The Black Queen (Book 6) Read Online Free PDF Page B

in earnest. He could not open his eyes. But he Saw—
    —his long-dead great-grandfather alive as if he had never died, sitting on the throne in Blue Isle, smiling at him—
    —And his sister was standing before the Black Throne, looking at it with such longing that it frightened him. He wanted to warn her, to tell her to stand back, but he almost didn’t recognize her or the look on her face. He took a step toward her—
    When everything shifted again.
    —He was in water, thrashing, an undertow pulling him down. Water filled his mouth, tasting of brine and salt. The old Fey in the boat—his great-grandfather again? Or someone who looked like him?—reached for Gift, but if Gift took his hand, the old man would die. And Gift didn’t want that. He didn’t want to cause someone else’s death—
    —His sister, her face gone as if someone had draw it and then wiped it away, calling his name—
    —His long-ago best friend, the man to whom he’d always be Bound, Coulter, kissing a Fey woman, kissing her, and then Gift grabbed him, pulled his head back, and put a knife to his throat. He had to—
    —His sister, screaming—
    —In the Places of Power, two Shaman stood at the door, preparing to find the Triangle of Might. He couldn’t stop them. He was trying, trying, but he didn’t have the strength—
    And then the spinning stopped. He was lying on his side on the strange stone floor. Gold and silver spread out around him, but the rest of the floor was red. Madot hovered over him. She hadn’t touched him. She knew better. Visions were sacred things.
    “How long was I out?” he whispered. His throat was dry, his voice nearly gone. Sometimes Visions took half a day from a Visionary’s life, and sometimes only an instant.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought maybe you were dead. You hit the floor so hard.”
    Her voice was shaking. What would it have meant if he died here? Would she have been punished? Would the Shaman as a unit? Would Arianna have finally come to the Eccrasian Mountains? Would it have taken his death to bring her to the Black Throne?
    He sat up slowly. His whole body ached. It felt as if the light had poked and prodded him, had used instruments on him to see if he hid something that wasn’t there. He closed his eyes. Nothing had been taken from him, and so far as he could tell, nothing had been added. He just felt like a room that had been thoroughly searched.
    Madot put a careful hand on his back. Her touch was gentle, but he wanted to shake it off. Had she known what would happen when she brought him here?
    “Did you have a Vision too?” he asked.
    “No.”
    And that was odd in itself. Usually a series of Visions was powerful enough to trigger any nearby Visionary. By rights, all of the Shaman in Protectors Village should have Seen something. And Madot’s Vision should have been as powerful as Gift’s.
    He opened his eyes. Her face wasn’t far from his, her small mouth pursed, her lower lip trembling.
    “Did you know this would happen?” he asked.
    “No.”
    He waited.
    She swallowed, hard, his mentor no longer. Something in their relationship had changed. Something fundamental.
    “I wanted to see,” she said slowly, “if the Throne would hold you. I thought it would. You’re the oldest child of the direct line. It should have held you whether you wanted it to or not.”
    “And if it had, you would have stopped my training.”
    “A warrior has no place among the Shaman,” she said. “A Black King cannot serve as his own advisor.”
    Gift pushed himself off the floor. He was shaking. A gold outline of his body remained in the spot where he had lain. Slowly it returned to red, in all places except the points where his feet still touched.
    “It did hold me,” he said. “It grabbed me and it was going to pull me in and I pulled away.”
    “That’s not possible,” she said.
    “I did.”
    “You cannot separate yourself from the Black Throne.”
    “I did.” His body