The Black King (Book 7) (38 page)

She had actually missed it.

The carriage eased to a stop. Arianna glanced out her window, saw several merchant buildings near the edge of the road. These were still whitewashed and had old signs. Coulter opened the door and stepped out. He and Dash went to one of the stores, and disappeared inside.

“It’s not as changed as I thought it would be,” Con said.

“There hasn’t been enough time,” Arianna said. “Another six months and we won’t recognize the place.”

“Do you think Matt’s in the palace?”

“I hope so.”

“Coulter seems more and more reluctant.” Con glanced out the window. This was the first chance they’d had to speak alone since the trip began. “Is he having second thoughts?”

“He would rather hide in Constant than come back to Jahn. He would be happy if he and I lived out our lives there.”

Con studied her. “That seems harsh.”

“From him or from me?”

“From you. He loves you.”

“I know that. But he doesn’t know what it means to stand up for himself.”

“Where would he have learned it? He told me how he grew up, unwanted by the Fey, then raised by an Islander who wasn’t his real father, who died because Coulter made a mistake.”

“That’s what he doesn’t understand,” Arianna said. “Coulter made no mistake. Adrian would have died anyway.”

“This disturbs you,” Con said.

Arianna nodded. She kept an eye on the shop that Coulter and Dash had gone into. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle of this conversation.

“When it comes time,” she said, “I’m not sure if Coulter will be able to do everything he’s supposed to.”

“I’m sure he’s learned by now.”

“No.” Arianna saw the shop door open, but no one came out. “He’s spent all this time reviewing his failure. He hasn’t considered all the things he did right.”

“Was that a lot?”

She glanced at Con. He really didn’t know. “Coulter saved my life twice. He’s saved Gift’s life once that I know of, and probably more than that. Even his mistake was an understandable one. I don’t know why he flogs himself about it.”

“Because it left him alone.” Con spoke softly.

Arianna frowned. No wonder Con understood. He was alone, and had been as long as Arianna had known him. All he had had was his religion, and that had been destroyed when he was a very young man.

“I guess it did,” Arianna said. “But it was by his choice.”

The door was still open. Dash carried some sacks out, but Coulter remained inside.

Coulter could have come to her. She always expected him to. Instead he had waited fifteen years, and had only come because he knew she was in trouble.

He saw that as a failure too. If Coulter had been successful, Rugad would not be running Arianna’s body right now. Rugad—and all shades of him—would be dead.

Finally Coulter came out. He too was carrying sacks. Dash went back for more. Already Coulter had provided a lot for this trip. The carriage, the horses, the coin. He had done more than most would have, and she had been thinking it hadn’t been enough.

Perhaps he wasn’t the only one focusing on his failures.

Dash emerged from the building carrying more sacks. He went to the back of the carriage where Coulter was already working. Arianna knew what they were doing; they were tying the sacks in place, making sure they were ready for whatever came.

Con was playing with the small silver sword around his neck. It was a symbol of the position he had once held in Rocaanism. He’d been an Aud, which had been normal for a boy of his age. Fifteen years later, he still thought of himself as an Aud. If Rocaanism had survived Rugad’s attacks, Con would probably have been in its upper echelons by now.

Coulter opened the door to the carriage and crawled inside. He nearly bumped his head on the top of the frame. Dash walked past the window, and the carriage shook as he climbed to his post. Arianna heard Dash cluck at the horses, and then everything jarred forward as they drove away.

Coulter looked paler than usual.

“What is it?” Arianna asked.

“Gift is here.”

“In Jahn?” She had thought he might be on the Isle, but she hadn’t expected him to be here. “Is he at the palace? Is he all right?”

“He’s been to the palace and there are rumors of some sort of rift between him and—” Coulter glanced at her “—the Queen.”

Arianna let out a small sigh.

“The Islanders don’t know what that means, but the Fey are really worried about it. The Islanders in that store were saying that it was probably good the Queen kicked Gift out, since he’s so Fey.”

Arianna started every time Coulter referred to Rugad as the Queen. But he was reporting what he heard, and that would have been how the Islanders spoke. “Has Gift changed?”

“I don’t know,” Coulter said. “But there seems to be a dislike of him I haven’t noticed before. And it seems deeply rooted in what they call his ‘Feyness.’ Dash pointed out that you—the Queen—were part Fey too, but they said that since you were raised by your father, you aren’t nearly as Fey as Gift. They seemed to think Gift was here to destroy all the Islanders and make Blue Isle a Fey homeland.”

“Where would they have gotten that idea?” Con asked. “Gift is a gentle man. He would never do such a thing.”

Arianna folded her hands in her lap. “From Rugad.”

“That’s my guess,” Coulter said.

“So where’s Gift?” Arianna asked.

“He’s on a ship in Jahn harbor. He’s under orders to leave Blue Isle—and the Fey Empire—in little more than a week.”

Was Rugad afraid of him? Had Gift seen through him? “He’s been banished?”

“So far as I can tell,” Coulter said. “This is all rumor.”

“How did you get them to tell you so much?” Con asked.

“I didn’t,” Coulter said. “Dash did. He said he’d been out of the city for a month and wanted news.”

“Amazing.” Con shook his head slightly.

“I don’t understand. If Rugad wanted to get rid of Gift, why not order him off the Isle immediately? Why give him a week?”

Coulter glanced at her. “Obviously he’s planning something.”

“Gift should know that. He’s smart enough.”

“Maybe he’s trying to figure out what.”

“Maybe.” Arianna felt cold. She rubbed her arms to warm herself and then realized that this body couldn’t be cold. The chill had come from within. “I don’t like this, Coulter.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“We have to see Gift.”

“I know.”

“If I were Rugad, I’d have Gift’s every movement watched. So you and I can’t just go up there.”

“Rugad could recognize all of us,” Coulter said.

“Except Dash,” Con said.

“He was with us when we rescued Arianna.”

“But Rugad didn’t see him,” Con said.

“Rugad won’t be watching Gift’s ship,” Arianna said. “He has too many other people for that.”

“He’ll have them watch for anything unusual,” Coulter said.

Arianna nodded. “I would be considered unusual, but neither of you would. Nor would Dash.”

“Except that we’re all Islanders,” Coulter said.

“How would someone describe this to Rugad?” She leaned forward, excitement filling her. This was better news than she had thought. “Three blond Islander males went to Gift’s ship.”

“A lot of the Fey around the palace saw me,” Coulter said. “They might recognize me.”

“Two then. All we have to do is let Gift know we’re here.” He would be able to help her. Gift was very creative. Together, the two of them could defeat Rugad. She knew it.

“He may not know that the woman he saw wasn’t you,” Coulter said.

“But he’ll know that I wasn’t acting like myself,” she said.

“He’ll believe me.” Con spoke softly. “He was very grateful to me for all I’ve done for Sebastian.”

“You’re right. He will.” She hadn’t felt this good in months. “We’ll go to the place where Con was going to hide us. Then we’ll send Con and Dash to Gift to arrange a meeting.”

“If he’s being watched, someone will follow him,” Coulter said.

She let out a long breath of air. “I wish I could Shift properly.”

Coulter bit his lower lip. “Maybe I could shield you, or make you appear to be a fourth blond Islander.”

She grinned. “I have never been a blond Islander.”

“But for a very short time,” he said, “I could make someone think you were.”

“I still think we should hide the carriage,” Con said.

“Yes,” Arianna said. “You and Dash do that. Coulter and I will meet you at the base of the bridge on the Tabernacle side. Four blond Islanders to visit Gift. I trust you know where the ship is?”

She directed that last to Coulter.

“I have a vague idea,” he said.

It would be vague. Coulter wasn’t really native to Jahn. Neither was Dash.

“We’ll find it,” she said.

Coulter took her hand. “Your mood has shifted. What do you think Gift can do for us?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But we were a good team once. We’ll be a good team again.”

TWENTY-NINE

WISDOM HAD an uncanny sense of time. Matt still thought it was the middle of the night when Wisdom woke him up. But Wisdom assured him, still using sign, that it was morning.

Time had gone by so quickly. Matt had spelled Wisdom the first night, and then rested to restore his magick the second. Matt had tried two different spells, both of them powerful, before he found one that worked. The problem was not so much that Wisdom couldn’t talk, but that Rugad had cut out his tongue.

The spell Matt had first tried was one to restore a voice, which wasn’t quite necessary. The second didn’t work at all, and the third was a growth spell. Matt had to touch the stump of Wisdom’s tongue and start it growing. He also had to end the spell before the tongue became too big to carry inside the mouth.

Wisdom had played with the tongue, touched it, rolled it like a child, but he hadn’t spoken with it. He still preferred sign. It was as if he were afraid of his own magick.

When Wisdom had awakened him this morning, Matt had to do another lightstick. He watch Wisdom as he signed the plan to go to the palace.

“How do you know this place so well?” Matt asked.

Wisdom had simply smiled. He had been roaming Blue Isle for fifteen years, most of them homeless and begging. Matt got the sense that Wisdom’s six-month stay at the school had been his longest anywhere. And now, Matt knew, Wisdom had stayed because of him.

They ate a silent breakfast from the supplies in Matt’s sack. Matt felt for the hidden space in the back, reassuring himself that the dolls were still there. He wasn’t done yet. He just wasn’t going to do this the way that Coulter had planned.

He knew they were in Jahn. He had felt across his Link for Coulter, and found him close. That was good. The quicker he acted, the better.

Wisdom seemed impatient to go. He finished eating long before Matt had. While Matt finished and carefully repacked the knapsack, Wisdom crouched beside him, rocking on the balls of his feet and watching as if each movement slowed them down.

Then Matt stood, slung the sack over his shoulder, and Wisdom grinned. He took the lightstick and headed down a corridor filled with more cobwebs than the passage they had slept in.

During the night Wisdom had somehow cleaned himself up. His braids were fresh. No strands of hair stood out from them. He managed to scrub his face and he had gotten the dirt off his clothes.

Matt was the one feeling grimy and nervous. He didn’t know exactly what they were going to do and that unsettled him. The Words said nothing about the range of the dolls, and it had no advice on whether or not a person had to be in the same room. Matt was going to have to err on the side of caution. He would make sure he was in the same place as the Black Queen when he tried to catch Rugad’s soul in the doll.

The corridor twisted and turned. He couldn’t see that far ahead so each corner was a surprise. He had a sense that they were heading north, but he really couldn’t tell. Wisdom wasn’t saying. He was just walking, head up, as if he knew where he was going.

Suddenly the corridor opened up. They were in a newer section. The stone was clean and the floor was covered with only one layer of dust. There were no cobwebs. Someone came down here regularly.

Wisdom held out a hand, blocking Matt’s entry. Matt waited, his heart pounding. Wisdom looked both ways like he was going to cross a particularly busy street, then ventured into the wider corridor. He put a finger to his mouth and beckoned Matt forward.

The corridor turned slightly and then opened even wider. As Matt walked past, he started. There were iron bars on his left side. Beyond them were cells. They looked old, but they had fresh straw in them. They had been used, and recently.

He shuddered.

Wisdom came to a fork in the corridor and took the left. It was dirtier than the right. He went to the end of it. There seemed to be no place to go. He pushed on a stone and it creaked open.

The sound echoed in the confined space. Wisdom gave Matt a nervous glance. If someone heard, then they would have to find a place to hide. He didn’t want to end up in one of those cells.

The stone had opened a door barely big enough for Matt to walk through upright. Wisdom signaled for another lightstick. Matt made it and handed it to him.

This corridor was narrow and filled with dirt and cobwebs. It was so filthy that Matt could barely see where they were going. Clearly no one had used this place in a long time.

He wondered how Wisdom had known about it and then he remembered: Wisdom had once been Rugad’s assistant. When Rugad had first taken over the palace years ago, Wisdom had been assigned to finding out everything about it. Apparently, he had traced all these passages then and no one had been here since.

Wisdom took a few steps, then pulled Matt forward. This corridor forked too, and to the right was an extremely narrow passage. Stone stairs disappeared into the darkness. Matt had the sense that those stairs were part of another staircase, separated from them by the thick wall. It was almost as if someone had planned this passageway when this section of the palace was built.