Three Dark Crowns (17 page)

“What are you doing here?” Arsinoe asks.

“I do not know,” says Mirabella. She sounds like a fool. When she left Rolanth, she never imagined she would meet one
of her sisters and hear her voice. But here they are. Together, as if they were led.

“You have grown tall,” Mirabella says.

Arsinoe snorts. “Tall.”

“Do you remember me?”

“I know who you are.”

“That is not what I asked,” says Mirabella. It is hard to believe how much she wants to reach out to Arsinoe. She had not realized until this moment how much she has missed her.

She takes a half step forward. Arsinoe steps back and tightens her grip on the knife

“That is not why I am here,” Mirabella says.

“I don't care why you're here.”

“You do not remember, then,” says Mirabella. “That is all right. I remember enough for us both. And I will tell you, if you will listen.”

“Listen to what?” Arsinoe's eyes dart suspiciously to the shadows of the trees. The naturalists have taught her to be afraid. They have taught her to hate, just as the temple has tried to teach Mirabella. But it has all been lies.

Mirabella holds out her hand. She does not know what she will do if Arsinoe takes it, but she has to try.

Hoofbeats rumble. Arsinoe steps back as riders burst through the trees. They are not alone anymore. Armed priestesses close in on them, circling and circling.

“What is this?” Arsinoe growls. “An ambush?” She glances at the knife in her hand as if considering taking Mirabella
hostage. “Jules!” she shouts instead. “Jules!”

It is only moments before the girl and the cougar bound into the clearing, with Joseph close behind. But they are cut off. The priestesses use their mounts to push them into a tight group.

“No, Arsinoe,” Mirabella starts.

“Queen Mirabella!”

Mirabella scowls. It is Rho, seated astride a tall white horse. She holds the reins in one hand. In the other, she carries one of the long, serrated knives of the temple.

“Are you injured?”

“No. I am fine! I am safe! Stop this!”

Rho charges the horse in between the sisters, so violently that Arsinoe falls back onto the leaves.

“Rho, stop!”

“No,” Rho says. She drags Mirabella up into the saddle in front of her as though she weighs nothing. “It is too soon for this,” she says loudly. “Not even you can break the rules. Save your killing for after the Quickening!”

On the ground, Arsinoe glares up at her. Mirabella shakes her head, but it is no good. Rho signals to the priestesses, and they gallop off together, veering north and leaving Arsinoe and Joseph far behind.

“The High Priestess is not pleased with you, my queen,” Rho says into Mirabella's ear. “You should not have run away.”

L
uca meets Sara Westwood on the bank of Starfall Lake. It is far inland from Rolanth, a large, deep lake with more width than length. It is where the Blue Heron River originates and where they brought Mirabella to meet Luca for the first time. It is a long way to come for a pot of tea and a cooling lunch, but at least there are fewer ears pressed against doors to hear what they are saying.

Sara greets the High Priestess and bows. More gray has come into her hair this year, and there are faint lines in the corners of her eyes. By the end of the Ascension, Sara may become an old woman.

“Has there been no word?” she asks.

“Nothing yet,” says Luca. “But Rho will find her.”

Sara stares out across the steely blue lake. “Our Mira,” she says sadly. “I did not know she was unhappy. After she first came to us, I never expected she would begin to hide her
emotions. What if she is hurt?”

“She is not hurt. The Goddess will protect her.”

“But what will we do?” Sara asks. “I do not know how much longer we can keep this secret. The servants begin to suspect.”

“They will have no proof, once Mirabella is returned. Do not worry. No one will ever know that she was gone.”

“What if it is not Rho who locates her? What if—”

Luca grasps her arm. If the High Priestess's touch has been good for anything, it has always been good at stemming panic. And Luca has no time for panic today. She did not ask Sara to come all this way just to calm her fears.

She leads Sara up the bank, to a copse of evergreens and a large stone, dark and weathered and flat as a table. Her priestesses have set it with tea and bread and soup reheated over a small cooking fire.

Luca readies her old bones and climbs onto the rock. She is pleased to discover it is not a difficult climb, and they have set out a pillow for her, along with a soft folded blanket.

“Will you sit with me?” she asks. “And eat?”

“I will eat,” Sara says, looking gravely at the stone table. “But I will not sit, High Priestess, if it is all the same to you.”

“Why not?”

“That stone is sacred,” Sara explains. “Elemental priestesses once sacrificed hares on it and threw their hearts into the lake.”

Luca runs her hand across the rock. It seems more than just a rock now, knowing all the blood it has drunk. And it is not
only rabbits' blood it has tasted, she is sure. So many things on the island are more than what they seem. So many places where the Goddess's eye is always open. It is fitting that Luca has come to this one, to discuss the sacrifice of queens.

Luca tears the bread in half and hands a piece to Sara. It is a good, soft bread, with an oat crust, but Sara does not take a bite. She worries it between her fingers until it turns to crumb.

“I never thought she would do something like this,” Sara says. “She has always been so dutiful.”

“Not always,” Luca notes, and chews. There was a time when Mirabella listened to no one, and nothing. But that was long ago, and far away from the dignified young queen she has become.

“What are we to do?”

Luca swallows her tea and fights the urge to slap Sara across the face. Sara is a good woman, and her friend these many years. But there is no firmness in her jaw. It will take a backbone of steel to hold together a Black Council led by her. Sometimes, Luca pities the High Priestess who comes after, for she will be the one who has to do it.

“What are we to do,” Luca says. “Indeed. Tell me, Sara, what do you know about the White-Handed Queens?”

“They are blessed,” she says hesitantly. “Fourth-borns.”

“Yes, but not only that. A queen is said to be White-Handed any time her sisters are killed by means other than her own doing. Be that by being drowned by the Midwife before they come of age, or put to death for some unfortunate curse, or,”
Luca says slowly, “being sacrificed by the island, for the one true queen.”

“I had not heard of that,” says Sara.

“It is an old legend. Or at least, I thought it was only a legend. Something of a whisper, about the Sacrificial Years. It is so old, it is no wonder we have overlooked the signs.”

“What signs?”

“The weakness of Arsinoe and Katharine. The boundless strength of our Mira. And of course, Mirabella's own reluctance to kill.” Luca presses her hand to her forehead. “I am ashamed to say that all this time, I thought that her only flaw.”

“I do not understand,” Sara says. “You believe that Mirabella is reluctant to kill because she is meant to be White-Handed? And Arsinoe and Katharine . . . will be sacrificed?”

“They are made as sacred offerings on the night of the Quickening.”

Luca drums her fingers on the stone. It vibrates down deep, like a heartbeat.

“These are old tales,” she says. “Tales that tell of a queen, born much stronger than her sisters. The only true queen born to that cycle. On the night of the Quickening, the people recognize this, and feed the other queens into the fires.”

Luca waits tensely. Sara does not speak for a long time. She stands still, her hands clasped piously over her stomach.

“That would be much easier,” she says finally, and Luca relaxes. Sara's eyes are downcast, but whether she truly
believes the tale does not matter. Rho is right. Sara will do as the temple bids.

“Do not burden yourself,” Luca says. “What comes to pass will come to pass. It is only that I would see the island prepared. You have always been a strong voice for the temple, Sara. It would be best if the people began to hear of this before they must watch it happen.”

Sara nods. She will be as good at spreading their tale as she has been at expanding Mirabella's fame. By the night of the Quickening, the people will be waiting and wondering. Perhaps they will pick up the knives themselves.

One of the novice priestesses approaches to warm their cups with fresh tea. Through the folds of her robes, Luca glimpses the silver of the temple's long, serrated blades. Come Beltane, every faithful priestess will carry one.

It is not a lie, Rho told her. It is part truth. And it is for the good of the island. Someone must take things in hand, if their chosen queen will not.

After the Quickening Ceremony, when the crowd at Beltane is drunk, and in ecstasy from Mirabella's performance, the priestesses will step forward to take Arsinoe's and Katharine's heads. They will cut them at the necks and sever the arms at the shoulders. And when it is over, they will have a new queen.

T
he Arrons welcome the Chatworth delegation the only way they know how: with a party, though not a great, glittering party in the north ballroom. While there is plenty that glitters, the party they throw for the Chatworth boy is meant to be an introduction between the queen and her potential king-consort. They will hold this meeting in the small dining room on the second floor, where it can be more intimate. And where Katharine can be placed at the heart, like a centerpiece.

It is exciting to have the house prepared for a party again, and filling up with people. Cousin Lucian has returned with servants from his household, and he bows whenever he sees Katharine in the halls. There is a curious smile on his face when he does it, and she cannot decide whether the joke is with her or on her.

Unfortunately, the return of people to Greavesdrake also
meant the return of Genevieve, who has taken her exile very personally. As the younger sister, she hates when Natalia excludes her, and since her return has insisted on being involved in every aspect of the planning.

“My scalp is still sore from so many styles braided into it,” Katharine says, leaning back against Pietyr. They have hidden themselves away in the stacks of the library, one of the few places she can be alone with Pietyr since Genevieve returned.

“Poor Giselle's fingers must ache as well,” she continues. “Genevieve is never pleased with my hair.”

“Your hair is beautiful,” says Pietyr. “It is perfect.”

Genevieve had ordered braid after braid and bun after bun. She ordered beads of jet and pearl to be woven in, only to tear them out again. And all that just to declare that Katharine's neck is still too thin, and she should wear her hair down to hide it.

“Sometimes, I think that she wants me to fail,” Katharine whispers.

“Do not listen to her,” Pietyr says, and kisses a sore red scab near her temple. “After the suitor has gone, Natalia will order her back to her house in the city. You will not have to see her again until Beltane.”

She twists in his arms to kiss him.

“You must kiss the Chatworth boy just like that,” he says. “It will be difficult to find the right moment during this small, ill-conceived dinner party. But there will be a time when you can steal away.”

“What if I do not like him?”

“You may grow to. But if you do not, it does not matter. You are the queen and must have your choice of consorts.”

He touches her cheek and then lifts her chin. He would not see any of the delegates ensnared by Mirabella. And neither would she.

William Chatworth Jr. is a handsome enough boy. His looks are not striking, like Pietyr's, but he has strong shoulders, a solid jawline, and very short hair the color of wet sand. His eyes are an unremarkable shade of brown, but they are steady, even seated as he is in the midst of a poisoners' dinner party.

He came alone, without his mother or even his father, and with only two attendants as an escort. From the tense look on his face, it was not his idea. He has been thrown into the wolves' den. But there are worse houses for a mainlander to stumble into. Many of the Arrons have had close contact with the last king-consort. Of all the families on the island, they have the most knowledge of the mainland and its customs.

Aside from a stiff bow and an introduction, he and Katharine have not spoken. He has spent most of the evening talking with Cousin Lucian, but now and again, Katharine raises her head and finds him studying her.

The meal is served: seared pink medallions of meat with a sliver of golden baked potato tart. Untainted, of course. The Arrons do their best to look impressed, though only those who are terribly hungry will do more than pick at it.

Genevieve takes Katharine by the arm and digs her fingers in deep. “Do not make a pig of yourself,” she says, “just because there is no poison in it.”

To further make the point, she twists the skin inside Katharine's elbow. It hurts so badly that Katharine nearly cries out. Tomorrow there will be a dark black bruise to be covered by sleeves and gloves.

Across the table, Pietyr watches with a tightened jaw. He looks ready to leap across their dinner plates and wrap his hands around Genevieve's neck. Katharine catches his eye, and he seems to relax. He was right, after all. It is only until the Chatworth boy leaves. Then Genevieve will be banished again.

After the dinner is over, with the food pushed back and forth to appear as though eaten, Natalia moves the party into the drawing room. Edmund serves the digestif, which must be poisoned, for the Arrons flock to it like birds to a crust of bread. A maid carries a silver tray with a green bottle and two glasses: something special for the queen and her suitor.

“Let me,” Katharine says. She takes the bottle by the neck and the glasses by the stems. Across the room, Cousin Lucian sees her coming and bows away from the Chatworth boy's side.

“Will you take a drink, William Junior?” she asks.

“Of course, Queen Katharine.”

She pours for them both, and the champagne sparkles and fizzes.

“You may call me Katharine, if you'd like,” she says. “Or even only Kat. I know that the full title can be a mouthful.”

“I'm not used to saying it,” he says. “I should have practiced.”

“There will be plenty of time for that.”

“And please, call me Billy. Or William. Some folk here have taken to calling me Junior, but I would rather it didn't spread.”

“It is a strange custom, naming the child the same as the parent. Almost as if the parent hopes to one day inherit the body.”

They chuckle together.

“According to my father, a fine enough name can be used again,” he says.

Katharine laughs. She looks around the room. “Everyone is watching us and pretending that they are not. I would not have chosen to meet you this way.”

“Oh?” he says. “What way would you have preferred?”

“On a trail somewhere, on a fine spring day. On horses so that you would have to prove your mettle by catching me.”

“You don't think that my coming here on my own proves my mettle?”

“That is true,” she says. “It most certainly does.”

He is nervous, and drinking fast. Katharine refills his glass.

“The Arrons have lived here a long time,” he says, and Katharine nods.

The Arrons are entrenched at Greavesdrake. And it is more than their poisons and their morbid artwork on the walls—still lifes of butchered meat and flowers, and black snakes curled around nudes. They have seeped into the manor itself. Now
every inch of wood and shadow is also a part of them.

“Of course, the Arrons' ancestral estate lies in Prynn,” Katharine says. “Greavesdrake Manor is the rightful home of the stewards of the queen, and it goes as the queen goes.”

“You mean that if Arsinoe becomes queen, the Milones would live here?” Billy closes his mouth quickly over the question, as if he has been instructed not to mention her sisters' names.

“Yes,” Katharine replies. “Do you think they would like it? Do you think it would suit them?”

“No,” he answers, and raises his eyes to the high ceilings, the tall windows obscured with velvet drape. “I think they'd be more likely to live in tents in the yard.”

Katharine blurts laughter. Real laughter, and her eyes find Pietyr's, out of guilt. He has drawn away into the far corner, pretending to listen to the council concerns of Renata Hargrove and Margaret Beaulin, but the whole time watching Katharine jealously. She does not want to think so, but it would be easier if Pietyr were not there at all.

“Billy,” she says, “would you care to see more of the manor?”

“It would be a pleasure.”

No one objects when they move into the hall together, though there is a momentary hush in the already hushed conversation. The second they are free of the drawing room, Katharine takes a great, heaving sigh. When the mainlander looks at her strangely, she blushes.

“Sometimes I think I have had so much ceremony I could scream,” she says.

He smiles. “I know what you mean.”

She does not think that he does. But he will soon enough. The entire Beltane Festival is one ritual after another: the Hunt, the Disembarking, and the Quickening. His poor mainland mind will addle trying to remember all the rules and decorum.

“There will be no break from it, I suppose,” he says. “Not even from meetings of this kind. How many suitors will there be, Queen Katharine?”

“I do not know,” she says. “Once, there were many. But now Natalia thinks it will only be six or seven.”

But even that number seems a burden when she thinks of Pietyr. How can she ask him to stand aside and watch? It is what he says he wants, but she knows that he is lying.

“You don't sound excited,” Chatworth says. “None of you queens seems to want to be courted. The girls I know back home would go mad to receive so many suitors.”

Katharine tries to smile. She is letting it slip, leaving him open to be snatched up by Mirabella and the Westwoods. She forces herself to step in close and to tilt her face up to his.

When she kisses him, his lips are warm. He moves them against hers, and she almost pulls away. She will never be lost in him the way she is in Pietyr. There is no point even in hoping. She will have many more moments like this when she is queen. Passionless moments spent silently screaming until she can return to Pietyr.

“That was lovely,” Chatworth says.

“Yes. It was.”

They smile awkwardly. He did not sound like he meant it any more than she did. But they lean forward anyway, to do it again.