The Black Queen (Book 6) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page A

unconscious?
    “Health is what we believe it to be.” Seger stood and threaded her hands into the sleeves of her white robe. “You were sitting there, worrying that your health had gone.”
    Seger did not read minds. No Fey did. But she had known. “Was it that obvious?” Arianna asked.
    “Your face is a book to me, child.”
    “I’m no child,” Arianna said.
    “In my world you are.”
    “I’ve been ruling your world for fifteen years.”
    “We shall hope that you rule it for a hundred more.” Seger crossed toward the bed and sat on its side. “Tell me what happened.”
    Arianna frowned. She wasn’t sure what happened. She had seen something before the headache, but the memory was tantalizingly out of reach, as if something held it hidden behind a wall. Instead of telling Seger about that (was there something to tell?), Arianna explained the headache, the suddenness of it, the confusion it brought her, and how the pain finally felled her. She couldn’t describe that feeling of alienness, of having thoughts not quite her own, so she didn’t.
    “Have you eaten anything unusual?” Seger asked, putting her warm hand on Arianna’s forehead.
    “No.”
    “Slept normally?”
    “Yes.”
    Seger tilted her head. “What do you remember before the headache struck?”
    “I—” Arianna stopped herself. She closed her eyes, trying to remember. She had—seen?—something.
    “Ari?”
    She shook her head, sighed, and opened her eyes. “We were talking about opening trade with Leut. The leaders of Jahn’s seafaring merchants came to speak to me about the possibilities.”
    “Don’t they have enough business trading through the Fey Empire?” Seger asked. She was clearly trying to distract Arianna. She knew that Arianna had forgotten something and she was trying to give Arianna’s mind a chance to recover the memory.
    Arianna smiled at her. “I didn’t know you were interested in policy.”
    “And I didn’t think we were going to expand our borders beyond Blue Isle.”
    “Trading with countries on a brand new continent frightens you?”
    “Worries me,” Seger said. “Open the door a crack, and someone will push it wide.”
    Arianna nodded, surprised to find that the movement didn’t hurt. “It worries me as well. But the Islander merchants remember a time when trade with Leut was common.”
    “Before you.”
    “Long before me. Long before the Fey found Blue Isle.”
    Seger took Arianna’s right hand and stretched it before her, poking at the center of the palm. Then she twisted it slightly, exposing the underside of the wrist, and traced the entire length of the arm to the neck.
    “None of this hurts?”
    “No,” Arianna said. “I feel fine now.”
    “Hmm.” Seger frowned. “Nothing happened to you in that discussion? No one touched you? No one cursed you?”
    Arianna leaned as far back as she could so that she could see Seger’s face. “You think this was a magickal attack?”
    “I am trained to look at all options.” Seger took Arianna’s other hand and began the same procedure.
    “I was speaking to Islanders,” Arianna said.
    “Your father is an Islander.”
    “My father was an Islander.”
    Seger tilted her head slightly. They disagreed about her father. Arianna believed he was dead; Seger believed he was not. Arianna’s father, King Nicholas, had gone down one of the tunnels in the Place of Power fourteen years ago, and hadn’t been seen since. At first, Arianna had been unwilling to accept the loss. Now she knew it was what made her rule on the Isle possible. If her father had still been alive and visible, none of the Islanders would have accepted her.
    Still, any thought of her father saddened her. “All I meant,” she said carefully, “was that the average Islander does not have magickal abilities.”
    Seger smiled. “Sometimes it is clear that you are a Shape-shifter. You have a Shifter’s arrogance.”
    Arianna rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “The