Gift didn't know what it would be like to kill that many people with the flicker of a thought. He wasn't certain he wanted to know.
The stench of charred flesh clung to their clothing. Surprisingly, the Cap seemed the most bothered by it. He wanted to find the Cardidas or steal clothes. He was complaining almost constantly.
The others ignored him.
So did Gift.
It was getting dark. He suspected they would have to keep moving during the night. The farther they got from his great-grandfather's armies, the better off they'd be. But they needed food and water. He and Leen needed rest. Coulter probably did too.
Gift was about to mention it to Adrian when the world tilted. He felt oddly dizzy. The light was bright, and he was in that room, the room he'd seen earlier, the room in the palace. Guards were everywhere. His father's hand was on a sword that ran through his great-grandfather's neck. His sister was Shifting into a horse.
And Sebastian launched himself onto his father's back, knocking them both flat.
No! Gift shouted, but he wasn't really there. It was as if the barriers between him and the palace had lifted, like a curtain revealing a window, and he could see what was happening at that place and time.
The guards had their swords out. They were swinging at his father, but they hit Sebastian. Cracks spread through his entire body. Another sword hit him in the neck, making the cracks worse. He rolled off Gift's father. Light shone through the cracks. A brilliant light. The light that was Sebastian. Their father stood, cried out, reached for Sebastian. Sebastian reached back. Then his eyes moved, and he saw Gift.
" … Gift … " he said. Light moved across his arm, up his father's arm, and headed toward Gift. Sebastian's body shuddered and then, suddenly, it shattered.
Bits of stone flew everywhere. The light, strong a moment before, became diffuse, scattering with the pieces.
No! Gift shouted again, but it did no good. He couldn't catch the bits of light.
Then the world tilted again. He was on the ground, dirt in his mouth, his hands in fists. Then he felt hands on his back. Coulter's hands. Adrian's hands. The Cap was sitting across from him, looking annoyed. And Leen stood, guarding them.
"Gift? Gift?" The voice was Coulter's. He had apparently aroused himself enough to respond to Gift's crisis.
Gift sat up, wiped the dirt from his cheek, and buried his face in his knees. Sebastian was dead. He'd seen it, the loss of his changeling, his brother, his closest friend. And he couldn't stop it. He'd known about it for days and he hadn't been able to prevent it.
Sebastian was dead, but Gift had survived.
Somehow that made it worse.
"What did you See?" Adrian asked.
But it was Coulter who sat down beside him, Coulter who put his arm around him and Coulter who pulled him close. Gift leaned against him and breathed.
Sebastian had died saving their father.
Sebastian had died so that their father could kill the Black King.
Sebastian.
Coulter's grip on Gift tightened.
Even if Gift had been Linked with Sebastian, he wouldn't have been able to stop Sebastian's death. Sebastian had been warned. He had known what would happen, and he had made a choice.
A choice to save their father.
A choice to save Arianna.
A choice that Gift couldn't have made, even if he'd been there. His heritage prevented it.
At least now they had a chance. The Black King was wounded, maybe dead. In a few days, Gift might be able to get Coulter to reopen the Links. Then Gift could ally with his family to drive the army off their land.
Sebastian had done that for them. He might have saved them all.
But it didn't matter. Gift didn't know them.
He had loved Sebastian.
And Sebastian was dead.
EIGHTY-TWO
For a moment the world was as bright as the sun. Then as the light spread out, it faded and grew diffuse.
Bits of stone rained around them. The guards ducked. Several protected the body of the Black King. Arianna was screaming, but she had Shifted completely. Her clothes were in tatters on the floor, and she was a magnificent brown horse with a sleek black mane. She pawed at the empty space where Sebastian had been, and yelled for him.
Nicholas didn't even protect his head. Bits of his son bounced off him, leaving bruises that he deserved. The boy had died trying to save him.
And Sebastian had saved him, at least for the moment.
Nicholas couldn't mourn. He didn't have time. And he couldn't save Sebastian. There was nothing left.
"We have to get out of here," Nicholas said in Islander. If they didn't, Sebastian's death would be in vain. They had to move quickly. The Fey were in chaos from the Black King's death, but it wouldn't last. There were too many to fight. Nicholas' and Arianna's only chance was to flee.
But Arianna didn't seem to hear Nicholas. She was crying for her brother, still pawing at the spot where he had been.
Rocks had fallen on her as well, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Arianna!"
Nicholas still had a hand in her mane. He tugged on it. But she made no movement. The guards that weren't around the Black King were crouched, protecting their heads. They wouldn't be down long, and when they got up, Nicholas didn't know what they'd do. Would they remember that Arianna was of Black Blood? Would they go after him?
He couldn't wait for her to recover. He braced a hand on her back and swung himself on.
She whinnied and rose on her hind legs — a horse response, which pleased him. And as she went down, he slapped her on the hind flank.
"We're going," he said. "Now!"
"Sebastian — " she said.
"Is dead. Make it worthwhile. Go!"
She did. She stopped at the door, and kicked it down with her front hooves. Several dozen Fey swarmed outside, looking startled as a horse bolted past them. A few cried after them, but none gave chase.
Surprise. Surprise was working. But they had to hurry. If the Fey recovered, the two of them would die.
Arianna bolted through the Great Hall, past a bloody circle of Fey — did Nicholas see an Aud among them? — and out the main doors.
The stench in the courtyard was tremendous. The bodies looked even worse up close. Someone had lit the torches on the side of the building, but they didn't have to. The light from the burning city cast an orange glow over everything.
Twice. Twice in his life, he had lost all he owned in the space of a single day. At least this day, he still had his daughter. He had no idea what had become of his Fey son.
"Where do we go now?" Arianna asked. She picked her hooves gingerly over the body parts littering the cobblestone.
Nicholas glanced around. Fires to the south and west. Across the river, the Tabernacle burned. The air was full of soot and ash, and the heat was as intense as it had been in the middle of the day.
"We'll go north," he said.
"What about Sebastian?" she asked.
"He died so that we'd survive." Later he would comfort her. They could comfort each other. But this wasn't over yet. It wouldn't be over for a long, long time.
"North," she said, as if contemplating it. She made her way to the gate, then shook herself. He nearly lost his grip on her mane. She took a deep breath as if she were thinking, and then she said, "Grab on, Daddy."
He did, and she took off at full gallop. Nicholas leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her neck, and pressed his own head against hers. She was all he had left. His son, his home and his city were gone. His rule was probably over too. But that didn't matter any more. Arianna mattered. And he would protect her life with his own if he had to.
He glanced over his shoulder. No Fey were following them yet. But they'd search. They'd search and get revenge.
They would search, and unless Nicholas was very careful, they would find.
Nicholas was going to be very careful.
EIGHTY-THREE
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Con swung his sword madly. And each time it connected, it sliced through something. Hands, fingers, arms, littered the ground around him. It got so that he didn't even want to look.
But he had to. The Fey were relentless. They kept coming at him, not stopping, showing no fear of his new-found power. Fifty, a hundred, he wasn't sure how many there were, only that he had to fight them, and he didn't dare move.
He didn't dare uncover his back.
And then a bang echoed through the Hall.
Everything stopped.
Fey in the corridor cried out, and then a horse appeared. It looked like no horse that Con had ever seen before. It was shorter than most, but still had the long slender legs. Its skin was brown, but its mane was deep black. It had blue eyes that whirled wildly in its angular head, and at the base of its muzzle was a shock of white hair.
The man on its back looked incredibly familiar. Only Con had never seen him out of ceremonial dress. The King rode bare-back, his hands gripping the long black mane. He was leaning forward and shouting at the horse as if it understood him.
Con saw all of that in a moment. Fey were shouting around him. He couldn't tell most of it — his own understanding of their language was limited — but he got some of it.
They were saying that Nicholas killed the Black King.
Most of the Fey around Con were wounded. They were on their knees in the blood, tending their wounds.
The Fey that had been in the corridor were shouting, swirling toward the audience room, searching for the dead Black King. None were following the horse.
Con thought that odd enough. He expected them to do something, to chase after the King, to call in reinforcements, something. But they didn't. And that didn't even answer how the horse had gotten into the palace in the first place.
Obviously someone had decided to rescue the King. And they succeeded. The horse made it through the Great Hall, into the corridor and out the open front doors. For the moment, no one followed.
The Fey were in complete disarray. They were screaming at each other, wondering what to do about the Black King. It was as if they couldn't function without him.
Those that had been fighting Con moved away from him, headed toward the corridor, toward the Audience Room, fear on their faces.
Con moved along the wall, away from the carnage he'd caused. His feet were soaked with blood and his arm tingled. He wasn't tired, though. The exhaustion he had felt earlier was completely gone.
He reached the edges of the arching double doors and leaned sideways enough to monitor both the Hall and the corridor. The Fey in the corridor were looking in the Audience room. Then they parted to let several Fey out. Those Fey carried a body on their shoulders.
The body was that of a large Fey man. His eyes were closed, and he had a sword protruding from his neck.
A Fey sword.
Maybe the cries had been right.
Maybe the Black King was dead.
The crowd of Fey followed their king, leaving the door open and the Audience room empty. The other Fey were tending the wounded behind Con.
It was his only chance to escape, and the wounded Fey were blocking his escape route. If he followed the horse out the door, he might lead them to the King.
He would hide.
And what better place to do that than in the room they had just taken the Black King from? They wouldn't go back in there, not for some time.
He rounded the corner, slipped off his sandals and wiped his bloody feet on his robe so that he wouldn't leave any prints. Then he crossed the hall, ducked into the room, and closed the door.
The room was bigger than he had expected. There were spears on the sides and chairs as well. A throne sat on the dais and behind it the crest of the royal family. Blood stained a portion of the floor in the center. The rest of the floor was littered with rocks.
The whole room tingled, like his arm did.
He set the sword down across a pile of stones and reached up to bar the door.
Instantly the room spun. It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the area. Con slid backwards, and slammed against an invisible wall. Thunder boomed. He fell forwards and landed near the bloody patch.
The air came back. He could breathe.
But the tingling sensation was gone.
And so were the rocks.
Con pushed himself up on his hands and turned around.
A boy, not much older than himself, sat in the center of the room. He was nude. His body was grayish brown and webbed with lines. They looked like cracks. The sword was beneath him, its blade resting against his bare heels.
The boy lifted his head. His features were striking, Fey and not Fey. His eyes were filled with tears.
" … My … family … ," he said, his voice halting and slow, not at all a match for those haunting eyes. " … Where … are … they?"
Con squinted at the boy. Beneath the cracks, he looked familiar. Con stifled a gasp as the realization hit him.
The King's son.
Sebastian.
"Your father rode out of here on a horse," Con said. He didn't understand this. Where had the boy come from? The room had been empty a moment before.
Sebastian closed his eyes. A tear hung on one lid, then dropped on his cheek and slipped into a crack. He didn't appear to be breathing.
"What are you?" Con asked.
" … Nothing … " Sebastian said slowly, " … without … them."
THE RIVAL
[THREE DAYS LATER]
EIGHTY-FOUR
Gift had never been so exhausted in his life. It had been five days since he'd had more than a few hours' sleep. The pace Scavenger insisted on was nearly impossible. They had covered more terrain, and walked farther than Gift had ever done before. They were still walking, along a narrow brown path that wound along the top of a rise. The valley below them was covered with a haze of fog. The mountains ahead of them were covered with yellow light, as the setting sun shone its rays on their western face.
The others in his group looked ragged as well. Leen hadn't had any real sleep either. Her face was ash-gray, the circles under her eyes so big that they made her look as if her skin had sunken inward. She had found them a cache of something Adrian called tak in an abandoned cabin, and that had helped a little. But not even the food was helping all the way. Nothing was.
Adrian, Coulter, and Scavenger had had more sleep. But they looked exhausted as well. Adrian had seemed so terrified when he faced Fey imprisonment; he had clearly vowed never to be taken again. He constantly worried about his son, Luke, who was still on the farm. But he kept saying that Luke would be fine, as if he were trying to convince himself.
Scavenger would have died before rejoining the Fey. He continually checked behind and above them, to make certain they weren't being followed. He also insisted that Gift check within himself daily, to make certain no one had silently broken the seals on his Links.
Coulter was the one that Gift worried about. Since saving their lives, Coulter hadn't spoken more than a few words — and those had been in response to questions, or giving his opinion on the direction they should go.
Coulter not only looked tired, he looked haunted.
Gift wasn't certain how he would feel, with all of those deaths on his shoulders.
The group had finally reached the eastern edge of Blue Isle. The terrain was rocky here and covered with scraggly pine. The air was colder, even though it was summer, and Scavenger said they had been walking on a slow incline. Gift hadn't believed him until they reached the edge of a road, and an entire valley spread before them, barely visible below the clouds.
They were following the Cardidas, watching it wind its way through the valleys, to the eastern edge of the Isle. And as they got closer, they could see the Snow Mountains to the south, and the Eyes of Roca to the north. The Eyes of Roca were nearly twice as tall, jagged and bald on top. The Snow Mountains looked like hills in comparison, even though they were too tall to scale.
>
Or at least, they had been until his great-grandfather arrived.
Gift had only heard about this part of the Isle. He wasn't sure he wanted to see the part of the Eyes of Roca that drifted into the Cardidas, the part called the Cliffs of Blood. Nor was he sure he wanted to see the Cardidas end of the Snow Mountains either. Those rock formations were called the Slides of Death.
He hoped the group stopped before it went that far.
They really didn't have a plan, though. They knew they would have to find a place to hide. They had avoided villages, and had ducked from any travelers on the road. So far, Scavenger believed that no one had seen them.
Gift hoped he was right. They needed food, rest, and time to recuperate.
Suddenly Scavenger stopped ahead. He held out his arms across the path so that the others had to stop too.
"Decision time," he said as Gift, who was bringing up the rear, finally reached the group. "This is our last valley. Either we descend and take risks with the villagers or we find a place in the mountains."
"How do you know this?" Adrian asked. He had never been this far east, and had said so a number of times. His lack of knowledge about the terrain seemed to bother him.
"Asked questions," Scavenger said.
"When?"
"For fifteen years. A man never stops worrying that the Fey will find him."
"Is there any place in the mountains?" Gift asked.
"Not in the Slides of Death," Scavenger said. "I've heard there's lots of places in the Cliffs of Blood, but we'll have to cross the Cardidas."
"I can't manufacture a ship," Coulter said. "Someone will have to see us."
"Either way, they'll have to see us, looks like," Adrian said.
"And how will they react to three Fey and two Islanders?" Gift asked.
"They won't," Scavenger said. "They'll take five Islanders across, no questions asked. Adrian will hire them."
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