The Black Queen (Book 6) (52 page)

I don’t have to appropriate her Sight
. Rugad was concentrating on Coulter. Coulter had done something that hurt Rugad. Rugad had spread himself too thin, and he had made a mistake.
She shares it with me. She shares everything with me. Are you jealous of that, Islander
?

She had finally reached Coulter. She had to get his attention without drawing Rugad. What would Rugad do if he were in her position?

The boldest possible thing.

She made that little part of herself feign waking up, moaning as if in great pain, and then she sat up. She would walk toward them, and that would distract Rugad.

It already had. He cocked his head slightly. She had no more time for thinking.

She meshed her imaginary body with Coulter’s. He jolted, startled, and a bit frightened. She could feel him now, as if he were part of her.
Shh,
she thought.
Hold on to me, no matter what happens.

She felt more love than she had ever felt in her life. It wrapped itself around her, clung to her, made her part of Coulter.
I have you
, he thought.
What about Rugad?

I can distract him.
She made her other part start to run toward them. A part of Rugad reached out and built a wall in front of her. But she could go through walls if she concentrated, and she did. He apparently didn’t want to use the strength to fight her.

Part of him was watching Coulter as if waiting for a response. Coulter didn’t remember what Rugad had last said to him. She sent the memory, the bit about jealousy.

“I’m not jealous of you,” Coulter said to Rugad, while asking Arianna,
Where does the construct live?

In my core.

Show me.

She did. She showed him the center of herself and how to get there through the labyrinth that Rugad had established in her mind.

“Of course you’re not jealous,” Rugad said. “You haven’t seen her in so long, you have no idea what she’s become. She’s more like me than you could ever imagine.”

“You lie,” Arianna said through Coulter’s mouth, using his voice.
Sorry
, she sent. He was smiling inside.

I was going to say the same thing.

Rugad frowned. Had he heard her? She couldn’t tell. She had to act now. She sent her other part through the wall Rugad had built. He whirled as if feeling the violation, and then he vanished.

We only have a moment,
Coulter thought.

Not even that.
Arianna called the other part back to her, and as she did, felt a whoosh of power. Rugad’s giant hand had nearly crushed her again.

Coulter started to separate from her.

Stop
, she thought.

No,
he said.
We do this my way.

He sent a picture to her of what he wanted to do. Before she could protest, he separated from her, unlocked his Link door, opened it, and shoved her through it, closing the door behind him. She was standing in the Link, in the tunnel of light between their two bodies. She was no longer inside herself.

She thought of pounding on the door, but it would do no good. She stood in the tunnel of light that was Link between them. It was still healthy and strong despite the years, despite everything.

He wanted her to wait there while he fought Rugad. Coulter was going to the place Rugad had infiltrated, the place Rugad had conquered, and he was going to pull Rugad out. Coulter was going to tie him up, using Enchanter’s tricks, and then Coulter would open the Link door again. Arianna would return to her own body, and Coulter would leave, pulling Rugad out with him.

It was risky. It was so very risky. If Coulter lost, he died, and Arianna would never be able to return to her own body. There was also a chance that Rugad would find her here, drag her back inside, and imprison her again.

But she felt stronger than she had in days. She had help, good help. Coulter’s help. And with it, she would return to herself.

But this was the hardest part. This was the part where all she could do was wait.

THIRTY

SEGER CLOSED HER EYES. The fingertips on her right hand brushed Sebastian’s hard chest. His neck was cool beneath her left hand. It felt odd to hold a neck and not feel the heart beat, the blood pulsing through the veins.

Sebastian was completely still. He didn’t even breathe just to be polite, like he usually did. He was as motionless as she had instructed him to be.

The voice was threaded through each part of his stone. The blackness looked thicker than it had before, as if it had gained more space, as if there were more to it than a simple voice.

She used her right fingernail to pry some of the blackness loose. She expected Rugad to speak, or the blackness to do something, but nothing happened. She was able to pry a bit of the blackness loose as if it were a thread coming out of an old sweater.

With her index finger and thumb, she pulled on that strand of blackness. The last time she had done this, the blackness had pulled back. This time, it didn’t. This time it stretched, as if it were made of clay. By pulling it, she realized, she was making it stronger.

“Con,” she said without opening her eyes, “put the jar next to me.”

“Open?” he asked.

“Yes, but have the stopper at ready.”

It meant he had to set down the sword, she knew, but that was an acceptable risk. She heard his clothing rustle as he moved, heard the pop of the stopper as it pulled out of the jar, and then felt his warmth beside her.

“Ready,” he said.

The blackness had not moved. It didn’t feel alive like it had last time. Last time, she had gotten the sense of a hidden intelligence. Rugad must have been monitoring it from Arianna. With luck, he was so preoccupied with Coulter, he wasn’t paying attention to Sebastian.

Seger’s heart pounded. There wasn’t much time.

She twisted the blackness around her finger, then let go of Sebastian’s neck. With her other hand, she pinched off that bit of blackness.

“Move the jar beneath my right hand,” she said. If she opened her eyes, she would lose the healing vision and have to start over. She didn’t want to do that.

She felt the lip of the glass against her skin. She stuck her finger inside the glass, and pushed the blackness off.

“Cover it,” she said. “When I hold my hand like that again, we repeat until Sebastian shatters.”

She twisted more blackness, pinched it, and dumped it in the jar. She did this for what seemed like forever. The blackness threading through him was growing thinner. Rugad had used some of Arianna’s Shifting ability to modify this voice. Normally, Seger should have been able to tug it free, but he had given it some sort of elasticity, something that made it even more difficult to remove.

He had anticipated her.

She worked harder, using some of her weaker Domestic abilities to work the thread. Instead of wrapping it around a finger, she wrapped it around her entire hand. The work was exacting, tiring, and she could feel sweat pouring off her forehead.

Finally the blackness started to pull through Sebastian like real thread.

“Hurts,” he whispered. That surprised her. Nothing was supposed to physically hurt him.

“Remember what I said.” Seger couldn’t say more than that, in case Rugad had joined them.

The blackness kept pulling, actually cutting through Sebastian’s stone skin. Even if he didn’t shatter, the thread would cut him in half.

Around Sebastian’s stone, Seger saw light. Con inhaled sharply. Apparently the light was visible on the real physical level as well as the healing level.

It was a golden light, very strong, very pure and very powerful. It seeped through the cracks in Sebastian’s skin, covered the blackness like water pouring over sand, and illuminated the air around it.

Seger had to concentrate to hold onto the blackness. She stuck both hands in it, wrapping it around her fingers, and clenching her fists. The golden light was growing, making the darkness harder and the stone brittle. The blackness seemed slipperier than it had before, but she clung to it with all of her strength.

The light expanded all the cracks in Sebastian’s skin. Seger squinched up her eyes, forgetting, for a moment, that she had them closed. With her healing vision alone, the light was almost too powerful. It felt as if it would blind her.

Then, suddenly, Sebastian exploded. Shards of stone flew everywhere. She had to use all of her strength to remain standing . The stone pelted her, cutting into her skin. Her face felt as if it were shredded. But she kept her eyes closed and her hands clenched.

Beside her, Con made a small sound. Bits of stone hit the floor like hail. A wind enveloped them, and then disappeared.

And the light was gone too.

But Seger remained standing. Blood was warm against her skin, and she was covered with pinprick pains. But she still held the blackness. It formed a man’s shape made out of thread. Not Sebastian’s shape, but Rugad’s when he was younger, lanky and tall.

“The jar,” she said, her mouth not working quite right. “I need the jar, Con.”

She felt it bump against her elbow.

“Sorry,” he said. He sounded shaky too.

“Hurry!”

She heard a small clang, had a horrible moment when she thought the jar had broken, and then Con said, “All right.”

Carefully, she moved her hands over the jar, hoping that the blackness, the threadman, would be lured by the blood around the lid, not the blood oozing out of her cuts. For a moment, the blackness seemed to hesitate. Then she heard a cry in Fey, a man’s cry of protest—

Nooooooo

—as the threadman swirled into a large black mass, and then was sucked into the jar.

She kept her eyes closed. There was no blackness on her hands. She opened them to make sure, but no residue remained, not on her skin, not in the air.

“Cover it,” she said, and heard the stopper pop into place.

“Done,” Con said. “Now do we help Sebastian?”

“Not yet.”

She still had her eyes closed. She crouched, felt for a stone shard, and found one. She held it up. There was no blackness threading through it, or the next shard she touched or the next.

They had succeeded.

She sat down and opened her eyes. She was covered in bits of stone and blood. She looked at Con. Blood ran down his face like tears. His clothing was ripped and there was a long laceration on his right arm. But he held the jar which, to her normal sight, looked empty.

Seger held out her hand. He gave her the jar. She set it on the nightstand, and then brushed herself off. “Remove any shards from yourself that you find,” she said. She would have to treat both of them later, to clean out the magick residue. But right now, she was worried about Sebastian.

She picked the clay off her table and set it on the ground in the middle of most of the shards. There were bits of cloth all over the floor as well from the wrap Sebastian had insisted on wearing. Con was gingerly brushing at himself. With his left hand, he removed a sliver the size of a knife from his laceration. They piled the shards around the clay, and then she looked at him.

“What’s the clay for?” Con asked.

“In case we’ve lost some of him,” Seger said. And to replace parts he had already lost in previous shatterings. Her mouth was dry. What she hadn’t told either of them was that, sometimes, golems couldn’t be reassembled. Too many shatterings, not enough strength, not enough original stone. Anything could cause the destruction. And if Rugad had bled off some of Sebastian’s strength, Sebastian might not be able to come back.

“Are we ready now?” Con asked. He had a large cut at the base of his lower lip. It made him speak cautiously.

She glanced at the jar, then scanned the room. Except for the stone shards that had fallen everywhere—the floor, the bed, the tables—it looked the same as it had before. The air tingled slightly, hinting at another presence, but the presence felt friendly. That would be Sebastian. She couldn’t sense Rugad anywhere. She hadn’t sensed him inside Sebastian either.

“I guess we are,” she said.

Con nodded once, then picked up the sword. “Better move,” he said to her.

She backed away, careful not to stand on any small bits of stone.

He placed the sword on top of the main stone pile. The room spun and the air was sucked away. Seger slid backwards and slammed against the bed. Con flew in the opposite direction and hit the wall. Thunder boomed once, twice, and a third time.

Then the air came back.

Seger glanced at the jar first. It remained closed and unbroken. She took a deep breath.

Sebastian was sitting on top of the sword, the blade against his heels. He was nude. Her repair magick had worked. All the cracks in his skin were gone. He looked younger and, if it weren’t for the grayness of his skin, exactly like Gift.

Slowly he touched his throat. “It…is…gone.”