The Black King (Book 7) (63 page)

Skya sighed and leaned against him. She was exhausted by all the events, and the pregnancy was beginning to take a toll on her. During the last week, he had spent most of his time with her. The look in her eyes when she had seen his wound told him all he needed to know. Whatever their differences were, she loved him just as much as he loved her.

Young Matt turned and looked nervously at the cave. He had been doing that for the last hour or so. Gift wondered what he felt. The boy had as much magick as Coulter, maybe more. Coulter always said he could feel shifts inside the cave. Gift supposed that Matt could as well.

Matt wasn’t completely healed yet either, but he wanted to be here for Coulter. It seemed to Gift that Matt was afraid Arianna would die inside, and that Coulter would not be able to handle the loss.

Gift wasn’t sure Coulter could take it either.

Then Gift heard a shuffling from inside. He started to get up, but Skya held him back.

“Let them come to us,” she said, and he knew she wasn’t saying it out of consideration for them, but out of concern for him. She didn’t entirely believe that Gift had lived inside that cave safely. Her Warders magick had told her to stay away from the interior, and she always followed those warnings. It was, he finally realized, one of the things that made her a good guide.

Finally, Coulter walked out. Alone. Gift felt his heart lurch. He struggled to his feet. Skya clung to his good arm, concern on her face.

The others were standing too.

Coulter continued walking to the center of the platform. He seemed abnormally calm.

“Where...is...Ari?” Sebastian asked. He sounded panicked. Dear Sebastian, asking what was in everyone’s heart.

“Coming,” Coulter said.

Gift let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Coulter faced the cave, and so did everyone else.

At that moment, Arianna walked out.

Gift didn’t realize how wonderful it felt just to see his sister walk. He had been afraid he wasn’t ever going to see her again. Skya squeezed his arm and then let go, as if she expected him to run and hug Arianna. But that didn’t feel appropriate.

His sister came toward him, moving easily. The old fluidity was back in her movements. This was Arianna.

And it wasn’t.

Something was different about her face. Her birthmark was gone. And her eyes seemed bluer than they had before.

“Gift,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “May I speak to you?”

“Of course,” he said, taking her hand. She led him to a place near the rock overhang. Everyone else moved toward the edge of the platform. Coulter, Skya, and Sebastian all looked back as if they were wondering why they were excluded.

Then he and Arianna stepped under the shadow of the rocks.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She nodded. “They healed me.”

“They?”

“Coulter says they’re Powers, but they’re not. They’re the Islander equivalent, whatever that is.”

“They repaired all the damage?” The relief he felt was profound.

“Not all,” she said. “I had to make a bargain with them.”

He studied her. He remembered his father’s stricture that none of them drink from the fountain. Coulter had enforced that for fifteen years. “What bargain?”

“Most of it was stuff I was going to do anyway,” she said. “Marry Coulter, have children—”

“Marry Coulter? Does he know?”

She smiled and put a finger on Gift’s lips. “Not yet. I’ll tell him. It’ll work this time.”

Gift knew it would. He had seen how protective Coulter was of her and how he didn’t want to lose her again. “What was the rest of the bargain?”

The smile left her face. “I’m not Fey any more.”

“Of course you’re Fey,” he said. “Mother was Fey. You don’t stop being Fey just because they say so. You still have the features, the ears—”

“I’m not,” she said. “They couldn’t give me back my Fey magick.”

It took him a moment to understand. “The Shifting and the Vision are both gone?”

“The Vision stays. I never lost it. But the Shifting is gone forever. And my children will be pure Islander.”

“How strange,” Gift said.

Arianna nodded. She blinked hard, as if losing this hurt her more than she wanted to say.

“So,” she said, her voice shaking, “since I’m not Fey, I can’t remain Black Queen.”

“But you have Vision,” Gift said. “That’s all you need—”

“It wouldn’t be right, Gift. I want to stay Queen of Blue Isle. In fact, that was one of the conditions, but I can’t, in good conscience, rule a people I am no longer a part of.”

“I don’t think you can lose what you are—”

“Gift,” she said softly. “I was always more Islander than Fey.”

He was silent for a moment. She was raised Islander. Even though their father had tried to keep her in touch with their mother’s people, he hadn’t known the intricacies of the culture. Neither had Arianna.

And she hadn’t gone out and learned like Gift had.

“You’ll change your mind,” he said.

“I won’t. This is how it should be. This is how it should always have been. You’re the eldest. The Throne is yours.”

A shiver ran through him. This, then, was the Vision the Shaman had seen. Arianna giving her scepter to Gift.

They had been right. Gift was to be the Black King.

He shook his head. Was Skya right? Did the Powers manipulate everyone so that their wishes came true? Had he been destined for this from birth? Or from the moment he touched the Black Throne?

“I don’t want it, Ari. I’ve never wanted it.”

“Good,” she said. “Then you’ll never turn into someone like Rugad, someone who wanted to hang onto it even after death.”

He sighed, and glanced out at the group still waiting at the edge of the platform. They were consciously trying not to watch Arianna and Gift. Matt was pointing out landmarks, but Coulter kept looking over his shoulder. Once his gaze met Gift’s, and he glanced away quickly.

Arianna wasn’t going to let him argue with her. And he didn’t know how. One of them had to rule the Fey. And if she didn’t want to, he had to.

“I have only one request,” Arianna said.

Gift looked at her. The brightness of her eyes was beautiful to see. She radiated health now, where this morning she looked near death.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I want Blue Isle to be its own country again. The Fey will be welcome here, both as citizens and as traders. But I don’t want the Isle to be part of the Empire any more. Can you do that, Gift?”

“I take this to mean you don’t want me to go on to conquer Leut?”

She didn’t laugh. “I suppose you can use the Isle as a launching point if you need it.”

“I don’t, Ari,” he said. “It was a joke.”

She smiled, but she was waiting. This was important to her.

“You realize that would make me the first Black King to lose ground,” Gift said.

She nodded.

“But I’ll do it. It’ll show my reign is different.” The words sounded strange to him. His reign. He wondered how Skya would take it. Then he remembered how she had looked at him as she dressed his wound, and realized that however she felt about being his queen, they would be able to manage. Together.

“You’ll be the best Black King the Fey have ever known,” Arianna said.

“I don’t know about that,” Gift said.

“You’re the only one who has experienced Warrior and Domestic magick. You’ve been all over the Empire. You know the costs of war and the benefits of peace. You’ll be fine.”

It was his turn to smile. “Will I be welcome on Blue Isle?”

“You’re a citizen of the Isle,” she said. “You’re the heir to the throne, at least until Coulter and I can do something about that.”

He pulled her in close. She hugged him tightly. He understood what she had done. The Places of Power were no longer in the same Empire. They were separate, just as he suspected they were intended to be.

He would never be allowed on this mountainside again, not as long as there were other heirs to Blue Isle’s throne. He doubted he would miss this place. And he would come back to the Isle. He wanted to see his sister, his nieces and nephews, and occasionally, the place of his birth.

Slowly she released him from the hug. There were tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry about the Shifting,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said.

He slipped his good arm around her, and she put her head on his shoulder. The best thing about this was that it made them equals in all ways, something he suspected that they were supposed to be.

“I guess we should tell the others,” he said.

“Do you think they’ll be surprised?” she asked with a grin. It was the old Arianna, the mischievous one, and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed her until she returned.

“I don’t know,” he said, leading her to their loved ones. “Let’s go find out.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today
bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the
Asimov’s
Readers Choice award, and the
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Readers Choice Award.

To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, fictionriver.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

THE BLACK KING

Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

First published by Bantam Books in 2000

Published by WMG Publishing

Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing

Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

Cover art copyright © Dirk Berger

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Fey Series

Acknowledgements

THE RETURN

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THE BLACK HEIR

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

VISIONS

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX