The Black King (Book 7) (14 page)

“He was a sick man, Alex. He didn’t know. And it looks like his sickness infected you.”

“He was right about the Fey.”

“If he was right, then why did he help put Queen Arianna on the throne? She’s half Fey.”

“Nicholas left him no choice. All of Nicholas’s children were part Fey. It was either them or the Black King.”

“Either way, they’re Fey. And our father was the one who helped her become Queen.”

“Get out,” Alex said.

“Tell me what I need to know,” Matt said. “Give me one of the repositories and help me get it ready. Then I won’t bother you again.”

Alex shook his head.

Matt’s stomach twisted. He would have to help himself. He couldn’t steal the Words, but he could take the knowledge—in a way that not even Coulter would approve.

Matt put both of his hands on the Words. He uttered a spell he had only read about, from a book in Coulter’s library. A Fey spell as reported by the L’Nacin.

The unfamiliar words spilled off his tongue and he hoped he was pronouncing them right. He hoped the L’Nacin reported them correctly. He gripped the book, careful not to touch the altar, and he held on tight.

Alex lunged toward him, but Matt picked up the Words and hugged them to him, finishing the spell as he did so. His fingers tingled.

Alex brushed the altar, and it flared gold. He reached for the Words, and Matt turned away, so that his brother missed once again.

The tingle continued up Matt’s arms, into his shoulders, his neck, and through his face. Finally it reached his skull, and he knew what the Words said as if he had written them himself. A splitting pain ran through his head, and he cried out, dropping the Words.

Alex caught them, and collapsed on the ground, holding them close.

Matt clutched his head, and leaned forward, using the altar for support. The golden light bathed him, hurting his eyes. Tears of pain ran down his face. It felt as if someone had shoved a torch into his brain, burning its way into his mind.

The Words would never leave him. They were part of him now, so deeply embedded he could feel each word like a brand.

“What did you do?” Alex opened the book. The writing was still on the pages, but it seemed fainter now. “What did you do?”

Matt wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I learned the Secrets you were hiding from me.”

Alex looked stricken. “You weren’t ready for them.”

“Actually,” Matt said. “I don’t think either one of us is ready. But it’s too late. I know them now. Let me have a soul repository and a bit of the Roca’s blood, and I’ll leave you.”

“No.” Alex struggled to his feet. “You know the Words. You can build one yourself if you want it that badly.”

“Alex, I need it now.”

“I’m not going to help you, Matt. You want to use this for blasphemous reasons.”

“When did you stop trusting me?” Matt asked.

Alex looked at him, blue eyes filled with sadness. “When you chose to follow the path our father forbid.”

“Have you ever thought that Father might have been mistaken? Mother did. She gave us permission to go to Coulter’s school, remember? Before Father died?”

“She was wrong.” Alex kept one hand wrapped around the book and extended the other. “Come home, stay with us, renounce the Fey magick. I’ll teach you about the Roca and the religion our father practiced, and I’ll show you how life should be lived. Together, we can re-establish Rocaanism. Together, we can build the religion in the image the Roca wanted.”

Matt stared at his brother’s hand. Rebuilding a religion that most considered dead held no appeal for him. The Roca’s words, burned into his brain, showed no great desire for religion. Instead, they showed—at least to Matt—so much remorse that the Words were choked with it.

“I don’t think the Roca wanted a religion,” Matt said. “I think he wanted to undo the grief he’d caused, take away the magick he’d unleashed on Blue Isle. Only he wasn’t able to close the bottle. It was too late.”

Alex shook his head.

“We have magick, given us by the Roca,” Matt spoke softly. “The Fey have magick too. We’re part of their Empire now. We need to learn how to behave in this new world. If you and I work together, as our mother once believed, we can make an impact. You can help establish the Roca’s morality on the Isle, and I’ll make sure—”

He stopped himself before he finished the sentence. Because he was going to say he would make sure the right people ruled.

“You’ll make sure what?” Alex asked.

“That we’ll get the message to the right places,” Matt said.

“We’re too far gone for that. I can no longer trust you, and you obviously don’t trust me.” Alex let his hand fall. “You’re not welcome here anymore, Matt. And neither are your friends.”

“That doesn’t seem very charitable.”

“It’s not about charity. It’s about protection. The Words have always been protected, and now you’ve tampered with them. I can’t let you touch anything else.”

Matt glanced at the glass dolls, the drums, the jewels glowing on the floor. What would Alex do if Matt just took a doll, grabbed a bottle of blood and fled?

Matt couldn’t bear to do it. It would be the last straw, the final degradation of his father’s memory.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll leave. But I want you to know one thing, Alex. I’m not the one who separated us. I tried to keep you beside me. I talked to you. It’s you who rejected me.”

Alex said nothing. Matt made his way around his brother, stepping carefully on the jeweled floor. Each flaring light from the gems seemed to pull him farther away.

“Have you ever thought,” Matt said when he reached the door, “that maybe it isn’t the magick that drives people like Father crazy? Maybe it’s this place, this Vault. Maybe if you spend too much time here, the light and the heat and the stones destroy your mind. Have you ever thought that?”

But Alex did not answer him, and Matt did not turn around. He left the Vault for the final time, the Words newly embedded in his mind, and his brother’s silence shredding his heart.

ELEVEN

DINNER WAS LATE. And served in the dining hall, as if Arianna were planning some sort of ceremony. Yet when Bridge arrived, he found the table set for three. Himself, Lyndred, and Arianna.

He hated the dining hall. The servants called it the Great Hall. It had old floor to ceiling windows on one side, and swords on the other. It was drafty and colder than any other room in the palace, and sound echoed here, making him feel as if he were eating in an audience room.

Lyndred came in one of the side entrances. She was wearing breeches and a jerkin, her hair braided down the back as if she were preparing for battle. Her skin was gray and her mouth pinched. She looked even more frightened than she had when he saw her that afternoon in her room.

She slid her arm around her father’s back and pulled him close. He put his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I think I was right,” she whispered.

“The Blindness?” he whispered back.

“She’s being cagey, and I can’t figure out any other reason why.” Lyndred was leaning against him hard. “But I don’t think that’s our biggest problem.”

At that moment, Arianna swept in. She was wearing a pale blue gown and someone had piled her hair on top of her head. The gown accented her unusual eyes, the hairstyle narrowed her face so that she actually looked like a traditional Fey beauty.

But there was something masculine in her manner, something uncomfortable in her stride, something that suggested a gown was unnatural to her.

“Sit,” she said as she reached the table.

A Fey servant scurried ahead of her and pulled back a chair. She didn’t even seem to notice, although she did sit down. Another servant pulled a chair for Lyndred and then for Bridge. Bridge murmured his thanks.

The servants were now mostly Fey. Most of the Islanders—some who had been with the palace since Arianna was an infant—had been let go.

The wine steward entered, cradling a bottle to his chest. He poured a bit into Arianna’s glass. She tasted, then nodded her approval, and the steward poured into all of their glasses. Bridge took a sip: it was a good red with a fruity dryness. Lyndred didn’t touch her glass. Arianna twirled hers between her fingers.

“Have you told your father yet?” she asked Lyndred.

Lyndred started as if caught in a lie. “I haven’t seen him until now.”

“You were looking so peaceful there, I thought maybe you had.”

Bridge frowned. Was this the greater problem Lyndred had referred to?

“It seems,” Arianna said, “that Gift has returned to the Isle.”

“I would think you’d be happy to see him,” Bridge said.

“The circumstances are odd. We thought he was going to become a Shaman.”

“He hasn’t?”

“If he were, he would still be in the Eccrasian Mountains.”

A team of servants entered, some carrying bread, another carrying a tureen of soup, and the rest with bowls. The bowls were set down before them, the bread placed in the center of the table along with a knife, then one servant ladled the soup into the bowls while the other held the tureen. No one spoke until they left.

“Why would he come back?” Bridge asked.

Arianna stared at him as if he were the stupidest thing she had ever seen.

“The Black Throne, Daddy,” Lyndred said. “Arianna thinks he went to the mountains to consult the Throne.”

Bridge felt cold. “He wouldn’t. He gave the Throne to you.”

“He has no other reason to come back.” Arianna bent over her soup and brought the spoon to her lips. The movement should have been delicate, but was not.

“I thought you were close.” Bridge picked up his spoon. The soup smelled of winter vegetables and heavy spices. “And isn’t this his home?”

“He would have notified me, don’t you think?” Arianna said.

“Islanders knew he was coming,” Lyndred said. “They were trying to kill him.”

Bridge lost his grip on the spoon. It clattered against the table. “How did the Islanders know and we didn’t?”

Lyndred bit her lower lip. Arianna continued to eat. Had he missed something?

“You knew?” Bridge asked Arianna.

“I suspected.”

“A Hawk Rider confirmed it,” Lyndred said. “Today. Arianna didn’t even seem surprised by the Islander assassins.”

“What did they do to him?” Bridge asked.

“We don’t know.” Her coldness shocked him. He had heard how close she was to her brother. She should have cared that Islanders were trying to kill the Black Heir.

Unless she put them up to it.

“You knew they would try to kill him.” Bridge sounded like the boy who used to confront his grandfather.

And, to his surprise, Arianna smiled like his grandfather used to. Her blue eyes, so cold, twinkled. “They use bow and arrows. It’s so inefficient.”

This was a warning. She wanted Bridge to know that she would allow her own brother to die so that she could remain on this throne. She wanted him to know that he was no match for her, for anything she came up with. He knew that he was no match, but he hadn’t expected this ruthlessness. Not from a woman who had been raised Islander.

What if all of his information had been wrong? What if the reason the Islanders defeated his grandfather had been because they hid their ruthlessness beneath a religious veneer? What if Arianna, as part Islander, was more ruthless than any previous Fey had been?

He shuddered.

“You’re not eating, Bridge,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said, picking up his spoon. “This is just so unexpected.”

“Yes, well.” Arianna finished her soup, leaving the spoon in the bowl. “I have cause to worry and so do you. Gift has not seen fit to notify me of his return. And he has been to the Black Throne.”

Bridge had taken a mouthful of soup. It was good and rich, but he could barely swallow. “How do you know?”

Her eyes appraised him. Lyndred sank back in her chair as if she didn’t want to be part of this discussion.

“I believe Gift will try to destroy me,” Arianna said.

Lyndred looked at him sideways, and this time, he understood what she was trying to silently say. She wanted him to notice that Arianna hadn’t answered his question.

“I just heard from another Hawk Rider a few moments ago,” Arianna said. “Gift is on the last part of the river. He’ll be in Jahn by morning.”

Bridge set down his spoon. “What are you going to do about that?”

Arianna smiled. “I’m going to make certain we keep an eye on him. And if he doesn’t come to the palace immediately, I’ll invite him. He does need to meet you. He didn’t stop in Nye on his way to the Eccrassian Mountains, did he?”

“No,” Bridge said. She should have known that. Wasn’t it by her orders that Gift did not stop? Or had that been a lie too?

“He needs to know that family sticks together.”

Bridge nodded. The servants had entered again. One collected bowls while another set down plates. The scent of roast beef wafted in from the hallway. Bridge’s stomach growled. It was the constriction in his throat that was preventing him from eating. “I thought you said that family didn’t matter.”

Arianna glanced at the servants. She didn’t seem upset by his comment. “When would I have said that?”

“The day that I met you.”

Another group of servants entered with roast beef, gravy, and roasted potatoes. Some carrots were cooked along the side, adding color to the meal. There was too much food for the three of them, but no one seemed to notice or care. In Nye, Bridge always made certain the portions were right, so that no food was wasted.

A servant started to carve, but Arianna waved him away. She stood, grabbed the knife, and cut the meat herself. Then she served Lyndred and Bridge as if it were something she had always done.

Her hand on the knife looked so sure. Her grasp was correct, her movements easy.

“Is that enough?” she asked as she set a slice on his plate.

“It’s fine,” he said.

She set the knife down and returned to her chair. He got the sense that everything she did, she did for a reason, even down to cutting the meat.