. Go in that direction. But how did he know which one was the right one? He had tried to stop a Vision before, and it had still resulted in Sebastian's death.
Maybe he shouldn't follow a Vision at all. Maybe he should chose his own path. But he didn't know what that would be. Find his father, if his father was still alive? Rule Blue Isle? Find a way to kill the Black King without actually doing so himself, in the tradition of the Black Throne? That was what the Cap wanted. He would even volunteer his services.
Gift knew that much.
Or should he stay in hiding forever, becoming his own person, and leaving the future of the Fey to the Fey themselves?
"Come back," he whispered to his mother. "I promise I won't yell again. Just please, come back."
FIFTY
Nicholas crouched over his daughter, hands wide. The Shaman was coming this way, but he needed to guard Arianna. He needed to see what happened to her next.
He hadn't thought she was in any danger. He had been so concerned with the Places of Power, with her speech, with his son, that he hadn't been watching Arianna.
Then she had screamed, and it had sent a wave of terror through him. He had caught up to her, and touched her shoulder. She had reassured him that she was all right in the oddest voice he had ever heard from her, and then she had Shifted.
The Shaman had warned him to pull his hand away just in time.
He had never seen his daughter Shift so rapidly. Cat, horse, lizard, robin, and then back to the lizard. If he hadn't been watching, if she hadn't screamed, he might have stepped on her.
"What is this?" the Shaman asked, and the question was not one he could answer. She stopped beside him, and stared at the spot where Arianna had been.
"What's going on?" Nicholas asked. "Do Shifters do this when they're tired?"
"No," the Shaman said. She moved up beside him and stared at the spot where Arianna had been. "I've never seen this before. But something is not right."
She waved a hand in front of her, then sighed. Nicholas's heart was pounding. The Shaman took a sharp breath.
"You see something," Nicholas said.
"Rugad is here," the Shaman said.
"Here?" Nicholas looked around. He couldn't see the Black King anywhere.
"No," the Shaman said. "Inside Arianna. He traveled across a Link."
"How do you know?"
"I can see his trail inside one of her Links."
"He's making her Shift?" Nicholas asked.
"No," the Shaman said. "He doesn't have that kind of magick. She's fighting him."
At that moment, the air near Arianna changed. A bird flew up slightly, then landed on a rock.
It was Ari. She was a robin again.
Nicholas moved toward her. The Shaman followed. As he got close, he saw Arianna Shift a seventh time. That elongated face reappeared before it shrank, the tail grew long and spindly. Forelegs grew out of the robin's breast, and back legs splayed, all while Arianna grew smaller.
A lizard.
A lizard he could barely see on a boulder before him.
"Arianna," Nicholas said and started to crouch.
The Shaman grabbed his arm. She pulled him up, put both hands on his shoulders, and turned him toward her. She was trembling. He could feel it through her fingers and arms.
"You said to me before we left on this trip that you could be the only one to kill the Black King."
"And you said I failed before because it might turn the Blood against the Blood."
His mouth was dry. He had never seen the Shaman like this, terrified and excited at the same time. He didn't know what she was thinking, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.
"If we are to take him," she said, "this is our chance. He's vulnerable. We would have to kill the lizard."
Nicholas shoved her away from him. He had never felt a revulsion like this.
"That's Arianna!"
"I know," the Shaman said.
"I thought you said Domestic magick is peaceful."
"It is," she said. "I couldn't do it. You would have to."
"I can't kill my daughter, no matter what's inside her. I can't do it. You have no right to ask me."
"I
have every right," the Shaman said. "You said you would do anything to save Blue Isle and get rid of the Fey. This is how you do it."
"By killing Arianna?"
"By killing the Black King."
The Shaman was watching Nicholas intently, as if she were trying to gauge his response. As if she expected him to take her seriously.
The lizard hadn't moved. Nicholas wondered if Arianna could hear them arguing. If the Black King could hear.
"She's fighting for her life, and you want me to kill her." Nicholas shook his head. "That's my daughter. I can't kill my daughter."
"A Fey would," the Shaman said.
"I am not Fey," Nicholas snapped.
The Shaman folded her hands in front of her. She let out a small breath. "I thought you would refuse. But I had to offer it."
"Offer it?"
"One life in exchange for a safe future. It is logical."
"It's my daughter," Nicholas said. "You said my killing the Black King might cause the Blood against Blood. Surely killing my daughter would."
"Not if it were an accident," the Shaman said.
She sounded too calm. She sounded like no one he'd ever known. The Fey were ruthless, he knew that, but he didn't think she was. He had trusted her with his life.
He had trusted her with Arianna's life.
"I will not touch her," Nicholas said.
The Shaman let out a small breath. "Then there is one other way."
Nicholas glanced at the lizard. It had not moved. Arianna had not moved. Was she fighting her great-grandfather? Was she winning? He hated Fey magick. He hated its secret ways, its paths.
He wished Jewel were here to guide him through. Not the Shaman.
Jewel.
Arianna was her daughter, too.
Then he felt her, almost as if she were standing beside him. Illusion. It was a cruel illusion.
As his daughter was fighting for her life.
"There is one other way," the Shaman said. "I could travel through your Link to her. I could try to get the Black King out."
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 32