The Black King (Book 7) (21 page)

Gift stopped. Skya reached him, and so did the rest of the party. They waited for him.

“My name is Gift,” he said. “I am the Black Queen’s brother and the Heir to the Black Throne. You will let me pass.”

No Fey dared refuse an order from a member of the Black Family unless they had higher orders rescinding it. But Fey rarely got in the way of disputes between the Black Family members. It was too dangerous. Arianna should have had Islander guards if she wanted to prevent Gift’s entry. They would have had no qualms about turning him away.

Slowly the guards raised their spears. One of them nodded to him.

“Forgive us, Sir,” he said, using the Fey form of address. “We had orders not to let anyone into the palace without prior approval.”

“I’m not changing those orders. I’m merely trying to bring my friends into my home.” Then he smiled at the guards. “Carry on.”

The one who had spoken gave him a tentative smile. The other did not meet Gift’s gaze.

Skya was watching him as if she didn’t recognize him. Xihu looked thoughtful. His own guards had moved even closer, as if the encounter had unnerved them. Gift could no longer see Ace. As per instruction, his Gull Riders had made themselves scarce.

He walked through the gate as if he had left only an hour ago. He tried not to stare at the changes. And there were changes.

The hay which was often stacked near the wall was gone. The stables were larger and seemed to be better cared for than ever. There were more horses than Gift had ever seen, tended by Fey grooms. The dogs that usually ran loose through the courtyard were gone. There were dogs, but not the rangy mutts that once had control of the place. These dogs were controlled, sitting along the wall as if waiting for a command.

Their silent vigil made him nervous.

The kitchen door was open, and from it he could smell fresh bread. He did not enter that way, although he would have in the past. Now he was going to use the entrance to the main hall, the one the Black King had used when he had taken the palace from Gift’s father, Nicholas.

As Gift walked along the path toward that door, he saw a Fey infantry unit practicing its sword-fighting technique near the west wall. The unit had divided itself into pairs and was working on individual combat. There was no sound of metal on metal, though. They were using a technique he hadn’t seen since his grandfather was alive: silent practice, with more than a foot between the swords and a referee on one side.

This unit was young, then, and not that experienced. It would be a matter of days before they could progress to actual contact between the swords.

Arianna had never learned that sword-fighting technique. But Gift’s uncle Bridge had fought in the Nyeian campaign. Had he been the one to instigate this?

More guards stood by the arched doors that led into the Great Hall. When Gift saw them, he nodded, then pulled the doors open before they could say a word. He strode through the doors as if he were part of an invading army.

He was beginning to feel as if he were.

One of the guards followed his party inside. The guard was thin and Fey. Scraggly hairs grew on his chin; a young man’s attempt at a beard.

“Sir, I—”

“Announce me,” Gift said. He sounded so much like his grandfather that it startled him.

“Sir—”

“In case you don’t recognize me, my name is Gift. I am the Black Queen’s brother. And I must say, the welcome I’ve had since I’ve come to Blue Isle has left something to be desired. Now, find my sister and announce me.”

He didn’t raise his voice, not really. He just emphasized the words as he reached the final sentence. It was his grandfather Rugar’s method, one he had used often with his troops when Gift was a boy, and it had the same effect with this young guard. The boy bobbed his head in acknowledgement, then hurried down the corridor, twisting his hands as he went.

Gift turned slightly to make sure his party was with him, then he asked one of the Foot Soldiers to close the doors. Without waiting to see if his order was carried out, he turned around.

He hadn’t been in this hall in a long time. The swords still hung on the walls. The arched windows with their bubbled glass made the entire place seem airy. He had often envied Arianna growing up here. Where Gift had grown up there had been no light at all.

Gift was tempted to cross the corridor and enter the audience hall, to see if his Islander family’s coat of arms still hung or if someone had replaced it with the Fey’s. Instead, he stood, silently, hands clasped behind his back, and tried not to feel as if someone else had moved into his home.

A Fey man who wore his hair in Oudoun braids came through the corridor that the guard had gone down. He walked without hurry as if a group of visitors who had disregarded the rules was as common as the evening meal.

When he reached them, he stopped before Gift, peering into his face as if to confirm Gift’s identity. First the man looked at Gift’s eyes. They told his heritage more than anything else. No other Fey of his age had blue eyes. Then the man’s gaze fell to Gift’s chin. Gift suppressed a start of surprise. The man wasn’t looking for blue eyes or a resemblance to Arianna. He was making certain Gift wasn’t a Doppelgänger or a Shapeshifter.

“I am DiPalmet,” the man said, “assistant to Arianna. She is waiting for you. She will see you alone.”

Gift felt the muscles in his neck tighten. “She will see me with my entourage.”

His tone, sharp and commanding, seemed to have no effect on DiPalmet. “I have strict instructions.”

“I’m countermanding them.”

DiPalmet stared at Gift. Gift wasn’t sure what he would do if DiPalmet didn’t listen. Then DiPalmet nodded once, more an acknowledgement than in any kind of agreement.

“Such matters are for the Black Family to sort,” he said.

Gift made no reply.

DiPalmet led Gift toward the stairs. For a moment, he thought DiPalmet was going to take him to Arianna’s personal apartments, but they climbed right past the second floor. They continued up, the stone staircase narrowing, and it took Gift a while to realize they were climbing one of the towers.

He had thought that Arianna would at least see him in the audience room.

When he finally understood where they were going, he hoped he was wrong. They were heading toward the North Tower. Arianna had hated the tower, wanted to close it off, even though she knew that wasn’t practical. She and Sebastian and their father had been captured by Rugad’s forces in that tower, and she had had a particularly nasty set of Visions there. Then Rugad had used it as his base of operations because he had been able to see the entire area. Arianna had said that the tower had a stink nothing could get rid of.

The stairwell was cold, the stones cracked. A water stain ran down one side, and there was the slight smell of mold. Arianna used to keep the palace in good repair. Had she stopped? Or were most people forbidden to come to the tower as they had been in Rugad’s day?

The higher they climbed, the more he noticed shadows on the walls. A lot of the military decorations from times in the Isle’s past were gone.

Just once, he glanced back. Skya was holding her robes up so that her distinctive slipper boots wouldn’t get stuck in the hems. Xihu had one hand on the wall as she climbed. The Foot Soldiers were bringing up the rear, looking solemn.

When they reached the tower door, DiPalmet entered first. “Your brother insisted on his entourage.”

“Did he?” Arianna’s voice sounded cold. “Then fetch one for me. Guards and the rest of the family. We may as well make it cozy.”

Gift couldn’t see her yet, but he felt an odd sort of disconnection. He recognized her voice and didn’t at the same time. It was almost as if someone were mimicking her—a good mimic who didn’t understand the emotion constantly flowing through her tone.

DiPalmet stood aside and Gift entered. The North Tower looked the same as he remembered it: a smattering of chairs arranged for convenience instead of comfort; a long table that looked dwarfed in the center of the room; and the columns that broke up the line of sight and made him feel as if someone could be hiding in the room and no one else would be the wiser.

Arianna had her back to him. She was gazing out the east windows. Through them, he could see the Cardidas.

She wore her hair braided down her back Fey style. Instead of the gowns she had worn in deference to her Islander heritage, she wore a Fey military uniform—pants and a jerkin. She looked stronger than he remembered, more muscular, although the Arianna he had spent the most time with had been twig-thin from stress and lack of food. He had never grown accustomed to her looks after she had gone back to her normal weight.

He turned to his party and waved at them to scatter throughout the room. He wanted them here, but didn’t want them in the way. Skya stayed by the door. Xihu moved toward a column as if she didn’t want to be seen. The Foot Soldiers waited for Gift to move first.

He wasn’t quite sure why he was so reluctant. He hadn’t seen Arianna in years. Normally, he would have hugged her, but something about her posture held him back. That and the coldness he had heard in her voice. He was no longer sure of his welcome. And he wasn’t sure of his emotions. He certainly didn’t feel like hugging her.

If he crossed the long expanse of floor between them, it felt as if he had lost the first battle in a protracted war. So he clasped his hands behind his back, and said softly, “Arianna.”

She didn’t turn right away. In fact, she didn’t move at all. He would have spoken louder, but that too seemed like some kind of surrender. What kind of game was she playing?

“I thought you were going to stay in the Eccrasian Mountains until you became a Shaman.” She used that cold, cold voice again and she spoke in such a flat tone he had trouble distinguishing the words.

“Apparently I am not Shamanic material,” he said.

“Because of your Black Blood?”

“Because I killed someone.”

She turned then, an eyebrow raised. It was Arianna, right down to the birthmark on her chin, the mark that showed her to be a Shape-Shifter. She looked slightly older, a few lines around her mouth that hadn’t been there before, but pretty much the same as the woman he had left—except for her eyes.

They were startlingly different, their blue the color of ice on a frigid morning. If he didn’t know better, he would have said this wasn’t Arianna at all. Perhaps it was her twin or a Doppelgänger. But Arianna had no twin, and there were no telltale flecks of gold in her eyes.

“I thought you were too gentle to kill.” There was mockery in her voice, so slight that he wondered if the others had heard it.

“I guess war makes soldiers of us all.”

She raised her chin. “The Shaman threw you out?”

“I left them.”

“Because they didn’t want you?”

If her eyes hadn’t been so alien, he would have answered her honestly. He would have told her about the Shamans’ insistence that he take the Black Throne. He would have explained what he saw there, what he learned. Instead, he said, “I left because I heard you were in trouble.”

“From a Gull Rider?”

“From a Vision.”

She made a small sound of acknowledgement. Then she shrugged one shoulder and smiled. “As you can see, I’m fine.”

“Actually, Ari, you don’t seem fine to me. This greeting has been unusual. I thought we were family.”

The smile remained on her lips as if it had been sewn there. “We are.”

“I thought we were close.”

“We were.”

The words hurt more than he wanted them to. “What changed?”

“You. You have no business on Blue Isle.”

He let out a small breath of air. “It’s my home, Ari.”

She said nothing. Those blue eyes remained on his, steady and unconvinced.

He couldn’t quite believe this. Whatever he had imagined his reception to be during the long journey, it hadn’t been this. “You’re actually afraid that I want your throne?”

“What other purpose do you have here?”

“Besides seeing you and Sebastian?”

She said nothing. His words seemed to make no difference to her. Then she looked over his shoulder at something beyond him, and he turned. Two Fey stood in the door. The man was as old as Gift’s parents, and had the look of Gift’s grandfather Rugar. The woman was tall and very young. Her sharp angular features made her look more like Gift’s mother than Arianna did.

“Bridge, Lyndred,” Arianna said. “You can enter.”

They came in side by side. They walked around the Foot Solders and stopped by the south windows, as if they didn’t want to be noticed.

Lyndred was staring at Gift, her gaze as cool and appraising as Arianna’s had been. Bridge’s expression wasn’t quite as sharp. He seemed uncomfortable.

Gift looked back at his sister. Had she used them to answer his question? Or had she used them as a dodge? He couldn’t tell.

“We have to finish this discussion, Arianna.”

She crossed her arms. “It was your idea to have your entourage join us. I have no idea who these strangers are. Bridge and Lyndred, at least, are family. And family seems to mean so much to you.”

He couldn’t believe this was his sister. Something had happened to her. Dark magick, his mother had said. And his mother had said that it threatened him as well.

“All right. Let’s talk, just the two of us.”

Arianna looked at the others in the room. “You are all dismissed.”

“Gift.” It was Skya. He turned. She shook her head slightly. What did she see that he hadn’t?

“I’ll be all right.”

Her face shut down. She nodded once, then left the room. The others followed. Arianna frowned when she saw Xihu. Did the Shaman make her nervous? Gift couldn’t tell.

Lyndred was the last to leave. She paused at the door, holding its frame with one hand, and looked over her shoulder at the two of them.

“Sure you want to do this alone?” she asked Arianna. But even though the words were an offer of help, they had that same undercurrent of mockery that Arianna had been using with Gift. Something was going on here, something he didn’t entirely understand.

“You’re dismissed, Lyndred.” Arianna actually sounded annoyed.