“Was the water covered in blood or the color of blood?”
“You Saw it too,” she said. “It was an Open Vision.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t See that. I had seven Visions. You Saw only one.”
She leaned back on her heels. “I wonder what that means.”
Gift frowned. When he’d had his last Open Vision, Scavenger had explained it. Open Visions occur with firm destinies, when the parties are tied together by an event of such importance the fate of the world rests on it.
He and Coulter had been in that first Open Vision, standing on a barge in the Cardidas, looking at the burned out Tabernacle. Only when the Vision had come true, they weren’t on a barge, but on the banks of the Cardidas, and it was after the Black King had died.
Gift had had seven Visions, eight if he wanted to count the blood running beneath it, but Xihu and the others had only Seen the blood.
Was that the only part with the firm destiny?
What if he wasn’t supposed to bring peace? What if he was the center because he was the one who destroyed them?
“What does it mean?” he asked.
Xihu ran her fingers along his cheek, a soft caress, almost a lover’s touch. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.
She walked away from him without answering, moved to the edge of the ship and stared into the water. He sat in the center of the deck, alone. Skya had disappeared. The Nyeian sailors were still staring at him.
The Visions disquieted him, as they always did. But it was Xihu’s silence—her way of answering his question—that disturbed him most of all.
THE BLACK HEIR
THIRTEEN
COULTER WATCHED MATT pick his way across the broken steps that led to the Place of Power. In all the years that Coulter had made his way up these steps, he hadn’t bothered to fix them. Somehow, changing this place seemed like a sacrilege, even if he were to make an improvement.
The morning was chill. The storm promised the day before never happened, and now the sky was clear. Sunlight reached this part of the Cliffs of Blood, but it was not warm. He could see his breath.
He pulled his heavy coat closer and wished he had remembered gloves, even though he knew he wouldn’t need them once he went inside. His stomach was jumping. In all the years he had guarded this place for Gift, he had never tampered with it. Now he was going to.
Arianna had given him permission. With a wisp of a smile on her stone face, she had said, Even though it doesn’t seem like it, I’m still the Queen of Blue Isle. Whatever I say is more important than my brother’s wishes.
But Gift had impressed upon Coulter the importance of keeping the cave untouched. It had a power that Coulter could sense every time he stepped inside. King Nicholas and Matthias had tapped that power to defeat the Black King, but even then Coulter had sensed that the two men were touching only one small part of the cave’s power.
Yet, here he went, introducing someone new to the cave’s magick. He wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t necessary. If Rugad weren’t still alive.
Matt took the final step and walked onto the stone ledge. Coulter could hear Matt’s gasp, even though he was still several steps away. Then he heard Leen’s voice. She had guard duty that morning. It was a tradition more than a necessity. Coulter had set up a single guard to make sure no one wandered accidentally into the place. At first, he had been the only guard. Now several of his trusted companions stayed here, rotating their shifts, and maintaining constant vigil as if it were the most important thing in the world.
Perhaps it was.
Coulter climbed the remaining steps and walked onto the stone ledge. Leen had placed her chair away from the edge as she always did. She was standing, her hand on Matt’s shoulder. He was looking at the giant swords embedded in the stone. They were huge and made of varin, just like the smaller swords inside the cave. Large jewels were embedded in the hilts, jewels that took and focused magick.
Matt stared at the swords, his mouth hanging open. Coulter hadn’t warned Matt what he would see and, apparently, Matt’s father had never described the place. These swords—this cave—had to have triple meaning for Matt. He was raised by the man who had once led this religion. He also knew that the cave had a magickal center, just like the Place of Power in the Eccrasian Mountains, the place where the Fey themselves had originated. And this was the place where Matt’s father had helped defeat the Black King.
If things worked right, Matt would complete the job his father had started.
Leen glanced over Matt’s shoulder at Coulter. She had known they were coming up, but she hadn’t approved of it. She felt that there had to be another way—teaching Matt a Lamplighter Spell, perhaps—rather than using the tools of Rocaanism.
Coulter wanted to use the most powerful tools he had. He figured they would only have one chance at removing Rugad, and he didn’t want that to fail.
He walked across the ledge—the place he had sat countless times, the place where his adoptive father had died—and stopped beside Leen and Matt.
Matt was still staring at the swords. They formed a pattern: a sword in the front, two swords behind it, and two swords behind them. They formed a triangle, a way to focus power. His father had moved the swords from their positions around the cave’s mouth to the positions they were in now. He had done it with the force of a magick he hadn’t really accepted or believed in.
“They’re so big,” Matt whispered.
Leen nodded. Coulter didn’t say anything. Maybe Matt knew the story after all.
“I always thought they were regular swords. My dad never said they were this big.”
And impossible for one man to lift. Impossible for a dozen men to remove. It was only possible for these swords to move through an Enchanter’s magick.
Matt looked at Coulter. “I’m just like him, aren’t I?”
Coulter shook his head. “You have his skills. That doesn’t make you like him.”
Matt had turned back to the opening of the cave. There was something different in his manner, something in his eyes—a wisdom, a knowledge—that hadn’t been there before. It was as if he were seeing more than anyone else when he looked at the entrance.
He had been different when he came back from the Vault. He was shaken and saddened by his encounter with his brother, but Coulter had expected that. He hadn’t expected any help from Alex, but had sent Matt anyway, hoping that they wouldn’t have to come up here.
But Matt had done something unexpected. Matt had used a spell that even Coulter wasn’t familiar with to absorb the Words. Late last night, Coulter had stayed in the library, reading about the spell in the few books that mentioned it. One book described how the spell was performed. Another the goals of the magick, and a third mentioned the fact that the spell was not something that should be used lightly.
Then Coulter had sent for Seger and told her what Matt had done. She sat abruptly on a nearby couch as if her legs couldn’t hold her.
Let’s hope there’s nothing harmful in those Words, she had said, for they’re a part of him now.
A visible part. Seger seemed to think the personality of the writer would seep into Matt’s mind, the way a touch of an aromatic spice changed the taste of food.
Coulter felt as if he could already see those changes. But he wasn’t sure if what he saw was because he expected a change, or because a change actually had occurred.
He put a hand on Matt’s back. “Are you ready to go inside?”
Matt nodded, his mouth a thin line. His chin trembled.
Leen looked at Coulter. She had become more reserved since Arianna’s arrival. “I’ll stay out here.”
“Thanks,” Coulter said.
Matt didn’t even seem to hear her. Coulter kept his hand on Matt’s back, guiding him around the swords as they walked to the mouth of the cave.
Matt hadn’t commented on anything yet, which Coulter found unusual. When he’d first come to the Place of Power, he’d seen the c
ave as a point of magick. At the time, he hadn’t been able to identify what that strangeness was, but he had found it compelling. Matt had grown up beside the Cliffs of Blood and probably accepted that feeling as normal. His father would have prevented him from going to the cave, and Matt probably didn’t think a thing of it.
But the compulsion to go inside grew as Coulter got closer to the cave. He had to think that it felt the same way to Matt, only Matt said nothing.
As they passed the last sword, Matt reached up and placed his hand on the jeweled hilt. A little shock ran through his back. Coulter knew this feeling too, the way the swords hummed with power. It was always unexpected to touch an inanimate object and realize that it felt alive.
He braced himself for Matt’s questions, but again Matt said nothing. Instead Matt let his hand fall and continued forward.
They stopped at the mouth of the cave. Heat radiated from the interior, a heat for which Coulter had never found the source. A pale pink light came with the heat. It looked as if a sun burned inside the cave. Once that light had been a brilliant white, but it was no longer.
Coulter felt his heart pound as he stepped inside.
The walls and ceiling were white as they had always been. But the floor had changed. The once-white surface had turned red. The redness flowed forward, dripping down the stairs that led to the fountain burbling below.
The fountain was the same. The water flowed into a basin and then disappeared again in the wall. The power in this place concentrated around that water.
Coulter had a theory about the fountain. He believed its water was the source of Islander magick, but he hadn’t discussed that with anyone else. It was one of the many reasons he guarded the mouth of the cave.
Matt was staring at the floor. He did know the story then: How his father and Nicholas, their hands joined, had dripped blood onto the floor, and that blood remained coloring everything. Matt crouched, touching the surface with a reverence that made Coulter slightly uncomfortable.
He let the boy alone, though. Matt had never had the chance to say a proper good-bye to his father. Perhaps he could do so here.
While he waited, Coulter focused on the walls. Behind him were swords. On another section were chalices. In a different area, vials of holy water. Toward the back were the tapestries that Adrian and Nicholas had used to determine how many of these items were used.
The balls that created the Lights of Midday were depleted, nearly used up in the battle against Rugad. Coulter doubted any of them would work again.
He remembered how those globes felt beneath his hands, smooth and hot. When he held them, light flared, a powerful killing light that seemed to touch the Fey in the heart of their magick. He had stood beside Nicholas, holding the globes, the light finding the jewels and focusing it on the army below.
How many people had died that day? He didn’t know. He had tried to back away from those globes, tried to stop when he realized that the screams from below had come from his magick—his hands—but Nicholas wouldn’t let him.
Coulter shook off the memory. He never wanted to touch those things again.
Matt stood. “Where are they?”
He meant the Soul Repositories. Coulter knew that there were dozens up here, along with the blood of the Roca, blood that Matt now assured him would attract any magickal soul into one of those Repositories.
That’s what they’re designed for, Matt had said, his voice sounding more authoritative than usual. They are designed to capture the soul of your enemy.
“They’re by the tapestries,” Coulter said.
Matt glanced down at the fountain. He’d already been instructed to stay away from it, but he wasn’t looking at it with longing. He was looking at it as if he heard something.
Then Coulter felt it: the presences he’d felt before. He knew that these were Mysteries or Powers. When Jewel had come to visit her family, he could never see her, but he could sense her, just like he had been able to sense all the Powers that were unleashed when Nicholas had drank the water.
“What is that?” Matt whispered.
Coulter waited a moment, sensing several different personalities coming up the stairs toward them. “Mysteries, probably,” he said. “They feel more like people than Powers do.”
“Mysteries?”
“The Fey say that’s where Vision comes from. The Mysteries are the souls of people who’ve been murdered. They are visible to three people and three people only: the person they love the most, the person they hate the most—who is usually the person who killed them—and another person of their choosing.”
Matt backed up. He grabbed Coulter’s arm and tried to pull him toward the entrance.
“What are you doing?” Coulter asked.
“One of those things killed my father.”
Jewel. Matthias had murdered her, and she had sought revenge.
“You don’t know that,” Coulter said. “Your father probably died of exposure in the back corridors.”
He was sorry to speak so harshly, but he couldn’t let Matt leave, not now.
“My father said if he came into this place, he would die. The thing grabbed him by the throat and tried to choke the life from him once. Then he was ready for her the second time—”
“Using the Soul Repository.” Coulter had seen the first attack, and saw the Repository where Matthias had briefly imprisoned Jewel.
“Yes.” Matt was pulling on Coulter’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Coulter put his hand over Matt’s. “They won’t harm you unless you’ve killed someone. They probably just want to see you.”
Matt had stopped moving but his body was rigid. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Coulter said. “I’ve never been able to talk to one. But Gift tells me they’re just like regular people. They’re probably curious.”
Matt inclined his head backwards, then ducked behind Coulter. “Something’s touching me.”
“Let him alone,” Coulter said. “Please. He’s just a boy.”
He held Matt against him, as if he were defending him. Coulter had never been with anyone before who could feel the presences like he could. The presences crowded around them, but didn’t seem to move. After a moment, the feeling of them eased. They weren’t gone, but they weren’t close any longer.
“Are you sure they won’t hurt me?” Matt whispered.
“Have you harmed any Fey?” Coulter asked.
“No.”
“Then I’m sure they won’t hurt you.”
Matt let him go and stepped beside him. Matt’s face was flushed and his eyes were too bright. “Why Fey?”
“I don’t know,” Coulter said. “It’s just that I don’t know of any Islanders—” then he paused and corrected himself “—any modern Islanders who’ve become Mysteries.”
“There are ancient ones?”
Coulter looked at Matt sideways. “You tell me. You’re the one who’s absorbed the Words.”
Matt looked down. “The terms are different.”
“But the effect is the same,” Coulter said.
“There’ve been Islanders murdered since the Roca’s time.”
“Yes,” Coulter said. “But not by you, right?”
Matt smiled as if the idea of killing anyone was ridiculous to him. Coulter felt a slight twinge that he was sending an innocent to do a job no innocent should ever do.
“Not by me,” Matt said.
“Then you’ll be fine.” Coulter put his hand against Matt’s back again. “Come on. Let’s do this.”
Matt looked down the stairs, past the fountain to the darkness of the corridors beyond. “Do you think my father was one of those Mysteries?”
Coulter frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the rules are for that. We’re not even sure how he died.”
Matt nodded, but didn’t look satisfied. “If I went down those corridors, do you think I could find him?”
Coulter pushed Matt farther forward. “You’re
not going in one of those corridors.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can lose time in there. What feels like an hour can be a day. What feels like a day can be a week.”
“So my father could still be wandering down there?”
Coulter shivered. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to think about Matthias alive. “I don’t pretend to understand this place.”
“But—”
“Matt.” There was more anger in Coulter’s voice than he had expected. “Don’t make me regret bringing you here.”
Matt’s lower lip trembled. “He’s my father.”
“I know,” Coulter said. “But you’re here against orders from King Nicholas, against Gift’s wishes. They never wanted anyone to come into this cave, and they certainly wouldn’t approve of a member of your family being here.”
“But Arianna said it was all right.”
“Yes. She believes in you and knows what’s at stake. Don’t destroy that trust.”
“My father—”
“Your father has been gone for six months. Even in the best of conditions, he could not be alive. We’ve always known that, Matt. Don’t let the magick in this place seduce you into believing otherwise.” Coulter put his hands on Matt’s shoulders and turned the boy toward him. “If you can’t withstand the magick here, you’ll never be able to face the Black King.”
Matt’s eyes filled with tears.
Coulter pulled him close. Matt’s entire body was shuddering. He rested his head against Coulter’s shoulder, and Coulter realized he hadn’t really held the boy since his father’s death.
Matt snuffled for a moment, then backed out of the embrace. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, then used the sleeve of his jacket.
“I tried to talk to Alex about my father,” Matt said. “He wouldn’t listen. He thinks I’m betraying my father’s memory.”
Coulter brushed one of Matt’s curls off his forehead. “Your father came here where he wasn’t wanted, and helped Nicholas kill Rugad. His biggest accomplishment was to protect his home from Rugad’s ambitions.”
The Black King (Book 7) Page 14