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

average Islander has no idea whether or not he has magick. And certainly couldn’t use it on me.”
    “There were no Fey in the room?”
    “My guards.”
    Seger stared at her. Arianna took her left hand back. Seger’s silence was profound.
    “What have you been trying to remember?” Seger asked.
    Arianna bit her lower lip. Seger was right; she saw everything about Arianna clearly. Too clearly. “I saw something before the headache. A—light?”
    “What kind of light?”
    Arianna shrugged. “At the time, I thought I imagined it. No one else seemed to notice.”
    “Perhaps you saw it with your Vision.”
    “Or perhaps it was part of the headache.”
    Seger stared at her. Obviously, Seger did not believe the light to be part of the headache.
    “What makes you think this was a magickal attack?” Arianna asked.
    “The fact that I can find no residual pain in your body. The suddenness of it.”
    “I have known people to die suddenly of extreme headache,” Arianna said, thinking of one of her father’s guards, a loyal man who had put a hand to his head, complained of pain, and then passed out. When he awoke, he could no longer speak or move, and two days later he died.
    “Yours is not the same pattern,” Seger said. “You should summon other Shifters on the Isle, see if they had the same experience you did.”
    “What of other Visionaries?”
    “Is that where the pain was? In your Vision?”
    Arianna shook her head. “It was all over my brain, as if something were digging into my mind, and peeling away layers of thought.”
    Seger placed a hand on Arianna’s forehead, and then put her other hand on the back of Arianna’s skull, as if she wanted to hold Arianna’s brain together. The movement pulled Arianna forward slightly.
    “Do you feel as if you’ve lost anything?” Seger asked quietly.
    “No,” Arianna asked.
    “As if anything’s been added?”
    “No.”
    Seger let go of her head. Arianna could still feel the imprint of her hands.
    “Do you know what this could be?” Arianna asked. “Does it sound like a magick you’re familiar with?’
    “No,” Seger said. “But Fey and Islander families have started intermingling. Magick is no longer as controlled as it was. You and Gift are evidence of that.”
    “And Sebastian.”
    Seger smiled. “Your stone brother is old magick. I worry, sometimes, about his longevity.”
    “Perhaps he felt something,” Arianna said.
    “We can ask.”
    Arianna nodded. “Find him. Tell him I want a private conference. You can listen.”
    “I plan to,” Seger said. “I will accompany you from now on.”
    Arianna crossed her arms and leaned back against the pillows. “Now you give orders to the Black Queen?”
    Seger looked at her oddly. “It is my function,” she said, rather stiffly.
    Arianna wondered what she had said that was wrong. Seger had never given her that look before.
    “If you can’t find anything wrong with me,” Arianna said, “I’m going to go back to work.”
    “As long as I accompany you.” Seger was holding fast to that. Arianna stared at her.
    “You will not divulge anything you learn in private meetings.”
    “I never have,” Seger said. ‘I don’t plan to start now.”
    Arianna threw the covers back. She felt fine. In fact, she felt better than fine. She had more energy than she had had in weeks. She grabbed the gold ceremonial gown she had been wearing before, and slipped it over her head. She didn’t know who had undressed her, and she didn’t care. Her people did their duty as they saw fit, and their first order of business was to take care of her.
    She cinched the gown at the waist with an ornate gold belt made on Nye. She had decided about five years ago to start mixing the cultures that the Fey Empire had conquered. If she wore something, the rest of the Empire did too. She could think of no better way of supporting unity than mingling products, ideas, and commerce in as many ways as possible.
    Her long black hair