Three Dark Crowns (6 page)

A priestess passing by nearly stumbles, and Luca's arm shoots out fast to steady her.

“Be careful, child,” Luca says, and the girl nods. “Those robes are too long. You are going to hurt yourself. Have someone hem them.”

“Yes, Luca,” she whispers.

The girl is only an initiate. She can still fail at serving the temple. She can still change her mind and go home.

The girl walks slower to the south wall, where three more have gathered to restore Queen Shannon's mural. The original painter captured the queen exceptionally well. Her black eyes peer out of the wall, focused and intent despite the rain and storm that obscure the lower half of her face.

“She was always my favorite,” Mirabella says. “Queen Shannon and her storms.”

“One of the strongest. Until you. One day your face will eclipse hers on the wall.”

“We should hope not,” replies Mirabella. “None of these murals depict times of peace.”

Luca sighs. “Times are not so peaceful now, with decades of poisoners in the capital. And the Goddess would not have made you so strong if you were not going to need that strength.” Luca takes her by the arm and leads her around the southern dome.

“One day,” she says, “perhaps after you are crowned, I will take you to the War Queen's Temple in Bastian City. They have not murals there but a statue of Emmeline—bloody spear above her head, and arrows—suspended from the ceiling.”

“Suspended from the ceiling?” Mirabella asks.

“A long time ago, when the war gift was strong, a war queen could move things through the air, just by the sheer force of her will.”

Mirabella's eyes widen, and the High Priestess chuckles. “Or so they say.”

“Why have you asked to see me, High Priestess?”

“Because a task has arisen.” Luca turns from the mural and clasps her hands. She walks north, toward the Goddess's altar, and Mirabella falls in beside her.

“I wanted to wait,” she continues. “I knew how tired you would be, the day after such a spectacle. But try as I may to keep you young, and to keep you here with me in this quiet place, I cannot. You have grown. You are a queen, and unless your gift has expanded to stop time, the Quickening is coming. We can no longer put off the things that need doing.”

She puts her soft hand on Mirabella's cheek. “But if you are
not ready, I will put them off anyway.”

Mirabella places her own hand over Luca's. She would kiss the old woman's head were the priestesses not there watching. No High Priestess has ever shown favor to one queen as Luca has to her. Or caused such scandal as to leave their chambers in Indrid Down Temple and install themselves closer to their favorite.

“I am ready,” Mirabella says. “I will happily do whatever you require.”

“Good,” Luca says, and pats her. “Good.”

The priestesses walk Mirabella far out beyond the temple grounds, through the evergreen forest and toward the basalt cliffs above the sea. Mirabella has always loved the salt air, and enjoys the light breeze, and kicking her legs out fully in her skirt.

When they came to claim her from the temple, they did not tell her what they wanted. Priestess Rho leads the escort, so Mirabella thinks that it is probably to go on a hunt. Rho always leads the hunts. Every initiate in the temple is fearful of her. She has been known to strike the ones who displease her. To be a priestess is to have no past, but Mirabella is certain that Rho possesses the war gift.

Today, though, Rho is grim and sober. The priestesses carry their hunting pikes but have brought no accompanying hounds. And all the good game runs are far behind them, deeper into the woods.

They reach the cliffs and continue on to the north, farther into the rock than Mirabella has ever gone before.

“Where are we going?” Mirabella asks.

“Not much farther, my queen,” says Rho. “Not much farther at all.” She taps the priestess to her left. “Go on ahead,” she says. “Make sure all is ready.”

The priestess nods and then runs up the path to disappear around a corner.

“Rho? What are we doing? What am I to do?”

“The Goddess's bidding and the queen's duty. Is there ever anything else?” She looks over her shoulder at Mirabella and smiles meanly, and her hair peeks out from under her hood, bloodred.

The fall of their boots is loud against the stone and gravel, but it is steady. None but the girl tapped to scout ahead will go any faster, no matter how Mirabella tries to change their pace. She quickly stops trying, feeling the fool, like a bird fluttering against a cage of robes.

Ahead, the trail turns, and they round the corner and move farther into the canyon of dark rock. Mirabella catches her first glimpse of whatever it is they have brought her for. It does not look like much of anything. A gathering of priestesses in black-and-white robes. A tall brazier, burning something hot that hardly smokes. And a barrel. When the group hears them coming, they turn and stand in a row.

None of them are initiates. Only two are novices. One of the novices is dressed strangely in a simple black shift, with
a blanket across her shoulders. Her brown hair hangs loose, and despite the blanket, her skin looks cold and very pale. She stares at Mirabella with wide, grateful eyes, as if Mirabella has come to save her.

“You should have told me,” Mirabella says. “You should have told me, Rho!”

“Why?” Rho asks. “Would it have made any difference?” She nods for the girl to step forward, and she slips out from under the blanket and walks ahead barefoot and shivering.

“She makes this sacrifice for you,” Rho whispers. “Do not disgrace her.”

The young priestess kneels before Mirabella and looks up. Her eyes are clear. They have not even drugged her against the pain. She holds out her hand, and reluctantly, Mirabella takes it, and stands numb as the girl prays. When she is finished, the girl stands and walks to the cliff face.

It is all there. Water in the barrel. Fire in the brazier. The wind and the lightning, always at her fingertips. Or she could quake the rocks and bury her. Perhaps that would be painless, at least.

The girl who would become a sacrifice smiles at Mirabella and then closes her eyes, to make it easier. But it is not easier.

Impatient, Rho nods to a priestess beside the brazier, and she lights a torch.

“If you do not do it, my queen, then we will. And our way will be slower than yours.”

G
iselle pours warm water over the raised blisters on Queen Katharine's skin. The shiny, fluid-filled red welts stretch in bands across her back, as well as her shoulders and upper arms. The blisters are the result of a tincture of nettles. Natalia striped Katharine with it that morning, painting it on with a soaked ball of cotton.

“She was careless,” Giselle mutters. “This will scar. Don't move, Katharine.” She touches Katharine gently, and a tear rolls down the young queen's cheek.

Natalia would never have made the tincture so strong. But she was not the one who made it. That was Genevieve.

“When she sees what it has done, how high they have raised, she will have that sister of hers whipped in the square.”

Katharine manages to laugh a little. How she would love to see that. But she will not. Natalia will be displeased when she sees the marks. But any comeuppance Genevieve receives will be kept quiet and private.

She breathes out as Giselle gently pours more water over her shoulders. The maid has infused the bath with chamomile, to ease some of the swelling, but even so, it will be days before Katharine can dress normally without fear of the blisters popping.

“Lean forward, Kat.”

She does and begins to cry again. Through the open door of her bathroom, she can see her bedroom and dressing table, and Sweetheart's empty cage. Her little snake was frightened when she fell during the
Gave Noir.
She crawled off Katharine's wrist and disappeared. She is probably dead now, lost forever somewhere in Greavesdrake's cold walls.

The nettle poisoning was not a punishment. That is what Natalia said, what she assured her in a calm, even voice as she applied stripe after stripe. But Katharine knows better. There is a price for failing an Arron, and even queens must pay it.

It could have been worse. Knowing Genevieve, she could have been injected with spider venom and forever borne scars from necrosis.

“How can she do this to you?” Giselle asks, and presses a warm cloth to the back of Katharine's neck.

“You know why,” Katharine says. “She does it to make me strong. She does it to save my life.”

The rooms and halls of Greavesdrake Manor are wonderfully quiet. Finally, after the many arrivals and departures of the previous days, the house is at rest, and Natalia can relax in the
solitude of her study, and the comfort of her favorite leather wingback chair. Until someone knocks.

When her butler walks in empty-handed, her face falls.

“I had hoped you were bringing me a pot of mangrove tea.”

“Certainly, mistress,” he says. “And shall I bring a cup for your guest?”

She turns farther in her chair to see the figure waiting in the shadowy hall. She nods once, irritably, and her guest is shown in.

“After thirty years here, you would think my own butler would know that I do not want guests after I clear my house,” Natalia says, and stands.

“I was wondering where everyone had gone. Even the servants have become ghosts.”

“I sent everyone away this morning.” She had grown tired of their faces. Their smug and accusing glares. “How are you, Pietyr?”

Her nephew comes and kisses her cheek. Until the ball, it had been years since she had last seen him, the only son of her brother Christophe. He was a child when her brother had quit the council in favor of a life in the country. But he was no child any longer, and had grown up handsome.

“I am well, Aunt Natalia,” he says.

“To what do I owe this visit? I thought you would be home by now, back in the country with my brother and Marguerite.”

He frowns slightly at the mention of his stepmother's name. Natalia does not blame him. Christophe's first wife had
been far superior. She would have never turned him toward the temple.

“That is it precisely,” says Pietyr. “I am hoping you will tell me that I never have to return there.”

He steps past her without waiting for an invitation and helps himself to a snifter of her tainted brandy. When he sees her aghast expression, he says, “I am sorry. Did you want one? I thought I heard you call for tea.”

Natalia crosses her arms. She remembers now that Pietyr has always been her favorite of all her nephews and even her nieces. He is the only one with her high cheekbones and ice-blue eyes. He has her same serious mouth and her same nerve.

“If you do not intend to return to the country, then what do you intend to do? Do you want me to help you find some vocation in the capital?”

“No,” he says, and smiles. “I am hoping to stay here, with you. I want to help with the queen.”

“You were the one she danced with for so long,” Natalia says.

“I was.”

“And now you think you know what help she needs.”

“I know she will need something,” he remarks. “I was outside this morning when you were poisoning her. I heard the screams.”

“Her gift is stubbornly weak,” she says. “But it is coming along.”

“Oh? So you have seen improved immunities, then? But
is that due to her gift or due to your”—he lowers his voice—“practice?”

“It does not matter. She poisons very well.”

“That is good to hear.”

But Natalia knows Katharine will need more than that. No Arron queen has ever had to face a rival as gifted as Mirabella. It has been generations since the island has seen a queen half so strong. Even in Indrid Down they whisper that each Arron queen is weaker than the last. They say that Nicola could be sickened with mushrooms, and Camille could not withstand snake venom. They say that Camille's prowess with toxins was so lacking that Natalia had murdered her sisters for her.

But what of it? The gift matters less and less. Crowns are no longer won, they are made, through politics and alliances. And no family on the island can navigate those waters better than the Arrons.

“Of course, the Westwoods are still at our backs,” says Pietyr. “They think that Mirabella is chosen. That she is untouchable. But you and I know that if Mirabella rules, it will not be her ruling but the temple.”

“Yes,” Natalia says. “Since Luca began showing the Westwoods such favor, they have become wrapped around the High Priestess's little finger.”

The fools. But just because they are fools does not mean they are not a threat. If Mirabella wins the crown, she will use her right as queen to replace every poisoner on the council with an elemental. With Westwoods. And with a Westwood-led
council, the island will be weak enough to fall.

“If you have a proposal, Nephew, you ought to make it.”

“Katharine has other assets,” Pietyr says. “Other strengths.” He holds his glass up to the light and peers through it. There is certainly no brandy as fine in Marguerite's household.

“After Beltane is over,” he continues, “the delegate suitors will be in close proximity to the other queens. They could slip poison in easily, and our hands would be clean.”

“The delegate suitors know the rules. None of them will chance being discovered.”

“They might if they love Katharine.”

“That is true,” Natalia admits. Boys will do much for a girl they think they love. Unfortunately, Katharine is not well-equipped to inspire such loyalty. She is sweet but far too meek. And Genevieve is right when she says she is too skinny.

“Can you improve her in time?” she asks.

“I can,” he says. “By the time I am finished, she will be such a jewel that they will forget all about politics and alliances. They will think with their hearts.”

Natalia snorts. “It would be just as well if they thought with what is between their legs.”

“They will do that, too.”

Her butler returns with a pot of mandrake tea, but Natalia waves it away. She will have brandy instead, to seal their bargain. Even if the suitors are of no use for poisoning, it will be worth it just for the disgrace being shunned will cause to Mirabella.

“And what do you want in exchange for your aid?” she asks.

“Not so very much,” Pietyr says. “Only to never return to my weakened father and his silly wife. And”—his blue eyes flash—“after Katharine is crowned, I want a seat on the Black Council.”

Katharine stands quietly in a feather-light black robe as Giselle and Louise pull the sheets from her bed. After the night of the
Gave
and the morning of pain, they are ruined, stained dark with sweat and spatters of blood. Or perhaps they can still be saved. Louise has learned many tricks of laundering since becoming one of her maids. She is used to doing the cleaning after a heavy poisoning.

Katharine tugs her robe closed and winces when the fabric drags across her blisters. Beneath her hand, Sweetheart's empty cage hangs open. Her poor, lost little snake. She should have paid closer attention when she fell. She should have given her to a servant to look after before the feast began. Sick as she was, she did not even realize Sweetheart had been lost until morning. Far too late. But what truly pains her is that despite how frightened the snake must have been, Sweetheart did not bite.

Katharine startles when Louise screams, and Giselle pinches the other maid hard on the shoulder. Louise has always been flighty. But her look of surprise is warranted. There is a boy standing inside the queen's bedroom.

“Pietyr,” Katharine says, and he bows.

“Has something happened to your pet?” he asks, and gestures toward her hand on the cage.

“My snake,” she says. “She went missing after . . . after . . .”

“Has Natalia set servants to search the ballroom?”

“I did not want to trouble her.”

“I am sure it would be no trouble,” he says. He nods to Louise, who curtsies and darts off to tell Natalia. After she is gone, Pietyr dismisses Giselle as well.

Katharine tugs the robe tight around herself, despite the blisters. It is hardly what she ought to be wearing to entertain a guest.

“I am sorry for entering unannounced,” says Pietyr. “I am unused to following custom and protocol. Where I am from in the country, we take all sorts of liberties. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Of course,” says Katharine. “But what . . . Why have you come? Everyone from the ball has already gone.”

“Not me,” he says, and raises his eyebrows. “I have just been talking with my aunt, and apparently, I get to stay.”

He steps toward her only to divert at the last moment to inspect the perfume bottles on her dressing table. His smile speaks of mischief, and a shared secret between them, or perhaps of secrets to come.

“Stay? Here?”

“Yes,” he says. “With you. I am to become your very great friend, Queen Katharine.”

Katharine cocks her head. This all must be some elaborate
joke of Natalia's. Katharine has never understood her sense of humor.

“Oh,” she says. “And what sort of things will we do?”

“I suppose we will do all the sorts of things that friends do.” Pietyr slides his arm around her waist. “When you are well enough to do them.”

“I already know how to dance.”

“There is more to it than dancing.”

He leans forward to kiss her, and she jerks back. It was so sudden. She stammers an apology. Though she does not know why she should be the one to apologize, when it was he who was too forward. But in any case, he does not seem angry.

“You see?” he says, and smiles. “You have been too long in the company of my aunts and your maids. They have not prepared you to court your suitors any better than they prepared you for your poison feast.”

Katharine blushes scarlet. “Who do you think you are,” she asks, “to say such a thing?”

“I am your servant,” he answers, and touches her cheek. “I am your slave. I am here to make sure every one of the suitors does not think of either of your sisters before they think of you.”