Jules frowns. “It would just feel better having you there with me.”
“I know. I wish . . . ,” Arsinoe starts, but does not know how to finish.
“Are you sure? I can’t wait around for you to change your mind.”
Hoofbeats clatter, and the warriors trot into the square, with Emilia leading on a horse as red as blood. A dozen warriors ride behind her, and Mathilde and Billy ride beside. Mirabella brings up the rear on a dappled gray, looking oddly uncomfortable on horseback.
“Fifteen,” Arsinoe says. “You can bet Katharine will bring fifteen hundred.”
“We won’t need that number. It is an ambush, not a battle, remember?” Jules and Arsinoe go forward to meet her mount, a stunning black gelding with four white stockings and a crescent on his forehead.
“Isn’t that Katharine’s horse?”
Jules takes the reins and grins as she leaps onto his back.
“The same one I stole the day of the hunt.” She pats his neck. “And still every bit as game as when he carried you half-dead through the mountains.”
“How fitting.” Arsinoe strokes his nose. “You should give him a name.”
“Or maybe I’ll just ask Katharine what it is.”
Emilia rides up close. “Another scout has returned,” she says. “Katharine has reached the valley and set up camp. She has put the war-gifted priestess Rho Murtra at the head of her army.”
“A fine thing,” Mathilde adds sarcastically, “ousting the warrior on the council and replacing her with a warrior priestess who, by the laws of the temple, should not acknowledge her gift. We are not the only ones shedding the old ways.”
The horses shift, and Arsinoe is jostled out of the way, farther from Jules as she greets her warriors. On the edges of the square, the rest of her army waits, silent. A united army, of many gifts. Soldiers with hawks on their shoulders. Others with flickers of flame darting across their knuckles. And many with the seers’ steely eyes and bright white braids.
“She should bring more,” says Arsinoe as Mirabella and Billy maneuver their horses to stand close by.
“No, the seer is right,” says Mirabella. “They are not ready and still too few. If they stood before the queensguard now, most would die.” She turns her eager horse in a tight circle. With her hair obscured by the scarf and hood, and in her mainlander clothes, she could truly be anyone.
“They’re whispering about you now that you ride with the Legion Queen,” Billy notes. “Wondering who you are. Why don’t you take the hood down and show them?”
Mirabella shakes her head. “Emilia is still unsure. She wants me to stay hidden unless I am forced to show myself.” She glances at Arsinoe pointedly. “And I agree with her.”
“Arsinoe, do you want help into the saddle?” Billy asks.
“I’m not coming,” Arsinoe says, and winces.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for getting you into this, first volunteering and then not going myself, but I have to go to the mountain. I saw her again last night. The shadow. She made me dream of the mist and showed me what it could do.”
Mirabella and Billy look at each other, and Billy shrugs and slides down from his horse.
“Then I’m not going either,” he says. “I’m coming with you.”
Mirabella presses her lips together, and Arsinoe holds her breath. Jules’s plan will not work without her.
“I will still go,” Mirabella says finally.
“Are you sure?” Arsinoe asks, and exhales.
“Yes. You go and take care of the mist. I will take care of our little sister.” She looks at Arsinoe with a gentle expression. “And I will look after Jules. I promise.”
“Look after yourself, too,” Arsinoe says. “If our sister sees you—”
“I have not been poisoned this time. This time, if she sees me it will be different. Very different.”
Emilia wheels her horse and canters around the group in a tight circle; the riders put heels to their mounts and make for the gate.
“Time to go,” Mirabella says, and clicks to the dappled gray awkwardly.
“I never knew you couldn’t ride.”
“I can,” she calls over her shoulder as she bounces away. “I just spent more time in carriages!”
Arsinoe grunts as Camden jumps up and puts her paws on Arsinoe’s chest. Jules has turned back and rides toward her and Billy with a regretful face.
“You’ll be left behind,” says Billy.
“I’m their leader. They can’t go far without me.” Jules smiles. She is afraid, but she is also exhilarated. She will ride hard to catch up. She will charge the field. She has become a warrior. “Are you two sure you’ll be all right? I’ve heard Mount Horn is . . . an unforgiving place.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Arsinoe asks, but instead of answering, Jules reaches into her saddlebag and pulls out a knife. She tosses it to Arsinoe handle first.
“Take your bear with you at least,” she says, and rides away. Camden gives Arsinoe’s cheek another lick before running off after Jules.
After the ambush party is gone, the square empties. The rebels return to their work, preparing weapons and storing food. Repairing the city that has worn down and crumbled over the centuries. It is strange to watch them return so quickly to their task, while Arsinoe stares after Jules and Mirabella until long after they are out of sight. Finally, she and Billy gather up their packs. No one pays them any mind, even when the scarf slips down and reveals Arsinoe’s scars.
They leave through the main gate and keep the mountain in their sights. Billy rummages in his pack and pulls out a small bundle of papers.
“I’ve been looking over maps—well, what maps I could find here—and trying to determine the best route to take,” he says. “A girl who lives in a village near the western foot says there are caves and a good-sized one if we follow the trail along this stream.” He riffles through the papers and holds up a map of Mount Horn. “The last stretch will be a slightly difficult climb, but I think it’s our best shot. Will that be far enough up to satisfy the Blue Queen, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Arsinoe replies, studying the route. The cave he indicates is still farther up the mountain than she wanted to go. “I hope so.”
“I can’t believe you almost let me go with Jules and Mira. Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”
“I didn’t think of it. And I figured you were still angry.”
“Is that it? Or are you just trying to politely get rid of me? You keep trying to leave me behind; should I be taking the hint?”
“No, I—”
“Because I don’t want to keep on where I’m not wanted.”
“Of course I—” She growls in frustration, and they are both suddenly very aware she is still holding the knife that Jules gave her.
“What are you going to do?” he asks. “Gut me?”
“Of course not. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what lies at the top of that mountain. But I do know that it’s all for the hope of something else. A future somewhere, with you. And I’m sorry I can’t say that when I’m not holding you at knifepoint. All right?”
“All right,” he says, and grins. His grin changes to a grimace as she uses the knife to cut into her palm. “And now you’re slicing your hand open.”
“I’m calling Braddock, like Jules suggested.” She walks to the nearest tree and smears her blood against the bark.
“Will that even work, after all this time?”
Arsinoe smiles. She was not sure whether it would either. But the moment her blood touches the tree she feels him. Somewhere not too far away, she feels him lift his big brown head and sniff the air.
INNISFUIL VALLEY
Pietyr creeps away to the Breccia Domain toward evening, when the sun is fading to a winter orange but while there is still plenty of light to see by. And even then, he steps carefully, wary of the treacherous pit. The heart of the island, it is called, but it trul
y is more like a mouth. A fissure in the earth made of mouths and eyes and ears to hear him coming.
The Breccia Domain lies before him in the clearing, looking innocent, but he is not fooled.
“You had your chance to eat me the last time we met,” he says, tying a rope around his waist. “This time, I will eat my fill of you instead.” He winds the rope around the sturdiest tree he can find and then around another for good measure.
The tools tucked into his belt should serve him well enough: a trowel and hammer, a handheld pick, and a sack to carry the rocks. Madrigal did not say how large the stones should be nor how large a circle he would require. She was not much of a low magic teacher.
He braces his feet against the edge and takes a deep breath. With his head above ground, he still smells clean air and fresh snow. As usual, there is no birdsong. No sound of any kind except his nervous breathing and thumping heartbeat. He wraps his anchor rope around his arm three times, and the Breccia seems to yawn open to receive him.
“Not this time, you wicked pit.”
Pietyr stands over the edge, secured to the trees, and swings his hammer against the stones.
It takes longer than he hoped. So long that he loses the sun and must labor in the dark. His shoulders shaking, he finally dislodges a final piece of rock and drops it into his sack. He does not have enough. But it is all he is capable of.
After securing the stones in his tent, he slips through the camp, past soldiers’ cookfires, to find the tent where Madrigal is kept.
“I need to speak to the prisoner,” he says. The guard nods and steps just outside. “Give us some space.”
“Yes, Master Arron.”
“His name isn’t Arron, though, is it?” Madrigal sings from inside. “It’s Renard.”
Pietyr ducks into the tent and scowls at her in the lamplight. “The Arron in me is what counts. I need you to tell me the rest of the spell.”
She holds up her hands, still bound.
“I do not care,” he snaps. “You have my word; I will try when the time comes. But in case something goes wrong, I need to know the rest. I could get only a few stones. Not enough for a full circle. Not one touching end to end. So what do I do?”
“Get more?” Madrigal raises her eyebrows, then sighs. “Very well. Close the circle with something else. Start staining rope with your blood. Set the stones inside the rope and it should do.”
“Then what?”
“Get the queen inside the circle. Carve this rune”—she traces it lightly in the earth—“into your hand—”
“I will never remember that.”
“Fine. Give me a knife.” She cocks her head, exasperated, when he hesitates. “Just a small one.”
He hands one to her.
“Now give me your palm.”
He gasps as she slices into it, making curving cuts that fill with red.
“There. Just reopen those scabs when the time is right. Press the blood to her skin. Carve the same mark into her. And return every last ghost into the stones.”
“I do not want to cut her.”
“You don’t have a choice. Queensblood is the key. It makes all the difference. Believe me.”
THE WESTERN WOODS
Mirabella and Jules wait together deep in the woods that border Innisfuil Valley to the west. The warriors, and even Mathilde, have gone ahead, disappearing into the bare winter trees on foot to scout and spy on Katharine’s army. Leaving them to do nothing but wait and listen to the horses munch grain in their feed bags.
“They should be back by now,” Jules says from atop Katharine’s black gelding.
“There is a lot of ground between here and the valley. It takes time to cover on foot. Even more when one is trying to tread quietly.”
“How would you know?” Jules asks.
“I would not.” Mirabella shrugs. “I was only trying to make you feel better.”
“No doubt you think them all fools, following me here. Calling me a queen on the basis of faith and a prophecy murky as a mud puddle.”
Mirabella chooses her words with care. Jules Milone is as feisty as Arsinoe, only feisty of a different sort. Less impulsive but more easily offended.
“All prophecy is . . . ambiguous.”
“Ambiguous. Murky. ‘May be a queen again.’” She snorts. “‘May be.’ Can’t they ever say anything for certain?” She pauses to listen for the sound of anyone returning. “It must really stick in your craw. Them referring to me as a queen. Even a queen in title only.”
Mirabella swallows. To be a Fennbirn queen was to be of the line. A queen in the blood. That was what she had always been told, and taught by the temple.
“It bothers me, too, to be honest,” says Jules, reading her silence. “Feels like the High Priestess is going to come and knock me on the back of the head.”
She turns toward some unheard sound, unheard to Mirabella at least, as the mountain cat’s ears perk up as well. Soon enough, though, the footsteps are plain. Six of their party, returning through the trees with Emilia and Mathilde in the lead.
“Well?” Jules asks.
“She has made camp on the eastern edge of the valley, butted up to the cliffs and spilled out onto the beach,” Emilia says. “Scouts are positioned up high, to the north and south as far as the cliffs allow. But we saw no sign of anyone in the western woods. Nor past the west edge of the valley. It is almost like she truly intends to trade. Pity for her.”
The warriors behind Emilia smile. They are armed with swords, throwing knives, and crossbows. Three carry longbows larger than any Mirabella has ever seen. She does not need to ask to know that the others have remained in the woods, ready and waiting to strike.
“There is no perfect place to ambush,” Emilia goes on. “We will have to draw her out of the clearing somehow and into the trees. You will have to play the bait, Jules.”
“I can do that.”
“I know. And I will do it with you.”
“Did you see my mother in the camp?”
“Only the tent where she’s being kept,” Emilia replies. “And Mathilde thought she heard the croaking of a crow.”
“Aria.” Jules glances at Mirabella and explains. “Her familiar.”
“What about me?” Mirabella asks.
“We have found a place for you to the south. Up a tree, if you can manage.”
“I have been up trees before.”
Emilia cocks her eyebrow. “There will be no quick escape from there if something goes wrong.”
“I will not need one.”
“Then go. One hour to take positions before we send a bird to the poisoner to let her know we are here.”
Mirabella looks at Jules. Despite the band of warriors and the strong mountain cat by her side, Jules is afraid. Legion cursed or not, she is outnumbered, and Katharine is a true queen. A fierce queen, to hear the tales told now, who might no longer freeze at the sight of Jules like she did in the arena the day of the duel.
Seeing Mirabella’s look, Jules puts on a brave smile. “It’ll be all right. Go with Mathilde.”
“Take care, Jules. Arsinoe will have my head if I let any harm befall you or Camden.”
“It won’t come to that. We ambush the trade and run, like we planned. You be careful yourself. Arsinoe’ll have my head, too, if you don’t return with us.”
Mirabella nods and goes with Mathilde into the trees. The seer is fast of foot and so silent that she makes Mirabella feel like a herd of goats, snapping twigs and crunching leaves as she moves. Finally, they reach the tree. It is a good tree for climbing, with broad, well-spaced branches.
“If you brace in the second fork, you will have the best view,” says Mathilde.
Mirabella grasps the lowest branch. “This is too far. I won’t be able to see properly.”
“Emilia wants you to stay hidden. So stay hidden if you can. She thinks the warriors are quick enough and stealthy enough to save Jules’s mother without your help.”
Mirabella
arches her brow.
“For what it is worth,” Mathilde says, “I don’t agree. I have scented the wind today, and it reeks of blood.”
“So,” Mirabella sputters, “what do I do?”
“Be ready.” The seer turns and disappears between the trunks. Mirabella sniffs the air, detects nothing in it but crisp, cold snow.
“Oracles,” she mutters, and climbs into the tree.
MOUNT HORN
Braddock finds Arsinoe and Billy at the foot of the mountain. He emerges from behind the scrub brush with an exuberant roar and frightens Billy so badly that he falls backward onto the grass.
“Braddock,” he squeaks. “Is it him? It is him, isn’t it?” But there is no time to wonder as the bear promptly steps over him and lumbers to Arsinoe to press his nose happily into her scabby palm.
“Braddock!” She wraps her arms around his neck and strokes the fur between his ears. “You found us! And a good thing, too. I was starting to feel faint.” She had painted trees with her blood every mile or so since they departed from Sunpool.
“Does he remember me as well?” Billy asks, brushing himself off.
“He didn’t eat you. I think that’s a good sign.”
Cautiously, Billy approaches and lays a hand on the bear’s rump. A trembling hand. Braddock he may be, but he is still a great brown bear and large as a horse.
“He looks wonderful, doesn’t he?” She stuffs her face into his shiny coat. “Caragh must be helping him fish and forage. Not bad eating with a naturalist around, is it, boy?”
“It’s good to see him,” Billy says, casting an eye up the mountain. “But he might not be able to stay with us for long. The path up to the cave might be too hard. And . . . Stop doing that,” he adds as he watches Arsinoe feed the bear more than a day’s ration of dried meat.
“I have to reward him for coming. It’s winter, you know; he would much rather be in his den or in the warm stable at the Black Cottage snoozing with the mule.”
“Fine but no more. He can hunt for himself, but we need food for the journey back to Sunpool.” He waits for a response, but she only snuggles farther into her bear. “Arsinoe, there will be a journey back, won’t there? You never really told me what’s waiting for us at the top of this mountain.”
Two Dark Reigns Page 28
