The Black Queen (Book 6) (37 page)

Is that all?

So have others. It is the destiny of our family. I will not let you or your poorly trained brother interfere with that.

You didn’t answer me,
she said.
If you have control, why haven’t you taken it?

Again, that fleeting thought and this time, she caught it. He didn’t have full control yet. He didn’t know all the corners and angles of her. He would have it soon, but he wasn’t ready.

Something changed
, she said softly.
You weren’t going to do this for another ten years. Something woke you.

For a moment, he looked confused, as if he didn’t know why he was awake either. And then she caught his next thought.

A shiver ran down her back.

If he had awakened in ten years, as he planned, he would have been inside her for twenty-five years, and he would have completely integrated into her. Gradually, he would have taken over—no pain in the head, no quick movement to control. Bit by bit, she would have become him, or he would have become her, and no one would have been the wiser.

This is a mistake, isn’t it?
Her heart started to beat harder. She felt a small bit of hope, the first she’d felt for days.
You weren’t ready. You’re trying to do this all fast.

I have done all I needed to
, he said.

(Except one thing)

That thought, suddenly and loud, made both of them stare at each other. He hadn’t planned to let her hear it, and yet she had. She had.

Now all she had to do was find that one thing.

He shook his head.
You’d need a knowledge of the magick to do that.

Share it with me
.

His smile was back. She had made some sort of tactical error.
I can tell you this
, he said,
and perhaps you will use this technique some day. I created a construct of myself, and left a bit of my personality in it, enough of that personality to build the one you face. I also left all of my memories with it, all of my dreams, and all of my desires.

You knew you were going to die,
she said.

He shook his head.
It was a precaution, one my family has often used. Sometimes the personality is left in golems, sometimes in heirs who are not as talented as their predecessor. If Bridge had followed me, as it had seemed he would, then I would have done this to him. But your mother prevented it by giving birth to Gift, and I Saw the birth, Saw how talented he would be. Then, a few years later, I Saw you.

If you planned this from the beginning,
Arianna said,
why didn’t you come when we were babies?

His smile grew.
You do not know the history of your own people. We do not wage war constantly. We take over a country, consolidate and annex it, mate with its people, and make it ours. Then we move on to the next place. I was finishing with Galinas, making certain that the entire continent would remain a happy and healthy part of the Empire when you were born. I figured I could take care of you and your brother at any time. And I was right.

You did this to Gift too?

He didn’t answer her. She got a sense that he was amused by the question, as if he were hoping she was going to ask it.

He held out his hand again.
Work with me on this. You have a brilliant and incisive mind. An instinctive understanding of the Islanders, and a ruthlessness that is matched only by a compassion I barely understand. Together we can build on that, be greater than we are separately.

If you’re so in control
, she said,
why do you need me?

I don’t.
But he didn’t sound as confident as he should have, and again she felt the brush of a thought not her own. She controlled something that he could not touch. But what?

Perhaps he had lied. Perhaps she believed something she shouldn’t have. She reached even deeper inside of herself, to the part that Shifted and began the process that would change her into a robin.

She felt her face shorten, feathers grow on her arms, and then, as suddenly as the process started, it stopped.

Wrong guess
, he said.

And she lunged for him. No practice, no thought. She just ran, thinking she could shove him so far into her brain that he would get lost just as she had. The moment before she hit him, he stepped aside and she had to catch herself before she went too far, remembering that what she saw here was merely an illusion and not subject to physical laws.

He was laughing, as if he had played a wonderful trick on her. She whirled, angrier than she had ever been.

I have beaten you before,
she said.
I will beat you again.

You have never beaten me without your golem,
he said.
And I own him now, just like I own you.

And then he vanished, as if he never was. She didn’t relax. She wasn’t sure where he had gone, what he would do to her. It felt as if he were really gone. But he couldn’t be. He had integrated himself into her. They were, in many ways, the same person.

Only he wasn’t fully formed. He hadn’t taken over some parts. She just had to find them.

She opened her eyes. Luke was crouched on the edge of the bed. The door was open, and so was the door to the suite itself. He must have called for help, but for the moment, it was only the two of them.

“Arianna?” he whispered.

She was half crouching, still bent over as she had when the pain first hit her mind. One arm clutched her stomach, the other still had a single feather on it—a gray one, a robin’s feather, just like she had planned.

A single feather.

There wasn’t one part of her he had failed to take. He hadn’t completed taking any part of her. She just had to find the holes in his conquest.

Like this one.

She tugged the feather, felt the same pinprick of pain she would feel if she had tugged a hair on her arm. Then she Shifted that single feather back to what it had been. Her skin and hair returned.

So the commands she sent went through, and he didn’t counter them. He overlaid them. Strange. It was as if her body had two masters, and did the bidding of the stronger.

“Arianna?” Luke asked.

She raised her eyes to his. How could she tell him what was going on? How could she tell any of them?

“Where’s Seger? I have to talk with her.”

“I sent for her,” he said.

“Is there anyone outside?”

He shook his head. “I sent the extra guard.”

“Good,” she said. She pulled him close, so close that he looked terrified. “I may not be able to tell her this. You’ll have to remember what I say, repeat it word for word. Can you do that?”

He nodded, a small frown line appearing between his eyes.

“Tell her—” Arianna paused. If she told the truth, word would spread, and any enemies she had would use this information to bring her down, even if she defeated Rugad. After all, who could prove that he had left?

She waited for an echo of laughter and heard none. For the moment, he was gone. Tired? Or was he doing something even worse?

“Tell her the baby awakened early. It didn’t finish its task, but it’s close. Tell her that it’s in everything, but there are holes.”

Luke’s frown grew. “Will she understand that?”

“I hope so,” Arianna said.

“You can explain it to her.”

“I may not be able to,” Arianna said. “But tell her one more thing. Tell her it won’t destroy me. It’ll just bury me.”

“Bury you?”

She nodded, waiting for the pain to come. It hadn’t. Was she being manipulated? Or was he really giving her this chance to save herself? Or had something else gone wrong? Had she taken some control that she didn’t realize she had?

“You’ll remember this?”

“You can trust me,” Luke said.

“Good,” she said, and closed her eyes. The exhaustion was there, deep and heavy. “It’s nice to know I can trust someone.”

Especially when she could no longer trust herself.

NINETEEN

SEGER FOUND SEBASTIAN in the courtyard on the far side of the palace. He was leaning against the stone wall, one leg bent and the other crossed at the ankle, his arms folded across his stomach. Seger had never seen Sebastian stand so casually, as if his body were made of flesh instead of stone.

He seemed impervious to the cool spring air, and the sunlight only heightened the darkness in the cracks on his skin. The doors to nearby buildings were closed, and the dogs had left the area. But Sebastian wasn’t alone.

He was watching twenty Infantry—the palace unit that served as exterior guards—practice their sword fighting. Their movements were deft and sure. How many times had she seen just this sight, and in how many countries? The only difference here was that the Infantry was using the wider Islander blades—practicing with the heavier and, in some ways, deadlier weapons. The clangs of metal blades against each other echoed through the courtyard.

Sebastian didn’t move as she approached. In fact, she would have thought he didn’t see her at all, until he turned his head and grinned at her.

She wasn’t sure she had ever seen Sebastian grin before. It made her feel cold.

“Aren’t they magnificent, Seger?” he asked in Rugad’s voice. The sound of it made her shiver. He saw the movement and his grin widened. He looked like a maniacal version of himself. “I’ve been thinking of ways to improve their performance. Do you think they’ll take orders from me or should I go to Arianna?”

Was there a code in what he said? It certainly felt as if he were layering some innuendo, but she couldn’t tell what.

“You’re speaking well, Sebastian,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral.

“I am, aren’t I?” He leaned his head against the wall. His skin color and the stone seemed to blend together—and suddenly she understood part of his magick. Sebastian’s magick, not Rugad’s. The Domestics who made him had used, as their base, clay from Blue Isle. Once upon a time, Golems had been made from clay found in the Eccrasian Mountains. Those golems had special powers as well.

She worked to keep the realization off her face. No one else needed to know this, not yet. She would figure out how to use the information some day.

“It only took me thirty-three years,” he said, and then chuckled. The chuckle didn’t sound natural coming from him.

She looked at him in confusion, then understood what he had been referring to. Using the voice. Time. But Sebastian wasn’t using Rugad’s voice. Rugad’s voice was using Sebastian’s body. And the voice was speaking in Fey.

“Well,” she said. “Sometimes it takes a while for the magicks to come together.”

He looked at her then, sharp gray eyes set in a cracked face. Eyes that had no warmth at all. Rugad’s eyes. How could he be here? Sebastian had barely used the voice, and when she had felt the thread of the voice the day before, Rugad had not been a part of him.

She wished there were a Shaman here, someone she could consult with. Healing magick hadn’t prepared her for this.

“You know,” she said in Islander. “Arianna has forbidden you from using this voice.”

He opened his mouth, and a breathy sound came out, followed by: “…Help…me…” in Sebastian’s normal tones. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Help me figure out a way to work with the Infantry. I really don’t want to consult with my sister.”

He said that in Fey again. The Islander was a trigger, but only a small one. The pathetic sound that Sebastian had uttered made her chill even worse.

“I’m afraid that working on improving war methods is not what I do,” she said, pretending she hadn’t heard Sebastian at all, pretending she was fooled by this charade. She couldn’t tell if he believed her. Those sharp gray eyes watched everything with a sort of grim amusement.

The sounds of sword fighting had stopped. She turned to the Infantry. A few members, women all, were standing in the center of the fighting field, sweat pouring down them, swords out. But the men seemed tired and ready to move on. The women turned to each other, and began work again. This time, the blades moved quickly, each thrust and parry so fast that she barely had time to register it.

“You know, improving war methods doesn’t seem to be what anyone’s working on these days. And if we want to move to Leut, we need to work our troops. This group doesn’t even know what battle is like.” He extended a hand. Such a rapid movement seemed unnatural coming from Sebastian. “Look how organized this fight is. What they need is someone to wade into the middle of it and throw it into chaos.”

He was right, of course, but she hadn’t been able to see it until she watched for a moment. Her chill grew even deeper. Sebastian wouldn’t have known anything about fighting. He despised it. Sometimes he covered his eyes and left the area, saying it brought up old memories, memories he would rather forget.

Sebastian was so child-like. There was no innocence in those eyes now. No child left in that face.