The Black King (Book 7) (7 page)

Gift grabbed him by his ruffled shirt.

“You’re going to steer us out of here.”

“There’s no steering,” the Nyeian said. “We’re sideways.”

“Fix it.”

“I’m not good—”

Gift shoved him forward. The Nyeian stumbled, and then staggered toward the wheel. He moved the Fey who’d been trying to steer, glanced nervously at the cliffs, then used his scrawny arms to turn the wheel the other direction.

Arrows rained down, one hitting the Nyeian. He fell back, screaming.

“They’re not going to let us out of here,” Skya said.

The Gull Riders were flying toward the cliffs. The arrows had stopped again. Apparently the archers were conserving ammunition.

Gift knew how to resolve this, but he didn’t want to. It meant costing a life. But he had a shipload of people—and an entire country—to think about.

“You!” he said to one of the Fey holding up a Sailor. It was a man, about his height. “Come here.”

The man did. Gift pulled him into the deckhouse.

“What’s your name?”

“Rudolfo.”

A young man, named in the Nye tradition. His lower lip was trembling.

“Do you believe in the Empire?” Gift asked, the words sounding strange to him.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re going to die if we stay here.”

“I know that, sir.”

“What are you doing?” Skya hissed.

Gift ignored her. “I’m a target. They’re running out of ammunition above. I need to get rid of the rest of it.”

“You want me to be a decoy.” Rudolfo’s voice had more confidence than his body did.

“Yes,” Gift said. “Stay low. Act as if you’re giving orders.”

Rudolfo nodded. He started out, but Gift stopped him.

“Wear my jerkin,” Gift said.

Skya turned away as if she were angry. Gift pulled off his jerkin, hoping they were far enough back that the archers couldn’t see this from above.

“I thought you didn’t believe in Black Family supremacy,” Skya said.

“Oh, I only get to use it when it suits you?” Gift snapped, as he handed the jerkin to Rudolfo.

“At least I don’t kill anyone.”

Rudolfo winced. Then he slipped on the jerkin, and put a hand on Skya’s arm.

“I’m proud to die for my people,” he said, and crossed the deck.

The wood was slippery with blood and rain. Spray crashed over the side as another wave crashed into the bow. The Nyeian slid along the surface, stopping as he hit the feet of a Sailor on the port side.

Arrows fell, following Rudolfo, but he zigzagged enough, his movement unpredictable. One seemed to graze him, but didn’t hit hard.

Gift hurried to the wheel. Skya yelled at him, but he didn’t stop. He had no idea what he was doing, knowing only that someone had to right this ship or they all would die.

“Skya!” he yelled. “Get the Nyeians up here. All of them. I don’t care how frightened they are.”

She nodded and ran below. Gift struggled with the wheel. It slid beneath his fingers, heavier than he thought. He had to put his whole weight into it to get it to move. Not that he was sure which direction to turn it.

The Navigators were no help. They issued instructions, their eyes glassy, as if the captain were still there to hear. They probably didn’t even know that the ship was under attack.

Arrows continued to fall around Rudolfo. The ship rolled and pitched, marring the archers’ aim. For that, Gift was thankful. The archers were clearly good shots; they had killed Wave instantly.

The ship seemed to be turning away from the cliffs and heading toward the center of the river. Gift glanced behind him. The sails were billowing, and one had a large rip in it.

Skya was at his side again, a Nyeian beside her. The man looked terrified.

“Steer this thing!” Gift shouted.

The Nyeian took the wheel. There were other Nyeians behind him, all standing near the stairs, looking shocked. The deck was a mess of water and blood and bodies.

Rudolfo was still moving. He reached the port side of the deck and suddenly an arrow caught him in the hip. He screamed and rolled on his side, clutching his leg.

Gift braced for the next arrow to hit, but it didn’t come. Rudolfo pulled himself toward the one of the small emergency boats where he’d get a bit of shelter. No one else seemed to notice that he’d been hurt.

The Nyeian had the ship moving forward at a fast clip. Gift had no idea how he’d done it.

Gift glanced up at the cliffs, saw the whiteness of gulls against the sky, and nothing else. He started toward Rudolfo, but Skya grabbed his arm.

“Maybe they realized it wasn’t you.”

He had no idea how they would know that, but he didn’t argue. Rudolfo was leaning against the boat, his hand around the arrow shaft.

The Fey who were supporting the Sailors were looking up as well, as if they expected to be hit at any moment. The waiting was almost as bad as the assault.

Then a Gull Rider landed on deck, white feathers saturated in blood. The gull’s head was almost black and some of the blood had congealed, despite the rain.

The Rider shifted back to his Fey form, growing to his full height, the bird body absorbing into his stomach. It was Ace. His naked body was covered with scratches, but as he shifted, the blood started washing off, leaving a pinkish trail on the deck.

“There were only two,” Ace said.

“Were?” Gift asked.

Ace nodded. “They were Islanders.”

That surprised Gift. “Did they know who we were?”

“Yes.” Ace’s response was curt. “They were trying to kill you.”

“Me?” That made no sense. He was an Islander. His father had been a beloved king.

“They think you’re bringing in a new invasion force. They think you’re going to kill all the pure Islanders and cover the Isle with Fey.”

“Where would they get that idea?” Gift asked.

Ace shrugged.

“How did they know we were coming?” Skya asked. “Have you sent messages, Gift?”

“No.” Gift ran a hand through his wet hair. “Were they working alone?”

“There’s a group of them. I couldn’t find out how many. They weren’t that forthcoming, and they died faster than I expected.”

That last sent a slight shiver through Gift.

“But they did say that there are more archers waiting along the river.”

“Wonderful,” Gift said.

“It’s good to know,” Skya said. “At least now we’ll be ready for them.”

“The river narrows farther ahead. We’ll be easier targets.”

“I don’t think the two sent any messages off before we killed them,” Ace said.

“Good.” Skya put a hand on his arm. “Then the others won’t know we’re coming. We can get them before they get us.”

“Maybe along the river,” Gift said. “But we need to find the source of this rumor, find out how fast it’s spread, and what we can do about it. I’m not walking through my home, watching my back.”

“I think you’re going to have to do that anyway,” Skya said. “Obviously some people don’t want you here.”

Gift frowned and looked at the cliffs. “Ace, get the Bird Riders together and scout the cliffsides. We need to know whether there are any more archers ahead.”

Ace nodded, and shifted back to his gull state. Then he took a run along the deck, and flew off.

“You should have let him rest,” Skya said.

“I don’t think we’re going to get a chance to rest,” Gift said. “I think it’s going to take everything we have to survive.”

SIX

COULTER’S STOMACH was churning as he walked back to his school. The building had once been a single stone house, but over the years he’d added rooms. Now it looked like several stone houses pushed together, with a dirt magick yard that in any other place would be a garden or a playground in the very center.

He’d left Arianna at the river. For the first time, he was glad she was no longer residing in his head. He didn’t want her to know how upset she had made him.

He understood her points. In fact, he knew she was right. But to do what she wanted meant he had to ask people he cared about to risk their lives, to follow a plan that probably wouldn’t succeed.

But he had known, deep down, that waiting was wrong. That Rugad was too smart to return here, the place where he had died. He would know that inside the Roca’s Cave, the place the Fey called the Place of Power, he would probably die again.

There were all sorts of magicks inside that cave, all developed by Rocaanists to get rid of magickal beings. It was a strange tautology: magick, which helped form the religion, became its anathema. But in order to wipe out the magick, the religious had to use magick.

Coulter could only think of one tool in the Roca’s Cave—or at least, the one tool he understood—that would get Rugad out of Arianna’s body, and that was the Soul Repository. Somehow, Matthias, the Fifty-First Rocaan, had used one of those dolls to trap Jewel’s soul. Coulter wasn’t sure how he did it, but he knew there was a magick—or a religious ritual—that provided for it.

Matthias’s son, also named Matthias, was an Enchanter like his father had been. But unlike his father, young Matt was receiving training so that he could learn how to control his magickal abilities. Control was the essence of all magick, Fey and Islander. Without control, the most magickal, like Enchanters, often lost their minds.

Coulter didn’t expect young Matt to have a quick answer on how to work the dolls, but Coulter did know that Matt had access to the Vault beneath the Cliffs of Blood. The Vault was where the Secrets of the Rocaanist religion were stored. Matt’s father had become keeper of that Vault until his death half a year ago. Now his other son, Alexander, had taken his place.

Alex, like his father, hated the Fey and feared all things magickal—despite the fact that Alex had great Vision. He saw it as a curse rather than something he could control. Alex would never let Coulter into the Vault, but Alex probably wouldn’t deny his brother entry.

Coulter opened the back door and let himself into the kitchen. It smelled faintly of baked bread, overlaid with the sharp spices from the fish stew they’d had for lunch. Three of his students were still doing dishes and laughing as they worked. They stopped when they saw him.

“Do you know where Matt is?” Coulter asked Thea.

She frowned as if surprised that he had asked her. Thea and Matt had built a tentative friendship, some of it based on their feelings of rejection. Thea was half Fey, the result, he’d heard, of a love-match that the Islander family didn’t approve of. They took their pregnant daughter back into the family, and when she’d died in childbirth, had tried to hide Thea from their Islander neighbors.

Then Thea’s magick started appearing. She was a Weather Sprite. She started, as most of them did, making small rainstorms in water basins, then graduated to covering herself with rays of light, even on the stormiest days.

Her abilities terrified her family and they neglected her. She finally ran away, somehow finding out about Coulter’s school, and covering half of Blue Isle to arrive at his doorstep, thin, starving, and wary as a stray dog.

In the short time she’d been here, she’d fattened up and had begun to make friends. Only recently had she stopped stealing food from the kitchen when everyone else was asleep. Coulter had never mentioned it; he figured she needed to view this place as her home.

She continued to stare at Coulter as if debating how to answer him. Even he, the person she trusted most, got assessed much of the time.

“Matt’s in the library,” she said at last.

“Thank you.” Coulter smiled and left. The library was through the dining hall and down some narrow corridors. It was Coulter’s favorite room and it had become Matt’s as well. Many times, Coulter had discovered Matt in there, reading one text or another, always on magick and its history.

He opened the door now. The room seemed musty in the daylight. Usually Coulter visited the library at night, with a fire in the grate and candles burning in the lamps set on the tables.

Matt stood as Coulter entered, looking nervous. He had an illustrated book from Nye open before him—a book of poetry.

Coulter tried not to smile.

“It’s all right,” Coulter said. “I was looking for you.”

Matt nodded, but continued standing. He was a slender boy with a lanky build that implied he would be very tall one day. He had golden curls that surrounded his head like a halo, and distinctive features that in a woman would be considered beautiful.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m here,” Matt said.

He’d become timid in the last year. Before he’d snuck here while his parents slept. His father had gone insane. When his father died, his family didn’t bother to tell Matt, and he left home for good. Ever since then, he’d been quiet, uncomfortable and somewhat meek.

Coulter was beginning to rethink his plans. “I don’t mind. I’ve told you before you have the run of the place.”

“Leen says books will corrupt me.”

Coulter smiled. Leen was pure Fey, an Infantry soldier who had been beside Coulter since they were young. Once they had been lovers, but that ended long ago when they both realized that Coulter could never love anyone besides Arianna. Leen was his second at the school and was very good about questioning all sorts of teachings that had gotten both of them in trouble. But her attitude towards writings and books was very Fey. She believed they were unnecessary wastes of time.

“Books might corrupt you,” Coulter said, “but only in a good way.”

He got one of Matt’s rare smiles then. It lit up the boy’s face. Then Matt’s smile faded as he watched Coulter. The boy knew something had changed.

Coulter waved a hand. “Matt, please sit.”

Matt replaced his book and sat on one of the upholstered chairs. He sat at the very edge of it, as if his body might contaminate it.

Coulter ran a hand through his hair, and headed for the fireplace. He looked at the flames. They were small and golden, licking at the wood without much passion. “I’m going to ask you to do something. I’m not sure if I want you to do this, but I do want you to consider it. You’re welcome to refuse me. If you do, nothing in our relationship will change. Everything might change if you accept it.”