The Black King (Book 7)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Arianna was still watching the hallway. “She knows about the Blood.”

  “She knows. But she’s smarter than I am. Cunning and manipulative, just like the best of my family. If you are Sighted, figure out a way to prove that to her, or she will stand against you.”

  “You’ll tolerate this sort of disrespect from your child?”

  Bridge smiled. “She’s not showing disrespect to me.”

  “Disrespect to the family affects all of us.”

  “Really?” Bridge said. “Rugad never believed that. And isn’t his the model you claim to be following?”

  She turned to him, her expression flat. “Sometimes you accuse me of being like Rugad, and then you accuse me of not being like him at all. Which is it?”

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged, disliking the chill that was running up and down his spine. “Every person is different, Arianna. You can be like him and unlike him in turns.”

  She stared at him a moment longer. “I suppose.”

  “You can’t run your government on an old model.” He stopped, unused to giving anyone advice. But she was silent, as if she were listening. “Things are different here. You’re different. You don’t take advantage of those differences.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re part Islander, and yet you talk of them as if they’re another people. You can control them. You can stop this rebellion, and give Gift a chance. You’ve been apart from him long enough that your mistrust of him is coloring everything. Perhaps he’s coming back because he’s worried about you.”

  A slight frown creased her forehead. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Advising you?”

  She nodded once again, a curt half movement that urged him to get on with things.

  “It seems to me that no one has, and you’re floundering. Maybe if you have someone beside you who can offer insights, you’ll be better off.”

  “Why would you help someone you believe to be Blind?”

  “You say you’re not. I have to believe that. You rule my people. And you are my niece.”

  “I never thought kindness a Fey attribute.”

  “That’s because those of us who have it aren’t that successful as Fey.”

  “Yet you would give me advice.”

  “Presumptuous, I know,” he said. “But you’re being impulsive. My father was impulsive. My grandfather used to say that’s what got him killed.”

  “I’ll bet your grandfather was impulsive when he was young.”

  “Probably,” Bridge said. “but you’re not young any longer. You have to make decisions based on what’s best for our people. Not on what will keep you as head of the Fey.”

  “You believe I should step down.”

  “Only if you’re Blind.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Then Arianna said, “I will never step down. I will rule the Fey for the rest of my life.”

  TWELVE

  THE TASHKA slid into Jahn harbor as the morning sky was lightening in the east. Traces of yellow were barely visible above the river; the mountains were gray shadows in the distance.

  Gift stood on deck, hands clasped behind his back, legs spread slightly. He had been unable to sleep. He had helped his Healers tend to the wounded, and he had found places for the dead. He would bury them here on the Isle, and send notices to their families.

  Nyeian sailors were handling the ship now. The remaining Fey Sailors were below. The entry into Jahn harbor was easy enough to be handled by people without magick.

  Skya was asleep below. She had stayed beside him as long as possible, but in the end, he had finally told her to get some rest. He knew that she had never seen slaughter like that.

  He had. His entire life seemed filled with violent death. Reflecting on it now, he was astonished that the Shaman had only found one incident wherein he had caused someone to die.

  Things were much different than he had expected. A Doppelgänger among the Islanders, ready to send a message back to Jahn when he arrived. Islanders trying to destroy the Black Heir to prevent the Fey presence from taking over the Isle. Talk of reviving the deadlier parts of his father’s religion, the parts that would kill any Fey who came into contact with it.

  This was not the Isle Gift had left. These were the sorts of things his sister had avoided in the early years of her reign. She hadn’t forbidden Rocaanism. She had accepted it, and asked that the destructive parts of it be modified so that the Fey could participate. Everything Arianna stood for had been about acceptance, not hatred.

  What had happened on the river had all been about hatred.

  Someone wanted him dead, and he knew that someone had Fey blood. His uncle Bridge as the Doppelgänger had implied? Or Bridge’s daughter? Or was there someone else, someone that Gift didn’t know or expect?

  The light in the eastern sky was getting brighter, and he could see more of Jahn. The city had changed while he was gone. The houses were painted, and there was a look of prosperity to the place.

  He had often thought of the city as he had first seen it, when he was eighteen. Jahn had been a startlingly white city then. When sunlight fell on its streets, the brightness hurt the eyes. The stone bridge over the river was the same, its graceful arch the center of the city. But the matching buildings on either side of the bridge were no longer. The Tabernacle had burned that year. Its shell still remained on that side of the river, a blackened sunken remnant of the magnificence that once had terrified him.

  The palace now looked like the heart of Jahn. The palace had three towers—the fourth removed a century ago, replaced with a kitchen and a ceiling that vented to the sky—and still looked shiny white. The eye went to it immediately, but somehow that made the skyline seem unbalanced, as if something were missing, something that was essential to the Isle itself.

  Warehouses had been constructed by the water’s edge, and there were more ships in the harbor than he had ever seen. Arianna had opened trade with Galinas again, and Blue Isle’s riches were sent all over the Fey Empire, just as the Empire’s wealth returned to the Isle. Her peaceful policies had increased the quality of life rise all over the Empire.

  He wasn’t sure what had happened to his sister. Seger’s message had been so urgent. What if Arianna had died? What if the changes were caused by his uncle Bridge, acting as ruler until Gift returned?

  “It would be better if you slept before you left the ship.” The voice behind him was soft.

  He turned. Xihu stood there, her robe falling gracefully around her. Her shock of white hair formed a soft cloud around her head.

  “I can’t sleep,” he said. “I keep seeing blood.”

  “Real blood?” she asked. “Or is it a Vision?”

  “The deck,” he said. “From yesterday afternoon.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “You have forgotten.”

  He shook his head slightly. “I haven’t forgotten. This is my home. It just looks strange after years away.”

  “No,” she said. “The Visions.”

  He stepped away from her so that he could see her face. Her brown eyes held a sorrow they hadn’t had before.

  “The Visions we heard before we left Protector’s Village,” she said.

  He suddenly felt lightheaded. She was right. He hadn’t been thinking of those at all.

  “They Saw your sister give the Throne to a Fey man with coal black hair, a man that Madot mistook to be you.”

  He nodded. He had thought then that it couldn’t have been him, but someone who looked like him. Madot, his teacher at Protector’s village, had said that all of the Fey men in his family had the same look.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “she gave the Throne to Bridge.”

  “If she did,” Xihu said, “it would not have been willingly. Remember the Warning.”

  The Warning had come to most of the Shaman the night before Madot had taken Gift to the Black Throne, the night before he reje
cted his heritage.

  “‘The hand that holds the scepter shall hold it no more,’” he said, quoting the Warning as if he had received it from the Powers himself, “‘and the man behind the Throne shall reveal himself in all his glory.’”

  “The Warning makes no more sense to me now than it did when I first heard it,” he said. “There are a thousand interpretations. I could be the man behind the Throne. Or I could be the man Arianna hands the Throne to. Or Bridge could be.”

  “One thing is certain from all of these Visions,” Xihu said. “Your sister will not hold the Throne forever. She may not be holding it now.”

  “I know,” Gift said.

  The ship continued to move forward, very slowly, looking for a place to dock near one of the warehouses.

  “I have Seen nothing of her death, have you?” Xihu asked.

  Gift shook his head. “Although what I have Seen is strange. Sometimes she doesn’t seem like Arianna in my Visions. Once, I even saw her with black eyes.”

  “Eyes so deep that they seem to reflect nothing.”

  “Yes.” Gift turned to her in surprise.

  “The traditional eyes of a Black Ruler.”

  “You’ve Seen that too.”

  Xihu nodded.

  “Your Vision came true,” he said. “The arrows covered with blood.”

  She shivered. “I should have seen that for the Warning it was.”

  “You didn’t know Islanders used bow and arrow. I did, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “The eyes, Gift, were not from that Vision. In that Vision, her eyes were blue. And cold.”

  “You said she had a cruel face.”

  “Yes.”

  “These dark eyes, the eyes of a Black Leader, when did you See those?”

  Xihu took a deep breath. “Only a few hours ago.”

  He felt a jolt run through his body. “You had a Vision?”

  “Yes.” Each time her voice got softer. “But you did not.”

  “I haven’t had one in months.” Until that moment, his lack of Vision hadn’t concerned him. Now it made him wonder. “Do you think that’s a problem?”

  “I do not know,” she said. “I wish you would See something.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I keep Seeing the Blood, Gift.”

  “And the Triangle?”

  She shook her head. “Just the Blood.”

  He stared at the palace. Theoretically, his sister was inside. Arianna, whom he had loved and trusted. “Your Visions have grown stronger the closer we’ve gotten.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think that’s because I’ll trigger the Blood?”

  “I don’t know what else has changed.”

  “Should I leave?”

  She stared at the city. The dawn was turning orange and pink, the colors soft on the water. Jahn looked like a peaceful place, a beautiful place, not the city of terror that he remembered.

  “Can you leave?” she asked gently.

  The palace reflected the light. Whenever he looked at it, he thought of Sebastian, made of stone yet full of life. He thought of his father, a kind man who had a core so strong that he could beat the most powerful ruler the Fey had ever had. He thought of his mother, who had died within those walls.

  “I have to see Arianna first,” he said. “Then I can go.”

  Xihu folded her hands and placed them across her stomach. “If you’re going to go, you should leave now. Before you see her.”

  “I came here because Seger said she was in trouble. If I go now, I might make things worse.”

  “You know that Seger’s message could have been false, that the assassins could have been waiting for you on the riverbank because they knew you would arrive. Your presence here might be enough to trigger the Blood.”

  “You believe it is.”

  “My Visions have grown worse.”

  “I haven’t Seen this at all. I thought a man was supposed to See his own death.”

  “You won’t recognize it,” she said. “You will think it’s something you can change.”

  He looked at her. He had Seen a lot of things. He thought of the most vivid Vision he’d had recently, the one in which he’d been in water, feeling an undertow pull him down, wondering if he would drown when an old man who looked like his great-grandfather tried to save him—a man whom Gift did not want to die in his place.

  But as a young man, he thought he’d Seen his death. He’d actually had a Vision where someone stuck a knife into his back. The Vision had come true, but not in the way he’d expected. It had altered drastically, through actions that were probably not his own. And he had not been the one who had been stabbed. That had been Sebastian.

  He frowned. “Maybe I’ve Seen my death. But I thought I Saw my death once before, and it didn’t come true.”

  “Perhaps it would have, if things had been different.”

  “Perhaps.”

  The ship brushed against the dock. Gift felt a small shudder beneath his feet, hearing the scrape of wood against wood. At that moment, the sun appeared on the horizon, bathing everything in light until the entire city was golden. Then the sun rose higher, and the light changed.

  Gift was holding his breath. It was almost as if Jahn were blessed, as if there was a specialness to this place that he felt in no other. Perhaps because it was the closest thing he’d had to a home in the last fifteen years.

  “I’m going to see her,” he said. “And then we’ll figure out—”

  The sky turned black and he pitched forward, hitting the deck. For a moment, he thought something had happened to the sun, and then he realized that he was having a Vision. That everything was changing.

  —A Fey woman with a perfect, narrow face, and snapping black eyes touched Coulter’s cheek. He tried to pull away, but she will not let him. She turned, looked at—

  —Gift cradling a newborn in his arms. Tears ran down his cheeks. He didn’t know how she could give this up and return to a life without this child. Without him—

  —And the blood flowed—

  —He was in water, thrashing, an undertow pulling him down. Water filled his mouth, tasting of brine and salt. The old Fey in the boat—his great-grandfather again? Or someone who looked like him?—reached for Gift, but if Gift took his hand, the old man would die. And Gift didn’t want that. He looked up, expecting to see Arianna in robin form. Instead, he saw Ace, circling, concern on his bird face—

  —Arianna wrapped her hands around her skull. She was screaming—

  —Skya looked at him, her face bathed in sweat, her hair limp against her head. “I can’t live like this,” she said. “I do not belong here.” He reached for her—

  —And the blood flowed—

  —His great-grandfather said, “You will never defeat me. I know more about Fey magick than you ever will.”—

  —” Of course he does.” Gift’s mother stood before him, her hands on his face. Her hair was half silver, just as it would have been if she had lived. He had never seen her look this old. “But you are your father’s son. You are the center, Gift. The heart of everything, and you always have been. Your father and I were right, thirty-four years ago. Only you can bring peace. Only you.”—

  —And the blood flowed...

  He opened his eyes. His right cheek was pressed into the wood of the deck, his left was hot in the morning sun. The air smelled faintly of river mold, a scent that always got worse around the Cardidas in the winter.

  He was faintly dizzy. He blinked, wondering if Xihu had been felled by a Vision as well. He looked for her, saw her feet, then pushed himself up.

  She was staring at the river. The Nyeian sailors were staring at the river too. And Skya, who was standing inside the deck house door, was staring just like they were.

  “What?” It was as if his voice didn’t work properly. It scratched against his throat, almost as if he hadn’t used it in a week.

  Xihu stared at the water. He thought for a moment
that she hadn’t heard him, then she crouched beside him and extended her hand. He took it, and let her help him up.

  She still hadn’t taken her gaze off the river. Her expression was sadder than any he’d seen in a long time.

  “It was an Open Vision,” she said.

  He swallowed against that dry throat. An Open Vision was rare. He’d had two before, once when he was a little boy and once when he was fighting the Black King.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “Blood,” she said and shuddered visibly. Her hand, so warm and dry within his, quivered.

  “What kind of blood?” His Visions had had blood flowing through them, behind them, like the river itself, but there had been no specific images of blood.

  “The whole river was blood. The surface was covered with it.”

  He looked. The early morning sky was reflected in its waters: reds and oranges and deep pinks, all of it looking fresh and wonderful and not like blood at all.

  “Blood against Blood?” he asked.

  “I hope not,” she said.

  But this time it was he who shuddered. He had Seen blood in all the Visions. He knew what it meant.

  Xihu hadn’t let go of his hand. “Is that what you Saw? Blood on the water?”

  He shook his head. The Nyeian sailors were looking at him oddly, as if he were some kind of strange creature, something they had never seen before. He couldn’t talk in front of them.

  Skya hadn’t moved from her place at the door. She had a hand over her stomach and she looked vaguely ill. For the first time since he had known her, he saw fear on her face. When his gaze met hers, she looked away.

  The words she had spoken the day they met rose in his mind: I don’t like Shaman. They get in the way with their Visions and pronouncements and rules. And the look on her face when she discovered that he was a Visionary. Not fearful, not exactly. But not very happy either.

  “Everyone Saw this, didn’t they?” he asked Xihu.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was an Open Vision.”

  “Like a great battle had been fought?”

  “Like a hundred people had died and the river was turning to blood.”

  He frowned. He’d seen that before, when his great-grandfather died at the Cliffs of Blood. There were dead all along the mountainside, and the water itself, always the color of blood, looked even redder.