The Rival (12 page)

Prey spat on the ground.  "Clearly untested, youngling."

"Leave him alone," Epla said.  "The boy does the best he can."

"I think we should go back," Cover said.  "Epla, Dolny and I.  No one will notice us.  We'll get the golem out."

Gift shook his head.  "He wouldn't come for me, and he knows me.  He won't come for you."

"He's a golem," Prey said.  "Golems have no choice."

"He does," Gift said.  "He's no ordinary golem.  He's lived long beyond his usefulness to his creator.  He has a life of his own now.  And with that life comes an ability to choose what he wants to do.  He doesn't leave the palace.  And he relies on Arianna."

"So we bring the girl," Dolny said.

Prey laughed.  "Spies.  You saw her.  She'll fight you.  And you can't fight back.  She'll eat you alive.  If any of us go to the palace, it would have to be me."

"And think of the carnage you'd leave," Epla said.

"No one goes back except me," Gift said.

"We can't risk you," Epla said.

Gift lifted his chin.  He raised his head.  He had heard that statement all his life, and it made no sense to him.  So many of the Fey didn't trust him because of his parentage, because he had Islander blood.  And yet they couldn't risk losing him.  "Why not?" he asked.

"Because of who you are," Epla said.

"And just who is that?" Gift asked.

Prey glanced at Epla, her features set in a straight line.  She obviously hadn't liked what he said.  "You hold Shadowlands together," she said.

"And you hate living there."

She spat again.  "I would hate living here more."

They weren't saying something.  And he knew what it was.  He just wished someone would admit to him that they were still afraid the Black King would come.  They didn't want to be the ones who fought anyone with Black Blood.  They didn't want to be the Black King's Blood enemy.  It didn't matter what Gift did.  From the moment he was born, he was protected within the Fey, so much so that they took him as their leader even as they argued with him.

"I'm going back in," Gift said.  "But I'm not going alone.  I'm taking Coulter with me."

"That Islander boy?" Epla asked.  "He won't help you."

"Yes, he will," Gift said. 

"He'll get you killed," Prey said.

"You don't know him," Gift said.  "He saved my life before."

"When you were children," Prey said.  "He won't do that now."

Gift clenched his fists.  No one fought with other leaders.  He knew for a fact that no one had fought with his grandfather.  Half the Fey complained about that.  They said they would never have come to Blue Isle if his grandfather had allowed the people around him to give advice.  He also knew that no one argued with his real father either. 

But they argued with him.

The Shaman said it was because he came to Leadership so young.  They all saw him as a child instead of a Visionary.  But she hadn't helped him find a way to change that perception.  Even when he wanted to be strong, the arguments got out of hand.  He always found himself defending his position instead of ordering it into being.

"I'm going to get Coulter and that's all there is to it," he said.

"I don't think that's wise, Gift  — " Epla started.

"I don't care what you think," Gift said.  "It's what I'm going to do."

The older Fey glanced at each other as if he were a recalcitrant child.  He hated that. But he couldn't argue with it.  He would have to prove to them that he was right.

"You can't travel across the Isle without protection," Epla said.  "Dolny and Cover and I will go with you."

"Spies are not protection," Prey said.  "They are eyes and nothing more.  Take me and Leen.  That's all you'll need."

He glanced at them.  "I'm going by myself," he said.

"You can't," Epla said.  "If  — "

"I'm going by myself," Gift repeated.  "I don't want any of you with me.  I don't want protection.  I want to go alone.  If I have any chance of saving Sebastian, I need to do it on my own."

"You've never faced Islanders and their poison.  You'll need eyes," Epla said.

"And someone to fight."

Gift resisted the urge to smile.  He finally had them where he wanted them.  "All right.  Cover, you come with me, and you too, Leen.  There.  Eyes and protection.  The rest of you can go back to the Shadowlands."

Prey shook her head.  Her hands were pressed tightly against her armpits, as if she were trying to control them.  "You don't know  — "

"Then I'll learn, won't I?" Gift snapped.  "You never argued with my grandfather like this."

"And look where it got us," Epla said.

"Well, it's not helping me.  Go away, all of you.  Except Cover and Leen.  You two stay.  I don't want to see the rest of you until I get to Shadowlands."

They stared at him for a moment, as if he had sprouted horns.

"I mean it," he said.

They glanced at each other, then Epla shrugged. 

"As you wish," he said, as if Gift were crazy.  He started up the bank, Prey and Dolny beside him.  When they reached the top, they did not look back.  Gift felt an odd pull.  He had expected more argument, more difficulty.  Maybe he liked the tussles as much as they did.

He shook the thought from his head.  "All right," he said.  "First we need some food and something to drink.  Then  — "

The world shifted.  One moment he was standing on the bank, the next he was on a barge in the river, Coulter beside him.  Coulter was taller than Gift, and so blond it was blinding.  The sun had darkened his skin from a translucent white to a soft brown. 

"Over there," Coulter said.  "I've heard that there's a group of assassins on the Tabernacle side." 

They were floating near the bridge.  Gift turned to look at the Tabernacle.  Its white walls were streaked with soot.  The upper towers had fallen in.  It looked empty.

"I can't kill him," Gift said.

"No."  Coulter smiled.  "But I can."

Then the world shifted back, and Gift was leaning against the stone, his feet splayed in front of him.  His hands were in wet ground.  He didn't want to think about the filth he was picking up.

His mouth was open and dry, his chin wet with drool.  He swallowed, licked his lips, then wiped off his chin.

Cover knelt beside him.  Sympathy made her vague features almost clear.  "They said you could do that, but I had no idea."

"That was a Vision?" Leen asked.  Her voice held disgust.  "It looked like a fit."

"It was a Vision," Cover said, "and a powerful one, I think."

Gift nodded.  The heat and the dizziness had grown worse.  "Do me a favor, Leen."  His voice was raspy.  The Vision felt as if it had only taken a moment, but he knew from experience that a moment in a Vision could be half a day in real time.  "Look at the Tabernacle.  Have the windows fallen in?"

Leen wandered along the edge of the bank, her hands clasped behind her back.  When she was in sight of the Tabernacle, she stopped, squinted, and shook her head.  "Everything's fine," she said.  "It's in good repair."

"That was a clue," he said, more to himself than to anyone else.  "That was some sort of clue."

But to what he did not know.

Assassins, murder, the empty Tabernacle.  And whom couldn't he kill?  And why?  And why would Coulter, that gentle soul, be willing to?

"Was it about our journey?" Cover asked.

Gift shook his head.  "Visions come out of order, Cover," he said.  But he knew the Vision was tied to the journey.  The moment he decided to take this trip with only Cover and Leen, the Vision had come.  That decision led to this future.

The trouble was that he didn't know if it would be a good or bad future.  Unlike the other Vision, the one he was trying to prevent, he didn't know if he should change this one, leave it alone, or use it as a guide.

He extended his hand, and let Cover pull him up.  The Spy's skin was cooler than his, a fact he had forgotten.  "Do you still want to leave?" she asked softly.

The image of the ruined Tabernacle flashed through his head.  That place had frightened him since he had first seen it, home of the holy poison, and the death of the Fey. 

"Yes," he said.  "I want to go.  I think it's more important than ever."

FOURTEEN

Solanda wore her cat form into the palace, and slipped through the main doors unnoticed.  Her tired paws left dusty prints on the newly cleaned marble floors.  She padded across, ears flat, tail down.  Her mouth still tasted of feathers, and she hoped she hadn't hurt Arianna too badly.  Even though Solanda was as angry as she could be at that girl, she still didn't want to cause any physical harm.

A robin.  Arianna had lied to her.  She had said that she had settled on a cat form, just like Solanda, and Solanda had felt flattered.

By a three-year-old.

Arianna had maintained the lie for twelve years.

Solanda ran up the steps quickly.  Twelve years, the most difficult years for a child to cover her Shifts.  Arianna had hidden her abilities from Solanda that long.

What else had she hidden?

Solanda wasn't sure she wanted to find out.  But she had to.  And then she had to break the news to Arianna about her brother, a task she had hoped she would never have to face.

It would be ugly.

She might even be banished from the palace.

Although that wouldn't be as great a tragedy as she had originally thought.  Apparently Arianna didn't need her as much as Solanda had once believed she did.

At the top of the stairs, Solanda ducked into her own suite.  She acquired it sometime after Arianna started walking on her own. At that point, Solanda realized she would be a part of this palace for a long time.  She got the unused suite and made it hers by keeping the windows open constantly, using as much natural light as possible, and bringing back Domestic made sheets and blankets from Shadowlands.  Now, after thirteen years, most everything in the suite was Fey made, and it had the feeling of home.

Only Solanda didn't stop long enough to relax.  She moved away from the window, closed her eyes, and Shifted.  Her mass expanded.  Her paws slid into hands, her limbs lengthened, and the fur absorbed into her body.  The feelings were so familiar now that she barely  noticed them. 

When she was done, she was kneeling, naked, near the dressing room. She stretched, arching her back, and wished she had time for a bath.  Then she stood, shook the day's dirt from her limbs, and grabbed fawn colored pants and a cream top.  Not what she had meant to wear to the coming of age ceremony, but if she didn't have time to change it would have to do.

Then she hurried down the hall to Arianna's suite.

The door was open, and Arianna's gown was still on her bed, the hated shoes peeking out of the folds of the dress.  Arianna hadn't been back.

Solanda knew where she was.  She sighed.  Arianna wouldn't take Gift's presence in their lives very well.  She loved Sebastian too much.

Love, for the Fey, was always a problem.

Solanda went back to the stairs and took them two at a time.  The hallway was empty, and Sebastian's door was closed.  Solanda didn't knock.  She turned the knob and entered.

The room always smelled like rock to her, dry, dusty, with a bit of history.  It had a lovely setting, in one of the turrets over the garden.  Both windows were open  —  Sebastian liked air as much as Solanda did  —  and the room was bright.

Arianna sat on the bed, a robe wrapped tightly around her.  She was holding Sebastian's hand, and murmuring softly to him.

The lump was shaking.

He looked as if he'd been crying.  Solanda was glad she missed that. He had a raspy, grating cry.  It sounded both anguish-filled and unnatural.  He had cried like that the night Jewel died, and it had frightened Solanda then.  Now, whenever Solanda heard that sound, she thought of that night, the night she got her Arianna, the night she watched a woman of Black Blood die in the most horrible agony imaginable.

"Isn't this cozy?" Solanda said, in part to announce her presence, and in part to banish the memory.  She grabbed a wooden chair, turned it, and straddled it.  "Sebastian, I need to talk with Arianna."

The lump's eyes were wide and liquid.  Tears still stained his gray-brown face.  "Did … I … do … some-thing … wrong?"

"No," Arianna said firmly.

"You tell me," Solanda said.  "You're the one who let Gift in here."

"He … says … he … should … be … here."

"Does he want to be here?" Solanda asked, ignoring Arianna's perplexed expression.

"No!" The lump made it sound as if being in the palace was the most horrible thing that could ever happen.  Maybe, for Fey, it was.

"You know what's going on," Arianna said.  "You knew those Fey."

"Of course I did."  Solanda rested her arms on the chair back.  "I came here with them.  I've known all of them longer than I've known you."

"What are you scheming?" Arianna asked.  Her blue eyes were flashing. 

"What am I scheming?"  Solanda straightened her back and gripped the top of the chair.  "I'm not scheming anything.  I'm not the one who has hidden her abilities since she could talk."

"I haven't hidden anything," Arianna said.

The lump looked at her.  He put his massive hand over her small one. 

"A robin?  What else can you turn into?" Solanda asked.  "How many other shapes do you have?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."  Arianna sounded haughty, but she looked scared.

"It is my business."  Solanda stood, slowly, and pushed the chair down so that it was out of her way.  It fell with a clatter.  The lump watched her, fear all over his stone face.  But he didn't move, and he gathered Arianna close to him, protectively. 

Solanda approached Arianna and then stopped, hands on hips.  "I gave up everything for you.  I live in this horrible place with these ignorant people, for you."

"I didn't ask you to," Arianna said.

"You wouldn't have survived if I hadn't," Solanda said.  "You were Shifting when you came out of the womb.  The Shaman gave you to your father and told him to care for you.  He didn't know what to do.  He begged her to stay, and she said it was his destiny to care for you."