The Rival Read online

  The Rival

  THE THIRD BOOK

  OF

  THE FEY

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Copyright Information

  The Rival

  Copyright © 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  Published 2011 by WMG Publishing

  Cover Art Copyright © 2011 by Dirk Berger

  Cover Design Copyright 2011 WMG Publishing

  First Published 1997 by Bantam Books

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  The Fey Series

  (In chronological order)

  Destiny: A Short Story of The Fey

  The Fey: Sacrifice

  The Fey: Changeling

  The Fey: The Rival

  The Fey: The Resistance

  The Fey: Victory

  The Black Queen: Book One of The Black Throne Series

  The Black King: Book Two of Black Throne Series

  The Place of Power Series: Book One [Coming Fall 2012]

  All of the Fey series will be published by WMG Publishing

  in both electronic and trade paper editions

  in chronological order starting in the summer of 2011.

  Short Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  Copyright Information

  About the Author

  For Jerry & Kathy Oltion

  whose enthusiasm for this project has been invaluable.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks on this one go to Chris York for waiting all these months; to Tom Dupree and Carolyn Oakley for their insights; to Nina Kiriki Hoffman for her honesty and her trusty red pen; to Dean Wesley Smith for letting me steal from a lifetime of mountain experience; and to all the readers who let me know how much they liked The Sacrifice.

  THE ARRIVAL

  ONE

  The mountains rose before him, an impenetrable stone wall.

  Rugad clung to the fine strings holding the front part of his harness. Above him, the strings' ends were looped around the talons of twenty-five Hawk Riders. The swoop of their magnificent wings sounded like cloaks snapping in the wind. They bore him hundreds of feet above the raging ocean toward the mountains that lined the southern end of Blue Isle.

  He angled toward the sun, but it brought him no warmth. Instead, its harsh light covered everything with a clarity that was almost eerie. The mountains themselves seemed to be carved out of the blueness of the sky.

  Nothing had prepared him for those mountains. Not his Visions, not all the talk of the Nyeians, not even a visit to the Eccrasian Mountains, the Fey's ancestral homeland. These mountains were sheer gray stone, rubbed smooth on the ocean side by centuries of storms, waves, and severe weather. The ocean slammed into their base as if the water wanted to pound a hole through the rock, and the surf sent white foam cascading into the air. Even at the birds' height, angling upward to reach the top of those peaks, Rugad could feel the spray pricking his exposed skin like tiny needles.

  The higher they climbed, the colder he got.

  That was one contingency he hadn't prepared for. He had ordered the harness chair from the Domestics back on Nye. They had spelled a dozen different models. Some of the rope was too thick for the Hawk Riders to hold. Some had been so thin that it cut into the Riders' talons. This material supported his weight and didn't put too much of a burden on the Riders above him.

  The Riders had two forms. In their Fey form, they looked nearly human, except for their feathered hair and beaked noses. In their bird form, they were all bird except for the small human riding on the bird's back. They looked like tiny Fey riding on a bird, but they were, in truth, part of the bird, their legs and lower torso subsumed into the bird's form. The only danger they posed in bird form was that they had two brains — and sometimes the bird's instinctual one took over.

  Rugad hoped that wouldn't happen here. He had wanted the Domestics to create a rope that the human part of the bird could hold in its hands. But the hands were too little. They couldn't carry anything of substance.

  They needed a strong, magicked fiber to lift him from the ship to the top of those peaks. Rugad swallowed, glad he swung from the harness alone. He wasn't certain he could mask his nervousness. His feet dangled over the ocean. He was flying higher than he had ever been in his life, and he would have to go higher still.

  He had sent a scouting party to the top of those mountains. They had reported a small level landing area, but he couldn't see it from here. From here, the mountains looked as if they rose to jagged points, sharp as the teeth of a young lion.

  The birds changed their angle of flight, and his harness swung backward, making his breath catch in his throat. He gripped tighter, remembering the Domestic's admonition not to pull on the ropes. An exhilaration rose in his stomach, a lightness that he almost didn't recognize.

  He was frightened.

  He hadn't been frightened in over seventy years, not since his first battle as a teenage boy before he came into his Visions, when his youth and lack of magick forced him into the Infantry.

  Frightened.

  He grinned. Somehow the feeling relieved him. He had thought that part of him was dead. So many other parts were.

  Logic conquered fear, he remembered that much. They had tested the harness, put in a strong wood base and an even stronger back, making it like a sedan chair carried by Hawk Riders. Above him the ropes looped over a small ring and then attached to the talons of an inner circle of birds. Another group of ropes ran higher, to a larger ring, and then to a larger circle of birds. Right now, they were angling upward in perfect formation, as if they shared a brain, the tiny Fey riders on their backs laughing and shouting across the air currents.

  In all of his campaigns, Rugad had relied on Beast Riders more than any other form of Fey. He had brought most of his Bird Riders along on this trip, knowing that he would need them to traverse the distance between ship and shore.

  The Hawk Riders had a majesty the other bird riders did not. From this angle he could only see one of his own men on the hawk's back, his lower body vanishing into the hawk's form. Only the man's torso and head were visible, looking as if he were actually astride the hawk. The hawk's own head bent forward slightly to accommodate the unusual configuration, but that was the only concession to the difference. The Rider and the Hawk had been one being since the Rider was a child.

  These Hawk Riders had flown him dozens of times before, testing the final harnesses, but never this high, never at such risk.

  Landre, head of the Spell Warders, had tried to talk him out of this course. He had suggested that Rugad listen to the Bird Riders, and send a few Scouts, then trust their opinions. Rugad had discarded that idea before the fleet left Nye. Then Landre had suggested that Boteen do some sort of Enchanter spell that would enable Rugad to share the Bird Riders' sight. But he had rejected that as well.

  He had to see Blue Isle for himself.

  Blue Isle. It had a reputation as being impenetrable. The river that ran through the center of the Isle was navigable, if the ships had a current map of the harbor. The first Fey invasion force, sent almost twenty years ago, had had such a map, but still the Isle had defeated them.

  Just as Rugad had known it would.

  The Isle would not defeat him.

  The Hawk Riders' angle grew steeper. The harness swung back, making him giddy. The mountains were close now. Their sides no longer appeared smooth. They were made of lava rock, polished by the elements, with cracks and crevi
ces, and broken edges all along the face. Nothing grew on the ocean side, no scraggly trees, no windswept bushes struggling to survive. There was no soil here, and probably hadn't been since the mountains rose out of the sea, thousands of years before.

  His grin grew. The sheer cliff faces of legend were not smooth as tempered glass. They had flaws. Imperfections.

  Handholds.

  Then the Riders pulled him over the top of the mountain, and his breath caught in his throat. The mountains still rose beside him, but beneath him was a plateau, and through it, a long narrow crevice. If he squinted, he could see blue sky through that crevice.

  The Gull Riders and Scouts had been right. A concealed landing place that gave the Fey access to the entire valley.

  Gently, the Hawk Riders lowered him onto the plateau, until his feet brushed the rocky surface. He pressed a lever as he landed, and the boards of his sedan chair flattened. The ropes collapsed around him, and he staggered forward before he caught his balance. The Hawk Riders landed around him, the narrow circle first. Rugad was surrounded by ten hawks, tiny Fey riders on their backs. Hawks were not designed to land on flat surfaces, so they had to time their change to the moment their talons touched the stone.

  In unison, the tiny Riders, straightened their arms, and loosened the rope loops around their talons. The ropes slid open as the Riders grew to Fey size. As they stretched to their full height, the bird bodies slipped inside their own.

  Then they stood around him, in fully human form, taller than he was. They had a not-Fey quality to them. Their hair was feathered as it flowed down their backs. Their fingernails were long, like claws, and their noses were long and narrow, hooking over their mouths like beaks.

  They watched as the remaining Hawk Riders landed and went through the same transformation.

  Within the space of three heartbeats, Rugad went from being surrounded by hawks to being surrounded by Fey. They were a small fighting force, standing on the plateau.

  The wind blew through the crevice, ice cold despite the fact that it was summer on Blue Isle. The Hawk Riders were naked, but they didn't seem to feel the chill. Rugad did. He shuddered, and wished that he had brought gloves.

  The other peaks towered around him like tall buildings, blocking the sun. It was as dark as dusk on the plateau.

  The leader of the Hawk Riders, Talon, clicked his fingernails together. The Riders grabbed their lines to prevent the ropes from tangling. Rugad kept his harness on — it was too difficult to reassemble — and stepped forward until he could see through the crevice.

  A valley spread before him, as green and lush as anything he had seen on the Galinas continent. The air, even at this elevation, had a fertile marshy smell. Several villages dotted the valley, looking like insect colonies from this height.

  "The mountains are sheer on the valley side," Talon said. His voice was piercing, and his sibilants whistled through his small mouth. "But they are only half the height. Going down will be easier than coming up."

  Coming up was the problem. Thirty thousand troops, most with little or no flying ability, scaling the rock face, the frothing ocean below.

  "Are there other plateaus like this?" he asked.

  "No," Talon said. "Not within a reasonable distance."

  Rugad nodded. Only a hundred men could fit here at any given time. That would slow the progress into the valley tremendously.

  "And what is directly below?" he asked.

  "A town of perhaps four hundred people. I have one of my men watching the site. These people do not seem to venture toward the mountains."

  Rugad cautiously stepped over line. The wind was strong here, so strong that he could lose his balance if he weren't careful. He peered down the side of the plateau, into the crevice, and felt that jolt of fear again. Nature would be his most formidable opponent here. He had never, in all his ninety-two years, seen terrain as mighty as this.

  He would beat it, as he had beaten all the other challenges that had arisen in his life. A tiny island in the Infrin Sea would not stop him. If he lived a normal Fey span, he still had fifty years of life ahead of him. He planned to live out his old age on the Leut continent, across the sea from Blue Isle. He would conquer Blue Isle, and half the countries on Leut, and then he would retire, the greatest Fey leader of all time, the only one to circle nearly half the globe.

  And when he retired, his great-grandson, Jewel's boy, would become Black King. Rugad had Seen it.

  "So," Talon asked. "Do you think we can invade this place?"

  Rugad raised his chin, and gazed down the valley. Near the horizon, the green disappeared into a white mist, suggesting further riches beyond.

  "We will invade," he said. "And we will conquer."

  He knew that much to be true. He had Seen the invasion and the victory. Standing here, on this mountain plateau with the valley that had haunted his Visions for fifty years spreading below him, he knew that the plans he had made on Nye were perfect.

  The Black King had arrived.

  And nothing would stand in his way.

  THE INVASION

  [Two Weeks Later]

  TWO

  Arianna peered into the wavy silvered glass, and jutted out her chin. The birthmark was the size of her thumb-print, darker than the rest of her already dark skin, and as obvious as the pimples the new hearth boy had.

  She pulled her dressing gown tighter, then glanced behind her. Still no maid. Good. Her bedroom was empty. Sunlight poured in the open window, and the birds in the garden chirruped. The bed was made, and she had thrown her new gown on the coverlet. The dress had a low-cut bodice, which her father wouldn't approve of, and a cinched waist that tapered into a flared skirt. The dressmaker had begged her not to use that pattern, but Arianna had stared the woman down.

  The last I knew, Arianna had said in her best haughty voice, I was the Princess. Has someone given my title to you?

  The dressmaker had had the grace to blush. She had done what Arianna wanted, knowing that if she didn't the palace wouldn't hire her again.

  The palace might not hire her again anyway. Arianna had heard the woman curse when she thought Arianna wasn't in the room.

  Demon spawn.

  Even after fifteen years, the Islanders didn't know what to make of Arianna. She was the second child of Nicholas, the Islander King, and Jewel, the granddaughter of the Fey's Black King. Arianna had never known her mother. Jewel had been murdered the day Arianna was born.

  Arianna wished her mother had lived. If her mother had lived, no one would call Arianna demon spawn. No one would look at her sideways as she went down a hall. No one would say that she wasn't really Islander, that she was pure Fey.

  But it was easy to see how they thought that. Arianna didn't look like her father. She had dark skin like the Fey. She had pointed ears and upswept eyebrows like the Fey.

  And, most importantly, she had magick.

  Like the Fey.

  Her birthmark was the sign of that. It identified her, according to her Fey guardian, Solanda. Only Shape-Shifters had such a mark. It was the sign, Solanda said, of the most perfect Fey. Yet no matter what shape Arianna Shifted into, the mark remained on her chin. Sometimes it was a faint outline, a suggestion of a mark, and sometimes it was a stamp, as vivid as a charcoal slash against the skin.

  And it was ugly, ugly, ugly.

  She was the Islander Princess, the most perfect of the Fey, and she couldn't get rid of the mark on her face. Solanda said she should look on it with pride. But Solanda wasn't fifteen. Solanda didn't understand how the boys stared at the mark, and how the girls giggled at it. Solanda didn't know that Arianna had overheard all the conversations about the King's strange daughter, with the witch's wart on her face.

  Maybe if the witch's wart went away, people would see Arianna for who she was, instead of who they thought she was.

  Demon spawn.

  She glanced around the room a final time. No cats, no maids, no hearth boys. She was still alone. She leaned over an
d pulled open a drawer in the bottom of the vanity.

  The pot was still there, untouched.

  She smiled, wrapped her hand around the ceramic, and pulled the pot out. She set it on her dresser, pulled off the lid and winced at the sharp tang of aliota leaves.

  The cream inside was a muddy brown. An awful color for skin. Skin should be a pale golden white, like her father's. Then her blue eyes wouldn't seem so startling, so out of place.

  She dipped her fingers in the cream, and rubbed some on the back of her left hand, as the dressmaker had instructed her to. The cream blended in, hiding the tiny cut she had gotten the day before. She held her hand in front of her, tilting it at different angles, trying to see the blemish. So far it seemed natural. If it looked good in the light, she would slather some on her chin before she put on the dress. She would go to her brother's coming of age ceremony, looking as regal as she could.

  No witch's wart to remind them she was different.

  She would be beautiful for the first time in her life.

  She stood and, holding her hand out in front of her, crossed to the window. The stone floor was cool beneath her bare feet. She glanced once at the slippers resting beside the bed. Shoes were the most uncomfortable contraptions ever invented. Her feet weren't meant to be bound. But they would have to be soon. A coming of age ceremony, as her father kept reminding her, was an Important Event. She would have to wear the shoes he had ordered to go with her dress.

  The window was large. It ended near the ceiling and stopped about waist high. Solanda had had it built special, with long hinged glass panes that opened over the garden. She believed that air was important to well-being — a Fey thing that Arianna's father reluctantly agreed with. A tapestry depicting the coronation of Constantine the First was tied back. Arianna hadn't looked at it in weeks, disliking the square poorly stitched faces, and the symbols of Rocaanism that dotted the tapestry.