One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  “Well, perhaps we did not need to. Kat is not the weak queen she once was. I do not know what has changed, but it is like she has woken up.”

  “You do know what has changed. Even if you will not tell me. You know what happened when she went missing after Beltane. You must.”

  “I do not.”

  “She is so strange now.” Genevieve’s eyes narrow. “With those knives she throws and that mad laugh that comes out of her sometimes. Eating so much poison . . . and practically enjoying the sickness that follows!”

  “Do not speak of her like that. Kat is not strange.”

  “She is not your daughter either; she is a queen. So stop calling her ‘Kat.’”

  Natalia stops midstride, and clenches her fists. Were they not in the middle of a busy public street, she would strike her sister across the face.

  Genevieve clears her throat and lowers her eyes.

  “Forgive me. It is the strain of the duel.”

  Natalia resumes walking. They are not far now from the Highbern. She can see its flags rising above the other buildings ahead.

  “Do not worry so much, Genevieve,” Natalia says quietly. “Katharine was clever enough to give us the opportunity of a ball. Tomorrow night, Mirabella will be there amid food and crowds, and by the time it is over, she will be no threat in the duel.”

  “You intend to poison her?” Genevieve asks, hurrying to keep pace.

  “Not to death. Just to weaken, so that Katharine will have an easy time of it in the arena. She will be able to slaughter her in front of the entire island, at her leisure.”

  “How will you manage that? Your sleight of hand is good, but they will not allow us near her. You will not be able to get close enough.”

  “I do not need to,” Natalia says. “Why do you think I have maintained the alliance with Chatworth all this time? Why do you think he has insinuated himself into the Westwoods’ trust?” She rolls her shoulders back. “He will do it.”

  “We cannot trust a mainlander with this! And what if old Luca has turned him?”

  “Impossible. The temple is not rich enough. Mirabella thinks to charge into the capital like a thundercloud. But when I am through, she will not even be able to make it rain.”

  THE HIGHBERN HOTEL

  The Highbern Hotel is a grand place, larger and more finely built than anything in Rolanth. The hotel’s ceilings stretch high overhead, checkered in black and gold. The columns in the ballrooms are gilded and the chandelier is the biggest Mirabella has ever seen. In her rooms, they find large beds stuffed with down, the coverlets embroidered with gold and red thread.

  “What a pleasant place to stay in,” Mirabella muses. “Were I not here to kill or die.”

  Mirabella takes a seat beside her window and looks out across the rooftops. Indrid Down is very pretty, and the strong smells of the crowded city do not rise that high, so the breeze is fresh and warm. The Highbern is directly across from the west tower of the Volroy, separated only by a wide street and the long, hedge-lined courtyard of rosebushes and lilacs. Closer to the fortress, she can just make out the shape of a cage mostly obscured by topiary shrubs. Inside is a brown, motionless hill of fur. Arsinoe’s bear. It survived after all and is now the prisoner of their poisoner sister. Well, that will end, too, after Katharine is dead. Though Mirabella does not quite know what she will do with the big familiar.

  Someone knocks at the door that separates her room from the sitting room, and she tears her eyes away.

  “Mirabella, come out now and keep your strength up,” Billy says, his voice muffled through the wood. “I’ve brought a platter of food that required practically no cooking.”

  Practically no cooking. It really is a wonder that he has gotten no better at it. No better at all.

  Mirabella joins him in the sitting room, where he has cut a loaf of his bread and spread it with butter. There are also some jarred apples and a wedge of blue-veined cheese.

  “I miss your apron,” she says, and he laughs.

  They eat for a few moments in silence. It is quiet on the top floor, but downstairs must be loud with people preparing for the ball tomorrow night. Sara, Bree, and Elizabeth are there, and Luca with her gaggle of priestesses, intent on observing every move the Arrons make.

  “Have you seen the bear?” Mirabella asks quietly.

  “His name is Braddock,” Billy replies, his voice grave. “And I have. I walked through the courtyard and snuck him some sugared walnuts from a street vendor.”

  “No one tried to stop you?”

  “They don’t even have a fence around the cage. I suppose they don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to stick their arms between the bars. Maybe even I shouldn’t have.”

  “Do not be silly. He is still her familiar, even if she is gone. He remembers those she loved.”

  Billy’s bite of bread stalls between his plate and his mouth.

  “Will we let him go after it’s over?” he asks. “Back to the woods at Innisfuil, where she found him?”

  “Is that what she would want?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. Or maybe she would want Jules to have him.” Billy runs his hand roughly across his face.

  Mirabella takes a deep breath and looks around the room. It is calm and elegant, the windows closed against the noisy streets and armed priestesses set in pairs in the hall.

  “It will all be over soon,” she says. “One sleepless night. Then the ball. And then the duel.”

  “And then you are queen,” says Billy.

  Mirabella quiets. Up to now, it has all been haste and resolve. Quickly mobilizing the priestesses and the Westwoods and thinking of ways to antagonize Katharine. But now she is here, with only hours to fill before their fate, and her certainty is beginning to fade. What was it Luca said about knowing the Goddess’s will? Clear one moment and gone the next.

  “Mirabella? Are you all right?”

  “Not quite,” she says.

  “What?”

  “After the duel, I will be the presumptive queen. I will not be crowned officially until Beltane in the spring. So you will have fall and a long winter to wait before you are a king.”

  Billy wipes at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He would rather wait longer. Before she can be crowned, he may come to resent this bargain they struck.

  “We are friends, are we not, Billy? And friendship in marriage is a strong foundation.”

  Hesitantly, he slides his hand across the table and turns it palm up. Equally hesitant, she places her hand atop it.

  She feels no spark. No quickening of her pulse. Looking into his eyes is not like looking into Joseph’s. She squeezes his hand.

  “But I am not her,” she says, and sighs. “I am not Arsinoe, and if come Beltane, you do not wish to take part in the Hunt of the Stags and do not wish to become king—”

  He shakes her hand lightly. “Don’t think of this now. There’s plenty of time. Only . . . I didn’t think there would still be a hunt. Since we’ve declared for each other.”

  “It will only be a formality. Nicolas Martel may still take part, and he may try to kill you and take the crown. But we will have priestesses on the hunt to guard you.”

  “Well, that’s good, then,” he says sarcastically. He turns toward the windows. “What is that sound? Sounds like chanting.”

  They go to the window and look down. A crowd has gathered, big enough to block the street between the Highbern and the Volroy, which is causing some shouting on both sides as carts try to make their way past. Those in the center stare up at her floor. Cursing her. Telling her to go back to Rolanth.

  “Mira,” Billy says. “You’re smiling.”

  “Am I?” She gazes down and chuckles. “To hear Luca tell it, the whole island is sick of the poisoners, and I am the savior they wait for. What a tale.”

  “It is true, to some. To many.”

  She draws on her gift. Below, dark shadows form on the upturned faces of the crowd as her thunderclouds gather ov
er the hotel. The people stop shouting. She cracks lightning through the air, and they duck and hold on to each other.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asks.

  “Nothing,” she replies. “Only making sure that they know that the elemental queen is here.”

  GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

  Pietyr glares out the window at Nicolas practicing his archery, this time from horseback. Every time Nicolas gallops past, Katharine can see Pietyr wishing for him to fall. And every time Nicolas shoots, she flinches, expecting the bolt to break through the window and pierce Pietyr’s chest.

  “There is something off about him, Katharine,” Pietyr says. “And not just for a mainlander.”

  “Pietyr. Come away from the window.”

  “You should get rid of him. He will never be your king-consort anyway; you know Natalia intends to choose the Chatworth boy.”

  Katharine makes a face. Chatworth is with Mirabella now. Before that he was with Arsinoe.

  “I do not know what she can be thinking,” Katharine says. “What will that look like, to accept my sisters’ cast-offs? And besides, I do not like him.”

  “But you like Nicolas?” And when Katharine does not answer, “That is ridiculous. You cannot like Nicolas.”

  At first, it was good fun to make Pietyr jealous. To make him suffer. He had it coming and worse, after all. But the joke is not a joke anymore. He seethes at Nicolas, and Nicolas’s cool response unnerves her. The moment Nicolas gets a whiff of power, he will find a way to hurt Pietyr. Whether to humiliate him or kill him she is not sure, but she senses he is capable of either.

  They are in the billiards room, but neither is focused enough to play. She shoots and listens to the balls clack together, not watching where they go. Instead she watches Pietyr pout. Even pouting, he is handsome.

  “I do not like the ideas he puts into your head. He encourages you to be reckless!” Pietyr breaks away from the window and comes to roll the cue ball across the table, angrily stuffing it into a pocket.

  “Perhaps it is you I should send away,” she whispers. But he only scoffs and crosses his arms as if she cannot mean it. “Nicolas is a better match for me now, in many ways. Even better than you.”

  His eyes raise to hers.

  “Kat. That is not true.”

  “Our goals are more aligned. We have similar minds. And if I decide to defy Natalia, he will make a strong king-consort.” She inclines her head and tries to be kind. “It is not fair, this game that I have made you play. Thinking we could be together again. That there was hope for us.” Once, she thought that she would keep Pietyr as her lover, no matter which suitor she married. But that is a dream from a long time ago and dreamed by a different Katharine.

  “Pietyr, I want you to go.”

  “Go?” he asks. “Go where?”

  “I do not care. Away from here. Back to the country. But you must go and go now.”

  His bright blue eyes swim with something like regret. Will he weep? If he weeps, she will not have the heart to send him off. She will take him in her arms instead.

  “Why are you saying this?”

  When she does not respond, he shakes his head adamantly.

  “I cannot go now. You are to fight a duel in two days. You do not know what you are saying. This Ascension . . . it has made you volatile. When you return to your senses, you will thank me for staying.”

  He talks to her as if she is a child, and whispers break into her mind. Angry, sweet whispers, and her fingers move to her ankle, to the poisoned blade she always keeps there. She slides it from its sheath almost without realizing what she is doing.

  Pietyr has turned his back on her. A mistake. But he turns around at the last instant, and the knife slices through the air instead of his skin.

  “Katharine!”

  “I said go, so you go,” she says.

  “Kat, stop!”

  She strikes again and catches his sleeve; the dark gray fabric begins to stain red. He backpedals around the billiard table and into the bar, knocking over a tray and a decanter of Natalia’s favorite tainted brandy.

  “It is for your own good,” she says miserably. “There is danger for you here.”

  “I do not care. I will not leave you, Kat. And you still love me, I know that you do.”

  Katharine stops short.

  “Whatever is left in me that can love,” she says, “loves you.”

  Before he can speak, she raises the knife and carves into her own face, along the hairline and her ear as though cutting off a mask. Her blood runs bright red down her neck and into her bodice.

  “Katharine,” he whispers. “Oh, my Katharine.”

  “Pietyr Renard,” she says in a gravelly voice. “We have not been your Katharine since you threw me down the Breccia Domain.”

  Pietyr stumbles out of Greavedrake in a daze. Katharine told him to go. But he did not gather any of his belongings. Instead, he rushes to the stable and saddles the best horse he can find. His hands tremble as he tightens the cinch. All he can see is the image of her cutting into herself.

  “It is not her fault.” He leads the horse quickly out of its stall and mounts. “It is my fault, and I will find a way to make it right.”

  Pietyr puts heels to the horse and gallops down the drive, hurrying for the road that curves north around the capital and on to Prynn. He will ride all day and into the night, then rest and change horses in the morning.

  He will ride all the way to Innisfuil Valley. Back to the cold, dark heart of the island: the Breccia Domain.

  THE ROAD TO INDRID DOWN

  “Jules,” Arsinoe says. “You’ve been staring at that map for hours.”

  They are traveling through the quiet roads in the shadow of the mountain, all on horseback, except for Arsinoe, who had to borrow Willa’s ill-tempered brown mule. It is sticky hot, even riding in the shade, but Jules and Caragh both insist that everyone keep their cloak hoods up in case anyone passes.

  “Jules! It’s a good thing you’re a naturalist, else your horse would’ve run face first into a tree with all the attention you’re paying.”

  Jules responds with a grunt but keeps on studying the map of the capital.

  “Let her be, Arsinoe,” Joseph says, riding up beside her. “If she studies now, by the time we reach Indrid Down, she’ll be able to pass through the city like water in a stream. And we won’t have to study as much.”

  “You should still study it,” Jules mutters.

  “Give it here, then,” he says, and holds his hand out. But she will not relinquish the map. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Is that the war gift?” Arsinoe asks him quietly. “The strategy? The preparation?”

  Joseph shrugs. And in the saddle, Jules frowns. No one knows. There is so much about the war gift that none of them understands.

  Arsinoe shoves her hood down and tosses her short hair.

  “I miss the breeze off the cove,” she says.

  “Put your hood back up,” says Caragh, riding behind on her stout chestnut mountain mare.

  “Let her keep it down,” Madrigal objects. She takes down her own and leans her head back to catch the wind. “We haven’t seen anyone since we left the cottage. These roads are practically deserted; you said so yourself.”

  “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be cautious.”

  “You never should have come, anyway. You’ll get us into trouble if we’re caught with you away from the Black Cottage.”

  “Madrigal,” says Caragh mildly, “we are traveling with a presumed dead queen and a legion-cursed fugitive. If we’re caught, my being away from the cottage will be the least of our offenses.”

  Madrigal scowls. She twists in the saddle, back toward Jules.

  “How much farther until we reach Indrid Down?”

  “Tomorrow. Afternoon, maybe. Or just before nightfall.”

  “Good,” Arsinoe says. “I want to go and see Braddock.”

  Jules lowers the map. The notice of the duel was not t
he only news that Worcester brought with him. He also told tales of Katharine’s victorious return to the capital, and the parade of the vanquished naturalist’s bear familiar.

  “I know that you do,” Jules says. “But we can’t risk it. When everyone is distracted by the duel, Caragh and Madrigal will sneak in and free him. Then you can see him afterward.”

  “But I left him for dead,” says Arsinoe. “I need to explain to him why I just left him there, for her to put in a cage.”

  From the ground, Camden stands and puts her paws up onto Arsinoe’s knee before jumping into the saddle to provide heavy cougar comfort.

  “Thanks, Cam,” Arsinoe says around the cat’s licks. “But you’re angering the mule.”

  Camden yawns, unbothered by the mule’s grunting and ineffectual bucks, occasionally whapping the mule in the face with her tail.

  “Camden, be nice to that mule,” Jules says, and then looks at Arsinoe. “Braddock is a good bear. He’ll forgive you.”

  Arsinoe quiets, and lets Jules concentrate on the map. It is she who will have the most to do when they arrive in the capital. It will be up to her to use her war gift, to sabotage Katharine’s poisoned weapons and guide them safely off course. It makes Arsinoe’s stomach tighten just to think of it.

  Joseph sees the look on her face. He rides close and nudges her with his knee.

  “It’ll be fine,” he says.

  BARDON HARBOR

  A shining, mainland boat is docked in a private Arron slip on the northern shore of Bardon Harbor. Inside, Natalia lies in William Chatworth’s arms, the soft rocking of the water threatening to lull her to sleep.

  “I’m surprised,” he says, and puffs cigar smoke. “I didn’t think you would be able to sneak away for so long. Not with the ball tonight.”