The Black Queen (Book 6) (11 page)

Lyndred swallowed. “It won’t be that easy. If she dies without issue, everyone will fight for the throne.”

His smile was small. He had been through this once. She hadn’t. “No one fights over the Black Throne, baby,” he said. “We all fear the power of Blood against Blood too much. If a strong leader who has an hereditary claim to the throne takes it, no one dares argue.”

“So that’s why you never challenged Arianna.”

His daughter was too smart by half. But that was part of what he admired about her. He sighed. “I could have challenged her, I suppose,” he said. “But I lack the Vision. That’s been clear since I was a boy. And at that time, no one in my family had such Vision either, not since Jewel died. Arianna had a right to that throne.”

“But she stole it from her brother.”

“Not according to the Scribe. According to him, the brother didn’t want it.”

Lyndred’s back straightened. “I would have wanted it.”

“I know, baby,” Bridge said softly. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

FIVE

“I DON’T KNOW,” Alex said. “Sneaking out seems wrong.”

Matt suppressed a sigh. Sometimes he wondered how he and his twin could look so much alike. They certainly didn’t think alike.

Matt sat on the center of his bed, his legs crossed and his feet on the blanket their mother had embroidered specially for him. She would be furious if she saw him sit like that. These blankets, created for the boys before they were born, were supposed to adorn their beds until they died.

Alex’s was tucked in all the corners of his bed, looking pristine, like usual. He sat with his feet on the floor, and with a good view of the window his father had made at the boys’ request when they were little more than toddlers.

His father had been sort of normal then. At least he had done things that fathers did. He played with the boys, made them things, disciplined them. Now such tasks were up to their mother, and every time their father looked at the boys or spoke their names, she would get a soft, sad, and sometimes frightened expression on her face.

“I’ve been sneaking out for a long time,” Matt said.

“I know.” Alex glanced out the window at the birch tree in the back yard. Beneath it, his uncle had been buried before they were born. His mother had erected a small memorial made of stones around the tree, and the boys used to get in trouble if they even approached it. “I always thought you were wrong for doing that.”

“I’m learning things. You’re not,” Matt said, resisting the urge to raise his voice. His mother was cleaning up in the kitchen. He could still smell the beef stew. She was probably keeping some of it warm for his father. He hadn’t made it back yet. Matt really didn’t want to go to the Vault to find his father again.

“But what are you learning?” Alex asked. “
Their
ways?”

Whenever Alex used “their” in that manner, he meant the Fey. He had picked up his father’s hatred of the race that had overrun Blue Isle long before the boys were born.

“Coulter isn’t Fey.”

“But he was raised by them. He has Fey friends.”

“So do I,” Matt said softly. “They know more about magick than we do.”

“We don’t need to know more. Father will teach us—”

“Father can’t teach anyone,” Matt said, “and you know it.”

Alex’s hands clenched. “He’s fine,” Alex said, without looking at Matt. “He’s just thinking of otherworldly things.”

That was their mother’s phrase, although she hardly used it any more. Now, she just kept herself and her fourteen-year-old sons away from their father. Sometimes, Matt thought, she seemed to hope their father would never return.

“No,” Matt said. “He’s going crazy. It’s in the Words. It happens.”

“To people who abuse their magick.” Alex’s knuckles were turning white. “He never did that.”

“He used magick to save the Isle, before we were born. Him and King Nicholas. They killed the Black King and saved Blue Isle.”

It had risen to the level of myth in their family. Their father was a hero and a religious leader. A Great Man. Everyone treated him that way, even now.

“Then King Nicholas should be crazy.”

“King Nicholas disappeared a long time ago. His daughter rules.”

“His half-Fey daughter.” Alex spit out the words. Matt cringed hearing them. Alex’s attitude wouldn’t help at all. Alex needed guidance, and he wasn’t getting any.

“Just tonight,” Matt said. “Please. Someone will be able to help you with those hallucinations of yours.”

Alex closed his eyes. “Maybe I’m going crazy too,” he whispered.

Matt understood the fear. He had felt it for years, as he watched his father deteriorate. Matt had vague memories of his father as a strong, sensible man who could draw people to him if he needed to, back in the days when his father had restarted Rocaanism, the Islander religion. His father had trained new Elders and Danites and Auds. He had sent them out to preach that there were other ways to control magick, other considerations besides Fey considerations.

And the Queen had allowed it. She had even given it her blessing, although she refused to allow certain parts of Rocaanism to be revived because they were harmful to Fey. So there were no ceremonies with holy water, for instance, but Matt’s father hadn’t minded. He had said that ceremony had false trappings, and he was recreating the religion according to the real Words, and the current experience.

In those days, when Matt had been little, his father had seemed all powerful. Now his father was an embarrassment, seeing things that were not there, speaking with people who had been long dead.

When his father was lucid—which wasn’t as often as it used to be—he would warn his sons not to use their magick.
It has a cost,
he would say.
It will take your mind, like it is taking mine.

“I don’t think you’re going crazy,” Matt said. His brother was watching him, tears in his eyes. They were both lanky boys, with their father’s blond curls and their mother’s strong features. She was a beautiful woman, and Matt knew, they would be handsome men. Their father wasn’t handsome, and probably never had been, but once he had been brilliant, one of the greatest scholars on Blue Isle.

Before the Fey came.

“Then what is it?” Alex asked. His voice was husky with repressed emotion. “I saw another one today.”

Matt knew that. He had walked in on his brother in the middle of the hallucination. Alex had been sprawled on the bed, eyes rolled back in his head, body twitching slightly as if he had the chills. Matt had placed his hand on his brother’s back, felt the rigid muscles, and waited. When it seemed like Alex would come out of it, Matt slipped through the window and ran to Coulter’s school.

But Coulter was on the mountain. The only person Matt saw was Leen, and as friendly as she was, he couldn’t talk to her. She was Fey. She wouldn’t understand his fear.

But she had understood his need to see Coulter. And she had told him when Coulter would be back.

“That’s why you need to come with me,” Matt said. “Coulter will know what to do.”

Alex licked his lower lip, and then bit it, as if he wanted to stop it from trembling. “Father said once that Coulter was just like him.”

Matt remembered that. He remembered how it startled him, because he had thought the two men very different. His father was a lot older, but he also seemed unhappy. Coulter didn’t. Coulter seemed to have command over his life.

It was that comment, the one that frightened Alex away from Coulter, that made Matt want to seek him out. “Coulter’s had Fey training,” Matt said. “Father hasn’t. Maybe that’s the difference.”

Alex wiped at his left eye, a surreptitious movement. Matt pretended not to see it. “Father’s older. Maybe he used more magick.”

“Maybe.” Matt swallowed. “But wouldn’t it be better to learn from the man whose mind is still intact?”

The question was harsh, and it made Alex flinch. But for the first time, Matt felt as if he had gotten through to him.

“But what if what’s going on with me isn’t magick? What if I’m just going crazy?”

Matt had thought about that as well, but he didn’t want to admit it. What if he were the only twin who was really sane? How long would that last? Maybe the insanity just came to Alex earlier than Matt.

“Then I expect Coulter will tell you,” Matt said.

Alex snorted. “No one could tell someone that.”

“Coulter can.”

“How come you have so much faith in this guy?”

Matt ran his hands along the thin fabric covering his thighs. To admit this was to tell Alex how much Matt had cut him out of his life. “I’ve been going to the school for two years,” Matt said. “I’ve watched him.”

“Two years!” Alex raised his voice. Matt shushed him. “You can’t have gone for two years. I’d have known.”

“I went when you were asleep sometimes, or when I could get away. I haven’t been able to go regularly like Coulter wants, but it’s helped. I haven’t made fire in my sleep for a long time, have I?”

Alex looked away. “Father forbid us to go that school.”

“Father can’t remember what day it is.”

“Mother can.”

Matt nodded. “And I think she knows where I’ve been going. She just hasn’t said anything.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t going to go. Matt knew it.

“Come on, Alex,” Matt said. “Father’s supposed to train us, but he hasn’t been able to do that for a long time. You haven’t even told him about the hallucinations, and you’ve been having those since you were twelve.”

Alex shook his head slightly, and then he stood. “What do we tell Mom?”

“Nothing,” Matt said. “We go through the window.”

“Sure,” Alex said. “Then she comes to get one of us to go to the Vault and we’re missing. She’ll appreciate that.”

“She won’t know.”

Alex raised his head. “Do you know how many times I’ve covered for you?”

Matt didn’t, but it didn’t surprise him. “She won’t let us out this close to dark. I think we risk it.”

Alex ran a hand through his curls. “She knows I haven’t been feeling well. I’ll tell her I’m going to bed.”

“And what about me?”

“What you tell her is your business.” Alex said and left the room.

Matt cursed softly, and then, by force of habit, looked around to see if anyone had heard him. This was a religious household. Cursing was even more of a sin than it was in other households. His friends got reprimanded if their parents overheard a mild oath. Matt got punished.

Words are important,
his father used to say.
More important than you realize.

Matt ran a hand through his curls just as his brother had done. What would their mother say if she knew that Alex was having hallucinations? What would she say if she knew that Matt was trying to find him help?

She would probably tell their father, and then they’d have to spend another week in the Vault, listening to him rant. Matt shuddered. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t risk it.

He pulled the door open and walked across the hall. The kitchen was the best room in the small house. It had the big stone hearth, and a large wooden table his parents’ friend Denl had made when the boys were very little. The kitchen always smelled good, and his mother was usually there, making up small potions or cooking.

She was there now, a tall woman with vibrant red hair that was slowly losing its vibrancy. Streaks of silver covered it like a veil, stealing the color, and making her look older than she was. Her greenish blue eyes were sharp, her lips thin. She still wore the apron from dinner, and it was covered with the flour that she had had Matt purchase that morning. Her hands were on her hips, and she was staring at Alex.

Apparently his lie hadn’t worked.

She saw Matt standing in the doorway. “What’s this I hear?” she asked. Her lilting voice used to soothe him, remind him that there were places other than the town of Constant, that people lived happily away from the Cliffs of Blood. “Yer gettin’ yer brother to lie for ye?”

Matt swallowed. “No.”

“Then what? He’s never come to me with this tale afore. Ye’ve always been the one to tell tales, Matt.”

He felt color rise in his cheeks. He supposed he deserved that. Alex had his head down. He wasn’t going to get any help from his brother.

“I want to take Alex to Coulter’s school,” Matt said, deciding, since his mother had challenged his truthfulness, to actually be truthful.

Alex rested his head on the table as if that sentence had been a physical blow. Matt himself cringed, expecting her to yell.

But she didn’t. She glanced at him, and then at his brother, and then back at him. “Why would ye do that?”

“Because,” Matt said. “We need some help, and we can’t get it in the Vault.”

He used that phrase on purpose. The religious items for Rocaanism in all its 1000 year history lived in that Vault, along with the Words of the religion, and instructions on how to use the magick that the Roca had once let loose upon the Isle. But his mother would also know that he meant one other thing when he said “the Vault.” He meant he wasn’t going to get any help from his father, either.