The Black King (Book 7)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Arianna tilted her head upward. A Hawk Rider circled around the tower, and then soared toward the courtyard below. Arianna’s eyes tracked it. Lyndred watched it too, wishing it were a Gull Rider, wishing it were Ace, but knowing it was not.

  “You give this Isle too much power,” Arianna said.

  “I give it none that it doesn’t deserve,” Lyndred said. “It killed a Black King.”

  “Did it?” Arianna’s voice was cool. “I still feel his power.”

  A chill ran down Lyndred’s back and she didn’t know why. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Bother me?” This time, Arianna sounded surprised. “Why would it bother me?”

  “Because I thought you helped kill him.”

  Arianna turned toward her. There was something alien in her eyes, something so calculating that it almost made Lyndred take a step backwards. “If I had helped kill him, I would have brought Blood against Blood on our people.”

  Well, that was one question answered. Arianna knew about Blood against Blood.

  “But....” Lyndred frowned. “I thought you were there when your father killed Rugad. I thought you were part of it. And proud to be part of it. That’s what we heard in Nye.”

  “Lies,” Arianna said softly.

  “But you were there, weren’t you?”

  “Oh, I was there.” Arianna’s voice was completely flat. Its tone matched the strange look in her eyes.

  “Then—”

  “You don’t understand,” Arianna said. “I gain inspiration from Rugad.”

  The very idea took Lyndred’s breath away. “I thought your goal was to create peace for the Fey Empire.”

  “Rugad’s rule included peace.”

  “But that wasn’t its goal. My father said that Rugad’s peace was really a rest before the next stage of conquest.”

  Arianna smiled. “Your father is sometimes smarter than we give him credit for.”

  Lyndred flushed, wanting to defend her father, but knowing that Arianna was deliberately trying to change the topic. “So that’s what you did? Create a rest instead of a peace?”

  Arianna’s smile remained on her face, small and self-satisfied. It made her eyes seem even colder. “Think about it. I had inherited a Fey army startled and shattered by the surprise at the Cliffs of Blood. An Isle that was once rich but had to be destroyed because of the recalcitrance of its own people. Two groups who did not get along. The continents of Galinas, Etanien, and Vion were fine. If we increased production there, we’d compensate for this ruined place. I put the Empire back together. In fifteen years, Fey and Islanders have intermingled, their cultures forming one. They’ve both accepted me, the Fey as their Black Queen, the Islanders as their hereditary queen. The Islanders believe that I will always maintain a peace. The Fey know better. At least, most Fey do.”

  Lyndred felt the rebuke. “But, no, they don’t. They’re worried. I came from Galinas. You’ve never left this Isle. You don’t know what they’re saying about you.”

  “What are they saying about me?”

  The door had opened all the way, and Lyndred lied without a second thought. “They say you’re Blind.”

  Arianna stepped back as if slapped.

  “They say that you’re not trying to conquer Leut because you can’t See. They say you’re playing it safe because you don’t want to harm the Empire. They say your Islander blood has ruined you for battle forever.”

  “How could I have been Black Queen this long and be Blind?” Arianna’s temper was rising. Lyndred could almost feel it. It had a strength to it, an unnatural strength.

  Lyndred paused. Should she continue, or should she back down? But she had told her father she would find out—and what could Arianna do to her? She certainly couldn’t harm Lyndred, not with the Blood against Blood. She could banish her, but that would solve Lyndred’s problem, make certain that her Vision wouldn’t come true. At least, the Blue Isle Vision.

  “I don’t know,” Lyndred said, “but I’ve heard things about severe headaches, the fact that you were unconscious for two days. Maybe you had Sight and lost it.”

  Arianna’s eyes were flashing. “You do not know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t suppose I do.” Lyndred clasped her hands behind her back in a conscious imitation of Arianna. “But I do know that you’ve never shared a Vision with me.”

  Arianna’s right hand was clenched. Slowly the fist loosened, as if she made a conscious effort.

  “We’re Visionaries of equal skill,” Lyndred said. “Yet you’ve never taken the opportunity to share your Visions. I would have thought that you would have welcomed the opportunity. Instead, you only wanted to hear mine.”

  “I don’t need to share my Vision,” Arianna said. “I can interpret things well enough on my own.”

  “My father says it was that kind of arrogance that defeated his father. He said that Rugad used to yell at our grandfather about that very thing.”

  Lyndred took a step closer to the window. She could see herself reflected in the bubbled glass. She looked tired.

  “My last Vision,” Arianna said, “was of Gift. Drowning.”

  Lyndred turned. Arianna was staring out the south windows, as if lost in a memory.

  “We were on a small boat in the Infrin Sea,” she said.

  “Headed to Leut,” Lyndred said.

  Arianna nodded, unsurprised by Lyndred’s comment.

  “And Gift had fallen out of the boat. I lean forward with an oar, to save him, and he can’t grab it. He can’t swim. He’s going to drown.”

  She sounded strangely unconcerned, as if Gift meant nothing to her, as if the entire Vision meant nothing to her. It was an offering, but one that seemed to have no weight behind it at all.

  “I Saw a similar Vision,” Lyndred said. “Only it was my father in the water, and Gift in the boat.”

  Arianna was silent for a long time, as if she were weighing this information. “You never told me this Vision.”

  “You never told me yours. See what we can learn when we share?”

  Arianna was still staring south. Down there, Rugad had burned out most of the center of the Isle. Some of the old timers said that the fires were visible from Jahn, which meant that they could have been seen from this tower.

  “When did you have this Vision?” Arianna asked.

  “Before we left Nye.”

  “And since?”

  “No.” Lyndred was feeling oddly powerful, as if she were the one in control of the conversation. “When did you have yours?”

  Arianna put her fingers on the glass. “What else have you Seen?”

  “Tell me first,” Lyndred said.

  “I saw Gift standing before that burned-out building over there.” She pointed to the great ruin on the other side of the bridge. The remains of the Islander’s holiest building, destroyed by the Black King. “He was protecting a girl behind his back, a Fey girl.” Then Arianna moved her head toward Lyndred. “Maybe it was you.”

  Lyndred said nothing.

  Arianna looked at the building again. “Gift held a sword to my belly, and threatened to kill me. I said, ‘You can’t.’ And he said, ‘Oh, but I can.’”

  “He can’t,” Lyndred said. “Doesn’t he know about the Blood against Blood?”

  Arianna shrugged. “I Saw what I Saw.”

  That Vision she had recounted with more emotion. Because Gift had threatened her? Or because of another reason?

  “I Saw Blood against Blood,” Lyndred said. “I just don’t know what causes it. When did you have that Vision?”

  “Gift was in most of my Visions,” Arianna said.

  “Mine, too,” Lyndred said. “I think he’s a center.”

  Arianna whirled, her braid falling over her shoulder. “Like Jewel?”

  How strange to refer to her mother like that. No matter how many times Arianna did it, Lyndred could still not get used to it.

  “Yes,” Lyndred said. “Like Aunt Jewel.”
/>
  Someone knocked on the door. Lyndred’s gaze hadn’t left Arianna’s face. There was something in it, something behind it. Arianna had described Visions, but she wasn’t saying when they occurred. And she hadn’t denied the headaches, the two days of unconsciousness.

  The knock sounded again.

  “Come.” Arianna hadn’t broken her gaze from Lyndred’s.

  “Forgive me, ma’am,” a male voice said from the door, “but I have a Hawk Rider with an urgent message. She wouldn’t wait.”

  Arianna frowned as if the interruption bothered her. Lyndred turned and saw Arianna’s assistant, DiPalmet, leaning inside the door as if he worried that Arianna would yell at him. DiPalmet wore his hair in a thousand braids in the Oudoun warrior style. His face was too thin, but that might have been a function of age. He had come to the Isle with Rugad years ago, and retired until Arianna had found him and reinstated him.

  Arianna walked toward him. Her stride was long, as if she were more comfortable marching than walking.

  “Send her in and then leave us,” she said to DiPalmet.

  Lyndred gripped her left wrist tightly. Her hands were still behind her back. She wished she could become invisible. She knew, in a moment, that Arianna would ask her to leave as well.

  The door clicked shut.

  “Well?” Arianna said.

  The Hawk Rider was the one that had flown by outside, a woman who had put on a tunic and breeches before coming to see Arianna. The Rider’s black hair feathered down her back and her hooked nose made her black eyes seem cold and birdlike.

  Arianna clearly knew the Rider, and she knew that Lyndred was listening. She just didn’t seem to care.

  Lyndred found that odd, but she wasn’t going to call attention to herself in case her analysis was wrong.

  “They’ve arrived.” The Hawk Rider’s voice was high pitched and piercing, almost like a cry.

  “You’re certain?” Arianna asked.

  “Oh, yes.” The Hawk Rider’s eyes glittered. “They made it through the Stone Guardians on a Tashil ship.”

  “Were they welcomed?”

  “If you call Islanders talking of assassination a welcoming committee.”

  Lyndred’s mouth went dry.

  “Talking?” Arianna sounded interested. Too interested.

  “They had bow and arrows. They were planning to attack the ship from above. I flew past their vantage. They would have had clear shots if they were good.”

  “Were they?” Arianna asked.

  “I didn’t stay. I saw a Doppelgänger on site. I figure he’ll report if anything happens.”

  “You don’t expect it to.”

  The Hawk Rider raised her head. “I have great faith in the Black Heir. Two Islanders with arrows won’t kill a man like that, not a man with the power of the Throne behind him.”

  Arianna hissed, and for a moment, Lyndred thought Arianna would strike the Rider. Then Arianna inclined her head.

  “The power of the Throne?” she asked in a tone so dangerous that Lyndred wouldn’t have answered the question.

  “You can see his heritage. Forgive me, Ma’am, but he looks like a ruler of the Fey.”

  “What gives him that look?”

  “His stance.” The Hawk Rider seemed oblivious to Arianna’s growing anger, but Lyndred wasn’t. She wished now that she hadn’t stayed in the room. “He is no Shaman.”

  “He doesn’t wear the garb? His hair isn’t white?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “But he spent five years with the Shaman in the Eccrasian Mountains.”

  “That is what they say, Ma’am.” Now even the Hawk Rider was beginning to understand that Arianna was extremely unhappy with this.

  Lyndred found it curious. She had always heard Arianna was close to her brother. Was the change in Arianna or in Gift? He was supposed to be studying to become a Shaman. He was supposed to have no interest in the Black Throne. But nothing was as it seemed here. Had he really been training to become a Shaman? Or had that been pretense? Had he really been in the mountains so that he could get close to the Black Throne itself?

  “What would you think if I hadn’t warned you he was coming?” Arianna asked. “If you saw that ship coming through the Stone Guardians? If you knew who Gift was by sight?”

  The Hawk Rider raised her head slightly. She had been honest with Arianna so far. Lyndred had no doubt the Rider would be honest again.

  “I would think,” the Rider said softly, “that he was coming to claim his heritage.”

  “But he can’t do that,” Arianna said. “The stricture against striking someone of his own blood is strong.”

  “If he’s as good at manipulation as the rest of his family,” the Hawk Rider said, “that stricture shouldn’t matter.”

  Lyndred’s hands were shaking. Arianna hadn’t been surprised that Islander assassins were waiting for her brother. She had a Doppelgänger and a Hawk Rider in the same area. She had known that Gift was coming to Blue Isle, and she had known that Islanders would be lying in wait. Was the Doppelgänger there to protect Gift? Or was he there to report to Arianna when something happened to Gift?

  Or was Arianna letting Lyndred listen to this as a warning? An acknowledgement that Arianna could do anything she wanted to any member of her family so long as she left no fingerprints?

  Just like their great-grandfather. He had let his son go on a foolish mission, let him die, rather than report the Vision that would have saved him.

  Was Arianna doing that with Lyndred? Was that why Arianna was silent about her Visions? Or were her Visions the reason she knew of the Islander assassins in the first place? And if she knew, why hadn’t she stopped them? What did she hope to gain from their assault against her brother?

  “Is anyone observing now?” Arianna was asking.

  Lyndred had missed some of the conversation. She forced herself to concentrate.

  “I have left two others there. They’ll let us know if something serious happens.”

  “Thank you,” Arianna said. “You’ve done well.”

  The Hawk Rider bowed once and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  “Your brother,” Lyndred said. “It sounds like you don’t want him here.”

  Arianna’s eyes narrowed. “He is a complication we don’t need. But he is family.”

  “I heard he was the legitimate heir to the Throne.”

  “He turned it down to become a Shaman.”

  “Which he is not.”

  Arianna shrugged. “He will not question me.”

  Lyndred was still shaking, but she had been bold all day. A few more steps wouldn’t matter.

  “I’ve Seen the Blood against Blood,” she said. “Don’t be too sure that what’s between you will be settled easily.”

  “Gift loves his sister.” Arianna’s tone was mocking, as if she put no value on her brother’s affection.

  “You haven’t seen him in five years. How do you know that?”

  “Because Gift imagines himself a saint, just like his father did.”

  “His father killed the Black King,” Lyndred said.

  “His father—” again, that odd construction. Not “my father” but “his.” Why was Arianna distancing herself from her family? “—won a battle, nothing more. The Fey Empire still rules Blue Isle.”

  “And it seems as if the soul of the Black King possesses you,” Lyndred said.

  Arianna’s eyes widened, and then she laughed. This time, the laugh was warm and infectious, a laugh that would have made Lyndred chuckle if only she had understood its source.

  “It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?” Arianna’s eyes twinkled. “We could do worse.”

  “I suppose so,” Lyndred said, but she wasn’t sure. Arianna was not Rugad. She had been born on Blue Isle, she had no real military experience, and there was a very good chance she was Blind.

  When Blindness came, madness often followed.

  A mad Queen and a power hungry Heir. No
wonder Lyndred was having Visions of Blood.

  EIGHT

  A SINGLE STEP seemed to take an eternity.

  Arianna was walking back from the river. Her feet thudded against the path, and even though it was flat and easy, she had to struggle for each step. She left prints so deep that water from the rains could fill them and become puddles. It felt so odd to be like this when just six months ago she could change herself into a bird and fly away, or become a cat and run as fast as the wind.

  It made her feel as if she were not herself any more. It made her realize just how much of herself was tied to her body, the way she felt, and her ability to shift shapes.

  The school wasn’t that far away. She could see the edge of the magick yard just around the bend. The students were good children, mostly half-Fey half-Islanders like she was. Only their families hadn’t wanted them around. Their families had banished them or sent them away or ignored them. Frightened, apparently, by their magick. Frightened by their looks.

  She had spent a lot of time with those children at Coulter’s request. He had known that she would have a lot to tell them, a lot to give them. And she had. But it wasn’t her life’s work, no matter how tragic their circumstances were. Her life’s work was in Jahn, ruling the Isle, ruling the Empire, and striving to make a closeness between Islanders and the Fey not just a matter of policy but a way of life.

  Rugad would ruin all that.

  She slowly brought a hand to her face and brushed away a loose strand of hair. The movement made her slightly dizzy.

  Then the world tilted. She was sliding into a Vision, only it had never been this slow before. She lost her balance and unable to recover, felt herself topple as—

  —She saw Gift cradling an infant and crying. He looked as if he were inconsolable. She started to say his name when—

  —A ship, its deck stained with blood, docked in Jahn harbor and Gift was there, talking to a Fey woman who wore brightly colored clothing. She was pleading with him, telling him that he was making a mistake—

  And through the Vision, blood flowed....

  —Gift grabbed her, thrust her behind his back and held a sword to Rugad’s belly. Only Rugad looked like her, but he wasn’t—