The Rival Read Online Free PDF

fevered mind."
    "I know, Sire," Stowe said.  "I believe him."
    "Based on what?"
    "The logic of his tale," Stowe said.  "He says that the Fey started pouring out of the mountains two weeks ago.  He went into hiding in the Marshes.  I've been there.  I've seen that area.  The natives could hide there for weeks."
    Nicholas didn't need to know how well people could hide in the marshes.  His father had died there, murdered by a hidden assassin.  Stowe had been beside his father at the time.  "The insane can be logical," Nicholas said.
    "Sire  — "
    "If the Fey were invading again, why didn't they come down the river, like they did the first time?  It's impossible to scale those mountains, Stowe.  And even if the Fey found a way to scale them, it's impossible to bring a ship close to them."
    "Some Fey fly," Stowe said.
    "Yes, but not all of them.  Some have no magick at all.  You know that.  And your man says they've been coming down the mountains for two weeks.  Do you know how big a force that would be?  Do you have any idea?"
    "Thousands," Stowe said, softly.
    "Tens of thousands," Nicholas corrected.  "The first invading force didn't have that many people in it.  Why would a second?  And why would a second come so many years after the first?"
    But he already knew the answer to that.  He had known it for nearly two decades.  Jewel had warned him that the Black King would come.  But she hadn't known who the Black King would be, or when he would arrive.
    Nicholas had asked her during the marriage negotiations when the Black King would arrive. 
    Three years, five, ten, she had said.  I don't know.  If my grandfather has died, it will take a bit longer because my brother has to get used to the reins of power.  Once he is used to being Black King, he will come here.
    But it was the memory of what Jewel's father had said next that chilled Nicholas.
    Eventually, Jewel's father had said, the Fey will come to Blue Isle in such numbers that we will rule this place.
    Tens of thousands.  More than enough to rule this place.
    More than enough.
    "Jewel always said they would come," Stowe said.  "She said your children would protect us."
    Nicholas shook his head.  "Only if she were alive to designate the Isle as part of the Fey. As already conquered.  But she's dead, and so's her father."
    Stowe looked at his hands.  "But your children, they're part of the Black King's family.  He can't touch them, right?"
    The True Black King  —  or Black Queen  —  has to be ruthless, Jewel had said just before she died.  It is the only way to survive.  No one wants to kill a Black King more than his closest siblings or his child.  But the Black King's family cannot kill within its ranks.  That causes untold turmoil.  So we have to do it subtly, by hiring assassins and not giving direct orders, or by finding other methods.
    Like invading.
    Death by ignorance.
    It might work.
    "Can he touch them?" Stowe asked again.
    "I don't know," Nicholas said.  He swallowed.  His children were younger than he had been when the Fey first came to Blue Isle.  His son didn't have the capability to fight the most ruthless of all Fey.  His son would never be much more than a baby himself. 
    The Black Throne is held together by Blood Magic, the Fey's Shaman had told him after Arianna was born.  That Blood flowed through Jewel. It flows through your children now.  If the Blood turns on itself, insanity reigns.  And when insanity reigns, whole cultures die.  If you cause the Blood to turn on itself, you will unleash a fury.
    Nicholas shook himself.  There had been other false alarms in the last twenty years.  One actually had them sending an army to the mouth of the Cardidas river to find only mist and the figment of an elderly man's overactive imagination.  This might be another.
    Nicholas couldn't panic.
    Not now.
    Not ever.
    "Get someone to corroborate this story.  Find out who has been to the Marshes lately.  See if you