The Rival (11 page)

The Warder had told Flurry that Rugad's people had solved the riddle of the poison.  They had a neutralizer, an antidote, and a warding spell.  The Warder said that, as soon as the neutralizer and the antidote could be produced in large enough quantity, Rugad would have his troops warded, and invade Blue Isle.  Flurry had scoffed.  Everyone had heard how impossible Blue Isle was to invade.  And, at that point, everyone had thought the first Fey force had died in the ocean crossing.  It wasn't until later that the failure of the first force became clear.

And then Rugad had said he wanted to conquer Blue Isle.

Some Fey had been surprised by Rugad's decision to invade.  But Flurry hadn't.  Rugad was a warrior, and even though he felt the armies needed a rest after they conquered Nye, he also knew that the Fey would have to fight again.  The Galinas continent belonged to the Fey.  They had nowhere else to go.

Except to Blue Isle, and on to the Leut continent.

Rugad's grandsons weren't capable of taking the Fey onto the Isle. Rugad had to do it himself.

Flurry dipped and followed a twist in the road.  The tall marsh grass was thinning, and the water had receded into small puddles.  The ground was rising, and ahead he saw it level out in a sort of plain.  The land was divided into different colors, like a quilt made by Domestics, and gradually the divisions resolved themselves into patches of land with a small clumps of buildings.

Farms. 

Prosperous farms from the looks of them, with healthy mid-summer crops.  This was the Blue Isle that the Nye talked about, not the poverty-stricken hovels near the Snow Mountains.  These farms obviously kept themselves fed, and shipped crops all over the Isle.  No wonder the Islanders hadn't starved without trade from Nye.

They hadn't needed it in the first place.

Trade had only made them richer.  Now their prosperity had leveled off. 

Flurry smiled to himself.  The Fey could use this land.  The Fey could use this place.  His moods were rising.  He had served with Rugad for four decades now, and he had never seen Rugad make a mistake.  If the Islanders had to be approached differently than anyone on Galinas, so be it.

Rugad would help the Fey not only win, but thrive.

The wind dropped for a moment, putting a strain on his tiny wings.  He flew low over one of the farms, seeing the large stone house, and the large grain storage buildings beyond.  Animals grazed on a small patch of ground behind the storage buildings.  Wealth.

His wings ached.  Without the wind, he couldn't maintain this pace.  He would burn himself up. 

He toyed with the idea of stopping, of resting, and he would have to soon if the wind didn't pick up.  This was why winged Fey couldn't fly across oceans and other great distances. They tired.  Their endurance lasted only so long.  Rugad was asking Flurry to fly to the edge of his endurance and beyond.

Flurry would try.

But he might have to stop. 

As he lowered himself toward the grain silos, the wind picked up again, and carried him forward.  The great effort he had performed a few moments ago seemed less now.  He wasn't as tired.  And, by his calculations (and if the tortured Islanders were right) he was probably halfway.  He just might make the capitol city by nightfall.

Then his problems increased.  He had to find the palace based on someone else's description, and he had to find the King.  Somehow, a blue-eyed, round-faced, middle-aged yellow haired man, unusual by Fey standards, didn't seem so unusual here.  He only hoped the Islanders acted differently toward their king, treated him as if he were a Shaman or something.  He was related to their great religious leader.  That might count for these people.

Even though Flurry had been forced to study the Islanders for the year before this journey, he still felt as if he didn't know enough.  He was proficient in their language, he had been taught their odd religion, and he knew details about their culture.

Still things surprised him.  Like Rugad, he hadn't expected poverty.  And unlike Rugad, he hadn't expected this great wealth.

The farmlands seemed to extend forever.  He would know he was getting closer to the city of Jahn when he came to a series of bridges.  Then, the Islanders told him, he would be able to see the city in the distance.  The Tabernacle was on this side of the Great Cardidas River.  He was to avoid that place, even though it looked like a palace.  The palace was the other big building, on the far side of the river.

If his luck ran true, the day's heat would continue into the night.  Then he would be able to fly through an open window, and search the palace.

He would deliver his message and leave.

Rugad would take care of the rest.

THIRTEEN

Gift stopped at the edge of the river, under the great bridge.  He was panting hard.  He doubled over, grabbed the back of his legs, and stretched, feeling the blood rush to his face. 

She had nearly pecked out his eyes.  If Solanda hadn't stopped her, his own sister would have blinded him.

Such ferocity.  Arianna loved Sebastian too.  Maybe he could use that.  Maybe he could tell Solanda what was happening and she would get Arianna to protect Sebastian.

Or maybe she wouldn't.  Solanda considered him unnatural, and not real.  She seemed to have a pure hatred for him, based on what he had been, not on who he was.

Gift leaned against the stone of the bridge.  His heart was pounding hard.  The river had a marshy stink here, clustered under the stone itself.  There was a smell of decay, of urine, of old forgotten places.  He had hidden here before, on his few trips to the city, because Islanders rarely came here, and those who did were the unfortunate, the unloved, and the homeless.

He failed.  He hadn't expected to.  He had thought he might have difficulty convincing Sebastian, but he had thought they would get away. 

Now he didn't know what to do.  It felt as if every moment he waited doomed Sebastian.

Or himself.

If only he had found the room from his Vision.  If only he could tell exactly when the Vision occurred.  If only Arianna had left him alone.

If only.

Now he didn't know what to do.  He could go to the Shaman, but he doubted she'd be much help.

She hadn't been any help before.

She knew that Visions could be changed, but she didn't know how this one could be.  Or these two, since they represented a fork.

And he understood the fork.

Either he or Sebastian would be killed that day.

Unless they were both out of the palace, away from Jahn.

He took a deep breath.  The humid air had a thickness here, along with the stench.  It almost felt as if he were breathing the river.

Getting Sebastian out of the palace would be difficult.  He hadn't realized Sebastian's resistance went so deep.  He had seen Sebastian follow others' suggestions, but they had never been about abandoning his family or the only home he'd ever known.

Maybe Gift could convince Arianna.

He would have to explain who he was.  That would be difficult.  And he didn't know what her reaction would be. 

His breath was beginning to return.  His legs still felt wobbly, uncertain, weak.  He hadn't run like that ever, at least that he could remember.  And he had never been so terrified in all his life.  If she had caught him, if she had harmed him, the magick would have stirred in the Black Blood.

If she had killed him, she would have destroyed the Fey.

Sweat trickled down his chin and dripped onto his shirt.  He needed to rest before he went back to Shadowlands.

If he went to Shadowlands at all.

He still had one solution.  He could get Coulter. They hadn't seen each other a lot since they were boys, but they were close, as close as Gift and Sebastian were.  Maybe closer.

Coulter was an Islander whom Solanda had brought to Shadowlands when he was just a baby.  She claimed he had magickal abilities.  The Fey scoffed at her.  No one had magick except Fey.  Then the Domestics confirmed his magick and his age.  He was too old to have been born to a mating between Islander and Fey.

Solanda abandoned him, and the Fey ignored him.  He ran wild through Shadowlands, and an Islander prisoner, Adrian, took care of him.  But on that day Gift's real mother was killed, Gift nearly died because his Link with his mother had not been properly severed. Coulter broke into Gift's house, severed Gift's Link with his mother, and forged a new Link, Binding Coulter and Gift together, forever.

Only Enchanters could do such things.  Gift's grandfather decided to test Coulter, to see if he was an Enchanter.  But the tests amounted to torture, and the prisoner Adrian helped Coulter escape from Shadowlands.  Since then, Coulter had lived at Adrian's farm, as Adrian's son, and was, for all Gift could see, extremely happy.

Gift had never been to the farm.  But he had seen Coulter in Jahn a few times, when Coulter was bringing in the harvest for sale in the city.  They usually talked across the Link, so it felt odd to talk face to face.

Just as it had been odd to talk to Sebastian face to face.

Two other Fey ducked under the bridge.  They weren't panting as hard. The first was a Spy, Epla.  He was as old as Gift's grandfather would have been.  Young Spies had indistinct features that could be molded into other faces, not replicas of faces they saw, but something close.  Older Spies like Epla had evolved a face of their own, one that took the best features of all the faces they once wore.  Epla could still change his face to look like someone else's, but in repose, he was among the most handsome of the Fey.

Spies had their uses.  They could watch and gather information.  But they couldn't fight without damaging their delicate magick, and they couldn't kill without losing it.

Gift hadn't expected to need fighters on this trip.  He had only wanted people who could blend in with the crowd.  That was why he had brought so many Spies with him.

The other Fey was Prey, a Foot Soldier.  Foot Soldiers killed with their fingers.  They often tortured their victims to death.  Gift had brought Prey as his only real protection, thinking she would be enough.

She had her hands clasped under her arms, the sign of a Foot Soldier in distress.

"You were supposed to guard me," Gift said.

"I can't guard you against the Black Throne," Prey said.  "I will not kill your sister, even if she's trying to peck your eyes out."

"You should have warned us," Epla said.

"I did warn you.  We were going to the palace."  Gift took a shaky breath.  He didn't mean to blame them.  It wasn't their fault things had gone wrong.  "Where're the others?"

"Coming," Prey said.  "I wanted to get away from there."

"She was shaking with Blood Lust," Epla said.  "You're lucky she has control."

"
I'm
lucky I have control," Prey said.  "It wouldn't have mattered to him if I killed her.  It would have been my choice.  I'm the one who would have died for it."

"You were in her brother's service," Epla said.  "We all might have died for it."

Prey sucked in her breath, as if that thought hadn't occurred to her.  Then she wrinkled her nose.  "Stinks down here."

"That's why Islanders rarely come here," Gift said.

"You could have picked a better spot for regrouping."

Epla shook his head.  "Gift may be young, but he knows what he's doing.  He's saved us countless times, Prey."

She shrugged.  "Only the Shadowlands.  It's not like he's battle-tested."

Gift let that slide.  He wasn't battle-tested, and he knew most of the Fey put stock in that.  If he hadn't saved Shadowlands at such a young age, and if he hadn't had Visions from childhood on, none of the older Fey would take him seriously now.  They knew he had enough of the Black King's blood to make him part of the line, and they attributed his lack of battle experience to the situation on Blue Isle, to the mess his grandfather had gotten them into, not to his own inabilities.

But many of the older Fey did consider him strange, and that they blamed on his parentage.

On his father.

On his Islander father. 

"This is a safe place," he said.  "No one will bother us here."

He wiped the sweat off his forehead and took a deep breath.  His system was slowly returning to normal.

Two more Fey showed up, another Spy, Dolny, and an Infantry member, Leen.  Dolny was younger, his features less distinct than Epla's.  Leen had not come into her magic yet.  She was five years younger than Gift, one of the few Fey born on Blue Isle.  She hadn't reached her full height yet either, but her body showed hints of it, with her long bones, and narrow frame.

"We're missing Cover," Prey said.

"She stayed behind to make certain the girl was all right," Dolny said.

"What were they doing, letting Black Blood chase Black Blood?"  Leen asked.

"It's my fault," Gift said.  "She doesn't know who I am.  And she probably doesn't know about the Blood."

"Well, she needs to learn," Prey said.  "And quickly.  What if she tries this again?"

"What if she succeeds?" Epla said softly.

"She won't."  The new voice belonged to Cover.  She came down the slope, using one hand to brace herself as she slid under the bridge.  Her features were swirling.  She had to have been wearing a different face before she got to the river. "I talked with Solanda.  She'll explain everything."

"To whom?" Gift asked.  "To Arianna?  Or our father?"

"It doesn't matter if the Islander knows," Prey said.  "Just the girl."

"That won't help Sebastian at all," Gift said.

"Clearly you can't go in there again," Epla said.  "We can't afford to lose you."

"You won't lose me," Gift said.

"We might if the girl learns who you are," Prey said.  "She might want to keep you."

"She wouldn't be able to do that," Gift said.

Prey shook her head.  "Your sister has strength.  She doesn't need battle testing.  She came after you fiercely.  Solanda has taught her how to hunt."

Gift glared at her.  "Hunting isn't everything."