The Black King (Book 7)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Dash glanced at Bridge who was still holding Alex. The boy had stopped struggling. His head was down, and Gift recognized the posture from Matt. Alex felt defeated. Gift wondered if that would haunt them all someday.

  Dash stuck the torch in a torch holder, and came in through the door. He gasped when he saw the room. “It’s holy,” he said.

  Gift glanced at him. He hadn’t realized that Dash had been raised a Rocaanist. He seemed too young. “I doubt I can touch them. You’ll need to get them down.”

  “Too bad the boy won’t help. It would make things easier.” Dash glanced at Gift. “You can hold the bags, can’t you?”

  “I think so.” Gift crossed the floor toward the globes. As he did, jewels lit up beneath his feet: first a ruby, then an emerald, a sapphire and a diamond. He could have sworn they hadn’t been there before.

  Dash let out a small breath. Gift moved off the jewels, but they flared forward, as if he had ignited them, pointing the way toward the stone altar.

  “It wants you at the altar,” Dash said.

  “It’s not going to get me there.” Gift felt cold despite the warmth of the room. He had touched the Black Throne, and that had started this mess. He wasn’t going to touch its equivalent in this white room, in this holiest of places for the Islanders.

  Gift beckoned Dash to follow him. Dash did. He also avoided the jewels, stopping below the globes as Gift had.

  The globes hung just above Gift’s head. It would be a stretch for Dash to reach them, but he would be able to. He handed Gift the bags.

  “Don’t touch the globes themselves, or you’ll Blind me,” Gift said. “Use your knife to cut the strings they hang off of, and hold them by the strings only.”

  Dash went pale. “I can’t do this.”

  “You have to,” Gift said. “I can’t ask my uncle and that boy won’t. If I accidentally brush one of those things, I have no idea what will happen. If you do, it’ll send out a brief light and it’ll hurt, but I should be able to survive that. I did when my father discovered the properties of these things.”

  Dash didn’t look reassured. He handed Gift the bags. Gift held the first as far away from himself as he could. He held it open, wrapping the bag’s material around his hands to protect them.

  Dash removed his knife from his belt, then reached up, easing his fingers between the globes, and touched the string. Gift held his breath, worried that there would be some trick to the string as well, but there wasn’t. Dash gripped the string tightly with one hand, and then, above his fist, he cut the string.

  The globe bounced once, but didn’t touch him. Gently Dash used the string to lower the globe into the bag that Gift held open.

  They glanced at each other. He could see his own relief matched in Dash’s eyes.

  Together, they removed the rest of the globes. Gift counted. There were seventy-five here. Some other strings hung nearby, old and rotted and empty. A long time ago, someone had taken twenty-five others. He wondered what the reason had been.

  The bags were scattered all over the floor. There were more than he, Dash and Bridge could carry in one trip. They would have to take Alex out of here, and then come back for the bags.

  It would take the rest of the afternoon.

  Gift sighed. He had hoped this would be easy, but like everything else in battles against Rugad, it was not.

  FORTY-FIVE

  ARIANNA WATCHED CON. He was staring over the edge of the rail into the river. She sat in a deck chair that Coulter had found for her. Neither Lyndred nor Con had seen her during their argument, and Con still seemed unaware of her presence. She had sat there quietly since Coulter had awakened her, shortly after Gift left.

  Arianna knew why Gift had gone, but she hoped he had thought through the mission. He wouldn’t be able to carry those Lights, and she wasn’t sure Dash could handle all that Gift expected of him.

  The sun had reached its midday height and the river was orange-red. On the shore, some of the Islanders were fishing, and others moved back and forth from the stone quarry that had hollowed out one of the mountains.

  When Arianna had been a young girl, trapped in the Roca’s Cave and watching the activity below, she had thought this a horrible place. Coulter had shown her how it had its own beauty—a stark, harsh beauty, but a beauty nonetheless.

  She would miss it, but she would be happy to return home. The palace had burned and she hadn’t even been able to see the destruction. From her view off the ship, all she had seen was smoke. Matt didn’t really know what had been harmed, but from his story, she could guess—the North Tower, the Great Hall, and the old residences. Her childhood rooms, perhaps.

  It saddened her, but she didn’t blame Matt. She blamed Rugad.

  Arianna leaned back in the chair. It felt odd not defending herself. She had to wait here, like a traditional Islander woman of her father’s generation, for the men to return.

  She was not a woman accustomed to waiting. The Shaman—the one who befriended her father—would have said that waiting was a lesson Arianna needed to learn.

  She didn’t enjoy learning it this way.

  The air was chill. Normally, she would have been wrapped in a blanket, but she didn’t need one. This stone skin of hers seemed impervious to discomfort. She had been out there for hours now, watching for Gift or Dash or Bridge, watching the skies for Ace. She even scouted the shore, wondering if she could see the Assassin lurking. But she saw nothing. The most interesting thing before her had been Lyndred and Con, and that show had broken up some time before.

  Arianna tilted her head back. Since she couldn’t be active, she had decided that planning was one of the few things she could offer. Rugad knew they had left Jahn by ship and that they were going toward the Cliffs of Blood. He would be watching the river. He would be expecting them to return the same way.

  He would also be watching the roads. What they needed to do was return by sky. Years ago, Arianna had seen a contraption that allowed a person to be carried by Hawk Riders. She wanted to talk with Skya about it, and see if Skya knew how to make such a carrier, but the woman was proving ellusive. When she wasn’t yelling at Gift, she was hiding in her room. Arianna had no idea what Gift saw in her beyond her stunning beauty. She certainly wasn’t social, and she didn’t seem to be all that nice.

  Still, she had a Warder’s magick, and Warders knew things that most other Fey did not. Arianna would find a way to talk with her before the end of the day. Because, if they could build a few of those contraptions—and if they had enough strong Bird Riders—Arianna, Gift, and Coulter could fly back to Jahn. They could send the ship back as a decoy, so if Rugad sent anyone up the river, the force would find the ship. And by the time the ship returned to Jahn, the attack against Rugad would be over.

  Arianna scooted her chair back and everything slid. For a moment she thought the ship was tilting, and then she realized it was her. The chair held her as she leaned backwards—

  —she was walking in burned out ruins, ruins of a much beloved and very familiar place. Ruins so great that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to repair it. Her heart twisted, and she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She—

  —reached for Coulter’s face. He caught her hand, laughing. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen him laugh. It was a nice sound. It—

  —made up for all the blood, flowing like a river, away from her.

  —Something glinted in the trees and Ace flew over her like an avenging spirit. She wanted to fly too—

  —Then she saw herself, handing a symbolic scepter to a man with dark hair. A Fey man with hair that ran to his collar. A man who, from the back, looked like Gift. Or Bridge. Or Rugad.—

  Her chair had tipped over backwards. She was lying on her back, her legs and feet still bent over the seat of the chair as if she were sitting up. No one had noticed. Con still stood at the railing, staring at the shore. None of the Sailors were on deck.

  She hadn’t been out long then.r />
  Then she realized that she was stuck in this awkward position. She thought of calling for help, but couldn’t quite take the embarrassment of it. So she pulled herself backwards by her elbows until her legs straightened and her feet hit the chair. Then she rolled over and stood up.

  As she brushed herself off, Con turned. Slowly, she picked up the chair. By the time she had finished, he was at her side.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She glanced over Con’s shoulder at the shore. The Visions had left her feeling hollow. “I wish this were over.”

  “It will be,” he said. “And soon.”

  She nodded, but his words didn’t comfort her. The last time they had defeated Rugad at a great price. She had no doubt that, if they won this time, the price attached to this victory would be one none of them wanted to pay.

  FORTY-SIX

  “YOU WANT TO SEND for Luke?” Arianna said. “Luke, the captain of the guards, the man I sent from here in disgrace?”

  DiPalmet winced. He was standing in Arianna’s private chamber. She was finishing her mid-day meal.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “All I remember was that Luke seemed like a good man.”

  “Seemed like?” Arianna shoved away a plate of cold beef and bread, and picked up a goblet filled with water. “He hovered in my bedroom while I was unconscious, which was not something a guard generally did. And when I came to, he treated me strangely. I didn’t do more to him because I could prove nothing, but I know a lot. He has ties to the group on the Cliffs of Blood. His adopted brother is the one who runs the school. He also was close to Sebastian. Luke and his little soldiers are not an option.”

  DiPalmet nodded and wished desperately that his Charm worked on a Visionary. He hated having to make arguments without the benefit of his magick. “I thought to bring in Luke because we don’t have a lot of trained Fey soldiers. You concentrated for fifteen years on disbanding the army and using Islanders as guards. Then you suddenly expect us to have a force ready to level an area of the country. It isn’t going to work.”

  He was a bit more strident than he had planned to be, but Arianna had attacked him for what he considered to be a good idea. He hadn’t known some of that about Luke, but Luke had never seemed like a man who made rash decisions. If Luke were actually allied with the group from the Cliffs of Blood, he would be there. That he remained on his little plot of land said much about his commitment to Arianna.

  He was probably as confused by her changes as DiPalmet was.

  Arianna was staring at DiPalmet as if he had suddenly become a Beast Rider. “What do you mean?”

  DiPalmet had reached the limits of his patience. “If we want a true military force we have to recruit from other parts of the Isle, and most of those folks will be too old to fight. No one has fought a battle here in fifteen years. If we really want trained troops, we should send for the border patrols from the countries in Galinas. At least they kept up with their drills for all these years.”

  Arianna set the goblet down, slowly and deliberately. “I don’t really care if the troops are well trained. Didn’t I tell you that? They aren’t going to be fighting a trained group of soldiers. This is a rape and pillage mission. Wasn’t I clear about that?”

  “You said it was a slash and burn.” DiPalmet clasped his hands behind his back.

  “A slash and burn is not about soldiers who follow orders. The best slash and burns happen when soldiers do not follow orders. Am I being clear now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” DiPalmet cleared his throat. “But there is a problem.”

  “You are full of problems today.” She crossed her arms. “What’s this one?”

  “The last time the Fey sent troops into that area—”

  “Fifteen years ago,” she said, as if that were important.

  “We lost a battle that we should have won. The Black King showed up to direct the troops himself, and the Islanders slaughtered him.”

  She closed her eyes. Her face was flushed. Then she shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, they shone with anger.

  “Fifteen years ago,” she said, “the Fey and Islanders were at war. Now we have a band of renegades who need to be put in their place. All it will take is the destruction of their little piece of the Isle. Do I need to find someone else to set this up?”

  Rugad would have done it himself, DiPalmet almost said, but bit back the retort. When his own anger eased, he would regret talking to the Black Queen like that.

  “No, you don’t need to send anyone else. I’ll take care of this. But be aware that no matter how many people we send to the Cliffs of Blood, most of them will have to go by foot. We don’t have a lot of ships and the ones we do have aren’t very good shape.”

  “This Isle was conquered by only a handful of ships. We don’t need a fleet.”

  “I thought you said a fleet.”

  Arianna’s mouth narrowed. “I asked for what I wanted. You can’t provide that, so I’ll take what I can get.”

  He hadn’t seen her this angry. It gave her a power that she didn’t normally have.

  “The key to this mission is that it happen immediately. It’s the middle of the afternoon. I want troops marching by dawn. I want the ships launched at first light. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. The faster we put down this uprising, the better everything will be.”

  DiPalmet nodded, but he didn’t agree. He had a hunch the crazed Islander’s attack on the palace had been simply the first volley in what could be a prolonged war.

  He sighed. He had rather enjoyed the peace. He would miss it.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  BRIDGE LEANED into the oars. He put his entire body into rowing. His hands were sore, but he didn’t mind. The afternoon was beautiful, the river strangely enticing. Gift was rowing furiously too, and Dash sat between them, keeping an eye on the bags. The bags bulged with the globes. Bridge had been warned not to touch them and twice he’d had to shout for Dash to keep a bag away from him.

  Bridge wasn’t really afraid of them, but he figured caution was important.

  They were lucky they had taken such a large boat. Bridge had expected the globes to be small, but they were twice the size he had thought they would be. A small bag of jewels sat near him. Dash had plucked those as well, and not just the ones that Matt had described. He had thrown in a few others just in case.

  Bridge was surprised at his own elation. He felt useful and powerful for the first time in his life. And getting rid of Rugad seemed like the right thing to do. Finally, he wouldn’t have that old man watching his every movement, following his every step.

  The ship floated near the northern end of the river, not far from the edge of the Cliffs of Blood. He could feel the Place of Power beckoning him, but he could ignore it. If he never saw the place, that would be all right with him. He didn’t need to see it. He had seen enough in this life, in this world.

  He wondered what would happen when Arianna regained her throne. Would she remember how much Bridge and Lyndred had helped? Or would Gift tell her about Lyndred’s statement—how badly she wanted the Black Throne? Would the mistrust between the generations continue?

  Bridge hoped not. He was doing everything he could to prevent it. The future lay with Jewel’s branch of the Black Family. Even though he had ambitions for his own daughter, this trip had shown him how much she needed to learn.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The ship was closer. He could see Lyndred standing by the rail, Con a few feet away from her. Coulter was by the gate, and Arianna was near the bow. Skya stood apart as she had from the moment Bridge met her.

  “I knew he wouldn’t listen,” Gift said softly.

  “Who?”

  “Coulter. I asked him to stay out of sight.”

  “I think he’s there to greet us,” Bridge said. “I saw him come up from below decks.”

  “Still,” Gift said, and rowed even faster.

  Gift’s mood didn’t
bother Bridge. He was still pleased with the way the day had gone. When the boy Alex looked upon Gift with such hatred, Bridge had thought the entire plan would come apart, but it hadn’t. Despite the boy’s strength, Bridge had been able to hold him. And once Gift had argued that he had the Roca’s blood flowing through his veins as well, the boy stopped struggling quite as hard. When the jewels lit up on the floor, the boy had let out a small moan and turned away.

  It had been a victory that Bridge hadn’t entirely understood.

  Ace flew above them in a search pattern. He’d fly to one side of the river, and then the other, combing it, making it clear that he was on guard. A few of the other Gull Riders left the ship as the boat got close, searching as well.

  “Almost there,” Dash said.

  Bridge looked over his shoulder again. The ship was very close. He called to Gift to draw up his oars. Gift looked over his shoulder, much in the way that Bridge had, then grinned. He apparently was pleased by the mission as well.

  Gift’s oars came out of the water and rested inside the boat. Water dripped down the inside of the boat’s frame. Bridge aimed the boat toward the side of the ship, then brought his own oars up.

  Behind him, he heard the rope ladder slap against the side of the ship. The boat glided into place, and he grabbed one of the rings on the ship’s side. Dash grabbed another.

  From above, Sailors sent down ropes. Gift grabbed one and tied it to the stern of the boat. Bridge took the other and tied it to the bow. That would hold it while they got out. Then the Sailors could worry about pulling up the boat and its precious cargo.

  “Rope ladder,” Bridge said. “You’d think after this successful excursion they’d have something fancier for us.”

  “If you’re worried about it, old man,” Gift said with a smile, “you can wait down here with the globes and I’ll have the Sailors pull you up.”

  Bridge grinned. “I’ve climbed more rope ladders than you’ve ever seen, boy.”