The Black Queen (Book 6) (7 page)

She suppressed a smile. As a child, she used to stand before those portraits and wonder how she fit in. She had hated how different she looked. Now she looked at her own portrait and saw how she did fit. Her long narrow face and angular features were a heritage from her mother, but the roundness to her cheeks and her expression came from her father. She also saw, in that portrait, what people had remarked on since Gift came into her life years ago: that she and her natural born brother were male and female sides to the same face. Outside of identical twins, she had never seen two people who looked more alike. Not even Gift and the man who literally had been modeled after him, Sebastian.

Arianna went to the end of the corridor and peered out the bubbled glass window. The garden was barren except for the plants that remained green year-round. She saw them as splotches of color against the brown. Sebastian had to be down there somewhere.

She turned, and almost collided with Seger.

“For a woman who was concerned about her health,” Seger said, “you seem most energetic.”

Arianna shrugged. “I’m happy to be feeling well.”

Seger grunted as if she didn’t quite believe her. Arianna wasn’t sure she believed herself. She used to have this kind of energy as a young woman. Since she ruled the Fey, she couldn’t remember feeling this kind of buoyant joy.

She grabbed her skirt in one hand, and hurried toward the stairs. Seger followed. Arianna took the shallow steps two at a time, something her personal guards had complained about. But the stairs were built for little short Islander legs, and she was one of the tallest of the Fey. She felt more comfortable going down the stairs in this way.

She reached the ground floor, took a side corridor, and pushed open the double doors that led into the garden. The air was even cooler here than she expected, and smelled of freshly turned dirt. She would get the hem of her skirt filthy, but she didn’t care. She stood on the flagstone patio that one of her advisors had begged her to add so that she and Sebastian could hold an occasional meeting outside without ruining their clothes, and then she stepped off into the dirt.

Sebastian was leaning against the palace wall, his gray cracked skin blending in with the stone. He wore his usual black, which set off his black hair, and made his gray eyes seem even lighter than they were. He could never be handsome—his skin prevented that—but he had an arresting charm that she was certain had come from Gift.

Sebastian was a Golem, created by Domestic Fey long dead to replace the infant Gift when he was kidnapped. According to most rules of magick, Sebastian should have died weeks after he was created, but he did not. He was thirty-three years old, ancient for a Golem, and had survived two shatterings that Arianna knew of. He was made of stone, but inside him was a person. The materiels of his personality had been supplied by Gift over the years. The two were Linked from infancy. In some ways, Sebastian was a part of Gift that had lived separately from him since they were babies.

Arianna went to Sebastian and took his cold smooth hands in hers. They had been close since she was born, and more than once, Sebastian had saved her life.

“Sebastian,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”

He turned his head slowly and looked at her. Because of his extremely slow movements, and the cautious way he spoke, some thought him feeble. But he wasn’t. His stone body had great limitations, most of which Sebastian had tried—and failed—to overcome.

“I…scared…my-self,” he said in that broken way of his. His voice was raspy and had no melody at all.

She held his hands tighter. “How?”

“That…voice…,” he said. “The…one…I…found. The…one…you… and…Fat-her…said…I…could…not…use.”

Her entire body went rigid. The voice he was referring to was Rugad’s voice. The voice of the Black King, Arianna’s great-grandfather. With his bizarre magickal abilities, Sebastian found the voice and thought it a good substitute for his own. When he had used it after Rugad’s death, however, he had so frightened his family that they asked him never to use it again.

“What about that voice?” she asked.

“I…spoke…with…it.”

“On purpose?”

He shook his head in his own distinct way. One careful movement to the right and back again. “It…came…out…of…my …mouth. I…could…not…stop…it.”

“What did it say?”

His fingers had wrapped around hers. His grip was so strong she felt her bones rub together, but she said nothing. He was terrified. She hadn’t seen him terrified in years.

“It…said…” He closed his eyes. “‘Where is that girl?’”

The voice that came out of his mouth was not his. Arianna took a step backwards, wiping her hands on her skirt as if she had touched the body of her dead great-grandfather. Hearing his voice again made it seem almost as if he were alive.

She turned, saw Seger behind her, hands clasped over her heart. “Don’t let him do that again,” Seger said.

“Sebastian,” Arianna said. “Sebastian, open your eyes.”

He did. They were filled with tears. “It…hap-pen-ed…again, did-n’t…it?”

She nodded.

“What…does…it…mean, Ari?”

She didn’t know. Seger stepped forward, almost as if she were coming between the two of them on purpose. “When did this first happen?” she asked.

“Not…long…ago. I…saw…a…light. It…went…through…me. Then…the…voice…” He shuddered. “After…that, I…came… here.”

“Did you say anything else?”

Sebastian shook his head.

“Did anyone hear you?”

Sebastian shook his head again. One of the tears left his eye, and ran down the cracks in his cheek. “Did…I…do…some-thing…wrong?”

“No,” Seger said. “You did something right by coming here alone. When the voice comes, can you anticipate it?”

Sebastian looked at Arianna. She wiped away another tear that hovered on his lower lid. “I…do…not…know.”

“You closed your eyes before you used the voice. Was—”

“I…did…not…use…it!” Sebastian’s lower lip was trembling. “It…used…me.”

Seger let out a small sigh, as if she had expected that and feared it at the same time. Arianna looked at her. “What is it?”

“That light was important. I wish I had seen it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after it went through you, you had a headache and Rugad’s voice developed a mind of its own,” Seger said.

“You…are…ill?” Sebastian asked Ari.

“Not now,” she said. “Seger helped.”

“What…is…hap-pen-ing?”

“I don’t know,” Seger said. “But I think we’ve been very careless. We shouldn’t have let you keep Rugad’s voice, Sebastian.”

“He’s had it for years. Nothing has happened.” Arianna slipped an arm around her brother. He was shaking. Sometimes he seemed much younger than he was.

“I know,” Seger said. “But I think it’s time we removed it.”

“Can you do that without hurting Sebastian?” If the answer was no, Arianna would forbid any attempt. Sebastian was one of the most important people in her life, perhaps the most important since her father had disappeared.

“I don’t know,” Seger said. “I’ve never removed a voice from a Golem before.”

“I…want…it…gone,” Sebastian said. He took Arianna’s hand again. “I’m…sor-ry…I…found…it.”

Arianna smiled at him, giving him reassurance she didn’t feel. Everything seemed like it had changed suddenly, and she didn’t know why. Or how.

“I’m going to need help,” Seger said. “I suspect what we’re facing is something greater than Domestic magick can deal with.”

Arianna froze. “What do you mean?”

“Let me do some investigating first, and then I’ll tell you.”

“So you’re not going to follow me any more,” Arianna said.

“I’ll be with you as much as I can. But this is strange, and the fact it has attacked both of you is worrisome. If Gift weren’t with the Shaman in the Eccrasian Mountains, I’d be concerned for him as well. But if anything has happened to him, they’ll know what to do.”

Gift. Arianna hadn’t thought of him. “Why do you think something would have happened to Gift?”

“You and Sebastian are powerful targets. Perhaps someone is going after the entire branch of your family.”

Sebastian leaned forward slightly. “You…do…not…know…if… others…were…hurt. Be-fore…you…think…con-spir-a-cy, check…on…that.”

Seger smiled at him, a smile as fond as the ones Arianna sometimes bestowed on him. “I’ll do that, Sebastian,” she said. “I will check everything. Let me know if the voice returns. And you,” she looked at Arianna, “make sure someone is beside you to help you if the headaches come again. I’d suggest Luke. He did well finding me the first time.”

Arianna felt a slight jolt. The guard who had helped her, the one she hadn’t recognized, had been the captain of her Islander guards. Luke. He had been family for years. Not recognizing Luke was like not recognizing Sebastian.

“Ari?” Seger frowned at her.

Arianna swallowed. “I will,” she said. And then, because this may have been worse than she initially thought, she added, “Do this quickly. Speed may be as important here as knowledge.”

“I know,” Seger said, and left the garden.

Sebastian pulled Arianna into a hug. She let him. His solid body was familiar against hers. “I…do…not…want…his…voice.”

“Seger will help.”

“What…if…she…can’t?”

“We have the entire Fey Empire now,” Arianna said. “There’ll be someone in it who can help you.”

She hoped. Because she wasn’t thinking so much of the removal as the warning Seger had given about that voice when it first reappeared.
If you use someone else’s voice too much, you take on part of his soul.

Arianna had been the one to recommend that Sebastian keep the voice. She had thought they would need it to convince the Fey that she should be Black Queen. But the Fey had accepted her easily, just as she had been told they would, and no one thought of Rugad’s voice again.

Until now.

They had been careless. They had put Sebastian at risk.
She
had put Sebastian at risk. She hugged him close. He was so gentle and precious. She couldn’t lose him now.

“Do…not…wor-ry, Ari,” he said. “We…will…be…all…right.”

But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything any more.

THREE

COULTER SAT before the five swords guarding Blue Isle’s Place of Power. The swords were huge, twice as tall as he was, carved with an ancient magick. They stood, points down, in a triangular pattern in front of the door, a single sword in front, two behind it and then two more. Their jeweled hilts glinted in the spring sun, and their blades, brightly polished, reflected him as a square blur of pale flesh and blond hair.

He could see the entire valley from here: the Cardidas River flowing red as it always did through the Cliffs of Blood; the village of Constant, now more of a town, huddled against the base of the mountain; and the ridge line where, long ago, the Fey had initiated an attack that should have won them Blue Isle.

Instead, Blue Isle remained intact. Ruled by the daughter of Blue Isle’s king, in an unbroken line that had existed for over a thousand years. That the Queen of Blue Isle also had Fey blood showed the cunning of her parents; they had foreseen their unity as the only way to keep Blue Isle’s unique culture intact, and to keep the Fey from constantly attacking. The Black King of the Fey, Arianna’s great-grandfather, had wanted Arianna to become fully Fey, to lose her Blue Isle sympathies and become a ruthless military leader, but he had lost that battle early. Then here, on this mountainside, he had lost his life.

Coulter should have liked this place for that very reason. But it was here, in this cave, that he learned his own limitations. He had lost the only parent he had ever had, and had been so stunned by grief that he had endangered the lives of the only people he loved. Arianna and Gift had forgiven him, but he had never forgiven himself.

That was part of the reason he was here: he was serving penance. He kept a chair up here that he had made in Constant, and sometimes he spent entire days sitting in it, contemplating the valley below. Gift had asked him, five years before, to be the guardian of the Place of Power, and Coulter couldn’t refuse him. This place was too dangerous to be left unguarded or to trust in the hands of unknowns. If people had any inkling at all of the place’s magick, they would be able to come in here, use the items stored inside to overthrow Arianna, and take power. Or do something even worse.

Coulter wasn’t the only guard, of course. Gift had put others up here, others that he trusted. But Coulter was in charge, and he took that responsibility seriously. No one who didn’t belong here would ever gain access to the Place of Power.

The air was cool this afternoon, but it had a fragrance to it that he hadn’t smelled in months. Things were starting to grow. The winter on the mountain had been a harsh one. He had climbed the broken steps many times wearing heavy boots with a Traction spell he had learned from some Fey Domestics on its soles. He had performed that spell for the other guards as well; the last thing he wanted anyone to do was slip on the ice and fall.