The Black Queen (Book 6) (49 page)

Her eyes narrowed. “But I’m the best.”

“And the nosiest. We can make do without you. You’ve already told us the route.”

“You can’t accomplish it without me.”

“I was told I can’t do many things, and I’ve done them all. Thank you for your time, Skya. You are dismissed.” He turned his back on her. Xihu was watching him, face impassive. But he thought he detected a twinkle in her eyes.

“You could have simply said no questions,” Skya said.

Gift walked to one of the alcoves. All of the books in it were bound in the same kind of leather.

“He asked you to leave,” Xihu said.

“We’re not done,” Skya said.

“Yes,” Xihu said. “You are.”

“You won’t find anyone else like me,” Skya said.

Gift agreed with that. In 33 years, he hadn’t met anyone else like her. His heart twisted at the thought of letting her go.

“You are not the unique one here,” Xihu said. “There is one Black Ruler and one worthy Heir, and you are being asked to guide that Heir to his home. In asking questions and in playing games, you not only disgrace yourself, you threaten the Empire.”

“Big words,” Skya said.

“True words,” Xihu said. “It is better for us to have one guide who is not as good as you than have one whose knowledge of things she should not know threatens us and our travels.”

Gift bit his lower lip to prevent himself from turning around. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to ask her himself, to do this entire meeting over again, to charm her—not with magick—but with his own personality.

“Either you do things our way and listen to us,” Xihu said, “or you do not guide us. Is that clear?”

There was a long silence. Gift held his breath. Finally, Skya spoke.

“I understand.”

He wanted to turn, he wanted to ask her if she were going to stay, but he didn’t. He waited.

“Will you serve us as we ask?” Xihu emphasized the word serve.

“Yes.”

“Will you cease playing games?”

“Are you afraid I’ll finally succeed?” Skya asked.

“Against the greatest Visionary the Fey have ever known? No. I am afraid you will play the wrong game in front of the wrong people at the wrong time.”

“I’m careful.”

“Are you?” Xihu said. “Is that why you played your game in front of Jalung? Do you know who she is?”

“I have known her for a decade.”

“And you know where her loyalties are.”

“Of course. She’s taken care of this place her whole life.”

“So she has a stake in what happens to it.”

“Yes.” Skya sounded annoyed. Gift frowned. He wasn’t sure where Xihu was taking this either.

“And if Gift decided he wanted to stay here, and to put his own staff here, displacing Jalung and her staff, she would not mind that.”

“Of course she’d mind. She’s put her heart into this place.”

“Then she is not to be trusted around the Black Family, is she?” Xihu’s voice was soft. Gift suppressed a smile. He had made a good choice with Xihu. “And you know her. Imagine how you might misjudge someone you do not know.”

“I’m good with people.”

“Yes,” Xihu said. “I saw that in the way you handled Gift.”

That was enough. Gift turned. Skya’s face was flushed, her eyes bright with shame. She hadn’t changed her posture yet. She was still standing defiantly.

Her gaze met his. That got Xihu’s attention, and she turned as well.

“It’s your decision,” Xihu said. “But I believe we should get a different guide.”

Gift hadn’t taken his gaze off Skya. “If I hire you,” he said, “I will hire you for your knowledge and your advice. But you will do as I say, even if it goes counter to everything you believe. I will fire you if you violate this even once. If you can work under those conditions, you have a job.”

There was a wildness in her, despite her subdued posture and the embarrassment on her face, that could not be tamed. He recognized it as the same quality his sister had once had, and he suspected his mother had once had it as well. The quality had its uses—and its dangers.

“I will see your ship off in Tashco,” she said. “And I will get you there faster than anyone can without resorting to magick.”

“That’s all I can ask,” he said and somehow—although he wasn’t sure how—he knew that he lied.

TWENTY-SEVEN

XET’N, THE LAMPLIGHTER, was so old that he looked like he shouldn’t be able to move as well as he did. His body had shrunken into a question mark, and his skin was so wrinkled that his eyes were nearly hidden in the folds. It had taken Coulter a moment to realize that those eyes held a great and mobile intelligence, and they were what kept that decrepit body alive.

Lamplighting was one magick Coulter didn’t entirely understand—the art of capturing a soul even after it had escaped a body, placing it in a lamp, and getting the soul to convert itself to light. Because he didn’t understand it, he felt that he couldn’t do it, not as well as he needed to.

Xet’n wasn’t sure if a construct had a soul, but when Coulter told him that the construct had a dead person’s memories, a dead person’s personality, and that person’s soul had not been captured, Xet’n had sucked in a long breath.

“Then it is likely,” Xet’n had said, “the soul lives in the construct.” Xet’n had raised those intelligent eyes to Coulter’s. “It would take Enchantment or Vision to manage such a thing. Great Vision.”

Coulter had not replied. Xet’n had continued to stare at him for a long moment.

“Very few have such Vision, and those who do rarely have access to one such as the Black Queen.”

“What are you saying?” Coulter had asked.

“That we must be cautious. Such a soul would be difficult to capture under normal circumstances. These circumstances are not normal.”

Coulter agreed with that. These circumstances were anything but normal.

His heart was pounding hard as he climbed the stairs to the living quarters of the palace. He hadn’t been to these rooms in years, not since he had left to go to Constant. Arianna was here, unconscious, locked in what Seger had called a struggle to protect her own self from Rugad’s construct. Seger had checked her before sending Coulter and Xet’n to Arianna’s suite.

“I don’t know if she’ll know you’re there,” Seger had said. “This work is unlike any I’ve done before.”

Seger was across the hall, in Sebastian’s rooms. She and Con, whom Coulter had remembered as a wide-eyed, scrawny boy and who had grown into a slender ascetic man, were in those rooms together. Con carried a dirty, battered sword that still bore traces of old blood.

This entire procedure terrified Coulter. It was the most important thing he had ever done, and there was no way to test it, no way to think it through.

The family portraits were as he remembered them: rows of blond-hair, blue-eyed people until they reached Jewel, who looked so out of place that hers was the first portrait he noticed. Not even Arianna’s was as startling. Coulter paused before hers, looking at the familiar face with its blue eyes, rounded cheekbones and upswept eyebrows. The artist had captured her wild spirit and, for some reason, had downplayed the birthmark on her chin, the very thing that showed her to be a Shifter.

Xet’n had passed Coulter and was waiting near the railing. “I thought we were in a hurry,” Xet’n said.

Coulter pulled himself away from the portrait. Would she even know he was here? Would she be happy to see him if she did? He had promised he would be her Enchanter. He had promised he would always be there for her. He had promised he would see her again.

He had done none of those things.

But he was here now, and that was what mattered.

He followed Xet’n, who was carrying a small bag, to Arianna’s suite, and stopped in surprise. Luke stood outside, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore the uniform of the guards, and when he saw Coulter, he did not smile.

By the time Coulter had moved in with Luke’s father, Adrian, Luke already had a home of his own. Adrian had adopted Coulter, mostly because no one else wanted him, but Luke never saw it that way. He had always seen Coulter as a rival for Adrian’s affections, even though Adrian had given up his freedom—and had been willing to give up his entire life—for Luke.

Coulter and Luke hadn’t seen each other in a long time, probably as long as it had been since Coulter had seen Arianna.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Coulter said softly.

“One of us has to follow through,” Luke said.

Coulter looked away. “You know what we’re doing.”

Luke nodded. “You only get one chance at this.”

“I know,” Coulter said.

“Don’t freeze up.”

Coulter felt a pang. Everyone knew how he had failed years ago in the Roca’s cave. “Don’t worry,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Luke reached down and opened the door. With his right hand, Coulter indicated that Xet’n should go in first. Before he did, Xet’n stopped.

“Don’t open this door until I tell you,” Xet’n said. “No matter what you hear.”

Luke didn’t look at him, but at Coulter instead. “You’re asking a lot.”

“You can come in with us,” Xet’n said. “But it’s important for my work that no door or window is open until I say it can be.”

Luke continued to stare at Coulter. Coulter felt the tension grow in his shoulders and arms. Was Luke expecting Coulter to forbid him to enter? Coulter wouldn’t. It didn’t matter who was there. What mattered was what he could do for Arianna.

“I’ll make sure no one goes in,” Luke said at last. “The window over the garden is open. You might want to close that.”

Xet’n nodded and went inside. Coulter hesitated for a moment. “Luke—”

“Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it,” Luke said. “We have our own lives now. That they intersect here means nothing.”

Coulter closed his mouth. He wasn’t quite certain what he had been planning to say—something conciliatory, probably, something about being raised by the same man who had loved them both and wanted them to care for each other. Or maybe something simple about burying the past—but the moment was gone. Luke was right. They had their own lives now.

Maybe, if Coulter were successful, they could go back to those lives.

Coulter went through the door, and Luke closed it behind him.

Coulter had never been in these rooms. The door opened into a large sitting room, with a huge fireplace. Through a door on the other side, he saw a dressing room, and behind that, a bed.

His heart was pounding even harder. Arianna was in there.

From the room came the sound of shutters closing. Xet’n had explained the logic of this to Coulter earlier. Souls never saw themselves as beings of light or energy or air. They remembered having a body, and they acted upon that remembrance. They were often stopped by closed doors or windows, not knowing how to get through them. Even the savvy souls, the ones who knew they had no bodies, still hesitated before going through a wall, or penetrating a closed door.

Coulter walked through the dressing room and into the bedroom, pulling all the doors closed behind him.

Arianna lay across the bed, her arms at her side. Someone had placed her here, he realized. She would never have lain that rigidly on her own.

He slipped into the chair beside the bed. It wasn’t fair to say she hadn’t changed. The last time he saw her, she had been fifteen years old, all spit and fire. Her body had filled out, and her face had narrowed. She looked more Fey than she had as a girl. Part of that was the fact her eyes were closed. They, and her skin which was darker than his but lighter than most Fey’s, made her look different. There were laugh lines at the corner of her eyes, and a single strand of hair on the side of her head had turned silver.

It had been too long.

He had told her on that long ago day that he had loved her. He had also told her that he was not worthy of her. And when she didn’t accept that, which was the truth, he had made up a lie:

We’re not ready to be together. You have to figure out what kind of ruler you’ll be. And I need to heal. Maybe when I’m better and you’re established, we can try again.

And then he snuck out of that garden, and out of her life, never intending to return. She hadn’t needed him then. Now she did.

Xet’n had taken a small lamp from his bag, and had set it on the nightstand. Then he sat in the chair opposite Coulter’s. His gaze met Coulter’s and he nodded, ever so slowly.

Time to begin.

Seger was probably already underway.

Coulter took a deep breath and touched Arianna’s left temple with his forefinger, and her birthmark with his thumb. The birthmark was rigid against his skin, throbbing, as if it lived on its own. She had said she loved him that day, which meant there had to be a Link between them, even if she had closed the door, as he had instructed. If the door were truly closed, he would have to try something else, but he suspected it wasn’t. The Link between them had formed after he had told her to close the doors. She might never have thought of closing this one.