Another splash, and she hears him shout and curse her for such a stupid idea. But then Mirabella’s current takes hold and ferries them toward shore.
“Pretend to swim,” she says, teeth chattering. “Or it’ll look strange.”
“I’m too cold to even pretend, you arse,” he says, and a moment later their toes drag against the sand.
Miserably freezing, they join Mirabella on the beach and wave to the slack-jawed fishers on the boat.
“What must they think of what they found?” Mirabella asks.
“Doesn’t matter,” Arsinoe replies. “They won’t be able to find it again if they try. Not unless they’re meant to.” She turns and looks past the beach to the dense green moss and flat, gray stone.
“Good Goddess, I’ve missed this terrible place.”
INDRID DOWN TEMPLE
With tired eyes, Pietyr cracks open yet another book from the many shelves of the temple library. He has been there since before dawn after creeping out of Katharine’s bed and onto the back of a cranky, half-awake horse. Riding through the dark streets to slip into the library with a lamp and a sheaf of paper. Hours later, the paper is mostly blank. He has not come across much about the dead queens or even about exorcism, and when he does, he must be careful what he writes in case someone were to find the notes.
He leans back and stretches, and the light of one of the small windows catches him in the eye. He has no idea what time it is. It could be near midday. He bends over the book, scours a few pages, and shuts it again. Part of him wants to quit. It is not as though getting rid of the dead queens is something that Katharine wants. Not when they have convinced her how much she needs them.
But she does not need them. They forced her hand to take that young boy’s life. Their existence is an affront to the Goddess. It is their presence that has caused the mist to rise. It must be.
If he does not find a way to stop them, they will cost Katharine everything.
He takes the book back to its shelf. The library on the lower level of the temple is not large. The entirety of it could be fit into a corner of the one at Greavesdrake. But it is well stocked. The texts here are ancient and preserved nicely, not a speck of dust on the spines and no whiff of mold even near the binding. Some of the pages actually smell rather like fresh parchment simply from being so rarely read. He was sure he would find something here. But every tale of spiritual possession he has come across has been written about shallowly. Treatments simply alluded to and sometimes the outcome not mentioned at all.
Pietyr sighs and gathers up his paper and fading lamp. Perhaps there is no way.
“They said you have been here a long time.”
He turns.
“High Priestess. How do you manage to be so quiet with all those rustling robes?”
“Years of practice. What brings you to our library, Pietyr?”
“I did not know anyone saw me come in. What are you doing here?”
“The temple has been tasked with uncovering the truth of the mist.” She opens her hands and looks around at the shelves. “I came to learn of the progress.”
Pietyr cocks an eyebrow. If there was progress made, there was none to be told of that morning. He had been the only person in the library since he arrived.
“Are you also here on an errand for the queen?” Luca asks.
“No. I am here on behalf of myself.”
“You know you can confide in me, Pietyr. She is as much my queen now as she is yours.”
“That is not true,” he says, and straightens. “That will never be true.”
“All of our fates are tied to hers. You cannot keep her all to yourself. Not anymore.” She raises her arm and folds one side of him in soft, white robes; squeezes his shoulder; and guides him back to the table, where they sit.
Perhaps it is because he is in need of sleep or perhaps it is due to simple frustration, but after a moment, he says, “I am not here on behalf of Katharine. I have been looking into another solution to the mist.” He rubs his throbbing temples. “Examining any possibility. Sometimes I think I have found something useful, and then it falls apart.”
“It has been a long time since I took a deep dive into these old shelves.” Luca nods. “But I well remember how it felt: an aching back, dry eyes. So many words turning circles in my head.”
“Have you ever—” he starts, and hesitates. Old Luca is shrewd. If he tells her what he seeks, all of Katharine’s secrets about the dead queens may be laid bare. But it is true what she said. Her fate, the fate of the Black Council, the very tradition of the island, and their way of life are all tied to Katharine. So let Luca figure it out. Even if she were to know, she could do nothing.
“In all your years in service to the temple,” he says, “have you ever come across an instance of spiritual possession?”
“Spiritual possession? What an odd question.”
“Forgive me.” He waves his hand, casually. “I am exhausted. It was just something I happened upon this morning, and there was so little written about it . . . the entry was so vague. I suppose it piqued my curiosity.”
Luca drums her fingers on the table.
“I have never seen a case of it, only heard reports. None could ever be confirmed, which would explain the incomplete writings. The temple does not generally interfere in such things. The only thing for it is prayer, and usually a merciful execution.”
Pietyr exhales. Merciful execution. That is a dead end, and a bleak one.
“Of course,” the High Priestess goes on, “knowing that, many sufferers do not seek the aid of the temple. They go elsewhere. To those who practice low magic.”
“Low magic is a desecration of the Goddess’s gifts.”
“They are desperate. Who knows? Sometimes it may work. Though the temple could never condone its use.”
Low magic. It is not the answer he hoped for. To practice low magic is a danger even to those who are well versed in it. He knows nearly nothing of what it entails.
“Blast,” he says, looking at his hand and seeing a smear of ink. “Is it everywhere?”
“Just a bit on the cheek and the bridge of your nose.” Luca points and helps him to rub it off.
“What time is it?”
“Not yet midday.”
“Is the queen awake?”
“She was not when I left. Up too late celebrating. She is overjoyed to have the mother of Juillenne Milone locked up in the Volroy cells.” She pats him on the knee and stands. “You had best find someplace to get some sleep. As soon as she rises, she will want to question the prisoner. And then there will be decisions to make.”
THE VOLROY
Katharine sits before her dressing table and rubs soothing oil into her temples and hands. For once, everything is proceeding as she hoped. The visions of the dead oracle Theodora Lermont proved true, and Katharine’s soldiers found Jules’s mother as she rode south through the mountains. She arrived the night before, arms tied behind her back and a sack over her head. Now she sits cozily in the cells below the castle.
“A lovely morning,” Katharine says to her maid Giselle.
“It is, my queen.”
“Only the dark, blue expanse of the sea. No mist, no screams . . . no one running into the Volroy to tell me that more bodies have washed ashore.” She takes a deep breath as Giselle gently brushes her hair. “How long has it been since we had any ill news?”
“Since before the oracle was brought.”
“Yes. Since before the oracle was brought.” Since she has begun to pursue the legion-cursed pretender. The quiet mist must be a sign. She must be doing the right thing.
Katharine reaches for a bottle of perfume and shoves away from the table so quickly that she knocks Giselle down onto the carpet.
“Queen Katharine? What’s the matter?”
Katharine stares in horror at her right hand. It is dead. Wrinkled and decaying to the wrist. She makes a fist and watches the skin stretch and crack.
“Mist
ress?”
“Giselle, my hand!”
The maid takes it and turns it over.
“I see no cut, nothing to cause a sting.” She strokes Katharine’s palm and presses her lips to it, those pretty red lips to that wet, rotten skin. “There. Is that better?”
Katharine tries to smile. The maid sees nothing. And indeed, when Katharine looks again, her hand is just her hand, pale and scarred but alive as usual.
“You still treat me as a child.”
“To me, you will always be a little bit a child.”
“Just the same,” the queen says, “I think I will finish up by myself. Would you go and see that my council is roused?”
Giselle curtsies deep and leaves her alone. As much as she is ever alone.
“What was that?” she asks the dead queens. “A warning? A mistake?” But though she can feel them listening, they do not respond. “Or was it a threat?”
Katharine sits back down before her mirror, and with shaking fingers, lifts the styled black waves from her shoulders to tie with a length of ribbon.
“Pietyr is right. After this battle is won, I will find a way to lay you to rest.” She slides her hands into black gloves. “Perhaps I truly will.”
Before Katharine goes into the Volroy cells, she calls for Pietyr and Bree and the High Priestess. It takes them time to assemble, having been exhausted by revelry the night before. Pietyr is the last to arrive, and he does so looking wretched.
“Such tired faces,” she says as they lean against the wall. “Perhaps I should go alone to see the Legion Queen’s mother.”
“We are fine.” Luca straightens her shoulders. “Some of your council should be there for the questioning.”
“Very well. Try not to vomit in the corridor.” She turns and leads the way, relishing the cold rush of stale air closing over her head. She has always liked this part of the Volroy, from the first time that Natalia brought her there to help with the poisoning of prisoners to the last time she descended to show her sisters her crown.
They reach the cell and guards place extra torches to illuminate the straw-covered floor. Madrigal Milone sits with her back pressed to the rear wall. Or at least Katharine assumes it is Madrigal Milone. The guards have not taken the sack off her head. Beside her, another sack lies on the straw, with something inside flapping weakly. The naturalist’s familiar, no doubt.
“Go in,” Katharine says. “Remove the bag. Both of them.”
Jules’s mother groans when the guard tears it away.
“Now unbind her hands.”
They do, and the prisoner rubs her wrists. They will need treatment. They have been rubbed raw to the point of bleeding. Finally, the guard dumps the last bag into the straw, and a crow tumbles out. Instead of flying, it hops on wobbly legs into the naturalist’s lap.
“You are indeed Madrigal Milone,” says Katharine, leaning forward. “Even under all that dirt, your pretty face is unmistakable.”
“Where am I?”
“In the cells beneath the Volroy. Where your daughter was, not long ago.” Katharine lets the woman ponder that as she blinks at her new surroundings. At the walls of dark, cool stone that collect dampness in the corners and the wisps of stale straw on the floor. It is not the same cell that held Jules and her cougar. That one was many floors down. But it does not matter. Every cell in the Volroy holds an equal amount of terror and the same dank smell.
“What am I doing here?”
“Asking too many questions,” says Pietyr irritably.
“Forgive him,” Katharine says as Pietyr studies the naturalist warily. “He has a headache and got little sleep.”
Madrigal does not respond. She continues to rub her wrists, and stretch her fingers.
“Will you not speak?”
She jerks her head toward Pietyr. “He just said I was talking too much.”
“Why were you in the mountains?” Katharine asks.
“I was on an errand for my mother. Your soldiers jumped me with no explanation.” She looks at Luca. “I thought I was being robbed. Or killed.”
Katharine and Luca look at each other skeptically, and in the uncertain silence, the crow hops out of Madrigal’s lap to pace back and forth before the cell bars.
“I think your bird would like to leave you,” says Bree.
“Of course she would. She’s a survivor. And she’s never been much of a familiar.” Madrigal’s eyes linger on the bars as well, and Katharine frowns. The mother is not like the daughter. Jules Milone is fierce. Too much loyalty and not enough brains. But Madrigal . . . perhaps Madrigal could be used.
“What can you tell me about your daughter, Juillenne?”
“Only what you already know. That she’s legion cursed with naturalist and war. That she escaped with Ar—” She stops. “With the other queens and disappeared.”
“You have not seen her since?” Pietyr asks.
“No.”
“You think her dead, then?”
“Yes.”
“You are lying.”
Katharine puts a hand on Pietyr’s arm. “What do you know about the Legion Queen?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Madrigal says, with the barest hint of a smile. “We don’t get much news in Wolf Spring. I confess that, the day of the escape, I was the one who freed the bear. After Jules and . . . the others sailed away into the storm, I brought him back north and released him into the woods there.”
“Hmm.” Katharine touches her chin with a gloved finger. “The day of the escape was the last day I saw her, too. Down here in these cells. When I came to poison my sister Arsinoe to death. When I frightened them so badly that they chose to die at sea instead.”
“If you’re convinced that my daughter is alive, then what makes you think the other queens aren’t also?”
Katharine’s eyes glitter, and Madrigal recoils. The dead queens do not like her. They would stomp down hard on her pretty black bird and leave nothing but a red mess and feathers.
“Tell me about the blood binding.”
“How do you know about that?”
“The same way we knew how to find you,” says Katharine. “We questioned someone. Unfortunately, that someone did not survive the questioning. So speak. If Jules is dead, like you say, then it will not matter.”
“Very well.” Madrigal draws her knees up to her chest. “We discovered Jules’s curse when she was a baby, and I was told to drown her or leave her in the forest. But I couldn’t. So I bound the legion curse through low magic. Bound it in my blood. To keep it from harming Jules and keep her from being found out.”
“But she was found out,” says Katharine. “And she is legion cursed. It seems your low magic is not very strong.”
“Or Jules’s gifts are so great that they overcame it.”
“Hmph,” says Pietyr. “You must truly want to die.”
Katharine wraps her fingers around the bars. “You know she is alive. You were riding from the north, where her rebel army is. We have spies. We have seen.”
“If that’s true, then why haven’t you stopped her?”
Katharine’s hand slides down her side; she raises her boot and reaches for the small knives she always keeps there.
Madrigal crouches against the back wall. “Spill my blood and the binding is broken. Whatever remains to hold my Jules in check will disappear. And if you’re afraid of her now, wait until you see what she can really do.”
“I am a poisoner,” Katharine snaps, her hand drifting away from the knife. “I will poison you so your insides boil, but not a drop of blood will be lost. It will not be clean, but it will be contained.”
“That won’t work either. Murder by poison counts as blood spilled. That’s how it is with low magic.”
“Is that true?” Bree asks. “Or is she lying?”
Madrigal smiles a pretty, crooked smile.
“Maybe it is, or maybe I am. None of you know for sure. You exalted Arrons have had no cause to use low magic. And y
ou, High Priestess . . . I know you would never touch it.”
“She is only trying to scare us,” says Bree.
“Is it working?” Madrigal asks. “Are you willing to chance it? I have been using low magic all my life. I know its ways as well as its ways can be known.”
Katharine grits her teeth. She is not sure yet. For now, let the woman remain locked up in the dark cells. Quietly, she turns on her heel and leads the others back above ground.
“Well,” she says. “You are my advisers, so what do you advise?”
Bree crosses her arms and speaks hesitantly. “We should learn what we can about the low magic binding. Send for experts, if any will come forward.”
“None will,” says Katharine. “And if they do, none will know more than the Milone woman knows herself. High Priestess, what do you think?”
Luca takes a deep breath. “Rho has been assessing the queensguard. There are near five thousand trained soldiers in and around the capital, and another thousand standing at Prynn. More are waiting to be called up and trained. You have what you need to crush a rebellion, even one supported by a lesser number of war gifted and oracles. But that is not what I think you should do.”
“Am I to wait, then? For spring and the naturalist to march on the capital?”
“You have her mother,” Luca says. “I think you should arrange a trade. Without Jules Milone, the rebellion will fold.”
Katharine stares at the High Priestess as she considers. She would avoid a battle if she could. Even though the dead queens clamor for it. To stand directly in the midst of it with blood on her arms. In her teeth.
“I could not execute her. That would only entrench the rebels further. I would have to hold Jules Milone here, under charge of treason, and then offer a sentence of mercy.” Her eyes narrow. “Would she truly trade the rebellion for her mother?”
“It is worth a try. And I know Cait Milone. If you hand down a sentence of mercy, she will accept it, and Wolf Spring will take its cue from her. What does the Goddess say? Do you feel her hand in this?”
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