The Black King (Book 7) (17 page)

“You know that Seger’s message could have been false, that the assassins could have been waiting for you on the riverbank because they knew you would arrive. Your presence here might be enough to trigger the Blood.”

“You believe it is.”

“My Visions have grown worse.”

“I haven’t Seen this at all. I thought a man was supposed to See his own death.”

“You won’t recognize it,” she said. “You will think it’s something you can change.”

He looked at her. He had Seen a lot of things. He thought of the most vivid Vision he’d had recently, the one in which he’d been in water, feeling an undertow pull him down, wondering if he would drown when an old man who looked like his great-grandfather tried to save him—a man whom Gift did not want to die in his place.

But as a young man, he thought he’d Seen his death. He’d actually had a Vision where someone stuck a knife into his back. The Vision had come true, but not in the way he’d expected. It had altered drastically, through actions that were probably not his own. And he had not been the one who had been stabbed. That had been Sebastian.

He frowned. “Maybe I’ve Seen my death. But I thought I Saw my death once before, and it didn’t come true.”

“Perhaps it would have, if things had been different.”

“Perhaps.”

The ship brushed against the dock. Gift felt a small shudder beneath his feet, hearing the scrape of wood against wood. At that moment, the sun appeared on the horizon, bathing everything in light until the entire city was golden. Then the sun rose higher, and the light changed.

Gift was holding his breath. It was almost as if Jahn were blessed, as if there was a specialness to this place that he felt in no other. Perhaps because it was the closest thing he’d had to a home in the last fifteen years.

“I’m going to see her,” he said. “And then we’ll figure out—”

The sky turned black and he pitched forward, hitting the deck. For a moment, he thought something had happened to the sun, and then he realized that he was having a Vision. That everything was changing.

—A Fey woman with a perfect, narrow face, and snapping black eyes touched Coulter’s cheek. He tried to pull away, but she will not let him. She turned, looked at—

—Gift cradling a newborn in his arms. Tears ran down his cheeks. He didn’t know how she could give this up and return to a life without this child. Without him—

—And the blood flowed—

—He was in water, thrashing, an undertow pulling him down. Water filled his mouth, tasting of brine and salt. The old Fey in the boat—his great-grandfather again? Or someone who looked like him?—reached for Gift, but if Gift took his hand, the old man would die. And Gift didn’t want that. He looked up, expecting to see Arianna in robin form. Instead, he saw Ace, circling, concern on his bird face—

—Arianna wrapped her hands around her skull. She was screaming—

—Skya looked at him, her face bathed in sweat, her hair limp against her head. “I can’t live like this,” she said. “I do not belong here.” He reached for her—

—And the blood flowed—

—His great-grandfather said, “You will never defeat me. I know more about Fey magick than you ever will.”—

—” Of course he does.” Gift’s mother stood before him, her hands on his face. Her hair was half silver, just as it would have been if she had lived. He had never seen her look this old. “But you are your father’s son. You are the center, Gift. The heart of everything, and you always have been. Your father and I were right, thirty-four years ago. Only you can bring peace. Only you.”—

—And the blood flowed...

He opened his eyes. His right cheek was pressed into the wood of the deck, his left was hot in the morning sun. The air smelled faintly of river mold, a scent that always got worse around the Cardidas in the winter.

He was faintly dizzy. He blinked, wondering if Xihu had been felled by a Vision as well. He looked for her, saw her feet, then pushed himself up.

She was staring at the river. The Nyeian sailors were staring at the river too. And Skya, who was standing inside the deck house door, was staring just like they were.

“What?” It was as if his voice didn’t work properly. It scratched against his throat, almost as if he hadn’t used it in a week.

Xihu stared at the water. He thought for a moment that she hadn’t heard him, then she crouched beside him and extended her hand. He took it, and let her help him up.

She still hadn’t taken her gaze off the river. Her expression was sadder than any he’d seen in a long time.

“It was an Open Vision,” she said.

He swallowed against that dry throat. An Open Vision was rare. He’d had two before, once when he was a little boy and once when he was fighting the Black King.

“What was it?” he asked.

“Blood,” she said and shuddered visibly. Her hand, so warm and dry within his, quivered.

“What kind of blood?” His Visions had had blood flowing through them, behind them, like the river itself, but there had been no specific images of blood.

“The whole river was blood. The surface was covered with it.”

He looked. The early morning sky was reflected in its waters: reds and oranges and deep pinks, all of it looking fresh and wonderful and not like blood at all.

“Blood against Blood?” he asked.

“I hope not,” she said.

But this time it was he who shuddered. He had Seen blood in all the Visions. He knew what it meant.

Xihu hadn’t let go of his hand. “Is that what you Saw? Blood on the water?”

He shook his head. The Nyeian sailors were looking at him oddly, as if he were some kind of strange creature, something they had never seen before. He couldn’t talk in front of them.

Skya hadn’t moved from her place at the door. She had a hand over her stomach and she looked vaguely ill. For the first time since he had known her, he saw fear on her face. When his gaze met hers, she looked away.

The words she had spoken the day they met rose in his mind:
I don’t like Shaman. They get in the way with their Visions and pronouncements and rules.
And the look on her face when she discovered that he was a Visionary. Not fearful, not exactly. But not very happy either.

“Everyone Saw this, didn’t they?” he asked Xihu.

“Yes,” she said. “It was an Open Vision.”

“Like a great battle had been fought?”

“Like a hundred people had died and the river was turning to blood.”

He frowned. He’d seen that before, when his great-grandfather died at the Cliffs of Blood. There were dead all along the mountainside, and the water itself, always the color of blood, looked even redder.

“Was the water covered in blood or the color of blood?”

“You Saw it too,” she said. “It was an Open Vision.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t See that. I had seven Visions. You Saw only one.”

She leaned back on her heels. “I wonder what that means.”

Gift frowned. When he’d had his last Open Vision, Scavenger had explained it.
Open Visions occur with firm destinies, when the parties are tied together by an event of such importance the fate of the world rests on it.

He and Coulter had been in that first Open Vision, standing on a barge in the Cardidas, looking at the burned out Tabernacle. Only when the Vision had come true, they weren’t on a barge, but on the banks of the Cardidas, and it was after the Black King had died.

Gift had had seven Visions, eight if he wanted to count the blood running beneath it, but Xihu and the others had only Seen the blood.

Was that the only part with the firm destiny?

What if he wasn’t supposed to bring peace? What if he was the center because he was the one who destroyed them?

“What does it mean?” he asked.

Xihu ran her fingers along his cheek, a soft caress, almost a lover’s touch. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.

She walked away from him without answering, moved to the edge of the ship and stared into the water. He sat in the center of the deck, alone. Skya had disappeared. The Nyeian sailors were still staring at him.

The Visions disquieted him, as they always did. But it was Xihu’s silence—her way of answering his question—that disturbed him most of all.

THE BLACK HEIR

THIRTEEN

COULTER WATCHED MATT pick his way across the broken steps that led to the Place of Power. In all the years that Coulter had made his way up these steps, he hadn’t bothered to fix them. Somehow, changing this place seemed like a sacrilege, even if he were to make an improvement.

The morning was chill. The storm promised the day before never happened, and now the sky was clear. Sunlight reached this part of the Cliffs of Blood, but it was not warm. He could see his breath.

He pulled his heavy coat closer and wished he had remembered gloves, even though he knew he wouldn’t need them once he went inside. His stomach was jumping. In all the years he had guarded this place for Gift, he had never tampered with it. Now he was going to.

Arianna had given him permission. With a wisp of a smile on her stone face, she had said,
Even though it doesn’t seem like it, I’m still the Queen of Blue Isle. Whatever I say is more important than my brother’s wishes.

But Gift had impressed upon Coulter the importance of keeping the cave untouched. It had a power that Coulter could sense every time he stepped inside. King Nicholas and Matthias had tapped that power to defeat the Black King, but even then Coulter had sensed that the two men were touching only one small part of the cave’s power.

Yet, here he went, introducing someone new to the cave’s magick. He wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t necessary. If Rugad weren’t still alive.

Matt took the final step and walked onto the stone ledge. Coulter could hear Matt’s gasp, even though he was still several steps away. Then he heard Leen’s voice. She had guard duty that morning. It was a tradition more than a necessity. Coulter had set up a single guard to make sure no one wandered accidentally into the place. At first, he had been the only guard. Now several of his trusted companions stayed here, rotating their shifts, and maintaining constant vigil as if it were the most important thing in the world.

Perhaps it was.

Coulter climbed the remaining steps and walked onto the stone ledge. Leen had placed her chair away from the edge as she always did. She was standing, her hand on Matt’s shoulder. He was looking at the giant swords embedded in the stone. They were huge and made of varin, just like the smaller swords inside the cave. Large jewels were embedded in the hilts, jewels that took and focused magick.

Matt stared at the swords, his mouth hanging open. Coulter hadn’t warned Matt what he would see and, apparently, Matt’s father had never described the place. These swords—this cave—had to have triple meaning for Matt. He was raised by the man who had once led this religion. He also knew that the cave had a magickal center, just like the Place of Power in the Eccrasian Mountains, the place where the Fey themselves had originated. And this was the place where Matt’s father had helped defeat the Black King.

If things worked right, Matt would complete the job his father had started.

Leen glanced over Matt’s shoulder at Coulter. She had known they were coming up, but she hadn’t approved of it. She felt that there had to be another way—teaching Matt a Lamplighter Spell, perhaps—rather than using the tools of Rocaanism.

Coulter wanted to use the most powerful tools he had. He figured they would only have one chance at removing Rugad, and he didn’t want that to fail.

He walked across the ledge—the place he had sat countless times, the place where his adoptive father had died—and stopped beside Leen and Matt.

Matt was still staring at the swords. They formed a pattern: a sword in the front, two swords behind it, and two swords behind them. They formed a triangle, a way to focus power. His father had moved the swords from their positions around the cave’s mouth to the positions they were in now. He had done it with the force of a magick he hadn’t really accepted or believed in.

“They’re so big,” Matt whispered.

Leen nodded. Coulter didn’t say anything. Maybe Matt knew the story after all.

“I always thought they were regular swords. My dad never said they were this big.”

And impossible for one man to lift. Impossible for a dozen men to remove. It was only possible for these swords to move through an Enchanter’s magick.

Matt looked at Coulter. “I’m just like him, aren’t I?”

Coulter shook his head. “You have his skills. That doesn’t make you like him.”

Matt had turned back to the opening of the cave. There was something different in his manner, something in his eyes—a wisdom, a knowledge—that hadn’t been there before. It was as if he were seeing more than anyone else when he looked at the entrance.

He had been different when he came back from the Vault. He was shaken and saddened by his encounter with his brother, but Coulter had expected that. He hadn’t expected any help from Alex, but had sent Matt anyway, hoping that they wouldn’t have to come up here.

But Matt had done something unexpected. Matt had used a spell that even Coulter wasn’t familiar with to absorb the Words. Late last night, Coulter had stayed in the library, reading about the spell in the few books that mentioned it. One book described how the spell was performed. Another the goals of the magick, and a third mentioned the fact that the spell was not something that should be used lightly.

Then Coulter had sent for Seger and told her what Matt had done. She sat abruptly on a nearby couch as if her legs couldn’t hold her.

Let’s hope there’s nothing harmful in those Words,
she had said,
for they’re a part of him now.

A visible part. Seger seemed to think the personality of the writer would seep into Matt’s mind, the way a touch of an aromatic spice changed the taste of food.