The Black Queen (Book 6) (44 page)

“Yes,” he said. “Some of your people called them that.”

“I remember you,” the second guard said. “My wife, she would not let me look at you on the street.”

Gift raised his eyebrows at the first guard.

“That is not proof,” the first guard said. “That is merely acknowledgment that you stayed here before.”

“There was talk,” the second guard said, “that this evil eye, it came from far away. That there were evil eyes in the Black Family now. My wife, she thought maybe you were the Black Heir. You had the name and the look.”

“Your wife was right,” Gift said. “I didn’t want anyone to know then. It was five years ago. Now I must get home in a hurry, and I need some help doing so.”

“Help you get in Dzaan?” the second guard asked.

Gift wasn’t certain how to respond to that, wasn’t sure what would be good and what wouldn’t according to these two. So he opted for the truth.

“If possible,” he said. “If not, just a good night’s sleep and some directions out of here.”

The second guard smiled. “We can do this.” With his gloved hand, he pulled open the wooden gate. “You are welcome here.”

Gift smiled in return. “Thank you,” he said.

“You must go to the place of visitors,” the first guard said.

“I remember,” Gift said.

Xihu spoke to them in rapid Ghitlan and then bowed again. They didn’t seem to acknowledge her, but the second guard bowed to Gift. He wasn’t sure of the protocol, so he didn’t bow, thinking it probably wasn’t appropriate for a Black Heir to act obsequious if, indeed, that’s what the bowing was.

Inside the gate, it felt as if he had entered a different world. No horses were allowed within the walls, so all carriages were small things, which could be pulled by a single person. There were several on the road ahead of him. Women carried a stick across their shoulders, a basket on either end, infants tied to their chests in small sacks with only the heads peaking out. Men carried large items on their backs, and sometimes, four men carried a palanquin with another person inside.

The trees hadn’t gotten their leaves yet, but their branches were decorated with multicolored string in the winter tradition. The streets looked as if they were part of a tapestry. This part of the city had two-story stone buildings, the homes of the rich. Banners with Ghitlan words and sayings written vertically on them hung from the second floor windows. Gift couldn’t read the banners, but he remembered them from before. The only difference was that, this time, the windows were shuttered—glass was rare here—and the shutters had a familial scene painted on the outside. The scene usually enhanced the look of the banner.

The wealthier women wore headdresses decorated with beads and charms and small bells that rang as they walked. The sound was delicate, mixing with the bells from the other women. The air smelled remarkably fresh considering what close quarters the people had, and Gift thought, as he had before, that he wished Jahn, the main city on Blue Isle, smelled this good.

He was the one who had been to the city most recently, so he was the one who had to find the visitors center through the maze of streets. There was no central market, like there was in Blue Isle and in many of the cities on Galinas. There were booths that lined the roads all the way through the city, and outside the walls were other areas where people sold goods. Mostly, though, families grew their own produce in their gardens. They kept a single goat, and a few chickens, and took care of their own needs. It was a strange arrangement, and made visiting even more uncomfortable.

The center was at the base of the city’s main hill. Above it, the fortress loomed like an angry warrior. Gift went into the center, Xihu at his side. He had awful memories of this place: his guide the last time hadn’t known the language well, and the confusion had almost gotten them evicted from Dzaan.

This time, Xihu knew all the customs. She bowed, pressed her hands together, and spoke softly. The officials, both women—both short and dressed in the traditional sheepskin gown with the high collar and long sleeves—had aprons that encircled them with colors as vibrant as the string on the trees. Instead of elaborate headdresses, they wore their hair in tiny braids, hundreds of them, as a function of the Ghitlan religion. They were not Fey, or at least they were not full Fey. But when Xihu nodded toward Gift, obviously mentioning who he was, both women bowed immediately and pressed their hands in his direction.

He nodded in acknowledgment, assuming that Xihu would tell him if he were doing something wrong. She continued her discussion with the women, who pointed frantically after the introduction. Xihu shook her head several times, but the women seemed adamant.

Finally, Xihu sighed. “They will be putting us up in the fortress,” she said. “They claim it belongs to your family, and that no one lives there. It sits empty waiting for the Black Family to return.”

“Wonderful,” Gift said.

“Yes,” one of the women said in broken Fey. “Wonderful.”

She had misunderstood his sarcasm, which was probably good. “Is it livable?” he asked.

“They assure me it is. It’s not fair to say no one lives there,” Xihu said. “Servants do. There is no leader in residence. You have to go there, and they’re going to try to make you stay.”

“Tell them about our urgent business,” he said. “Ask if they know of guides who can get us out of Ghitlus fast.”

“I have,” Xihu said. “Someone will join us first thing in the morning.”

Gift nodded. He really didn’t want to climb any more today, but he knew there was no choice. The women spoke again, indicating some freshly brewed green tea and some biscuits beside it. Gift knew enough of the customs to understand this one. They were honored by his presence and would be insulted if he didn’t share from the bounty of their table.

He suppressed a sigh. He was hungry, but what he really wanted was rest. He smiled at them, and swept a hand toward the small stone table, with its clay cups. The women giggled and bowed at him again. One of them pulled a chair out. He sat. Xihu looked as annoyed as he felt.

The other woman served them, and Gift drank the warm tea. The biscuits were sweet and brittle, just like they were supposed to be, a perfect complement to the tea. The entire ritual happened in silence as it had the other times Gift had experienced it. The only difference was that the second woman did not stay for the tea. She disappeared out a side door.

Xihu noted that as well and raised her eyebrows at Gift. It was, apparently, her way of acknowledging strange events. She didn’t say anything either, and once she started sipping tea, she kept her back to him, just as she was supposed to.

When they had finished, the woman bowed to them, took the tea and pressed her hands together. She looked at Gift as she spoke to Xihu.

“It would honor them if you stayed in the city for at least a week,” Xihu translated.

“Please remind her that we have to leave immediately, that it’s an emergency, and tell her I would be forever in her debt if she sent me the guide I requested.”

Xihu repeated the phrase. The woman argued with her a bit more, but Xihu’s voice grew firm. Finally, Gift told Xihu to thank the woman, and ask her how they get up to the fortress.

Xihu shook her head just a little, but clearly did what he asked. To his surprise, the woman grinned and walked to the door. She opened it.

Gift followed her, expecting her to point to a road, or to give Xihu instructions on how to get to the fortress. Instead, a palanquin stood outside, with the four men who were going to carry it standing at attention beside it.

“No,” Gift said. “I won’t—”

“You will,” Xihu said. “It’s an honor.”

“But I can walk up there just as easily—”

“Maybe,” Xihu said. “But you would disgrace the entire city if you did so.”

He looked at her, trying to plead only with his eyes so that he wouldn’t offend the Dzaanies. “Please. Get me out of this.”

A slight smile touched Xihu’s mouth. “You’re the one who wanted to let people know who you are.”

She was right, of course. And he hated it. But there was no turning back now. He couldn’t use some parts of his heritage and be upset when others wanted to honor it.

“All right,” he said. In very bad Ghitlan, he said thank you to the woman, then walked to the palanquin. There was a silk banner with words that he could not read covering the door and windows. Inside were cushions of silk and fur.

He sat down gingerly, leaning on the fur-lined walls. There was room for him, Xihu, and their packs. She climbed in after him.

“Oh, this will be interesting,” she said with a grin. “I’ve never traveled in such style before.”

Neither had he. Pomp and circumstance were part of Blue Isle’s royal tradition, not the Fey tradition, and he had been raised Fey. Still, it felt good to sit down. He was exhausted. Maybe this would be comfortable after all.

He closed his eyes and started to relax when the palanquin swayed underneath him. The men had lifted it. Gift opened his eyes and met Xihu’s startled gaze. Then her lips turned up, and she stifled a giggle. She seemed just like a young girl, laughing when she wasn’t supposed to. Gift grinned too.

The men handling the palanquin did so with complete precision, but Gift had never felt movement like this. He found small handholds and wrapped his fingers around them.

It would be a long trip up the hillside.

TWENTY-FOUR

FOR THE FOURTH MORNING in a row, Matt fixed his own breakfast in the morning chill. He didn’t start the hearth fire because it would need to be dampened around midday, and he wasn’t sure anyone would be around to do it. His mother had slept late each day. He was getting worried about her. She wasn’t awake when he came home either. It seemed to him that something was very wrong with her, and he wanted to talk to someone else about it, but he couldn’t.

Alex hadn’t been home the last three nights either.

It seemed like everyone had left him. Coulter had gone without warning, his mother was sleeping too much, and his brother was beginning to spend his nights with their father, in the Vault. At least Coulter had left Matt a message, delivered later on the day he left by Leen.

The message was a short one:
While I’m gone,
focus on limits and control. With the help of the others, learn your limits—exactly what your magick can and cannot do. Then learn how to control your magick so that it doesn’t leak and it does what you want when you want.

It sounded so simple, but it wasn’t. Matt wasn’t sure about his limits. Scavenger promised to help him try various spells by remembering what other Enchanters could do. The Domestics stood by while he tried, so that they could put out accidental fires. The old Enchanter, the one who had taught Coulter, wouldn’t come out of his room, so it was the younger Enchanters—some as small as three years old—who watched as well. They weren’t learning from him. They were supposed to teach him.

Five of them, freaks all, and Matt the oldest and the least experienced. It made him feel uncomfortable to be told by an eight-year-old how to hold his hands in a firespell. All the other children were half-Fey, half-Islander. Matt was the only full Islander among the Enchanters.

Leen told him that was one of the reasons Coulter had taken special interest in him. Coulter was all Islander too—born before the Fey came to Blue Isle—and his powers were greater than any completely Fey Enchanter. Matt suspected even the half-Fey, half-Islander Enchanters weren’t as powerful as Coulter was.

Coulter expected Matt to be just as powerful. And that was why, Leen said, Coulter was very sorry he couldn’t be here to start Matt’s formal training. The emergency took precedence. He had to go to Jahn.

In all of Matt’s years, he’d never heard of Coulter leaving Constant, let alone going to Jahn. The more he thought about it, the more important it had to be.

The others agreed as well. They didn’t remember Coulter leaving before either, and he had had a lot of opportunities.

So Matt knew that Coulter didn’t leave because of him. Whatever was wrong, Coulter would take care of, and then things would be better.

Matt wasn’t so certain of that with his mother.

He knew she got up every day because things were moved in the house when he returned at night. His breakfast dishes, which he meticulously scrubbed and left out to dry as she had taught him, would be put away. There would be stew still in its pot above the coals of the hearth fire. His mother would be asleep, in a different position than what she had been in before he left, and sometimes in different clothing, but such a sound sleep that she wouldn’t hear him softly call her name.

If she wasn’t up this morning after he finished eating, he would shake her awake and ask her if she felt well. Maybe she needed him to stay home and take care of her. Maybe something was wrong with her that he could fix.

He hadn’t done this before because he had been too afraid that she had changed her mind, that she didn’t want him to go to Coulter’s school. If she discovered where he spent his days, she might not approved. But his fear of her disapproval had vanished almost a day ago, and now he simply wanted to see her awake and smiling.

If only Alex were here. But he wasn’t. For all Matt could tell, Alex hadn’t been here since the day he ran from the school. Matt knew he had gone to the Vault—his mother had told him before she began her long sleep—but that didn’t excuse this sort of behavior. Their father could do it because their father was crazy. But Alex wasn’t. At least, not yet.