The Rival (10 page)

Solanda sat up debating whether or not to get out of her cat shape.

The lump answered Arianna, only it spoke quickly.

The lump never spoke quickly.

The hair rose on her ruff.  Solanda was fully awake now. She backed up so that she could see the window above her.  She was lying under the turret that was the lump's room.  The light blinded her.  She could see two shapes of the same height, but couldn't make out who they were.

Arianna spoke again, her voice growing closer.

The lump responded, quickly again, and Arianna snapped at him.

Then the lump spoke  —  slowly.  The hairs on Solanda's ruff stood completely on end.  The lump hadn't spoken the first time.  It was  —

Gift threw himself out of the window, grabbed a tree branch and shimmied down it.  Arianna yelled after him.  Solanda backed out of the way.  Gift had never been to the palace.  Nicholas was too stupid to know that the lump wasn't his son.  Solanda had tried to tell Nicholas, but he hadn't believed her.

She hadn't even bothered to tell Arianna.

Gift had the look of Jewel at that age, thin and beautiful, the way the lump would have been if he were real instead of a cracked piece of stone.  Gift reached the bottom of the tree.

"Gift," Solanda hissed, but he didn't hear her.  He took off at a full run.  She was about to change to her Fey form when she glanced up.  A robin was shaking itself out of Arianna's robe.

A robin.

The girl had said she only had two shapes: a cat and Fey, just like Solanda.

Arianna had lied.

The robin flew over the tree tops, hurrying after Gift.  Gift was crashing through the garden growth, more speed than agility.  If Arianna caught him, and she didn't know who he was …

"By all the lights in the Empire," Solanda snapped.  She took off after Gift. It might be too late already.  He didn't know who his sister was, his sister didn't know who he was, and they were both of the Black Throne.

Chaos would reign.

Solanda doubled her speed, using the crashing sounds of Gift's progress and the shadow of the bird as her guide.  She was in good shape; she'd been hunting with Arianna, and they always made it a game to see who got the birds first.  Solanda only hoped that the hunting would pay off.

The crashing stopped.  She caught up to Gift as he rolled in the hole under the fence.  The robin circled above, waiting to attack.

"No, Arianna!" Solanda yelled, but her voice was too small to carry to that height.  Gift ignored her too. He shoved his way through the hole and disappeared under the fence.

"Damned half-breeds," Solanda said as she crawled on her belly through that hole.  She would have to clean the dirt off her fur, and the Powers knew what else.

There was a slight embankment on the other side of the fence, and a string of guard barracks that cast a shade on the road leading to the shops.  She could see them all from her position in the hole, but she could no longer see Gift or Arianna.

Then Solanda heard cawing and screeching and crying.  She pulled herself out of the hole to see Wisps attacking Arianna in the air.  It wasn't a real attack  —  they knew who she was and were trying to prevent her assault on Gift. Gift's arm was over his face, and two Spies were beside him.

Other Fey had to be hidden in the area.

Something was happening.  Something she didn't understand.  Were they trying to substitute Gift for the lump before the ceremony? Had Arianna caught them?

Someone yelled at Gift to run, and he stumbled forward, down the Islander street, his eyes wild, and his hair flying behind his back.  Islanders appeared in their doorways, and more Fey Spies appeared around them, shoving them back.  They were protecting Gift, making certain he was all right.

Her girl had broken free and was pursing him.  Soon Gift would arrive on one of Jahn's main streets.  Solanda didn't know how the Islanders would react to a young Fey running through the center of town.  She wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

"Curse them all, and their ancestors too," she mumbled, not sure if she was swearing at Gift and his sister or the other Fey or the Islanders.  She ran along the cobblestone, grimacing at the pain the sharper rocks caused in her pads.  She hadn't run outside the garden in a long time. She was getting old.

And soft.

Maybe she should return to Fey form.  Maybe she had a better chance of catching him then.

Arianna was screaming as she flew above them.  She would catch him soon, and if his protectors weren't around, she might do actual damage.

Solanda didn't know what that damage would mean to the rest of the Fey.  All she knew was what kind of problems Gift's death would cause.

Especially if Arianna killed him.

The Empire would erupt in chaos.  Families would slaughter each other.  Insanity would rule.

Solanda ran faster, nearly flying, her paws off the ground.  Behind her, Islanders were screaming.  Some Fey were flanking her  —   she suspected they recognized her  —  and others had moved ahead.  They all knew how crucial this was.  It was like a bad dream.  There seemed no way out of it.

The road wound into the business district, and still Gift ran, knocking into Islanders carrying their wares.  Baskets spilled, curses filled the air, and the bird dove, narrowly missing.

"No, Arianna!" Solanda yelled, but she was too far away.  Islanders heard her, and a few Fey, but no one else seemed to.  She was getting winded, and she couldn't afford to.

Everything rested on her.

She doubled her speed, ignoring her tired legs.  Adrenaline was pumping through her.  She wove beneath the feet of a dozen bystanders, keeping Gift in her sight.

He was staying close to buildings, to other people, so that he could duck if Arianna attacked him again.  He glanced over his shoulder, features so like his mother's that Solanda was startled for a moment.  Arianna was flying low, sometimes skimming the heads of Islanders as she passed.  She had an agility she shouldn't have, not if this was a new form.

The girl had been holding out on her.

Solanda let the anger from that thought fuel her tiring limbs.  She was having trouble seeing.  The Fey flanking her were growing tired as well. 

Gift had to be in fine shape.

Or he truly didn't want to get caught.

He leapt over a pile of broken cobblestones, but his foot hit an edge.  He seemed to move in slow motion, tottering forward, arms pinwheeling as he tried to gain his balance.

Solanda cursed and used the last of her energy to speed to him.  Arianna was smart.  She would use this moment.

Solanda was almost to Gift's side when Arianna dove.

Solanda leapt, mouth open  —

 —  and caught the robin in her powerful jaws.

ELEVEN

The cat came out of nowhere.  It leapt impossibly high.  Before Arianna could get out of the way, the cat's mouth closed on her right wing, ruining her momentum, and sending her sprawling.  She would have Shifted in mid-air, but there were Islanders around.  They didn't need to see their princess, naked and vulnerable, kicking a cat in the middle of the street.

She landed on her left side with such an impact, the wind went out of her body.  The cat hadn't hurt her yet, but it would.  But she could out-think it. 

If she could breathe.

No wonder a cat could so easily kill birds.  It dazed them.

But the cat hadn't gone for her neck like she suspected.  Instead it backed away, and sat on its haunches on the cobblestone.  "You all right?" it asked softly.

"Solanda!" Even though Arianna shouted the word, it came out as a whisper.  She really didn't have much air in her body.  And the cobblestone was hard.  "What did you do?"

"I saved you, you stupid little fool."  Solanda was whispering too.  "Now shush.  The Islanders are used to Fey, but not to Fey like us."

Arianna rolled her eyes, and raised her head slightly.  The Fey man was gone.  Long gone.  "He got away," she said.

"And good thing, too."

"You know who he is?"

Solanda nodded.  "I just don't know what he wanted."

The Islanders were picking up the spilled baskets and making a wide berth around the remaining Fey.  Those Fey were trickling off in different directions, an obvious ploy to keep Arianna from knowing where the Fey man went.

One Fey, a shadowy woman with indistinct features, knelt beside Solanda.  "Need help?" she asked.  Even her voice had a shadowy quality.  Arianna squinted but the woman didn't come into any clearer focus.

She was female, and Fey, and that was all Arianna could tell about her.

"I don't need help," Solanda said softly, "but I think my friend does."

The woman nodded.  She bent over Arianna.  "I'm going to pick you up.  Tell me if it hurts."

Up close, the woman's features looked as if they were made of sand that water had washed over.  They were distinct enough to seem like features, and yet they were blurry around the edges.  Arianna almost felt as if she were perceiving the woman through a thick fog.

The woman's hand closed around Arianna.  The woman's skin was warm and soft.  Arianna's wing ached where she had landed on it, but the wing that Solanda had touched didn't hurt at all.

The woman set her upright.

"Stretch your wings," Solanda said.

Arianna did, slowly.  She could feel the tiny muscles straining.

"Can you fly?" Solanda asked.

Arianna nodded.

"Then meet me in your room, as soon as you can."

"But what about  — "

"We'll deal with him."  Solanda turned her small, triangular face toward the strange Fey woman.  "Thanks for your help."

"Anything for the Black Throne," she said.

Solanda grunted.  Arianna fluttered her wings, testing them.  They felt fine.  Tired, but then she was tired.  She had never flown so far, so fast, in all her life.

Or had been that angry.

That Fey man had somehow threatened her brother's life.  He would pay for it.  She would make him, without Solanda's interference.

"You won't find him," Solanda said softly.  "They've got him hidden now.  Meet me at the palace."

Arianna frowned, unhappy that her thoughts were that obvious.  She hopped, then fluttered her wings again and rose into the air.  She circled over the city once, peering at roads, at dwellings, at the river. But Solanda was right.  The Fey man was nowhere to be seen.

"I'll find you," Arianna murmured.  And she would. Without Solanda's help.  That comment about the Black Throne worried her.  Solanda had helped the man get away.  She had nearly hurt Arianna.  And she had mentioned the Black Throne before, saying that all Fey loyalty had to go there first.

But Arianna was only part Fey.  And the Black Throne wanted her brother.

She couldn't do this one alone.  Her father knew more about the intricacies of the Fey than she did.  As much as she loved Solanda, her own family came first.  Her brother, her father, and herself.

Arianna would talk to her father, and tell him what happened.  He was King.  He could decide what to do next.

TWELVE

He moved faster in the heat of the day. 

Flurry flew over the Island countryside, following the roads carved through the rolling land.  He was the size of a small spark, invisible even to the most practiced eye, following the updrafts and air currents, using the power of the wind to propel himself forward.

The wind blew south to north today, and it was perfect for him.  Rugad wanted him in the capitol city by nightfall, a push even for the fastest Wisps.  By horseback, the journey took three to four days.  Getting there in one would rely on wing-speed, favorable winds, and luck.

He had the speed  —  he had been one of the fastest Wisps on Galinas  —  and he had the favorable winds.

Now he needed the luck.

The countryside was startlingly different the farther he flew.  The marshes were green and brown, the water thick and murky from his height about the ground.  Scraggly trees grew inside the marsh and he could see, from the air, small roads, bridges, and solid areas that enabled knowledgeable Islanders to cross the marsh. 

A wide, well traveled north-south road spanned the marsh, and he followed it.  The Islanders had told him, and the Warders had confirmed it with the few recalcitrant prisoners, that the road went directly to the capitol city.

If he stayed on the same path, he would get there.

Through the marshes, he saw very few Islanders.  Those he did see were heading north, like he was, as if they were fleeing the Fey army.

They probably were.  Rugad had said he wanted Islanders to escape.  He had a plan for this Isle, a plan he hadn't shared with anyone outside of his advisors, and it differed from other campaigns Flurry had been on.  In those, the Fey never asked for surrender.

Surrender was assumed.

Surrender was the end result of a Fey victory.

Surrender, sometimes, wasn't even necessary.  There usually weren't any leaders left to capitulate.

But Rugad was exercising caution here.  Some said it was because his son got trapped and died here.  Others said it was because the Islanders had special powers.

A few years back, word had leaked through all the ranks that the reason the Fey never returned from Blue Isle was because the Islanders had their own magick.  That magick came in a bottle, in the form of poison that killed Fey with a single touch.  Flurry had thought the rumor untrue until he spoke to one of the Warders a year later.

It seemed that a handful of the Nye had practiced the Islanders' religion.  The religion never really got off the ground in Nye, and the missionaries from Blue Isle returned to their home.  But a few of the Nyeians still practiced, still believed, and still hoarded the magick poison, or holy water, as they called it.  Only the Nye had never learned its Fey-killing properties.

They never learned those properties at all.

The Fey executed the religious Nye and confiscated the magick poison.  And then experimented with it.