The Black Queen (Book 6) (28 page)

Now she wasn’t gaunt. Not yet. But the normally healthy look she had always had was gone. Her bones seemed more prominent, and somehow that made her look more Fey. The Islander in her was almost gone.

He shook his head, and stood. The bedroom door was closed, even though he knew, through protocol, that it shouldn’t be. He would get in trouble for being alone with the queen in her room, with the door closed, but he didn’t care. At the moment, he didn’t want to watch his back. He wanted to watch her.

Arianna hadn’t been herself for a week, maybe more. And the woman she was becoming was a person he was afraid of. The glint in her blue eyes when she had demanded he leave the North Tower had a ruthlessness Luke hadn’t ever seen in Arianna or Gift. Not even King Nicholas had had it.

But Jewel had. He remembered that, the way she had looked at him when she had captured him, years ago now. Luke had been a teenage boy playing at war. They had gone on a mission to destroy the Fey Shadowlands, and instead, Luke, his father, and another Islander had been captured. The Fey had killed the other Islander as an example, but they had set Luke free as a bargaining chip so that his father would teach the Fey about the Islander religion. Adrian had lived up to his end of the bargain; the Fey hadn’t. They had placed some sort of spell on Luke so he would assassinate an Islander at the Fey’s command. It had been a Charm spell, and they had placed other spells on him as well.

It had taken him years to get over that, and in those years, the memory of Jewel’s eyes as she thought up this fake bargain had come to him in dreams. Cold, ruthless, mildly amused at herself for manipulating relationships in that way. Luke had never understood how King Nicholas had loved the woman, but he had, and through that alliance, Gift and Arianna had been born.

Luke had always felt it lucky that the children had taken after their father, not their mother.

Now, perhaps, that was ending. Now, perhaps, Arianna’s Feyness was breaking through, destroying all that was worthy within her.

But that didn’t explain the look of concern on her face, no—that fleeting moment of fear—when she realized she had been giving orders, walking around, and interacting with people, and she didn’t remember any of it.

Luke stood and clasped his hands behind his back. He walked around the bed, and studied her. She looked older in repose, lines crinkling around her eyes, the edges of her mouth. He could almost see what she would look like as an old woman.

She still twitched, her eyelids flicking, her hands moving. He couldn’t believe that Seger had left her alone. Seger, who had looked frightened. And worried. And horrified.

Maybe he was looking at this all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Arianna’s “Feyness” coming to the surface. Maybe it was something else.

He walked to the window and looked into the garden. The trees had little buds on their branches, the bulbs near their base beginning to sprout. The gardeners had turned the dirt, so that it looked black and soft, ready for planting.

Beyond the garden’s wall, the city sprawled, Fey and Islanders doing business together as they had for the last fifteen years, first uncomfortably, and now as if they had always done it. Some day, perhaps, his people and the Fey would be one people, with skin not too light or too dark, eyes either brown or blue, and features that were a comfortable mix of both. Maybe some day, people like him, who remembered what it was like to hate the other and who had to overcome that hatred each and every day, would be gone.

He wasn’t being fair to her. Of all people, he should understand what she was going through, what she
had
gone through. What it was like to wake, as if out of sleep, and find you had done something you would never normally do.

He had tried to kill the Rocaan, and he never would have done anything like that, not in his entire life. He had been a devout Rocaanist then, church-going and religious. He would never have killed the leader of that religion, wouldn’t even have known how, except under someone else’s influence.

Under magickal influence.

He turned. Arianna’s headaches and strange behavior, Sebastian using a voice not his own. The Black King’s voice. Seger seemed to think these events were tied together. Perhaps Luke should as well.

If Arianna were under magickal attack, who would do it? His understanding of the Fey Empire was that no one ever attacked the Black Ruler. It was forbidden in a thousand different ways. And no one with interest in the throne itself could attack her either, for that would bring the Blood against Blood on the land, a concept he didn’t wholly understand, but one he knew the Fey feared above all else.

Who and why? Those were the real questions. Seger was doing what she could to protect Arianna, and Luke was guarding her from the outside. But that would do no good if the threat came from within. He was a simple Islander with no magickal powers. He couldn’t fight magick.

She needed someone who could. Someone who could defend her against magick Luke didn’t even understand. He walked back to his chair and sank into it.

If something happened to Arianna, there was only one other person in all of the world who could rule both Blue Isle and the Fey Empire, one other person who would have the same goals, and the same beliefs as Arianna.

Her brother, Gift.

But Gift had renounced power, renounced the idea of ruling, and had done the Fey equivalent of joining the Tabernacle. Gift had gone to learn the gentler side. He probably wouldn’t come back here.

But he might if he knew his sister were in trouble.

Luke threaded his fingers together. He was taking matters into his own hands, but he knew that no one else would do this. He also knew that Arianna had no advisors who would even consider bringing Gift back. All of them saw Gift as a threat, not understanding that the man truly had given up something he did not want.

But Gift was halfway around the world. There was no easy way to get a message to him. Luke could send a member of his guard, but the man would have to take ships and find ways to cross two continents before he ever got to Vion, not to mention the trek into the mountains. It could take half a year, and by then it might be too late.

Arianna’s hand clenched into a fist, and then unclenched. Her mouth moved and she turned slightly. Luke watched her, feeling almost guilty for his thoughts.

The only way Luke could get a quick message to Gift was to use the Fey. He would have to ask a Gull Rider to take a verbal message—a simple one: that Arianna needed Gift—and a written one as well, a message in Islander (which most Fey could not read) from Luke, begging for Gift’s help. But the Gull Rider would want to know on whose authority Luke acted, and Luke had no authority with the Fey. He was merely captain of Arianna’s guards, and one of her more trusted Islander companions. Nothing more.

He touched her hand, again clenched into a fist. The muscles seemed taut as if she were fighting within herself.

He would have to lie. He would have to claim he was acting on her authority, and he would have to do so without her knowledge. For he wouldn’t know, if he asked her permission, if he was asking permission of Arianna or the thing that sometimes controlled her brain.

And, if he were honest, he wasn’t sure either one of them would want him to send for Gift.

But someone had to. Because Gift was the only one who could save them if Arianna fell.

And if Gift were causing this—

Luke shuddered at the thought.

If Gift were causing this, then perhaps he was no longer the man that Luke remembered, no longer the gentle soul dragged into a conflict beyond his ken.

Luke had to trust what he knew, what he believed, and what he had experienced. He knew Arianna was a good leader. But he had experienced how magick could force people to do something they didn’t want to do. He believed that Gift had the same goals as Arianna.

Luke hoped he was right in all three things, because if he wasn’t, then sending for Gift was wrong. But if Gift were causing this, he would come to Blue Isle anyway. Luke’s message just might hasten the process.

He had to take a risk, but he had taken them before. Risks provided opportunity, even in the face of something overwhelming and impossible to understand.

He let go of Arianna’s hand. He hoped she would forgive him for usurping her authority. And somehow he knew that this act, which could be construed as treason, was the least of his worries. For if something got to Arianna, if something destroyed or changed her, then the balance so precariously achieved on Blue Isle would vanish forever. And everything he loved would be gone for good.

FOURTEEN

SEGER HURRIED ACROSS the courtyard to the Domicile. The courtyard was empty except for the dogs rooting in piles of hay. The flagstones were dirty and slippery beneath her feet. She was walking faster than she had ever done. Usually she moved with deliberation. This time, she was nearly running.

Her heart was pounding, and she knew it wasn’t because of her exertion. Sebastian’s story had frightened her.

It had taken her a long time to get the story out of him. He even offered once to use the Black King’s voice, and she had said no so loudly that it had startled him. Then she had forbidden him from using that voice ever again.

She had to pull the voice out of him and she had to do so quickly. Time was running out, and she hadn’t even realized it until this afternoon.

The steps of the Domicile were clean, bright and welcoming. She took them two at a time. The Domicile had once been the barracks for the Blue Isle’s guards, but Luke didn’t like the location. He wanted the guards stationed all over the city, with access to the palace through the maze of tunnels that ran beneath Jahn. He felt if there were an emergency, it would be better—and easier—to guard the entire city if his people knew how to get from one end to the other underground.

So the Fey Domestics had taken over the building. It was U-shaped and filled with small rooms, just as most Domiciles were. But it had no magick. The Domestics had to purge the place of the violence of its former occupants, and then they had cleaned it, inside and out. The violence had permeated all parts of the building, and for years the Domestics did a special airing every spring and every fall. In the last few years, the airings had become annual and soon, some felt, they could disappear altogether.

She stepped into the narrow hallway and stopped to catch her breath. No need to bring in all the fear she had felt in the palace. It would be better for her to be balanced, to be strong. She stepped into the main room. Spinners sat at their chairs, the work on their wheels glowing softly, bits of thread falling around them like brightly lit rain. Weavers worked the looms, one weaving the material, the other spelling it. In the kitchen, she heard the clang of pots and laughter as others experimented with food recipes. A group of Healers sat near the door, winding bandages and investing them with healing energy.

All of the work slowly stopped as the other Domestics realized she had arrived. Apparently she hadn’t been able to calm herself as much as she thought.

“I need the oldest Domestics here,” she said, “and all the Healers. We need to speak now.”

Thimble, one of the seamstresses, who was spelling the material, stood. “We have Charged this room. Can you use the hospital wing? We have no patients.”

Seger nodded, turned and headed down the hallway. The only thing they hadn’t changed in all their years of residence was the darkness of this area. It discouraged the casual visitor, some said, and others liked the reminder that they were not in a Fey-built Domicile. Here they kept the rough wood planks on the floor and didn’t paint the walls as they had everywhere else. It did give the illusion of being not-Fey, and right now Seger found comfort in that.

She pushed open the door to the hospital wing. The cots lay side by side in uniform precision, healing blankets folded neatly on top of them. Bandages lined one wall, herbs and potions lined the other two. There was the faint smell of springtime in here, the way that the outdoors smelled just before everything bloomed. It was a healthy, life-giving smell, and sometimes, Seger believed, that alone was enough to heal the sick.

Perhaps it was appropriate they meet here. She moved the healing blankets aside so that everyone could sit on cots. As she did, five Healers entered, and six other Domestics followed. She watched them: a Spinner, a Seamstress, an Embroiderer, a Baker, an Herb Gardener, and a Nanny. All them friends, all of them familiar, none of them possessing great magick. She needed them for their memories. She also needed them for their calm.

“Please sit,” she said, “and close the door.”

The last, Lero, shut the door carefully, the touch of his hand against the wood gentle. That was the hallmark of a Nanny: the gentleness, the extreme care, the warmth. He looked at her with narrowed eyes, his lined face as calm and reassuring as if he had been her Nanny.

“What is it, Seger?” he asked.

There was no backing into it. She had to tell them directly. “Rugad is back.”

Drucilla, one of the Healers, a young one born on Nye, shook her head. “That’s impossible.”

She was shushed by Comfort, another Healer. He was sitting beside her, his arm around her.

“How do you know?” he asked Seger.