Three Dark Crowns (5 page)

“Our Betty did them this year,” says the man nearest Arsinoe. He winks across the table and beams at a blushing girl of around eight, wearing a newly knit black sweater and a braided leather necklace.

“Did you, Betty? Well, they are the finest ones here, this year.” Arsinoe smiles, and Betty thanks her, and if anyone notes that a little girl can do such elegant blooms when the queen cannot open one rose, they do not let it show.

Betty's eyes brighten at the sight of Camden, and the big cat walks close to let her pet and stroke her back. The girl's father watches. He nods respectfully at Jules as they go by.

The Milones are the most prosperous naturalists in Wolf Spring. Their fields are rich and orchards bountiful. Their
woods are full of game. And now they have Jules, the strongest naturalist in some sixty years, it is said. For these reasons and more, they were chosen to foster the naturalist queen and must take on all the responsibilities that go with it, including playing host to visiting members of the council. Something that does not come naturally.

Inside the main tent, Jules's grandmother and grandfather sit on either side of the honored guest, Renata Hargrove, a member of the Black Council sent all the way from the capital city of Indrid Down. Madrigal ought to be there too, but her seat is empty. She has disappeared, as usual. Poor Cait and Ellis. Trapped in their chairs. Granddad Ellis's cheeks will be sore later, from holding such a fake smile. On his lap, his little spaniel, Jake, grins a grin that looks less like friendliness and more like bared teeth.

“They only sent one representative this year,” Arsinoe says under her breath. “One out of nine. And the giftless one, at that. What do you think the council is trying to say?”

She chuckles and then pops an herb-roasted, buttered crab claw into her mouth. Arsinoe hides everything behind the same easygoing smirk. She makes eye contact with Renata, and Renata inclines her head. It is not much of an acknowledgment. Barely enough, and Jules's hackles rise.

“Everyone knows her seat on the council was bought and paid for by her giftless family,” she growls. “She'd lick the poison off Natalia Arron's shoes if she asked.”

Jules glances at the few priestesses from Wolf Spring
Temple who have decided to attend. Sending one council member is an insult, but it is still better treatment than Arsinoe has received from the temple. High Priestess Luca has not come to her birthday even once. She went to Katharine's, occasionally, in the early years. Now it is only Mirabella, Mirabella, Mirabella.

“Those priestesses should not show their faces,” Jules grumbles. “The temple should not choose sides.”

“Take it easy, Jules,” Arsinoe says. She pats Jules's arm and changes the subject. “The sea catch is impressive.”

Jules turns to the head table, thoroughly stocked with fish and crabs. Her catch forms the centerpiece: an enormous black cod accompanied by two equally huge silver stripers. She called them from the depths early that morning, before Arsinoe had even gotten out of bed. Now they lie on piles of potatoes, onions, and pale winter cabbage. Most of their juicy fillets have already been picked clean.

“You shouldn't brush it aside,” Jules warns. “It matters.”

“The disrespect?” Arsinoe asks, and snorts. “No, it doesn't.” She eats another crab claw. “You know, if I make it through this Ascension Year, I would like a shark as my centerpiece.”

“A shark?”

“A great white. Don't be cheap when it comes to my crowning, Jules.”

Jules laughs.
“When
you make it through the Ascension, you can charm your own great white,” she says.

They grin. Except for her severe coloring, Arsinoe does not
look much like a queen. Her hair is rough, and they cannot keep her from cutting it. Her black trousers are the same ones she wears every day, and so is her light black jacket. The only piece of finery they could get her into for the occasion was a new scarf that Madrigal found at Pearson's, made from the wool of their fancy, flop-eared rabbits. But that is probably for the best. Wolf Spring is not a city of finery. It is of fishers and farmers and folk on the docks, and no one wears their fine blacks except on Beltane.

Arsinoe studies the tapestry hung behind the head table and frowns. Normally, it hangs in the town hall, but it is always dragged out for Arsinoe's birthday. It depicts the crowning of the island's last great naturalist queen. Bernadine, who weighed orchards heavy with fruit when she passed, and had an enormous gray wolf for a familiar. In the weaving, Bernadine stands below a tree sagging with apples, with the wolf beside her. In the wolf's jaws is the torn-out throat of one of her sisters, whose body lies at Bernadine's feet.

“I hate that thing,” Arsinoe says.

“Why?”

“Because it reminds me of what I'm not.”

Jules bumps the queen with her shoulder. “There is seed cake in the dessert tent,” she says. “And pumpkin cake. And white cake with strawberry icing. Let's find Luke and go have some.”

“All right.”

On the way, Arsinoe pauses to chat with people and to pat
their familiars. Most are dogs and birds, common naturalist guardians. Thomas Mintz, the island's best fisher, gets his sea lion to offer Arsinoe an apple, balanced on its nose.

“Are you leaving?” Renata Hargrove asks.

Jules and Arsinoe turn, surprised Renata has bothered to come down from the head table.

“Only to the sweets tent,” Arsinoe says. “May we . . . bring something back for you?”

She glances at Jules awkwardly. No member of the Black Council has ever shown any interest in Arsinoe, despite being annual guests at her birthday. They eat, exchange pleasantries with the Milones, and depart, grumbling about the quality of the food and the size of the rooms at the Wolverton Inn. But Renata looks almost happy to see them.

“If you go, you will miss my announcement,” Renata says, and smiles.

“What announcement is that?” Jules asks.

“I am about to announce that Joseph Sandrin's banishment is over. He is already set to return to the island and should arrive in two days.”

Sealhead Cove laps at the end of the long wooden dock. The weathered, gray boards creak in the brisk wind, and the rippling, moonlit sea mirrors the quiver of Jules's breath.

Joseph Sandrin is coming home.

“Jules, wait.” Arsinoe's footsteps rattle across the dock as she follows Jules to the point, with Camden trotting reluctantly
alongside. The cat has never cared for the water, and a thin, bent wooden board does not seem to her the most trustworthy barrier.

“Are you all right?” Jules asks, out of habit.

“What are you asking me for?” Arsinoe asks. She tucks her neck down against the wind, deep into her scarf.

“I should not have left you.”

“Yes you should have,” Arsinoe says. “He's coming back. After all this time.”

“Do you think it's true?”

“To lie about this, at my birthday celebration, would take more nerve than even the Arrons have.”

They look across the darkening water, across the cove, past the submerged sandbar that protects it from the waves and out into the deeper currents.

It has been more than five years now since they tried to escape the island. Since Joseph stole one of his father's daysailers and helped them try to run away.

Jules leans against Arsinoe's shoulder. It is the same reassuring gesture they have done since they were children. No matter what their attempted escape has cost them, Jules has never regretted trying. She would try again, if there were any hope at all.

But there is none. Beneath the dock, the sea whispers, just like it did against the sides of their boat as it held them captive in the mists that surround the island. No matter how they set the sails, or worked the oars, it was impassible. They were
found, cold and scared, and bobbing in the harbor. The fishers said they should have known better. That Jules and Joseph might have made it, to be lost at sea, or perhaps to find the mainland. But Arsinoe was a queen. And the island would never let her go.

“What do you think he is like, now?” Arsinoe wonders.

Probably not still small, with dirt on his jaw and under his fingernails. He will not be a child anymore. He will have grown up.

“I am afraid to see him,” says Jules.

“You are not afraid of anything.”

“What if he has changed?”

“What if he hasn't?” Arsinoe reaches into her pocket and tries to skip a flat stone across the water, but there are too many waves.

“This feels right,” she says. “Him coming back. For this. Our last year. It feels like it was supposed to happen.”

“Like the Goddess has willed it?” Jules asks.

“I did not say that.”

Arsinoe looks down and smiles. She scratches Camden between the ears.

“Let's go,” says Jules. “Catching a chest cold won't improve the situation.”

“Certainly not, if your eyes get red and your nose swells.”

Jules shoves Arsinoe forward, back toward the marina and the long winding road up to the Milone house.

Camden trots ahead to bump against the backs of Arsinoe's knees. Neither Jules nor the cat will sleep much tonight.
Thanks to Renata Hargrove, every memory they have of Joseph is coursing through their heads.

As they pass the last dock, Camden slows, and her ears flicker back toward town. A few steps ahead, Arsinoe laments the lack of strawberry cake in her stomach. She does not hear. Jules does not either, but Camden's yellow eyes tell her that something is wrong.

“What is it?” Arsinoe asks, catching on.

“I don't know. A scuffle I think.”

“Some drunks left after my birthday, no doubt.”

They jog back toward the square. The closer they get, the faster the big cat moves. They pass Gillespie's Bookshop, and Jules tells Arsinoe to knock and wait inside.

“But, Jules!” Arsinoe starts, except Jules and Cam are already gone, racing down the street, past the now-empty, flapping tents and toward the alley behind the kitchen of the Heath and Stone.

Jules does not recognize the voices. But she recognizes the sound of fists when they begin to swing.

“Stop!” she shouts, and jumps into the middle of the fray. “Stop it now!”

With Camden by her side, the people reel backward. Two men and a woman. Fighting over she does not care what. It will cease to matter in the morning, after the ale wears off.

“Milone,” one of the men sneers. “You're a bully with that cougar. But you are not the law.”

“Aye, I'm not,” Jules says. “The Black Council is the law, and if you keep on, I'll let them have you. Let them poison
you out of your wits, or maybe even to death, in Indrid Down Square.”

“Jules,” Arsinoe says, and steps out of the shadow. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” says Jules. “Only a brawl.”

A brawl, but an escalating one. There is a small club in the drunk woman's fist.

“Why don't you look after the queen,” the woman says, “and get out of here.”

The woman raises the club and swings. Jules jumps back, but the end of it still catches her on the shoulder, striking painfully. Camden snarls, and Jules clenches her fists.

“Idiot!” Arsinoe shouts. She steps between Jules and the woman. “Do not push her. Do not push me.”

“You?” the drunk man asks, and laughs. “When the real queen comes, we'll offer her your head on a pike.”

Jules bares her teeth and lunges. She gets him square in the jaw before Arsinoe can grab her arm.

“Send him to Indrid Down!” Jules shouts. “He threatened you!”

“So let him,” Arsinoe says. She turns and shoves the man, who holds his bleeding jaw. Camden is hissing, and the other two back off. “Get out of here!” Arsinoe yells. “If you want your chance at me, you'll have it! They all will, after Beltane is over.”

T
he pilgrims gather beneath the north dome of Rolanth Temple, their lips sticky from bites of caramel cake or sweet chicken skewered with lemons, their shoulders wrapped in billowing black cloaks.

Queen Mirabella stands at the altar of the Goddess. Sweating, but not from heat. Elementals are not bothered much by temperature, and if they were, no one inside could complain of being warm. Rolanth Temple is a weather queen's temple, open to the east and west, the roof supported by beams and thick marble columns. Air moves through no matter the season, and no one shivers, except for the priestesses.

Mirabella has just filled the air with lightning. Gorgeous, bright bolts, crackling across the sky and crashing down in thick veins on all sides. Long, repeated strikes that brightened the interior like day. She feels elated. The lightning is her favorite. The lightning and the storms, the electricity coursing
through her blood—it vibrates down to her bones.

But from the looks on the faces of her people, one would think she had done nothing at all. In the orange candlelight, their wide-eyed expectation is plain. They have heard the whispers, the rumors of what she can do. And they would see it all. The fire, the wind, the water. They would have her shake the earth until the pillars of the temple crack. Perhaps they even want her to shear off the entire black cliff and cast it into the sea so the temple can drift in the bay below.

Mirabella snorts. Someday perhaps. But just now it feels like a lot to ask.

She calls the wind. It blows out half the torches and sends orange sparks and embers flying from the braziers. Screams of delight fill her ears as the crowd pushes joyfully out of the way.

She does not even wait for the wind to die before raising the flames on the last of the torches, high enough to scorch the mural of Queen Elo, the fire breather, where she stands depicted on her gilded barge, burning an attacking fleet of mainland ships to the bottom of Bardon Harbor.

And still they would have more. Gathered together they have turned giddy as children. There are more in attendance than she has ever seen, packed into the temple and pressed into the courtyard outside. High Priestess Luca told her before the ceremony started that the road to the temple glowed with the candles of her supporters.

Not all who have come are elementals. Her gift has inspired other followers as well, naturalists and some who carry the rare
war gift. Many who have no gift at all. They come desiring to see the rumors proved true, that Mirabella is the next queen of Fennbirn and that the long reign of the poisoners has come to an end.

Mirabella's arms tremble. She has not pushed her gift this far in a very long time. Perhaps not since she first came to Rolanth and to the Westwoods, when she was parted from her sisters at six years old and tried to batter down the Westwood House with wind and lightning. She glances at the shallow reflector pool to her right, lit prettily with floating candles.

No. Not water. Water is her worst element. The most difficult to control. She ought to have done that first. She would have, had her mind not been so clouded by her nerves.

Mirabella looks across the crowd to the back, where High Priestess Luca huddles against the curve of the south wall, layered in thick robes. Mirabella nods to her from beneath her dripping brow, and the High Priestess understands.

Luca's clear, authoritative voice cuts through the din.

“One more.”

The crowd is suggestible, and in moments murmurs of “one more” weave with cheers of encouragement.

One. Just one more element. One more display.

Mirabella reaches down deep, calling silently to the Goddess, giving thanks for her gift. But that is only temple teaching. Mirabella needs no prayers. Her elemental gift coils in her chest. She takes a breath and lets it go. A shockwave passes under their feet. It rattles the temple and everyone in it.
Somewhere a vase falls over and shatters. People outside feel the reverberation and gasp.

Inside the temple, finally, the people roar.

She draws her sister's blood with a pair of silver shears. What was meant to simply trim her hair has instead shorn off an ear.

“Is this a nursery rhyme, Sister?” her sister asks. “Is this a fairy story?”

“I have heard it before,” Mirabella says, and studies the crimson stain. She drops the ear into her sister's lap and runs her fingertip along the shears's sharp edge.

“Careful not to cut yourself. Our queenly skin is fragile. Besides, my birds will want you whole. Eyes in your head and ears attached. Do not drink. She has turned our wine to blood.”

“Who?” Mirabella asks, though she knows very well.

“Wine and blood and back again, inside our veins and into cups.”

Somewhere through the tower a little girl's voice sings; it rises up the stairs and round and round like a noose tightening.

“She is not my sister.”

Her sister shrugs. Blood rolls down in a slow waterfall from the open hole on the side of her head.

“She is and I am. We are.”

The shears open and close. The other ear falls into her sister's lap.

Mirabella wakes with her mouth tasting of blood. It was only a dream, but a vivid one. She almost expects to look down and see pieces of her sisters clenched in her fists.

Arsinoe's ear landed so softly in her lap. Though it was not really Arsinoe. So many years have gone by that Mirabella does not even know what Arsinoe looks like. People tell her that Arsinoe is ugly, with short, straw-like hair and a plain face. But Mirabella does not believe it. That is only what they think she wants to hear.

Mirabella kicks her sheets aside and takes a long drink of water from the glass on her bedside table. The sprawling estate of Westwood House is quiet. She imagines that all of Rolanth is quiet, even though the sunlight tells her it is nearly noon. Her birthday celebration went long into the night.

“You are awake.”

Mirabella turns toward her open door and smiles weakly at the petite priestess who has stepped into her room. She is a small thing, and young. The black bracelets on her wrists are still real bracelets, not tattoos.

“Yes,” Mirabella says. “Just.”

The girl nods and comes inside to help her dress, along with a second initiate who had been hidden in her shadow.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Quite,” Mirabella lies. The dreams have gotten worse of late. Luca says that is to be expected. That it is the way of the queens, and after her sisters are dead, the dreams will stop.

Mirabella holds very still as the priestesses brush her hair
and put her into a comfortable dress after the night's revelry. Then finally, they step back into the shadows. They are always with her, the priestesses. Even in Westwood House. Ever since the High Priestess saw the strength of her gift, she has been under temple guard. Sometimes, she wishes they would disappear.

She passes Uncle Miles in the hallway that leads to the kitchen, pressing a cold compress to his forehead.

“Too much wine?” she asks.

“Too much of everything,” he says, and bows clumsily before going back toward his room.

“Where is Sara?”

“In the drawing room,” he answers over his shoulder. “She has not moved from there since breakfast.”

Sara Westwood. Her foster-matron. A kind, devout woman, if a bit prone to worrying. She has cared for Mirabella well, and is quite gifted, specializing in the element of water. When Mirabella settles into the sitting room for tea, Sara's moans occasionally echo up the stairs from where she is likely reclined on the drawing room sofa. Overindulgence has its price.

But the night was a success. Luca said so. All the priestesses said so. People of Fennbirn will talk of it for years. They will say they were there when the new queen rose.

Mirabella puts her feet up on the green velvet chair opposite the couch and stretches out. She is spent. Her gift feels like rubber in her stomach, wobbly and uneasy. But it will come back.

“That was quite a show, my queen.”

Bree leans against the door and then lazily twirls inside. She flops down beside Mirabella on the long satin couch. Her shiny, chestnut-and-gold hair is loose from its usual braid, and though she too looks exhausted, it is only the best kind.

“I hate it when you call me that,” Mirabella says, and smiles. “Where have you been?”

“Fenn Wexton was showing me his mother's stables.”

“Fenn Wexton.” Mirabella snorts. “He is a laughing fool.”

“But have you seen his arms?” Bree asks. “And he did not do so much laughing last night. Tilda and Annabeth were there for a while. We took a jug of honeyed wine and lay on his barn roof under the stars. Nearly fell through the rotted thing!”

Mirabella gazes up at the ceiling.

“Perhaps we could have smuggled you out,” Bree says, and Mirabella chuckles.

“Bree, they put bells on my ankles. Large, rattling bells, like I was a cat. Like they thought I was going to sneak off.”

“It is not like you have not disappeared before,” Bree says, and grins.

“Never for anything so important!” Mirabella protests. “I have always been dutiful, when it matters. But they always like to know where I am. What I am doing. What I am thinking.”

“They will come down on you even harder now that the Ascension Year approaches,” says Bree. “Rho and those priestess guards.” She rolls over onto her stomach. “Mira, will you ever be free?”

Mirabella looks at her slantways.

“Do not be so dramatic,” Mirabella says. “Now, you ought to go get cleaned up. We have a dress fitting this afternoon.”

The loose stair on the staircase creaks six times, and moments later, six tall priestesses file into the room. Bree makes a displeased face and stretches languorously.

“My queen,” says the nearest girl. “High Priestess Luca wishes to see you.”

“Very well.” Mirabella stands. She thought it would be some less-pleasant errand. But it is always good to visit Luca.

“Be sure to have her back for her fitting this afternoon,” Bree says, and waggles her fingers in a lazy good-bye.

Mirabella doubts she will see Bree for the rest of the day. Dress fitting or no, nothing much can keep Bree from doing exactly what she wants, and as the beloved only daughter of Sara Westwood, no one has ever much bothered to try. It would be easy to resent Bree for her freedom if Mirabella did not love her so dearly.

Outside, Mirabella keeps a brisk pace, her subtle jab at the priestesses who guard her so closely. Most of them are as hung-over from her birthday as Sara, and the jarring walk turns them slightly green.

But it is not terribly cruel. Westwood House is close to the temple. When Mirabella was younger, and more able to slip her guard, she would sometimes sneak out to visit Luca alone, or to run along the temple grounds out to the dark basalt cliffs of Shannon's Blackway. She misses that space. That privacy. When she could walk with a slouch or kick stones aimed at
trees. When she could be wild as an elemental queen is meant to be.

Now, she is surrounded by white robes. She has to crane her neck over the shoulder of the nearest just to catch a glimpse of the city below. Rolanth. The elementals' city, a sprawling center of stone and water running fast from the evergreen hills. Channels run between buildings like arteries to ferry people and cargo inland from the sea through a system of locks. From this height, the buildings look proud and white. The channels nearly blue. She can easily imagine the way the city once shone, when it was rich and fortified. Before the poisoners took the throne and the council and refused to let go.

“It is a lovely day,” Mirabella says to break the monotony.

“It is, my queen,” says one of the priestesses. “The Goddess provides.”

They say no more. Mirabella knows not a one of her escorts by name. So many priestesses have come to Rolanth Temple of late that she cannot keep up with the new ones. Luca says that temples across the island are experiencing the same bounty. The strength of Mirabella's gift has renewed the island's faith. Sometimes, Mirabella wishes that Luca would attribute fewer things to the strength of her gift.

Luca meets her in the temple proper rather than upstairs in her rooms. The old woman opens her arms. She takes Mirabella from the priestesses and kisses her cheek.

“You do not look so very tired,” she says. “Perhaps I should have made you work the water last night, after all.”

“If you had, you would have seen nothing,” Mirabella replies. “Or I may have drenched someone by accident.”

“By accident,” Luca says wryly. When she first met Luca, Mirabella tried to drown her by summoning a water elemental out of Starfall Lake and sending it down the High Priestess's throat. But that was a long time ago.

Luca slips her hands back beneath her layers of robes and fur. Mirabella does not know what gift Luca had before she became a priestess, but it was not the elemental gift. She is far too vulnerable to the cold.