The Black King (Book 7)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Sebastian is no longer a factor.”

  His nails bit into his palm. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that Sebastian has left the palace.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his spirit is yours, Gift. He was a doorway, a way for you to get to me. He didn’t belong here.”

  “He’s our brother.”

  “He’s made of stone.”

  Another chill ran down Gift’s back. Arianna had always believed that Sebastian was a real person.

  “Have you destroyed him?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “He’s on his own now.”

  “Where?” Gift asked.

  “I believe he lives with Coulter.”

  Gift frowned. “He’s at the Roca’s Cave?”

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t want him here any more than I want you here. You threaten the Empire.”

  “Arianna, I am not interested in the Empire. I don’t want the Throne. I came here for you.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s pretend I believe that. I don’t need you, Gift.”

  “Then why is Lyndred here?”

  “Because she amuses me.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  Arianna clasped her hands behind her back. “All right, then let me tell you the truth. She’s not ready to be a threat. She’s too young and inexperienced. Bridge is too stupid.”

  The harshness grated, but Arianna had always spoken plainly. There had just never been such obvious deviousness behind her words before. Seger had been right; there was something wrong with Arianna. Gift just didn’t know what it was yet.

  “I need a Visionary beside me, Gift,” Arianna said, “and Lyndred was the only one. I can’t trust you. You’ve touched the Throne, and now you have your own pet Shaman. You came here, ready to take over the Empire. Shaman in hand, and Enchanter beside you.”

  “Enchanter?”

  “Isn’t the woman who traveled with you an Enchanter?”

  “Skya is my guide.”

  “You needed a guide to get back to Blue Isle?”

  “I needed a guide to get out of Vion in a hurry.”

  “You’re out. Why do you need her now?”

  He looked at Arianna for a long moment. “I should think that would be fairly obvious.”

  “Do you love her?” Arianna asked. It sounded like a business question.

  “No,” Gift lied. “But one of us needs to give this Empire an heir, don’t we?”

  “Is she pregnant?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I thought we would make our home on the Isle, and you would have a hand in raising the child. After all, the child would inherit if something happened to you. I thought that you and I were a team.”

  “There is no room for a team to rule the Empire, and no need for you to groom one of your children as an heir to my throne.”

  “I saw Mother,” he said, “in the Place of Power in the Eccrasian Mountains. She said having an heir was the most important thing.”

  “Mysteries often mislead,” Arianna said.

  “Mother never has, and you know that. She’s the one who trained you.”

  “I abandoned that training long ago,” Arianna said. “It wasn’t right.”

  “It’s what made the Fey follow you in the first place. You had no clue how to rule the Fey. You were raised Islander. If you just remember who you are, and who I am—”

  “You are the Heir to the Black Throne.”

  “I’m your brother. I care about you.”

  She turned away from him and went back to the east windows. It felt as if she were looking for answers at the end of the Isle, as if she were trying to see the Roca’s Cave.

  “A ruler cannot care about anyone, Gift.” This time, the voice sounded like Arianna’s. The mixture of sadness and regret in her tone was what caused it. “I can’t care for anyone. It will become a weakness. You know that. People have crossed your Links in the past, just as they have crossed mine. It’s better not to have any Links at all.”

  Gift felt cold. Coulter had told her to close her Links fifteen years ago. Was that what made Arianna this cold unfeeling person now?

  “Our father loved us,” Gift said. “He loved our mother. And he was an effective King.”

  “A king of a small island. He could afford to have weaknesses.”

  “Even with the Black King of the Fey pressing down on him?”

  “Even then,” Arianna said.

  Gift took a step closer. She raised her head, and her eyes, reflected in the glass, met his. She had been watching him just as he had been watching her. “You can’t mean this.”

  “But I do. Our mother’s love for our father made her trust him. Our grandfather’s love for our mother brought her to the Isle in the first place. Only Rugad seemed to see things clearly, and that was because he didn’t have his emotions engaged.”

  Gift felt his breath catch in his throat. “You’re using Rugad as a model for how to rule?”

  “Of course.”

  “You hated him. You were going to set up your rule so that you never made the same mistakes he did.”

  “His mistakes were minor. They were recoverable.”

  “Dying? Losing the battle to us and our father? That’s recoverable?”

  “Yes.” Her smile was secretive, almost as if she were inviting him to guess at something, as if they were playing a game with rules he didn’t understand.

  “Arianna, you can’t mean this. Tell me it’s all a joke.”

  “I mean it,” she said.

  “Rugad is the worst model you could have chosen.”

  “Rugad was the greatest ruler the Fey ever had.”

  “Rugad died in the middle of losing a battle.”

  “In a war he won. Why do you keep forgetting that Blue Isle is part of the Fey Empire now?”

  “An independent part. The first part to join voluntarily, just like our parents wanted. And they wanted us to rule in a new way. They said that to you the day you decided to become Queen.”

  “Yes, they did,” she said. “They were wrong.”

  Gift frowned. Her words played in his mind. What changed? He had asked her and she had immediately said, You touched the Black Throne. He had thought it an accusation, but what if it wasn’t. What if it was an admission? What if the light that shot out from the Throne was what had changed her, infected her somehow? What if Rugad hadn’t become the ruthless man Gift remembered until he touched the Black Throne?

  “Mother said you were infected with a dark magick.”

  Arianna started. For the first time since he arrived, Gift felt as if he had seen a real emotion from her. “She said that in the cave?”

  “In the Eccrasian Mountains, just before I came here.”

  “What else did she say?” There was an intensity to Arianna’s question now, as if a lot rested on Gift’s answer.

  “She said that I shouldn’t see you. That sometimes dark magick ignites other dark magick.”

  “Did she?” Arianna asked. “What did you take that to mean?”

  “Nothing then. I wonder now if something didn’t happen to you, something recent.”

  “Because I have changed my way of ruling?”

  “Because you’re so cold and bitter.”

  She threaded her hands behind her back. “You sound like Bridge making everything about emotion, not logic.”

  Gift’s cheeks grew warm from the rebuke, but Arianna didn’t stop.

  “I’ve been on my own for years now, Gift. I’ve had time to think about this. I know what’s best for the Empire. I’ve studied it. I know what should and shouldn’t be done.”

  “Based on what? The past behavior of Black Rulers?”

  She nodded. “We have been the most successful people in the history of the world.”

  “Successful? The Isle was successful. It had been at peace for a thousand years before the Fey arrived. That’s just a differe
nt way of measuring success.”

  “And not a good one for the Fey.” Her words echoed in the large room. Apparently they had both raised their voices.

  They stared at each other in the silence. Then Gift said, “So that’s why you’re training the military. You’re going to invade Leut.”

  Her features became still. It was as if the mercurial Arianna had learned how to wipe all emotion off of her face. He would never have believed that possible.

  “You don’t have a large enough military to invade a new continent. And you’re not a war leader. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “You do?” Arianna asked.

  “Ari,” Gift said. “This isn’t for us. You’ve made incredible strides in peacetime. You’ve doubled food production throughout the Empire. You’ve expanded trade among the member nations. You’ve made us rich through our own means, not through conquering others.”

  She nodded. “It was an oversight that needed to be corrected. Now that it has, it’s time to return our attention to the things that made the Fey the people they are.”

  He stared at her. She looked the same. She was his sister except for those eyes. It was as if someone else looked out of them. But he didn’t know how someone else had gotten in. He didn’t know anyone strong enough to cross her Links and take her over. Besides, Coulter had had her close her Links years ago.

  The thing he kept coming back to was the light that had flared from the Throne. It had gone searching, the Shaman had said. Maybe it had found fertile ground in Arianna. Maybe that was what his mother had meant by being infected by dark magick.

  But if Arianna was infected, he had no idea how he could prove it—or what he could do.

  “Ari,” he said, “the day we met, do you remember it?”

  “Of course,” she said coldly. “I tried to kill you. I didn’t know about the Blood against Blood then.”

  “Before that, though, what did I offer you?”

  Her blue eyes twinkled. “Are you testing me, Gift?”

  “Humor me.”

  “You can tell I’m not a Doppelgänger. There are no gold flecks in my eyes.”

  Gift waited. His heart was pounding.

  “Of course, if I’m some rogue Shape-Shifter who has taken Arianna’s place, you can kill me and assume the Throne and no one will be the wiser. There won’t even be Blood against Blood.”

  His palms had grown damp. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she didn’t answer him. Were there spells that made Shape-Shifters revert to their original forms? Skya would know.

  Arianna inclined her head toward him. “If I were a Shape-Shifter, though, one with normal gifts, I would have had to practice this shape from birth. I would have chosen the shape of the Black Queen. Wouldn’t my own people have thought that odd?”

  Gift said nothing.

  “I suppose they could have wanted to overthrow the Black Family, but that would have taken a special Fey. Unless I’m really Islander, or half and half. Imagine if I were. What kind of creature would I be then? Or maybe I had the same Shape-shifting ability the real Black Queen does, able to take dozens of forms.”

  Gift’s mouth was dry. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to be able to answer him, or not. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know that this sarcastic bitter woman was really his sister.

  “A new Shape-Shifter would, naturally, have studied everything possible about me, but wouldn’t know all the details. And unlike a Doppelgänger, wouldn’t have absorbed my memories.”

  She wasn’t dumb. She understood his test too well.

  “On the day we met,” she said, “you wanted to take Sebastian away from the palace. You thought he was going to die. When I found you, you offered to take me with you. I had no idea who you were, so I refused. I tried to prevent you from kidnapping Sebastian and it wasn’t until later that I finally understood you were my real brother, and that killing you would have been a disaster of untoward proportions.”

  A chill ran down Gift’s back.

  “Interesting test. Most people know that I tried to kill you the day we met, but they don’t know the other reasons behind it. They don’t know that you had come to the palace with good intentions and that I was the one who was ill-informed.”

  The chill stayed with him. He wasn’t sure how to move. The memories were Arianna’s, which meant he was not looking at an imposter Shape-Shifter. Could a person’s basic nature change so much in fifteen years?

  Or had something changed it, warped it, some kind of magick made her something else? Was this what the Black Throne needed? Was this what it wanted? Was this what he would have become if he had accepted it?

  “There were so many memories you could have chosen,” she said. “That one was particularly apt. You wanted to remind me of the Blood against Blood, didn’t you? And you wanted to remind me that you have never meant me harm while I nearly brought the Blood on both of us. Marvelous. You do have a proper Fey mind. You simply choose to waste it.”

  Gift’s breathing was shallow. He didn’t want this person to be Arianna. He wanted the sister he had known back.

  “It’s too bad, really,” she said. “If you didn’t have such a soft-hearted philosophy, I could have used you. But you’re too dangerous, Gift. You have several advantages that make things too difficult for me. You’re the eldest, and for that reason alone some believe you should be Black King. You’ve touched the Throne and it wanted you, even though you claimed you rejected it. You’ve given up your Shamanic training, so you have no future, no plans for a life outside of these walls. And you’ve already found a mate to breed heirs.”

  He stared at her. He wished he had listened to his mother now. Had she known this was going to be the result of his visit?

  “Even if you don’t try to overthrow me, someone might in your name. And then what will we have? Blood against Blood?” She shrugged. “It’s not something I want to test.”

  “I’m not going to overthrow you.”

  “You believe that now,” she said. “But people change over time.”

  “Like you did.”

  “It’s possible.” She walked toward him, then reached out a hand and put a finger under his chin, lifting it slightly. She was inspecting him as if he were a horse. Her fingers were cold. “They say you’re the greatest Visionary the Fey have ever known. Is that true, Gift?”

  “I don’t know.” When he spoke, her fingernail dug into his chin.

  “How many Visions did you have when you touched the Throne? Three? Five?”

  “Seven,” he said.

  Her finger dropped away. Her eyes grew even colder. “Seven. That is impressive. Were any of them about me?”

  “Some,” he said.

  “Are you going to share them?”

  Three of them were about her. In the third, she stared at the Black Throne longingly, the expression on her face alien to him then, but familiar now. This was the woman he had Seen in that Vision.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not going to share them.”

  Arianna frowned at him. “It’s a Visionary’s duty to share Visions.”

  “And I already have. With all the Shaman in Protector’s Village.” Gift crossed his arms. “You can’t have this both ways, Ari. Either I’m your brother or I’m your enemy. You’ve spent the last hour telling me that we have no obligation to each other and now you want to claim one.”

  “You’re trying to blackmail me into resuming a relationship that will harm our people?”

  “I don’t see it that way.”

  “As blackmail?”

  “As harmful.”

  She shook her head. Her lips had thinned. She seemed suddenly unsure of herself. “So the Shaman, after hearing your Vision, sent one of their kind with you, to take care of you when you became Black King.”

  “Actually, she volunteered to come with me to serve the Black Family.”

  “She would become my Shaman?”

  “She’s her own person. Ask her.”

  Arianna tur
ned away. She walked to the window, the south window this time, and he couldn’t see the reflection of her face. She seemed almost disturbed by the idea of having a Shaman.

  “You know,” she said after a moment, “I can’t have you stay on the Isle.”

  “You’ve made that clear.”

  “It’s customary to give lesser members of the Black Family a military commission.”

  “If we’re at war.” Gift didn’t want a military commission, but he’d see what she offered.

  “That’s right. Otherwise, you might get the leadership of a small country. You’re quite shrewd, Gift. Giving you a military commission or a position of leadership would be inviting trouble.”

  “I don’t understand why you don’t trust me. I haven’t done anything to you.”

  “Yet.” She clasped her hands behind her back and spread her legs slightly. That stance disturbed him as well. It was a military posture, one Arianna rarely used. Their mother had used it. Their grandfather as well. But Arianna had been more fluid. Rarely did she hold herself so still.

  “I had hoped you would keep your monastic ways. I had hoped your studies would have kept you busy for the next thirty years. I did expect you to become a Shaman.”

  “So did I,” Gift said. “But the war with Rugad disqualified me. I am not able to use Domestic magick.”

  “That’s what worries me. If you had remained a Domestic, you would not have been a threat.”

  He sighed. There was no convincing her otherwise, no matter what he said. He wished he had stayed beside her these last few years. He wished he knew what had caused the changes.

  “So,” she said, “I want you to leave the Empire, Gift.”

  His breath stopped in his throat. “You’re banishing me?”

  “I think that’s my only choice.”

  “And what will you do if I don’t agree?”

  She turned, looking at him over her shoulder. “I don’t have to kill you to remove you as a threat. If you want to stay in the Empire, I’m sure I could find a nice cell for you. The dungeons below the palace are adequate, but I know there are better places in L’Nacin.”

  He’d heard about L’Nacin prisons. They were renowned for their brutality.

  “Mother was right,” Gift whispered. “Something’s got a hold of you. This is not you, Ari.”