The Black King (Book 7) (28 page)

“You’re a Visionary.”

“You knew that when you met me.”

“And I should have left you in Tashco.”

“Yes, but you chose to come here.”

She closed her eyes. Her skin was taunt with strain. Above them, the rain still pelted the deck, the steady drum so loud Gift could barely hear himself breathe.

“My father,” she said so softly he had to strain to hear her, “was the military governor of Co.”

“He was a Visionary.”

She opened her eyes and studied him for a moment. “A minor one compared to your family.”

“Not that minor. A governorship is usually given to someone who shows strong ability in the field.” Gift knew that much from his time with the Shaman. Yes, his family were strong Visionaries, but other families had similar powers. The Shaman kept those families under close watch, in case the Black Family destroyed itself as it once did in the past. Then the Shaman would take a leader from one of those families to the Black Throne, to see if they could become the new Black Ruler.

“My mother was an Enchanter,” Skya said, “and I was their only child.”

“A Visionary and an Enchanter. What a powerful combination to have in a small country.”

“Co is the most rebellious of all the Fey conquests.”

“You told me that on the day we met.”

She nodded, looking distracted. It was as if she had to concentrate to tell this story, as if he only had one chance to hear it.

“All his life,” she said, “my father Saw a rebellion in Co. He said it would destroy the Fey. He was convinced it would. So whenever a rebel force sprung up—and they did often—he destroyed them. He had anyone who spoke badly of the Fey imprisoned or killed. He destroyed young men, old men, women, children, anyone who seemed like they would hurt the Fey.”

Gift’s mouth went dry. Even his grandfather, Rugar, hadn’t been that ruthless.

“My mother would use her powers to help him. If he couldn’t get Foot Soldiers or Infantry to a rebel cell, she would create a fire spell and burn them out. She was as terrified as he was, afraid that the Co might destroy the entire Empire.”

Her eyes were flat, her tone so dispassionate that it hurt. She wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was staring at a spot on the wall.

“I was a precocious child and a bit rebellious myself. My parents wanted me indoors and watched all the time. I hated being inside. I escaped as often as I could.”

The rain beat against the deck. It sounded as if the world were being pounded into submission.

Gift’s anger at her was gone. He wanted to hold her, to tell her it was no longer necessary, she didn’t have to finish the story, she didn’t have to remember. But he needed to hear it, so he said nothing.

“By the time I was ten, I could see what his ‘Vision’ was doing. It was making things worse. The rebellion he had tried to quash was growing stronger with each life he took. Even our servants were talking about my father as a horrible man, and sometimes, it seemed they dared me to tell him.” Her voice shook slightly. “I did tell him. Not names or anything, but what I saw, how I believed he was the one making the Vision come true. The Shaman—our family Shaman—told him not to listen to me, that I was just a child with no understanding of magick, and that he was following the only path. He believed her. Her Visions confirmed his. I was just an untrained Warder with no real Vision, just the edges of it so that I could create spells. And I was a child. A child who didn’t understand the world.”

Her voice had gotten hoarse. She cleared her throat, then glanced at Gift. He kept his gaze on her, making it steady. He still wasn’t sure she really saw him.

“I wouldn’t be quiet,” she said. “Finally, the Shaman convinced them that my problem was the untrained magick, so they sent me, years early, to apprentice with the Warders in Nye. They hoped I might someday serve the Black Family. My father had had a Vision there too. That I would be invaluable to the Black Family when I grew up.”

This time she did focus on him. He held out a hand, hoping she would take it. She stared at it as if it would hurt her. Finally, he curled his fingers into a fist and pulled back.

“Six months after I left, the entire country of Co revolted against the Fey. My father and mother were slaughtered while they slept. Entire Infantry units were destroyed—burned—but most of the Fey survived. Rugad came, put down the rebellion, and destroyed most of the country. The people were too devastated to fight again. They’ve only now finished rebuilding. And they’ve started to rebel again, but the local governor learned from my father’s mistakes. He is having his people co-mingle with the Co, making their blood ours, and conquering them slowly, a generation at a time. It is still a rebellious place, but not a hothouse like it was under my father.”

“And the Shaman?” Gift asked, knowing that was an important thread.

“I saw her years later, when I was guiding some people through the Eccrasian Mountains. I asked her if she had ever compared Visions with my father, and she had. He had Seen his Infantry units die. He had Seen Co in his bedroom. He had assumed a worldwide rebellion based on those incidents, incidents he had caused himself.”

Her hand shook. She clasped it with her other hand. Gift watched her, uncertain what to do.

“The Shaman believed he had been right. She had said he had had no other choice, and sometimes Visions went that way. At least, she had said, he had enough foresight to get me out of there.”

“Sometimes,” Gift said softly, “Visions do go that way.”

“
No!
” The power behind her voice startled him. She was finally looking at him directly. She blinked, as if she had startled herself, then repeated, “No. That’s a lie they tell you, Gift. A lie you’re raised with. So that you will go in the directions of the Vision. The future is not pre-ordained. If it were there would be no purpose to life. My father created that rebellion. It was like he needed it to reaffirm his Vision.”

“Skya, I had my first Vision as a boy of three. I had nothing to prove. Visions aren’t voluntary things. They aren’t something I make up at will.”

“I know. I’ve seen your Open Vision. I’ve seen you have Visions. And my father too. I know all that.” Her face had closed as if his words had somehow shut her down. He had no idea why. “But, Gift, Vision comes from somewhere, like every other spell. Yes, it’s a natural ability like all magick, but the way we interpret it is taught.”

He felt his shoulders stiffen. “So?”

“So what if we’re taught wrong?”

“We’re taught that Visions are possible futures.”

“And usually the Visions are bad, right?”

He blinked, then frowned. He had had very few good Visions. He had had some that were neutral, some that he didn’t really care if they had happened or not. “Yes.”

“And we always try to avoid bad things. It’s part of our nature as living creatures. We try to avoid the bad and embrace the good. But most Visions, no matter how hard you try to avoid them, come true. Isn’t that right?”

Her entire face was flushed, her eyes were sparkling. She looked more alive than he had ever seen her.

“That’s how you can tell a good Visionary,” he said, “from the power of his Visions, and from how many of them come to pass.”

“If you can’t change them, why have them?”

“You can change some and not change others.”

“Like the death Vision, the one every Visionary has and never realizes until it’s too late.”

He nodded, feeling confused.

“What if,” she said, “the good Visionaries, as you call them, are the ones who follow the paths laid out for them, creating the very bad things that they try to avoid?”

“What purpose would that serve?”

“Your family has taken us closer to the Blood than any other family in my memory. Your family has captured the second Place of Power.” Her eyes were bright, almost too bright. “What does the Triangle of Might do?”

“We don’t know.”

“But what’s the prophecy?”

He took a deep breath and recited, “
There are three Points of Power. Link through them, and the Triangle of Might will reform the world.”

“Reform the world,” she said. “What does that mean?”

He shook his head.

“What did your grandfather think? Or your great-grandfather?”

He stared at her, not really wanting to answer, knowing that she knew and was using him to make a point he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to hear. “They believed it would give them dominion over everything.”

“Complete power.”

“Yes.”

She stared at him. “What if it doesn’t do that? What if it frees the Mysteries from their positions as spirits? What if it allows the Powers to take physical form? What if it does create more power, but only for those it deems worthy like Shaman or even, horror upon horror, Red Caps?”

Gift shook his head. “That can’t be possible.”

“Why not? Because you can’t imagine it? I can.”

“How?” he asked softly.

“That’s what Warders do. We think of everything in new ways. That’s how we create new magicks.”

He never considered how Warders thought or what gave them their powers. He never realized it was their perspective and their imagination as much as their magick.

He hated the logic of this. He hated to believe that Skya might have a point. “All right, let’s assume that I believe you, that I believe the Powers are using Visionaries to manipulate a future we don’t want. We started this conversation talking about
my
Visions and my choices. What do you believe?”

Her face softened as if he’d asked her something that she’d been waiting all her life to hear. And perhaps she had. “Here’s my guess. If you go to Leut, you will drown at sea, probably with Lyndred’s father. The Visions of the Blood might simply be a way to keep you from taking the Throne from your sister, a way to keep you away from the Places of Power. Maybe even a way to get you to go to Leut.”

“Why?” Gift asked. “The Throne wanted me.”

“The
Throne
did,” she said, “but we don’t know what the Powers want. Maybe they want someone to use the Places of Power to find the Triangle. From what I saw of your sister, she will.”

Gift felt cold. “You think the Powers want that.”

“The Powers or the Mysteries. Something that controls the magick,” Skya said. “Yes, I do.”

“And Arianna doesn’t do it, do you think I will?”

Skya looked away from him. “You’ve made choices that do not fit with the compassionate man who wanted to be a Shaman. You will continue to do that. You’ll get harsher and harsher because you have to, and it’ll take a toll from you. It’ll make you someone with no heart at all.”

“Like your father?”

Her eyes teared. She blinked hard, and the tears disappeared. “That’s not fair. I told you that so that you would understand.”

“I think I do,” Gift said.

She shook her head.

“That’s what you’re afraid of. You’re afraid that I’ll be like him, that I’ll misuse my Vision like he did.”

“I think you already are.”

Gift’s chill grew worse. “I haven’t ordered people to their death.”

“But would you?” she asked. “If you believed it would prevent the Blood against Blood?”

He dropped his gaze, unable to look at her. He didn’t know the answer to that. If he had to spend ten lives to save a million, would he? It was the leader’s conundrum, the thing his father agonized over, the thing they all agonized over. The thing Gift had always wanted to avoid.

He probably would. And he would hate himself for it.

He looked at Skya. Her face seemed shrouded, cold, as if she had read the answer in his silence. “What about Lyndred’s other Vision? The one of me with the child?”

“I think it symbolizes the choices you have to make.”

“What choices?”

“Do you raise a child with love and warmth, to live in a secure world? Or do you raise it to lead the Fey?”

He stood. He didn’t see those as choices at all. “My father raised Arianna with love and compassion and taught her leadership.”

“Your father wasn’t Fey,” Skya said. “And besides, look at Arianna. Where’s that training now?”

Gift didn’t know. That training had been one of the many reasons he had trusted his sister as ruler instead of himself. “You realize what I’m risking if I try to get my sister to abdicate?”

“Yes.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “If you’re right, and the good Visionaries are the ones who lead us in the wrong direction, then wouldn’t it be better to have a Blind leader?”

Skya didn’t answer him at first. He turned. She was studying the backs of her hands as if they held a secret.

“Skya?” he asked.

“Maybe if the leader believed that Blindness was better, and maybe if the leader strove to—I don’t know. I just know that there’s something seriously wrong with your sister, and she’s not capable of the kind of leadership she’s given for the last fifteen years.”

“Maybe we should take the third option,” Gift said. “Maybe we should use your guide’s skills and find a place to hide within the Empire, raise a family and stay out of politics forever.”

“You won’t be comfortable,” she said. “You’ll always wonder if you’re doing the right thing. And you’re still going to be plagued with Visions, Visions that will test your resolve every single day.”

He couldn’t deny that. He would wonder every day, and the Visions would make things worse.

“You need to get your sister to abdicate,” she said. “You need to take your rightful place as Black King.”

“I can’t.”

Skya rose slowly to her feet. “Why not? And don’t tell me it’s because of promises you made to your sister. She doesn’t care about those promises any more. She doesn’t care about you anymore.”

“It’s not that,” Gift said, even though that was still a factor.

“Then what?” Skya asked.

“You don’t want to be the Black King’s wife.”

She moaned softly and sank back onto the bed. “Gift, what I want shouldn’t matter.”

“It does.” He went over to her, sat beside her, and took her hands into his own. Her fingers were icy cold. “I love you, Skya.”

“I know. But what you want doesn’t matter. It’s who you are that’s important.”