Two Dark Reigns

by Kendare Blake

  “Some say that the Goddess has abandoned the queens’ bloodline.”

  “Is that what the prophecy says?” Pietyr asks, and Theodora’s eyes dart between them. “We have heard there is a prophecy.”

  “Jules Milone was once a queen, and she may be a queen again.”

  The Black Council begins to mutter, making gestures of disbelief.

  “Or,” the oracle goes on, “she may be our doom.”

  Katharine straightens. A sharp intake of breath sounds from the council table. But Theodora Lermont only shrugs.

  “Our queen or our doom,” she says. “Or both at once. And if that is to be then none will stop her. Not the Black Council. Not the High Priestess.” She levels her eyes at Katharine. “Not you.”

  Katharine touches her stomach as the dead queens wail. The crown is all they want. All they are. If she were to lose it, they would leave her. They would seep out of her pores, and then what would she have? How would she get it back?

  “What does she have to do with the mist?” Katharine asks sharply. “Is she the cause of the mist rising?”

  “The mist?” Theodora’s brows raise. “I know not.”

  “Can you at least tell me how Jules Milone can bear the legion curse without losing her mind?”

  “I cannot speak to that either.”

  Katharine throws up her hands. She looks at the council, at Bree and Luca. She has tried. They must be able to see that.

  “I am sorry, Queen Katharine. I’m sorry to displease you.”

  Katharine turns her wrist against the bottle of Natalia’s poison, hidden in her sleeve.

  “You have not displeased me. Return to the room we have prepared for you. Rest. I will join you later this evening to have my fortune read. I am looking forward to it.”

  Theodora bows low and turns to leave. Katharine studies her every movement, wondering if the woman’s sight gift has shown her the queen’s true intentions. It does not seem so.

  “Is that all?” Cousin Lucian asks. “Is that all we have waited for?”

  “No, it is not all,” Katharine says. She motions to Pietyr and he comes to her instantly.

  “Have guards placed outside her door. Let her wander, if she will, but do not let her leave the Volroy. I will have my answers, Lucian. We will all have them.”

  That evening, Katharine goes to the oracle’s room with dinner in covered silver platters.

  “Queen Katharine.” Theodora bows deeply. “It is an honor to dine with you. Will others from the Black Council join us?”

  “Not tonight,” Katharine says, thinking of Bree and for some reason feeling guilty. “Tonight, I would keep my oracle all to myself.”

  They sit, and the servants reveal the dishes: a pretty, pale soup of autumn squash, golden roasted hens bundled full of aromatic herbs and a dessert of custard swirled through with a fruit preserve. The servants fill their cups with wine and water and slice the bread. Then they go and close the door tightly behind them.

  “I would have asked my companion, Pietyr Renard, to join us or Genevieve Arron. They have ever been fascinated by the sight gift. But they have also grown up as poisoners, and their faces turn so sour in the presence of untainted food.” Katharine gestures to the plates. “I find it terribly rude. But I cannot seem to break them of it.”

  “The poisoner gift has grown strong. Even the babies are born with immunities now. To come into your gift and be impervious to the deadliest toxins . . . They have every right to be proud. It is a sacred thing.”

  “Like all gifts are sacred,” Katharine says quickly. “I would instill in them a healthier respect of those other gifts.”

  “Shall I throw the bones for you?” Theodora asks.

  “After supper, perhaps. We do not want the food to get cold.” Katharine motions for her guest to begin, feeling the weight of the poison tucked into her sleeve.

  Theodora stares at her. She is no fool. She knows what is coming. After a long moment, she takes up a piece of bread and dips it into the soup.

  “I am sorry I was not of more use.” She turns to the hen and picks meat from the breast with her fingers.

  “That is all right. You will be.”

  The woman eats as slowly as she can, afraid of every bite. But she swallows and swallows again. Such brave consumption. It is a wonder to watch, even if the meal is not poisoned yet.

  “You know I never wanted a troubled reign.” Katharine takes up her silver and begins to eat her own portion. “I am not the monster that you have heard about. Not undead, like they say. It was my sisters who were the traitors. Pretenders in black dresses—or trousers, as the case may be.

  “But the island never gave me a chance. They rose up as soon as I had my crown. The mist coming for me like the Goddess herself.” Katharine skewers a bite of hen. “Well, let her take the naturalist’s side. It was not by the Goddess’s will that I was crowned anyway.”

  “If not hers,” Theodora asks, “then whose?”

  In her lap, Katharine positions the bottle of poison. Then she reaches for her wine.

  “Have the oracles truly allied themselves with the rebellion?”

  “I know of no such allegiance,” Theodora says, and purses her lips.

  “Then why did you refuse to come? Why was I forced to drag you here?”

  “Perhaps because everyone on the island is afraid of you.” She takes another bite of soup and bread.

  Katharine shifts the poison at the edge of her sleeve. Agreeable delirium, in a purple bottle. Agreeable delirium, and death.

  “You have such kind eyes, Mistress Lermont. I wish you were telling me the truth.” She takes a drink and sets her wine back on the table, passing her hand over the tops of Theodora’s cups. She has gotten better at it, and the poison slides down unseen to mingle with the water and wine. It is so easy that Katharine slips poison into every dish, tainting the bowl of squash soup and adding several shimmering drops to the custard. So much poison in the meal that the delirium begins to strike before the dessert is even touched, and Theodora starts to laugh.

  “Is something funny?”

  “No.” She dabs at her forehead with her sleeve and calms to take a swallow of water. “It’s only so strange that we are afraid of you. The stories that they tell—the Undead Queen—but you are such a small thing. And young. Nearly a child.”

  “All queens are young in the crown at some point. You would think Jules Milone and her cronies would know that. But perhaps it is not even the true Jules Milone. Perhaps the real Jules Milone drowned in the Goddess’s storm with my sisters.”

  “No, it is her. I have seen her myself in the visions. One green eye and one blue, with a mountain cat in her shadow. Some have said that, when she ascends the throne, her blue eye will darken to black, but that is just nonsense.”

  “It is nonsense that she may be queen at all when she is not a queen. When she will bear no triplets.” Katharine drains her wine and pours more. She herself may bear no triplets, and the thought makes the hen in her mouth taste like wood.

  Theodora shrugs. “The prophecy says, ‘once a queen and may be a queen again.’ It’s never easy to interpret. But the people believe. She is a naturalist and she is war gifted. And both of her gifts are as strong as a queen’s.”

  “How?” Katharine asks. “How is she as strong as a queen when she is legion cursed? Why is she not mad?”

  The oracle looks at her seriously. Then she erupts into peals of laughter. It is uneven, this poison. And Katharine has no idea how long it will last.

  “But you are a pretty girl,” Theodora says, and cackles. “And you are sweet and kind and have given me a comfortable room. You speak of the gifts with equal reverence.” Her left eye narrows. “Did you really buy the High Priestess with a council seat?”

  Katharine pushes the custard bowl forward. “Take some dessert to ease the wine in your stomach. I think you have had too much.”

  “Yes, yes.” Theodora swallows a large spoonful. “Forgive me.�
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  “Why do the people seek to overthrow me?”

  “They fear that you are wrong. That you were never meant to rule.”

  “But Juillenne Milone was?”

  “Perhaps anyone is better than a poisoner.”

  “And if she goes mad? Can you foresee that, whether she will lose her mind?”

  Theodora puts her elbow on the table. She is beginning to look tired. Her head hangs. It seems harder for her to swallow even the custard.

  “I can’t see that. But the low magic will hold. Her mother bound it, you see. In blood. So the curse is held in check and both gifts are allowed to flourish.”

  Katharine leans back. She has seen this mother before. In Wolf Spring during the Midsummer Festival. She stood by the water as they released the garlands into the harbor, before Katharine issued the challenge of the Queens’ Hunt. Madrigal Milone, her name was. Very young to be mother to a daughter of sixteen years. Very pretty to be a mother to a girl as plain as Jules.

  “If the mother dies, will the curse come to fullness?”

  The oracle opens her eyes wide.

  “None can say. No one with the legion curse has ever lived so long unharmed by it. Some wish for the binding to be cut. Some say it will make her even stronger.”

  “Where is Jules Milone now?” Katharine asks, but Theodora shakes her head. Perhaps she truly does not know. Or perhaps even Natalia’s poisons have limits. “Where is her mother?”

  Theodora’s eyes lose focus, and her face goes slack, a glimpse of the true sight gift at work. “If you go now, you will catch her in the mountains, riding south toward Wolf Spring.” The vision ends, and Theodora blinks as though confused.

  Katharine calls out over her shoulder, and a servant opens the door. “Go to the Black Council. Tell them to send our fastest messengers and best hunters toward the mountains with a bounty on Madrigal Milone’s head. A nice, fat bounty if she is brought to me alive.”

  When the servant is gone, Katharine faces Theodora, whose eyes swim circles. The poison has begun its final, grotesque turn, inducing highs and lows, grins and terror. “Is there anything else you can tell me? About the mist? Why does it rise? Why has it turned on its own island?”

  The oracle looks down and listens. She presses her hands to her temples and leaves behind smears of custard. “The Blue Queen has come. The Blue Queen! Queen Illiann!”

  “Why?” Katharine asks. “What does she want?” But the oracle can say no more. She only weeps and shrieks. The poison has become a spectacle, and Katharine pours them both more wine. “Take a sip,” she says gently.

  “I do not think I can.”

  “You can.” Katharine takes up the cup. She moves to sit beside Theodora and helps her to hold it, pressing her hands over the woman’s cold fingers. “It will make it easier.”

  “You did this,” Theodora says. Then she gasps, twisting with laughter that is like the bray of a mule.

  Katharine holds her shoulders tightly. “I did this. So I will stay and talk with you until it is finished.”

  THE REBELLION

  THE MAINLAND

  It takes Arsinoe longer than she would like to gather the money she needs to hire a ship to the island. But finally, the day has come. After squirreling away coins earned by donning a cap and acting as a delivery person and twice being tempted to swipe just one of Mrs. Chatworth’s brooches to sell, she stands alone before the harbor and prepares to board a boat. No Mirabella this time and no Billy. They will be safer here.

  “And I won’t be gone long,” she whispers, and clenches the coin in her fist.

  On the docks, she slips through the workers, looking for some idle captain. The day is busy, the port full of too many men, and not a woman to be seen. She keeps her head down and cap low, but at least she is not in Daphne’s time and does not have to worry about the superstition of having a girl on board. She stuffs her money deep in her pocket and walks past the slips. It does not need to be a great boat. Or even a large boat. This time, she is not trying to fight her way out of the mist. Any available captain and crew who are willing to sail in whatever direction she chooses will do.

  She would even settle for a dinghy and a good pair of rowing arms.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  The man in the green wool coat turns around sharply, though he had not been doing anything but stuffing his pipe.

  “What is it, lad?” He recoils at her face or perhaps just the scars across it. “Or miss. What can I do for you, miss?”

  “I need to book a passage,” she says. “For a short sail.”

  “A short sail to where?”

  Arsinoe hesitates.

  “I need to book passage for a short sail with a discreet crew.”

  He squints. When she does not budge, he chomps the end of his unlit pipe.

  “My boys and I will take you, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Aye. I’ve nets to repair this afternoon. If you come back tomorrow, around the same time, we should have unloaded the catch, and I’ll keep the crew around.”

  Arsinoe searches the docks. So many other boats, but some are far too grand, and others have become deserted in the short time she has been there. She pulls all of her money out of her pockets.

  “If I give you everything I have, will you round up a small crew and take me now? It won’t take long to get where I’m going. I promise.”

  “I don’t know. . . . Just what’s your hurry, miss?”

  But before she can manage a lie, she hears Billy’s familiar whistle.

  “If he says no, tell him I’ll pay him double.”

  Billy and Mirabella walk confidently down the dock. The captain straightens as he shakes Billy’s hand and Billy introduces himself.

  “Care to tell me what’s going on, young Master Chatworth?” The captain looks at Arsinoe suspiciously. “Is she not supposed to be sailing?”

  Arsinoe glares at him and spits into the water.

  “Not alone, I’m afraid,” Billy says. “I am her fiancé, and this is her sister, and we will all be sailing together.” He puts more money into the captain’s hand, and the man shrugs his shoulders.

  “I’ll gather my crew.”

  Once they are alone, Arsinoe pushes Billy and Mirabella back up the dock.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Coming with you,” Mirabella says, and shoves a satchel into her chest. “And we at least remembered to pack.”

  “If I’d have packed, you’d have known what I was doing. And didn’t you tell me this was a bad idea?”

  “It is a bad idea. Once we get on that island, we will probably never get off again.” Mirabella takes her by the shoulders. “Please. Do not go. Because you know we cannot let you go alone.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I’m not going back to stay. I’m sneaking on, making my way to Mount Horn to find out what Daphne and the Blue Queen want, and then I’m coming back here.”

  “If you can come back,” says Billy, studying the state of the fishing boat they have booked passage on. “Last time Mira had to fight a Goddess’s storm, remember?”

  “It won’t be like last time.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “That is not an answer. Which is why we are going with you.” Mirabella gathers her skirt and jumps down over the rail. “And to make sure you keep your word. Sneak on, sneak off.”

  “Sneak on, sneak off,” Arsinoe mutters, and boards the boat.

  The ship sailed in less than an hour. At first, the small crew of fishers was cross, but their mood was soon lifted by the sight of the extra coin and the relative ease of the journey. Also by the presence of Mirabella’s pretty face.

  Arsinoe peers over the side to watch the waves crash against the hull as she and Mirabella stand on the deck. There is not much to the boat. It is certainly nothing compared to the large vessel they arrived on.

  “Is your gift back to full
ness yet?” she asks. “Can you feel it?”

  “No. And even if we reach the island, who knows how long that will take to happen. Or if it will happen at all. There are many things we deserter queens do not know.” She pulls Arsinoe back upright. “But what I do know is we have nothing to fight another storm with. So you had better hope the mist lets us pass right through.”

  “It will,” Arsinoe says. Billy has directed the crew to sail southeast out of the bay. It is not the direction that they came from, but it does not matter. The island’s magic will find them if it wants them.

  “I suppose you’re angry with me,” Arsinoe says.

  “I suppose I am.” Mirabella’s mouth is drawn tight, and the more she speaks, the more her anger leaks out. “Sneaking off like that. Preparing to leave without a word. Treating this like it is a game when it could get us all killed.”

  “I know it’s not a game. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to come. You didn’t have to.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “No you didn’t. I survived sixteen years without your mothering. I survived a bolt to the back. A poisoning.”

  “You are a poisoner.”

  “I didn’t know that. I survived being struck by lightning by you!” She pokes her sister in the shoulder with a forefinger. “I saved your life at the duel. I broke us out of the cells! So if you want to talk about who saves whom—”

  Mirabella laughs and shoves her lightly.

  “You are a brat. And you would have drowned when the first of her waves hit.” Her smile fades. “But . . . I am not only coming along to look after you. Though I am sure I will have to do that.” Arsinoe makes a face. “I am coming along because if you are right, and there truly is something amiss on the island, it is . . . our responsibility, is it not? To do what we can. We are still of there; we are still its queens.”

  “No we’re not,” Arsinoe says glumly. “It’s thinking like that that’s going to get us killed.”