Finally, Coulter walked out. Alone. Gift felt his heart lurch. He struggled to his feet. Skya clung to his good arm, concern on her face.
The others were standing too.
Coulter continued walking to the center of the platform. He seemed abnormally calm.
“Where...is...Ari?” Sebastian asked. He sounded panicked. Dear Sebastian, asking what was in everyone’s heart.
“Coming,” Coulter said.
Gift let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Coulter faced the cave, and so did everyone else.
At that moment, Arianna walked out.
Gift didn’t realize how wonderful it felt just to see his sister walk. He had been afraid he wasn’t ever going to see her again. Skya squeezed his arm and then let go, as if she expected him to run and hug Arianna. But that didn’t feel appropriate.
His sister came toward him, moving easily. The old fluidity was back in her movements. This was Arianna.
And it wasn’t.
Something was different about her face. Her birthmark was gone. And her eyes seemed bluer than they had before.
“Gift,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “May I speak to you?”
“Of course,” he said, taking her hand. She led him to a place near the rock overhang. Everyone else moved toward the edge of the platform. Coulter, Skya, and Sebastian all looked back as if they were wondering why they were excluded.
Then he and Arianna stepped under the shadow of the rocks.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She nodded. “They healed me.”
“They?”
“Coulter says they’re Powers, but they’re not. They’re the Islander equivalent, whatever that is.”
“They repaired all the damage?” The relief he felt was profound.
“Not all,” she said. “I had to make a bargain with them.”
He studied her. He remembered his father’s stricture that none of them drink from the fountain. Coulter had enforced that for fifteen years. “What bargain?”
“Most of it was stuff I was going to do anyway,” she said. “Marry Coulter, have children—”
“Marry Coulter? Does he know?”
She smiled and put a finger on Gift’s lips. “Not yet. I’ll tell him. It’ll work this time.”
Gift knew it would. He had seen how protective Coulter was of her and how he didn’t want to lose her again. “What was the rest of the bargain?”
The smile left her face. “I’m not Fey any more.”
“Of course you’re Fey,” he said. “Mother was Fey. You don’t stop being Fey just because they say so. You still have the features, the ears—”
“I’m not,” she said. “They couldn’t give me back my Fey magick.”
It took him a moment to understand. “The Shifting and the Vision are both gone?”
“The Vision stays. I never lost it. But the Shifting is gone forever. And my children will be pure Islander.”
“How strange,” Gift said.
Arianna nodded. She blinked hard, as if losing this hurt her more than she wanted to say.
“So,” she said, her voice shaking, “since I’m not Fey, I can’t remain Black Queen.”
“But you have Vision,” Gift said. “That’s all you need—”
“It wouldn’t be right, Gift. I want to stay Queen of Blue Isle. In fact, that was one of the conditions, but I can’t, in good conscience, rule a people I am no longer a part of.”
“I don’t think you can lose what you are—”
“Gift,” she said softly. “I was always more Islander than Fey.”
He was silent for a moment. She was raised Islander. Even though their father had tried to keep her in touch with their mother’s people, he hadn’t known the intricacies of the culture. Neither had Arianna.
And she hadn’t gone out and learned like Gift had.
“You’ll change your mind,” he said.
“I won’t. This is how it should be. This is how it should always have been. You’re the eldest. The Throne is yours.”
A shiver ran through him. This, then, was the Vision the Shaman had seen. Arianna giving her scepter to Gift.
They had been right. Gift was to be the Black King.
He shook his head. Was Skya right? Did the Powers manipulate everyone so that their wishes came true? Had he been destined for this from birth? Or from the moment he touched the Black Throne?
“I don’t want it, Ari. I’ve never wanted it.”
“Good,” she said. “Then you’ll never turn into someone like Rugad, someone who wanted to hang onto it even after death.”
He sighed, and glanced out at the group still waiting at the edge of the platform. They were consciously trying not to watch Arianna and Gift. Matt was pointing out landmarks, but Coulter kept looking over his shoulder. Once his gaze met Gift’s, and he glanced away quickly.
Arianna wasn’t going to let him argue with her. And he didn’t know how. One of them had to rule the Fey. And if she didn’t want to, he had to.
“I have only one request,” Arianna said.
Gift looked at her. The brightness of her eyes was beautiful to see. She radiated health now, where this morning she looked near death.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I want Blue Isle to be its own country again. The Fey will be welcome here, both as citizens and as traders. But I don’t want the Isle to be part of the Empire any more. Can you do that, Gift?”
“I take this to mean you don’t want me to go on to conquer Leut?”
She didn’t laugh. “I suppose you can use the Isle as a launching point if you need it.”
“I don’t, Ari,” he said. “It was a joke.”
She smiled, but she was waiting. This was important to her.
“You realize that would make me the first Black King to lose ground,” Gift said.
She nodded.
“But I’ll do it. It’ll show my reign is different.” The words sounded strange to him. His reign. He wondered how Skya would take it. Then he remembered how she had looked at him as she dressed his wound, and realized that however she felt about being his queen, they would be able to manage. Together.
“You’ll be the best Black King the Fey have ever known,” Arianna said.
“I don’t know about that,” Gift said.
“You’re the only one who has experienced Warrior and Domestic magick. You’ve been all over the Empire. You know the costs of war and the benefits of peace. You’ll be fine.”
It was his turn to smile. “Will I be welcome on Blue Isle?”
“You’re a citizen of the Isle,” she said. “You’re the heir to the throne, at least until Coulter and I can do something about that.”
He pulled her in close. She hugged him tightly. He understood what she had done. The Places of Power were no longer in the same Empire. They were separate, just as he suspected they were intended to be.
He would never be allowed on this mountainside again, not as long as there were other heirs to Blue Isle’s throne. He doubted he would miss this place. And he would come back to the Isle. He wanted to see his sister, his nieces and nephews, and occasionally, the place of his birth.
Slowly she released him from the hug. There were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry about the Shifting,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
He slipped his good arm around her, and she put her head on his shoulder. The best thing about this was that it made them equals in all ways, something he suspected that they were supposed to be.
“I guess we should tell the others,” he said.
“Do you think they’ll be surprised?” she asked with a grin. It was the old Arianna, the mischievous one, and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed her until she returned.
“I don’t know,” he said, leading her to their loved ones. “Let’s go find out.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author K
ristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.
To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, fictionriver.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
THE BLACK KING
Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published by Bantam Books in 2000
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Dirk Berger
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Fey Series
Acknowledgements
THE RETURN
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THE BLACK HEIR
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
VISIONS
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THE ASSASSIN
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
THE BLOOD
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
SIXTY-SEVEN
SIXTY-EIGHT
SIXTY-NINE
SEVENTY
SEVENTY-ONE
SEVENTY-TWO
SEVENTY-THREE
THE BLACK KING
SEVENTY-FOUR
SEVENTY-FIVE
About the Author
Copyright Information
Table of Contents
The Fey Series
Acknowledgements
THE RETURN
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THE BLACK HEIR
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
VISIONS
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THE ASSASSIN
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
THE BLOOD
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
SIXTY-SEVEN
SIXTY-EIGHT
SIXTY-NINE
SEVENTY
SEVENTY-ONE
SEVENTY-TWO
SEVENTY-THREE
THE BLACK KING
SEVENTY-FOUR
SEVENTY-FIVE
About the Author
Copyright Information
The Black King (Book 7) Page 50
