The Black King (Book 7) (12 page)

“I didn’t know.” There was desperation in Reginald’s voice. “Please. I’ll help you. I’ll help Gift. I’ll make sure no one attacks him. I’ll even ride on your ship if you let me.”

“And kill the Black Heir yourself,” Abdal said.

Reginald shook his head so furiously the branch bounced. He grabbed it in sudden fright. So he didn’t think he’d survive the fall. Ace wondered if there was a percentage in killing him.

“All you’re supposed to do is report, right?” Ace asked.

Reginald stopped moving. His grip on the branch was so tight his knuckles were pale. “Yes.”

“Then report.”

“What?” Abdal asked.

Another scream echoed, higher, filled with more panic. Perhaps Gull Riders should be soldiers more often.

Reginald asked, “Should I find out for you who was—”

“No,” Ace said. “Just report.”

“Report what? That the Black Heir is dead?”

Ace glanced toward the west. The ship’s sails looked much larger now. “Report the truth—that the Black Heir survived. Let them know that he’ll be at the palace soon.”

“I can’t get there before you,” Reginald said.

“Of course not. You have a message system set up. There are probably Bird Riders or Wisps nearby. You can make your report.”

“That gives them time to prepare for him,” Abdal said.

“Do you expect them to meet him with a full army?” Ace asked.

“I don’t know,” Abdal said. “It’s crazy here.”

Ace had to agree. But if Gift didn’t like this idea, then he could change it.

“How many others of you are there?”

“No Doppelgängers,” Reginald said. “At least that I’m aware of.”

“Archers,” Ace said. “I meant archers. How many more assassins will we find?”

“There are nests every ten miles or so,” Reginald said. “Only a handful of people though. Most Islanders are afraid of the Fey. Or don’t believe the rumors. A few even think Fey rule is good for the Isle.”

“Who are these assassins, then?” Abdal asked.

“Those who never got over losing the war,” Reginald said.

“They won the war.” Ace’s voice was flat. “The Black King died.”

“They lost,” Reginald said. “The Fey are still on the Isle.”

“How many Islanders believe that?” Ace asked.

“Most of them,” Reginald said.

“But Arianna shares the blood of the hereditary rulers.”

“And she looks Fey,” Reginald said. “Some Islanders hope they can get their land back. They think killing Gift would be a good first step.”

“It’ll only bring the wrath of the palace on them.”

“They believe it’ll start the war again. They think the Fey won’t survive it this time.”

“Why?” Ace asked.

Reginald shuddered. “They’re reviving the religion.”

“The one that killed Rugar’s people?” Abdal asked.

Ace looked at him. He hadn’t heard this.

“Yes,” Reginald said. “They’re searching for someone who knows the Secrets. They believe if they find an Aud or a Danite who wasn’t killed by the Fey, he’ll be able to recreate all the religion’s weapons. And then they can use the weapons to defeat the Fey.”

Ace frowned. “So this is the first shot in a war.”

“If they can bring down the Black Family and wipe the Fey off the Isle, they will,” Reginald said.

Abdal’s eyes narrowed. He obviously didn’t believe Reginald. “You said there weren’t that many of them.”

“There aren’t. They believe more Islanders will join their cause as they have some successes.”

Ace glanced down the river. It had been too easy to defeat them so far. “Well, they won’t have any success if they continue on this course.”

“They’re just beginning,” Reginald said.

“So you have faith in them?”

Reginald shrugged. “I have faith in the Fey.”

The correct answer, of course. But did that mean Reginald had faith in all Fey or those he knew on the Isle?

It ultimately wasn’t for Ace to decide. “Make your report,” he said. “We’ll see you when you reach Jahn.”

Reginald glanced at the knife that Abdal still held. Abdal grinned slowly at him. “You’ll have to make it back without your weapons.”

“How do I know the rest of your Gull Riders will leave me alone?” Reginald asked.

Ace shrugged. “it’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

“I could talk to the Black Heir,” Reginald said, “explain to him what I told you.”

“You could,” Ace said. “Or I could lose patience with you and change my mind about your survival.”

Reginald nodded once, swung off the branch. His feet caught a branch below him, and he slowly worked his way down.

Ace waited until he was all the way to the bottom and starting to run before saying to Abdal: “You follow him. Make sure he doesn’t take over someone else. We need to be able to track him.”

“You think Gift’ll want him to go free?”

“I don’t know,” Ace said. “But I know we can find you. If Gift doesn’t like what I’ve done, we can always find Reginald and kill him.”

“What do I do when he reaches the messenger?”

“Follow the messenger. Stay out of sight if you can. We’ll meet you in the city.”

Abdal nodded, set the knife on the branch, and shifted into his Gull form. Then he flew away, going low so that he could keep Reginald in sight.

Ace watched for a moment. An occasional glimpse of a Gull Rider would keep Reginald in line. He would strive to complete his mission as quickly as possible.

Still, the entire meeting left Ace unsettled. Obviously the Islanders were mounting a campaign—however small—against the Fey. But Ace was convinced that they were unwitting accomplices of a Fey mastermind. And he was afraid that the mastermind was a member of the Black Family.

He remembered how easily Bridge had gotten him off the ship. How Lyndred’s black eyes had an intelligence beyond anything Ace had ever seen. How beautiful that intelligence made her.

And how dangerous.

Had the two of them influenced Arianna against her brother?

He would have to tell Gift.

The next few days wouldn’t be easy. For anyone.

TEN

MATT HADN’T BEEN to the Vault since his father died. And he hadn’t gone much before that. His father who had once been the 51
^st
Rocaan, head of Blue Isle’s religion, spent his last years in the Vault as he went mad. He usually forgot to wash and sometimes forgot to eat. The place smelled of filth and piss and his father’s sickness.

Going to the Vault even now, six months after his father’s death, made Matt’s stomach turn.

But if Matt was going to help Arianna, he would need to go. He needed to know how the tools from the religion worked. He knew in principle. His father—when he was sane—had discussed it enough at home.

Magick is an abomination
, his father used to say, and Matt often wondered how his father could believe it, considering his own powers. But his father had been a bundle of contradictions, most of which Matt still didn’t understand.

The Roca understood that when he came back. He understood how magick destroyed those around it, so he devised tools that would eliminate magick from the Isle. And it worked, boys. We had no magick until the Fey came. Then we discovered, all over again, the tools the Roca had left for us, and we used them to defeat the Black King.

Not all of that was true, of course. Over the years, Matt had learned that his father, even when sane, bent the stories to his own advantage. There was magick on the Isle. There had always been magick, at least since the Roca had discovered the Cave a thousand years ago. The Roca had simply taught the Islanders to fear it.

The Vault was located at the base of the Cliffs of Blood and had been there as long as the mountains themselves. It was a natural cave, blocked off and protected by a structure built by the Roca’s successors. When the Roca returned, after being thought dead and rising to the hand of God, he lived in the Vault and never left it. There he wrote the Words in the form of a letter to his two sons, a letter that got misinterpreted and misunderstood as time went on.

To get to the Vault, Matt had to go through the center of Constant. He took a circuitous route so that he could avoid his mother’s house. She was still alive, but she wasn’t dealing well with his father’s death. She had loved Matt’s father, despite the man’s madness, and his death had nearly ruined her.

Sometimes Matt didn’t blame her for failing to fetch him the day his father decided to disappear into the mountains. His father had one last moment of lucidity. Neither Matt’s brother nor his mother saw fit to find Matt so that he could say good-bye, or maybe even talk his father out of walking into the caves, where the spirit of Arianna’s mother lurked.

That spirit had tried twice before to kill Matt’s father, and he had survived through luck the first time and skill the second. Alex said that his father wanted to die this third time and that was why he went, but Matt didn’t believe that. He felt that his father had forgotten about the dangers, and was trying to reach the Roca’s Cave for a reason he never stated.

The thin winter sun generated little heat, but it reflected off the stone roads, and made the center of town seem warmer than the outskirts. The slight breeze that blew off the river wasn’t getting past the stone buildings, so the air hung heavy. A storm was brewing; he could feel it. He wanted to be underground, away from everything when it hit.

He made his way through the bazaar. Only a hardy few stood outside to hawk their wares. He knew most of them, and said hello as he passed. They’d long since stopped trying to patch the breach between him and his mother.

She had actually come to the school to see him a few months ago. She had seemed diminished, somehow, her tall, angular body so thin that he could see her bones. Her eyes had sunken into her skull and the beauty that used to radiate from her was gone. Even her red hair, once her most striking feature, looked dull and almost brown.

She had tried to apologize, saying once again that there hadn’t been time to send for him, saying that she had been so destroyed by his father’s death that she hadn’t even realized there was a rift between Matt and Alex.

Matt hadn’t been able to speak to her. She had waited three months to come to him, and then she hadn’t offered a real apology. No one had even told Matt his father had died until he showed up at the house, days later. Nothing would ever change how he felt.

The muscles in his shoulders were getting tight the closer he came to the Meeting Hall. A headache was starting to build, and he cursed himself. If he had studied the Words as a boy, like his father had wanted him to, he wouldn’t have to come here now. Coulter said there were religious items in the Roca’s Cave. Matt could have gone there. But he had studied just enough to know the overall history of the religion, and not enough to know how to use its tools.

For that, he would need to face his brother, Alex.

A man stepped out between the streets. He had long braided hair and scars all over his arms and face. He was thin and Fey, and familiar. Wisdom. He had obviously been looking for Matt.

I
hear you are leaving.
Wisdom moved his hands to speak. Wisdom had lost his tongue—the source of his magick—to Rugad fifteen years before. He would not let anyone replace it, so he and Matt had developed a language of their own in sign.

“Soon,” Matt said.

Don’t
, Wisdom said.
Stay out of their business.

“Why?” Matt asked.

Because it will give you problems you will not want.

“Coulter asked me to help.”

Say no,
Wisdom signed.

“I already said yes.”

Wisdom sighed.
You are too young for this.

“Arianna was my age when she became Black Queen.”

And where is she now?

“Don’t. You won’t get me to change my mind.” Then he hurried away before Wisdom could say anything else.

Matt turned onto the street where the Meeting Hall was. It stood by itself, a windowless wooden building that had once been the center of Constant. After the Fey killed the Wise Ones inside the building, the village’s rulers moved to a different location.

Matt climbed the steps and opened the door. It creaked. A smell—dampness, decay, and neglect—nearly overpowered him. He put a hand to his nose and stepped inside.

Someone had cleaned up in the last six months. The broken furniture was gone, the cobwebs had disappeared, and there were new torches hanging in the torch holders. A lamp stood on a table beside the door. Matt removed the glass bell, used a flint to light the candle inside, and replaced the glass. Then he picked up the lamp by its base, and peered around the room.

Not only had people cleaned, but they had refurbished. A new table stood in the center of the room, benches along the sides, just as it probably had been long ago. There were still empty corners, and the smell of disuse, but it looked like someone had been working to revive this place as a meeting hall.

Matt’s heart began to pound. He went to the door that led to the Vault. The door was closed. His father used to keep it open—at his mother’s suggestion—so that he could leave quickly if he had to. Matt pulled on the knob, half expecting it to be locked.

It wasn’t. The door slid open easily.

The scent of newly cut wood greeted him. The stairs that had been rotting away had been replaced by new ones, so new, in fact, that the wood was still brown. The stairs went a long way down, to a corridor that was made of mountain stone, clean and dust-free. He had never seen this corridor clean before.

He walked carefully, clinging to the lamp, appreciating the thin illumination that it provided. He followed the corridor to the bend in the middle, where the stones dripped with moisture. Here the smell and look were familiar: the wild smell of the mountain itself, a smell that always made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He associated that smell with his father. In the days before the madness had taken him over completely, his father used to come home smelling like this.