The Rival Read Online Free Page A

defeat.
    The Shaman said the Fey had never been like that before.
    She warned that when the Black King came, he would slaughter them all for behavior unworthy of a warrior.
    All except Gift, whom he could not slaughter, because Gift was of his own blood.  If the Black King's family turned on itself, all of the Fey would dissolve into chaos and insanity.  Gift and Arianna. They were safe.  None of the other Fey were.
    He couldn't see her anymore.  The birds were again chirruping in the garden.  He stretched slowly, then eased out of the hole.  He glanced up for good measure, and saw nothing but blue sky.  Perhaps the garden wasn't the best way to go.  It was the only way he knew for certain.  But if he played this right, the guards would think he was Sebastian.
    Gift's heart was pounding against his chest.  He had never gone into this palace before, not in his own body.  He had only walked  —  Linked —  with Sebastian, inside the golem's body, the case of stone. 
    Gift didn't know what would happen if they caught him.
    But he had to try.  He had to get Sebastian out of here, at least until he knew who the strange Fey was.  The Vision had happened in the near future.  And the only thing Gift could do to prevent his death and Sebastian's was to keep them away from Islander buildings, away from the palace, away from the cities.
    He had to get Sebastian to Shadowlands.
    And he knew Sebastian couldn't get there on his own.
     

 
     
     
    FOUR
     
    Nicholas adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves.  Lace fell over his wrists and onto the backs of his hands.  He tugged the sleeve of his waistcoat to his wristbones, and made certain that nothing touched the lace.  The ring Jewel gave him after the birth of Sebastian glinted on his left hand.
    He tucked the shirt into his pants, then pulled his boots out of the wardrobe.  His dressing room was large, almost a room in itself.  This suite had been filled with laughter once, when Jewel was alive.  Hard to believe fifteen years had gone by.  He still saw her in his dreams.
    And he still missed her, with a visceral ache.  He had the children, of course.  Sebastian, even though he was slow, was a model son, and Arianna looked like Jewel.  The girl acted more like Solanda, though, imperious, proud, and too confident.  Sometimes he wondered if he had done the right thing, letting Solanda act as a foster mother.  But he didn't know how he could have done otherwise.  Arianna was a special child, even for the Fey.  She Shape-Shifted as she came out of the womb, and continued to do so at random during her first few years of life. 
    He leaned against the dressing room door.  He had asked to be alone this afternoon because he had known he would need it.  Sebastian turned eighteen this week.  Eighteen years since his birth, since he and Jewel realized that a single child wouldn't unite the two nations.  Eighteen years since they learned, bitterly, and finally irrevocably, that uniting the Fey and the Islanders would take a lot of work, work that Nicholas hadn't been able to do alone.
    The Fey and Islanders had reached a silent truce since Jewel died, since her father died.  Many of the Fey stayed in Shadowlands which was a magickal construct, an artificial and invisible place to hide.  A few Fey lived on the Isle.  Those that scattered throughout, though, were treated like pariahs much of the time, and often threatened with holy water.  Holy water killed the Fey with a single touch  —  and the death was devastatingly horrible. 
    The Fey melted.
    The Fey were so frightened of it that the mention of holy water deterred them.  The Islanders made certain that the Fey kept their distance.
    He grabbed his boots, sat down on the upholstered chair, and pulled them on.  They were calf leather, new and tight.  His feet would ache by the end of the day.  He hoped it would be worth it.
    He had designed the ceremony himself, something the Rocaanists were already