The Black Queen (Book 6) (20 page)

She was proud of that.

Wasn’t she?

She felt something in her head. It wasn’t quite a pain. It was more like a movement, as if something had slid from one part to the other. If she tried, she could hear rustling.

That shiver ran through her again. Luke was staring at her, blue eyes sharp.

She let her hand fall from her head, but her fingers clenched. There was a tension in her that she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. She didn’t even know where it came from.

Luke seemed tense as well. Obviously she wasn’t behaving according to his expectations either.

But Seger had asked her to keep him at her side, and she knew she could trust Luke. He had been the most able assistant she had had among the Islanders. He had no religious prejudice that made him hate Fey, no desire to harm her because of her mixed heritage. Only a relief that she had taken the throne and her relatives in the Empire had not. He had been happy to get work at the palace since Luke’s farm had burned during the war.

“How long have I been here?” she asked.

He didn’t seem surprised by the question. “Most of the day.”

The shiver again. She clenched her other fist. “Doing what?”

“Staring out the windows.”

“Did I say anything?”

His smile was small. It made the lines on his face deeper. “You mean after ordering me to get out?”

He seemed angry. She didn’t remember any of this. “I guess.”

“No.”

She nodded. She glanced at the windows, wondering what she had been looking at. “Was I—rude?”

“Forceful,” he said.

“Why did you stay, then?”

“You told me to.”

“Today?”

He shook his head. “When you and Seger discussed the headaches.”

She remembered that. The conversation had been as open a conversation as she could have with anyone. He was never to leave her side, except at night, and even then they had brought a cot into the dressing area of her suite so that he could be there if she needed someone. He had sworn to protect her, and not to talk of this to anyone. He had vowed on his life to remain at her side.

“I ordered you to leave, and you did not,” she said again.

He nodded.

“Then what did I do?”

“You grabbed me.” His voice was calm, but his eyes were not. They had a smoldering anger in them. “And you threw me against the door and told me that I had to leave or you would make sure that I did.”

“And then?”

“I reminded you of Seger’s orders.”

“Using her name?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“You grunted and turned away as if I hadn’t said anything. I’ve been standing here ever since.”

She beckoned him to come forward. He did, warily. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He nodded, once, as if the apology meant nothing to him, but was something he had to acknowledge. “I have to tell Seger.”

The rustling again. The near-headache. Her lips were already forming the word “no” when she said, “Of course. We need to see what this is.”

He didn’t move. He continued to watch her as if he expected her to grab him at any moment.

“But you will not tell anyone else of this,” she said. “That’s an order.”

“Permission to speak freely, Highness,” he said.

She didn’t want him to. He had been observing her all week. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say. But what she wanted wasn’t as important as what she needed to know.

“All right,” she said.

He swallowed. “This is not the first time you have treated me poorly during the week. Not,” he said quickly, “that I expect you to treat me well. But you always have. This week, though, you have shown quick temper. You use words and phrases I’ve never heard from you before. You demand things you have not ever mentioned.”

Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t remember demanding anything. “Such as?”

“Troop reports. You wanted to know where all the Infantry units were on Blue Isle. When I told you that I wasn’t in charge of that, you smiled and said, ‘Of course not. But you can get the information, can’t you?’ It wasn’t so much what you said as how you said it. There was a sarcasm that you don’t normally use.”

She didn’t remember the request. “What else?”

“You told Jair that there were too many Islanders in the palace. That it was a security risk. You told him you wanted more Fey Domestics and fewer Islanders working the kitchens. Then you stopped, and continued the discussion you’d been having before as if nothing had happened.”

Her heart was pounding, hard. Of all the Fey to say that to, Jair was the worst. He headed the Infantry on Blue Isle and did tremendous work with it, but he also had spoken to her countless times about the Islander/Fey relationship. He believed that the Islanders had lost, even though they had killed the Black King. He believed as long as the Black Family was in power, then the Fey had won the battles they had been in. He saw the Islanders as a conquered people and hated that she treated them as equals.

But she kept Jair in his position as Infantry leader because he did not have to work with Islanders. She even kept him separate, most of the time, from Luke. Luke had only been present at that meeting because he had been shadowing her.

“What was Jair’s response?” she asked.

“He smiled and said he would see what he could do. But since you hadn’t given the order to anyone else, he couldn’t do much. He has no control over who has access to the palace.”

She got the feeling that Luke had warned her assistants about the order, and that they had prevented any action on Jair’s part.

“Where’s Seger now?” Arianna asked.

“Seeing to Sebastian,” he said. “She thinks she might have found a way to loosen the voice.”

Arianna got a feeling that Seger had told her that, but that she didn’t remember it. “All right,” Arianna said. She went back to the window, staring at the city below. It was a new city now. The Fey had burned it years ago, and the buildings that stood before her were mostly made of wood and river rocks. They had been rebuilt in the old Islander style: square, mostly, with windows and doors in the front and boxy rooms in the back, if they were houses; businesses had display windows up front, porches that provided good entry, and signs across the top.

But even though they had the Islander style, they did not have the Islander look. They were too new, and many were painted colors that the Fey had shown the Islanders—reds, blues, browns. Before, everything had been coated with white if it had been painted at all.

Beyond the city was the countryside and in the distance, the bluish lines of the mountains. She put a hand on the wavy glass. She was giving orders that she didn’t remember, losing track of time, doing things that she would never ever do. Perhaps she was losing her mind. But she had never Seen anything like that, hadn’t known how to prepare for it.

The last time a Black King had lost his mind, the Fey were a tiny group. The Islanders never had a crazy leader. She rested her head against the window. The glass was cool and smooth. She knew the provisions, though. The best thing to do was to abdicate. But to whom? To Gift? He wasn’t even here, and she wasn’t sure he would take the Throne if she offered it to him. She had no children, and neither did he.

To her uncle, then? A man she had never met? Or to someone else?

And what of the things that Seger had said? It wasn’t a coincidence that this was happening to Arianna at the same time that the Rugad’s voice had reappeared. Seger thought this all might be a magickal attack, and who was Arianna to argue with her? It could very well be.

But it was working, that was the problem. And that threatened them all.

She had no one to confide in. Her father was long gone. Her mother’s ghost had never appeared to her as it had to Gift. And Gift was in Vion, near the Eccrasian Mountains, as far from here as he could get.

“Send Seger to me,” Arianna said, her breath making a small fog on the glass.

“She said I wasn’t to leave you.”

Arianna suppressed a curse. He was right. He hadn’t left during her tantrum; he wouldn’t leave now.

“All right,” she said, and straightened. She took her hands away from the window. They left small palm sized prints on the glass. Someone would have to clean that. Someone always cleaned up after her.

But no one would this time.

She felt a slight flutter in her stomach, and felt that faint rustling in her mind.
Who’s there?
she thought. Something pushed against her skull from the inside. Pain, sharp and sudden, like fingernails digging into soft skin.

A tear formed in her left eye, and then fell, landing on her high cheekbone and rolling down her face. She must have taken a deep breath, because Luke had turned to her. The anger was gone from his eyes, replaced by worry.

She put the heel of her hand against her forehead, pushing against the pain. It was growing so bad that she was getting nauseous. She closed her eyes, and another tear fell down her cheek.

Who’s there?
she thought again, and this time, she heard a laugh. A familiar laugh, deep and warm and so pleased with itself.

She shivered, and fell to her knees. The pain had spread in a band around her skull. She bent over, clutching her head.
Stop this
.

She heard the laughter again, and with it came a deep, urgent need to Shift to a new form.
No—
she thought, but felt it happening anyway, her body changed, compacted, until it became a robin. She fluttered her wings, opened her beak as the dress she had worn fell on her head.

The pain was gone, though, and so was that feeling of being manipulated.

She didn’t want to be a bird. She had had no thought of it until the Shift. She Shifted again, returning to her own form, feeling her legs grow, her wings turn into arms, her beak recede. Then she found herself on her hands and knees, wearing her dress like a tent.

“Sorry.” Her voice sounded muffled inside the dress. She wondered what Luke was thinking, what he would say to Seger when he got the chance.

Arianna flailed about for a moment, then found the sleeves and put her arms in them. After a bit more flailing, she found the neck, and slipped her head through it. She had to look a mess.

But the headache was gone.

In its place, a feeling of triumph that had nothing to do with rearranging her dress. She almost felt separate from the triumph, as if it were someone else’s emotion, someone else’s joy.

Luke was hunched beside her, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked concerned, almost frightened.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She could have given him a thousand answers, none of them correct. Instead, she said, “The headache’s gone.” That was as much truth as she was willing to give him. If she said much more, she might reveal how scared she was.

Even when Rugad had invaded her mind years ago, he had not been able to force her to Shift. He had invaded her Link with Sebastian against Sebastian’s will. Then Rugad had put his consciousness inside her brain, and held her prisoner in her own mind. But he had not been able to control her Shifting. She had Shifted to keep him off-balance, until she had, with Sebastian’s help, shoved Rugad’s consciousness out.

She had shut the doors to her Links years ago, blocking the connections with other people at the very source. She had done it voluntarily, so no one could cross into her brain from somewhere else. If she had been so attacked, she would have known. The feeling was familiar, and horrible, and this wasn’t quite it.

Besides, an invader couldn’t make her Shift if she didn’t want to.

But something had.

Maybe she was losing her mind.

She stood, smoothed her skirt, and then smoothed her hair. Her hands were shaking, and there was an empty ache where the pain had been.

Luke rose with her. “What do you want to do now?”

“Find Seger,” Arianna said as calmly as she could.

He took her arm as if she were an old woman. He had never done that before. She leaned on him. She felt weaker than she had ever been. And frightened. And uncertain what to do.

How had she gotten to this place, where she had no one to rely on, no one to help her? She had been a fool. In isolating herself, she was threatening her beloved Isle—and the Fey Empire. And if she wasn’t careful, she might make a mistake that could injure them all.

NINE

NYEIAN SAILORS wrote beautiful poems about the sea. Lyndred could finally understand why. She had never been at sea before—small sailing boats with friends did not count—and she had never been on a ship like this. This ship,
The Elizabeth
, had been built in Nye to transport both people and cargo. It was not a warship as most Fey ships were, and aside for the basic sailing spells done to protect her family, it did not have any special provisions for Fey. This ship was large, but elegant, as so much of Nyeian work was. It was also comfortable—its quarters twice the size of those on Fey ships.