The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  "Do you think she knows that?" Tri asked.

  "If she doesn't now, she will soon," Matthias said. He leaned on the boulder. Talking hurt. His entire body hurt, and he was exhausted. He'd have to get down this mountain, even with the headache. Marly would help him when he got to town. Marly would heal him.

  Suddenly he missed her. He had never missed anyone like that before.

  He needed to see her.

  "Do ye think them Fey will come after us?" Jakib asked.

  Matthias ran a hand through his hair. It was matted and tangled from this long, event-filled night. He squinted, felt what he had never allowed himself to feel before.

  He could feel the boy Coulter up the mountainside. It didn't seem as if he moved.

  But Matthias could feel another one, another person just like him and just like Coulter — or an echo of one — not too far away from him. He looked across the valley. The other one, the third one, was on the other side of the river. The river bubbled below; he could hear it rather than see it. And he could see nothing unusual. He could only feel something there. Something he had never allowed himself to feel before.

  "Holy Sir?" Denl asked.

  "Do ye think them Fey'll come?"

  "No," Matthias said, and felt the certainty of it. If they were going to come after him, they would have done so by now. And they would have caught him. No matter how fast Denl had gone down that mountainside, it would have been slower than an unencumbered group. "They're not coming yet. But they will. Tri is right; we have no time to rest. We have to get to Constant."

  "Do ye think they'll take the town?" Denl asked.

  Matthias put a hand over his eyes, careful not to brush his wound. Even shaded he could see nothing.

  "I think," he said, "that group has found something special in the cave, and they're not leaving. But more Fey will be coming here now. And we need to be ready."

  "Maybe I should bring some folks back up here and get rid of the group in the cave," Tri said.

  "And risk having what happened to me happen to you?" Matthias said. "We don't know if that's a magick lock, some way of keeping certain people out."

  The idea fit with what Pausho had told him. She hadn't been certain how he would be received.

  "No," Matthias said. "You're better off coming with me. I'll need your help with the Wise Ones anyway."

  "They won't want to hear from me," Tri said.

  "They might," Matthias said. "When they realize you're with me."

  He started toward the path. He was certain the Fey in the cave wouldn't follow. But he didn't know about the other powerful one he felt. That person was too close. And Matthias wasn't ready for him.

  Matthias wasn't ready for anyone. He needed to sleep. He needed to heal.

  But most of all, he needed to think. The boy had shown him powers Matthias hadn't dreamed of and wasn't sure he wanted, then the boy had disappeared in that magick cave. A vision of a woman long dead had tried to kill Matthias and another woman, a Fey woman, had saved him.

  Perhaps he had been rescued by the mountain again. He only had the word of Denl and Tri that the woman was Fey. Tri had never seen a Fey before. For all Matthias knew, the woman could have been merely tall. Everything happened so fast, not even Jakib and Denl were certain.

  Matthias had gone up the mountain twice in his life. The first time unwillingly, the first time to die, and the mountain had spit him back, had let him live.

  The second time he had gone up willingly, to kill, and he had not done that either. He had nearly died, and again, the mountain had spit him back.

  Each time he had gone up, he had come back changed. This time he was physically weaker, mentally shaken, and yet feeling stronger than he had ever felt in his life. This was the place he belonged, the place that gave him meaning.

  He would have to discover what that meaning was.

  And to do so, he would have to help the people of Constant survive the Fey.

  Whether they wanted his help or not.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  He kept expecting her to come back. Nicholas rocked the Shaman, holding her close. She had great powers. She had great wisdom. She had to come back.

  She had to.

  But she wasn't moving against him, and he couldn't feel the rise and fall of her body as it took in air.

  She was dead.

  She was dead, and he didn't understand why.

  Matthias a god?

  She must have meant something else. Perhaps she meant that he had the Secrets, although how she could have known about those, Nicholas didn't know.

  Or perhaps she meant that he was the only Rocaan now.

  But why would that matter? Why would any of it matter more than her life?

  And Arianna's. Without the Shaman, he couldn't save his daughter. He didn't know what to do. They had come too slowly, apparently.

  He had come too slowly.

  The Shaman had said that she needed to get here first. Apparently that meant before Matthias.

  And she hadn't.

  She was dead.

  And now Arianna would die.

  He felt a hand on his arm. He looked up and saw his wife. His beautiful wife, looking younger than she had the day she died. Her brow was clear, her hair was braided and her eyes, her lovely upslanted eyes, were filled with tears.

  "Jewel," he whispered. "How can it be you?"

  Maybe he had died, too. Maybe he just hadn't realized it.

  She brushed some hair away from his face. "The Shaman told you," she said. "This is a Place of Power. You can see me here."

  Somehow that made sense to him. His view of the world had so altered from the time he was a boy — a view where everything remained the same to one that accepted magick beyond his imagining — that he could believe, somehow, that he could see his wife, his long-dead wife, here in this place.

  "I've been with you since Ari was born," she said. "Beside you, helping you where I can."

  He had felt her. Sometimes. Dear God, he had felt her. All those imaginings, his inability to let her go, had been because she was still with him?

  She crouched beside him. "I'm sorry, Nicholas," she said. "This went so horribly wrong."

  She was indicating the Shaman, but she hadn't touched her. Only him.

  "You were trying to kill Matthias," Nicholas said.

  "He was promised to me," she said. "But she interfered."

  "She said—’

  "I heard." Jewel sighed. "I haven't Seen that, Nicholas. I never told the Powers who my greatest hate was. But they had to know, didn't they? They had to know."

  "It doesn't matter right now, Jewel," he said. "The Shaman is dead. Arianna is dying. I can't save her. Can you?"

  "Yes," she said. She moved her hand from his back. He felt the loss of warmth as if it were another death. "I'll be right back."

  She got up. He cradled the Shaman, then eased her back. Her face looked very young in death. The wrinkles had smoothed, and he saw that she too had that Fey beauty. He had never recognized it before.

  As he moved, Arianna slid slightly against his shoulder. He didn't know where Jewel had gone. He wondered if he should follow her.

  He was amazed that he could trust his wife after what he had just seen, after she killed the Shaman.

  But he had seen enough to know that Jewel had been trying to kill Matthias, and the Shaman had chosen to get in the way.

  She had told him that she would choose her death.

  He glanced around for Jewel, but didn't see her.

  She had to hurry. They didn't have much time.

  He could sense it.

  They had to do something now, or he would lose Arianna.

  This had happened twice in Arianna's life — her own life being at risk because someone else died.

  And he could do nothing about it.

  He wrapped his arm tighter around his daughter.

  "I'll do what I can, baby," he whispered.

  "Nicholas." Jewel's voice sent shive
rs through him. It was exactly as he had remembered, exactly as it had been all those years ago. Time had not diminished his memory at all.

  He looked toward her voice. She was standing beside a tall Fey, a Fey Nicholas had never seen before, even though he had elements of Jewel and Nicholas both in his face. The boy had bright blue eyes, like Arianna did, and smooth skin.

  He would have looked like Sebastian but for that smooth skin and those blue, blue eyes.

  And that sharp, intelligent, mobile face.

  "Nicholas," Jewel said, her voice husky. "This is our son. This is our Gift. Do you remember?"

  Of course he did. Here was that baby, the one Nicholas had had such high hopes for. He remembered that face, that mobile, expressive face that had disappeared one night, replaced, he later learned, by a bit of magick that should have died within weeks. Instead, the magick had become a child he loved not for his expressiveness nor his quickness, but for his compassion.

  "Gift," Nicholas said. He wasn't equipped for this moment. The death of a friend, the resurrection of his wife, and the introduction of his son all at the same time.

  Nicholas stood as carefully as he could, holding Arianna tight for balance.

  "Forgive me," he said. "But are you real?"

  "As real as I am." The voice came from inside the cave. Nicholas glanced in that direction. A man emerged, an Islander, who was short and blond and as young as Gift. "I'm Coulter."

  Nicholas nodded. He wasn't even sure how to identify himself. As King?

  "I could ask the same thing of you," his son said, and in the voice, he realized that Gift was a different person, not a duplicate of Sebastian at all. Gift's voice was deep and strong, with elements of Nicholas's own voice. It also had a Fey accent, and he placed the wrong emphasis on the words, like so many Fey did.

  Islander wasn't even his native tongue, this heir to Blue Isle's throne.

  "My daughter," Nicholas said. "Your sister. She's dying. Your mother — " he glanced at Jewel — "says you can help her. The Shaman was going to, but she's dead."

  His voice broke again. This was too much for him. Too much after all the losses. He didn't feel it consciously yet, but it stopped his throat.

  His son, Gift, looked at his mother, then looked back at Nicholas. "You see her, too?"

  "Of course," Nicholas said. "Doesn't everyone?"

  "No," Gift said, and the response was curt.

  "Let's get her inside," Coulter said, and he led the way. Gift followed without a glance back at his father. Jewel nodded.

  Nicholas had no choice. He left the Shaman half-in and half-out of the doorway and went inside the cave. As he did, he asked, "Is there any way we can bring the Shaman inside? If this is a Place of Power, as she said, then maybe something here can help her."

  "I'll do it." Another voice spoke, a voice that also had Fey accents on his Islander. A short Fey scurried past Nicholas. He frowned. He had heard of short Fey, but had never seen one up close.

  A Red Cap?

  With his son?

  "Nicholas," Jewel said.

  He stepped farther inside. The cave was huge and so light that it was almost blinding. Marble stairs led down to an Islander man and a Fey woman on the floor. A fountain bubbled beyond, and all around were symbols of Rocaanism.

  The hair on the back of Nicholas's neck rose.

  "I don't think Ari can be here," he said.

  "Nonsense," Jewel said.

  "I'm here," Gift said. "And I'm all right."

  He was. As long as Arianna didn't touch anything religious, she would probably be, too. Nicholas didn't have the time for the niceties at the moment.

  He carried his daughter down the stairs and laid her on the marble floor.

  Arianna was as gray as the floor itself. The strange light fell on her face, illuminating its lifelessness.

  Coulter bent over her, then brushed a strand of hair away. Nicholas felt the urge to push the boy back. Coulter looked up, his expression odd. He was staring at Gift.

  "She looks like you," he said.

  Gift shrugged. "She tried to kill me once," he said. And in the flatness of his voice, Nicholas heard one of his own tones. A diffidence covering fear.

  "What now?" Nicholas asked.

  "Gift is going to help his sister," Jewel said.

  Nicholas's stomach twisted. "How?"

  "He'll travel your Link and go in after her."

  Nicholas looked at the son he had never seen, the boy he had longed for ever since he had learned what happened, and felt his mouth go dry.

  "No," he said, even before he could think. "We don't know what's happened to her. The Shaman thought the Black King did this. If he's still within Arianna, then he could trap Gift, too. It's not safe, Jewel. Can't you do something?"

  "No," she said.

  "I said I would go," Gift said. "It's something I can do."

  "I know," Nicholas said. He wanted to explain things to his son, but there wasn't time. "But we can't lose you too, Gift. What if you get trapped?"

  Coulter listened closely. He rocked back on his heels, squinted at Nicholas, and then said, "Why don't you do this?"

  "Because only Fey can," Nicholas said.

  "I'm not Fey," Coulter said.

  Nicholas frowned at him. Of course the boy wasn't Fey. "Are you saying you could do this?"

  He certainly didn't look Fey. He looked as pure Islander as Nicholas did.

  Coulter shrugged. "I think so."

  "You think so?" Nicholas repeated. "You're an Islander."

  "He's an Enchanter," Gift said. "He can do it."

  "But he'd have to use Nicholas's Link," Jewel said.

  "So would I," Gift said.

  "But—

  "It would be easier," Coulter said, speaking to the air. Then Nicholas realized he was trying to talk to Jewel. "I can see the Link clearly. I can try to travel across it."

  "Enchanters can do that," Jewel said, "but they don't have as much time and flexibility as a Visionary. Enchanters have most Fey magick, but it is always shortened, its power truncated, because of its abundance."

  "She says," Nicholas said. "That you won't have as much time as Gift."

  "I know," Coulter said. "But I have more magick available to me. I might be able to find Arianna faster."

  And fight the Black King if necessary.

  "You don't have Black Blood, do you?" Nicholas asked.

  "He's an Islander," Gift said.

  Jewel was looking at Nicholas.

  Nicholas kept his hand tightly on Arianna. "If Gift finds Arianna, and the Black King is there, then we have the exact situation the Shaman was afraid of: Black Blood against Black Blood. Sending Coulter would prevent that."

  Jewel let out a sigh. The vials around them tinkled softly as if they felt a breeze. "I hadn't thought of that."

  "I'm not afraid of the Black King," Gift said.

  "You should be," Nicholas said. "Let Coulter go first."

  "Only if I can go if it takes him too long," Gift said.

  "It's too dangerous," Coulter said. "Your father's right."

  "I'll go with or without your help," Gift said.

  "I thought you didn't like your sister," Coulter said.

  "I said I'd help her."

  "Fighting won't help at all," Jewel said.

  Gift stopped. Then he looked at Coulter. "All right," he said. "But don't do anything without her permission."

  "If I find her," Coulter said.

  "Not good enough," Gift said.

  Nicholas felt a shiver run through him. What was Gift warning against? He didn't have time to find out.

  "Let's do it now," Nicholas said. "Coulter, find my daughter."

  Coulter nodded once. He glanced at Gift who pursed his lips, and crossed his arms.

  "I don't know how this will feel," Coulter said to Nicholas. "I have to use your Link. I'm not sure what it will do to you, do you understand?"

  Nicholas took a deep breath. It was a risk he was prepared to take.
His future was in this cave. His future and Blue Isle's.

  And as the Shaman said, sometimes that took a sacrifice.

  "Yes," he said. "I'm trusting you to bring my daughter back."

  "I'll make sure you're all right," Jewel said.

  Nicholas smiled at her. She would.

  Gift swallowed so loud, the sound echoed. "I'll be the backup," he said. "We can't lose you and my sister."

  Coulter was staring at him sadly as if waiting for Gift to list him too.

  "Or Coulter," Gift said, but the words sounded reluctant.

  Couler nodded once, as if that were enough. "Ready?" he asked Nicholas.

  "Ready," Nicholas said.

  Then Coulter reached forward and touched a small area in front of Nicholas's heart. It felt as if someone had plunged a knife into him.

  Coulter's eyes glazed, and Nicholas traced the boy's presence in Nicholas's Link through the pain that moved from his heart into his very soul.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  He felt every one of his ninety-two years this morning. Rugad bent over, pulled on his boots, and sighed. His body ached from its fall after the golem's attack, and his throat hurt from all the talking he had done the day before. Each muscle, each movement reminded him of the stresses he had put himself under.

  He would put himself under even more.

  This Isle had bested his son.

  This Isle had killed his granddaughter.

  It had taken his voice.

  It would be his, no matter what. He would have the Isle, and he would have his great-grandchildren, and he would move on to Leut, no matter how much pain he felt, no matter how old he felt, no matter how injured he was.

  He would conquer Blue Isle, and use it as a stepping-stone for the rest of the world.

  This morning was the start of it all.

  He had made the decision before coming back to his rooms. The guards had cleaned them, removing the broken chair and the bits of stone as he had requested. The golem had been disposed of, pieces of him flung into the river, the rest scattered about Jahn.

  He could never be assembled again.

  Another obstacle down.

  Several more remained, but Rugad had confidence that he would take those as well.

  He stood and stretched. He had felt like this after difficult battles, all bruised and battered, and yet satisfied that he had won. Only the satisfaction was missing on this day.