“What did you hear?” she asks.
“Everything.”
“Then you know it was nonsense.” She goes back to the fire and gathers their supplies. “Let’s just get back to Sunpool.”
INNISFUIL VALLEY
“Mirabella has returned,” says Katharine, once she and Pietyr are inside the relative safety of her tent. “And if she is here, it is a sure bet that Arsinoe is lurking somewhere as well.”
“It does not matter, Kat. They are defectors. Traitors. You are the Queen Crowned. The people will fight for you; they will never follow them—”
Katharine scoffs. “The same way they would never follow a naturalist with the legion curse? They will follow anyone if it means the end of me.”
In the camp, the queensguard searches for survivors of the mist. They are good soldiers and shed themselves quickly of their fear, righting tents and catching horses. Rho has not stopped barking orders since she returned the queen to her quarters.
Katharine peeks through the tent flap. “So many dead.” She hugs herself tightly. “I just wanted to be a good queen.”
“Oh, Kat.” Pietyr takes her in his arms. “You are a good queen. All you have done is your duty, and it is neither right nor fair that you should be hated for it.”
“Hated,” she whispers. “And feared.” Slowly, she strips her gloves from her hands and flexes her fingers. They are alive. Covered in scars but alive, and hers again. “The dead queens wielded the knife that cut the legion curse from Madrigal Milone. This was as much their fault as the mist’s.” She drops her hands. “And it was mine, for not listening to you sooner. For not trying harder to control them.”
The tent flap bursts open, around High Priestess Luca. Unharmed by the mist and unruffled as ever.
“A moment of the queen’s time?”
“Of course, High Priestess.” Pietyr walks to the table for a cup of poisoned wine. “How pleased we are to see you have survived the spread of the mist.”
The old woman’s mouth twists wryly. “No doubt just as pleased as you are about certain other survivals.”
“What do you want?” Katharine asks. “To turn in your council seat? Change sides again and run back to your precious Mirabella?”
Luca stares at the crown inked into Katharine’s forehead. How bitterly she must regret placing it there. But place it she did.
“A queen once crowned,” Luca says, “is crowned forever.”
“So you mean to stay? You will not join the temple to the rebellion?”
“The temple would never join with a rebellion,” Luca snaps. “Not with a rogue queen at its head and certainly not with one who is legion cursed. I will serve on the Black Council for as long as is Queen Katharine’s pleasure.” She folds her hands over her white robes. “But I have come to speak to you about Mirabella.”
“High Priestess, my soldiers are routed. Many wounded or still missing. We are fighting a war on two fronts already, with the naturalist and with the very mist itself. So as much as it might displease her, my sister may just have to wait.”
Luca sighs and glances at Pietyr. “Is there any wine in this tent that is not tainted?”
“Of course.” He reaches for a cup and pours from a green bottle. “Here you are.”
“Thank you.” She sips and turns to Katharine. “Do not think of your sisters and the rebels as separate problems. They are one and the same. Traitors or not, with both of them standing beside Jules Milone, the Legion Queen’s rebellion is too strong. It will gain more support. Maybe even enough to take Indrid Down.”
“So what do we do? I will kill them both, as is my right. But when? Not now in the middle of—”
“I would suggest another course,” Luca says. “Consider why Mirabella would support Jules Milone? She is a queen in the blood. She, even more than most, understands that the crown cannot be worn by just anyone.”
“She supports the naturalist because Arsinoe supports the naturalist,” Pietyr says, and Luca nods, her eyes full of meaning. “But you think she is unconvinced.”
Luca takes a large swallow from her cup and walks around them to refill it. “I know my Mira. I raised her. What Natalia Arron was to you, Katharine, I was to her. And she would not in good conscience support the wresting of a crown from a rightful queen.”
“And in her eyes, I am a rightful queen?”
“She and Arsinoe fled,” Luca says. “Abdicated. If not you, then who else?”
“Even if she does feel that way,” Pietyr interjects. “What of it? She stands with the rebels.” He narrows his eyes. “You think she can be brought over.”
“No.” Katharine glares at her. “Never.”
“Do not be so quick to dismiss the idea,” says Luca. “I have done what I can with the temple, to restore the faith of the people in the Goddess and her rightful queen, but it is not enough. If Jules Milone is seen to have the backing of both of the other queens, you will not win this war.”
Katharine clenches her jaw. She grasps her wrists and rubs at them through her gloves. “I felt the blast of that legion-cursed gift. I may not win either way.”
“What are you truly suggesting, High Priestess?” Pietyr asks with disgust. “That Katharine extend an invitation to Mirabella? To rule together, side by side?”
“Of course not. I am asking that the queen allow her sister to return and fight for her, as a loyal subject and ally.”
“You will never get her to submit to that,” he spits, but old Luca only smiles.
“I will get her to agree. But I do not have much time. I ask for your permission.” She looks to Katharine.
Mirabella returned. And still so regal, so arrogant in those mainlander clothes. She could never be loyal. Never be trusted. But it is worth a try.
“I will welcome my sister back with open arms,” Katharine says. “In exchange for her allegiance.”
The High Priestess bows; she takes Katharine’s hands and kisses them.
“How will you find her?”
“I have my ways,” says Luca. “But I must hurry before those ways are too far off to catch up with.” She smiles at them again and ducks out of the tent.
“For someone so old, she is certainly quick.” Pietyr sets his cup down and refills it for a third time. “Maybe she is lying about her years.” He takes a swallow and pauses. “Welcoming another queen into the capital, with no threat of death over her head . . . Katharine, this has never been done.”
“Many things we have done have never been done,” she replies. “This one gives me hope.”
“Hope?”
Katharine lifts her scarred hand and clenches it in a shaking fist. The dead queens know what she is thinking. She can feel their fear and their anger and their dead fingers clutching at her to soothe and plead.
You made me kill Madrigal Milone. You loosed the curse, the one thing I did not want to do.
They say that they are sorry. They promise to be calm. But she is not angry with them. They cannot help being what they are.
You will be at peace, dead sisters. You have done what you set out to do. And with you gone, perhaps the mist will quiet. With you gone, perhaps all will be well.
Katharine looks at Pietyr, eyes shining. “If Mirabella will fight for me, then I will have need of no one else. I can put the dead sisters to rest.”
“Katharine. Are you certain?”
“I am.”
He smiles and sighs a sigh that relaxes his whole form. “I am proud of you, Kat. And I think I have found a way.”
THE WESTERN WOODS
Mirabella is only a few miles into the woods, retreating after Emilia and the other rebels, who have rushed ahead carrying an unconscious Jules, when Pepper flies past her.
“Pepper,” she gasps, and stops.
The little bird flits from her shoulder to a tree and back again, all the while making high-pitched, piping calls. Mirabella looks around just in time to see them come through the trees on the back of an unsaddled horse.
“I am on her council.” Bree gasps and buries her face in Mirabella’s hair. Poor Elizabeth cannot even speak. All she can manage are tiny squeaks in between great heaving sobs, the squeaks not too dissimilar to her woodpecker’s.
“Calm, Elizabeth.”
“Can’t be calm. Mira!” She grins, face wet. “I might vomit.”
Mirabella and Bree laugh. “Take slow, deep breaths. You should not have followed me.”
“How could we not?” Bree asks. “When we saw you . . . Everyone said you were dead, but I knew it could not be. Not the way they told it. Not in a storm.”
“But it almost was.” She smooths Bree’s hair back from her cheek. So beautiful, still. And somehow, she seems to have grown. The Bree she remembered did not have such somber eyes, did not own such an austere gray-blue dress.
“Now I know what Pepper was trying so hard to tell me,” says Elizabeth, her breath lighter. “He found you, didn’t he? He saw you when he brought word to the rebels.”
“He flew into me so hard his beak tore my clothes.”
“And what clothes they are,” says Bree, stepping back to study her. “A far cry from island black.”
“Who cares?” Elizabeth says. “We have trunks and trunks of it to change her into. You are back, aren’t you, Mira? Back for good?”
“That is an excellent question.”
Bree and Elizabeth twist in her arms—as Luca appears through the trees on a tall white mare.
“They were so desperate to see you,” she says, “that they did not turn around to see if they were being followed.”
“I am sorry, Mira.” Bree takes her hand. “We were not careful.”
Elizabeth steps in front of them and throws out her arms. “Stay away from her, High Priestess! Please!”
Luca’s brows raise. “Such dramatics. I am not here to hurt her.”
“Why should we believe that,” Bree growls, “when you were ready to have her executed?”
Mirabella wipes her cheeks and forces herself to stare at Luca. At the woman who she had once thought to be her greatest protector. Luca’s eyes are soft as they travel over her face. Soft near to trembling, and Mirabella feels the same old urge: to take Luca’s hands, to help her walk, to find her someplace comfortable to take her ease. But all of that is over.
“What do you want, Luca?”
“To speak to you,” she says. “Only to speak to you.”
“Very well.”
Luca nods gently to Bree and Elizabeth. “You girls should return to camp before you are missed.”
“No.” They grasp Mirabella by the sleeves. “We can’t go so soon,” Elizabeth cries. “Will we see you again?”
Mirabella touches each of their cheeks. “I do not know. I do not mean to stay.” She pulls them in, holds them tight. “But she is right. You should go now and be safe.”
“No,” Bree says. “We will wait for her just beyond those trees. Where we cannot overhear but will still see if she tries anything. Come, Elizabeth.” They go, but reluctantly, fingers trailing along Mirabella’s hands and their eyes stuck solidly to Luca.
“They love you very much, those girls,” Luca says when they are a safe distance away.
“Do not say you love me, too. Or I will call a thunderbolt down on your head.”
“I would prefer a water spirit, if it is all the same to you. Like the first time we met.”
“Stop it, Luca. You cannot fool me anymore. What do you want?”
“I want you to come home.” She gathers her reins and leans against the pommel of her saddle. “I have spoken to the queen, and she will welcome you, if you turn away from the rebellion and put your support behind the crown.”
Mirabella blinks. What madness is this? Such that she cannot even muster a laugh.
“The people cannot see this rebellion as a rebellion of queen against queen,” Luca goes on. “If they do, with you and Arsinoe on one side and Katharine on the other, Queen Katharine will lose. But with you beside the crown, they will see the rebellion for what it really is: a doomed enterprise led by an abomination.”
“What about Arsinoe?” Mirabella asks. “She is a queen as well. And she will never leave Jules.”
“With you and Katharine standing together, Arsinoe will not matter. She has never mattered.”
“She matters to me,” Mirabella says, but the High Priestess does not respond. “And you believe her? You believe Katharine, that she will not have me executed? When we last met, she did not seem the kind of queen who was partial to mercy.”
“That was the Ascension.” Luca straightens as her horse paws, made nervous by the current in the air. “She is the Queen Crowned now. And she is a good one. Bree is on her council, as well as Rho and I.”
“A council seat. Is that what it took for you to stand by while she poisoned me before the capital? Is that all it took?”
“You would not fight,” Luca says, her anger showing. “I blame you for that. Though it still would have broken me to see you die and not be able to save you. But I would have done it for the island. It would have been my duty. As it is still yours.”
Mirabella shakes her head. “I am not a queen anymore. Nor is Arsinoe. You have my word that I will not interfere in this island business. But that is all I will give. Katharine will have to fight her own battles.”
“Fight her own battles? They are Fennbirn’s battles. You saw the mist; you saw what she faces. And you saw, too, the legion curse at work. The monster the rebels would put on the throne.”
“Jules Milone is no monster!”
“Her own people had to knock her unconscious. Perhaps once, she was able to control it. But now that the curse is unbound, her mind will not be spared. You have been brought back for a reason.”
“Arsinoe was brought back for a reason. And when that is known, we are leaving. The island let us go. She will not have us again.” She half turns away. “Go back now, Luca, and try to save your queen.”
“You cannot just shed your responsibilities.” Luca looks over her mainlander clothes. “You cannot put on a costume and become something else. You are a queen of Fennbirn island. A queen of the line, whether you have turned your back on the Goddess or not.”
Mirabella steels her heart and walks away. Even after all that has passed between them, it is difficult to go. Past one tree and then the next, farther and farther from Bree. From Elizabeth. Part of her wants to stop and spend more time arguing. To let Luca try to change her mind.
“Arsinoe will never turn against Jules,” she calls out. “And I will never turn against Arsinoe. She is my sister. I love her.”
“I know that,” Luca calls back. “But I think you are forgetting that once you loved them both.”
SUNPOOL
Arsinoe pauses for a brief rest on the top of a mossy rise. Just beyond, not more than an hour’s jog, is Sunpool.
“Finally.” Billy stops beside her and leans down, hands braced against his knees. “I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up that pace.”
Arsinoe shields her eyes and peers at the city, wondering if Jules and Mirabella have returned.
“They’ll be all right,” Billy says. “I’ve never known one as tough as Jules, and with Mira there . . . they were safer than we were scaling the mountain. You’ll see.”
Arsinoe nods and gets moving again, the jog easy as they go downhill. Braddock is no longer with them; they said goodbye at the edge of the woods.
Sunpool’s gates stand open as the rebels continue to welcome new arrivals, but the stream of them has slowed. The moment she is inside, she knows that something is different.
“They’re staring at you,” Billy says as Arsinoe tucks her scarf up tight over her scars. Every pair of eyes in the square seems to be watching with solemn curiosity. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” she says as they hurry toward the castle. “But somehow, I get the feeling that I could have brought Braddock.”
When they reach the castle, they are allowed inside without escort, and the ball of worry that has hovered in Arsinoe’s stomach since leaving the cave grows heavier. When she hears the cries and shouting, it goes cold.
“What is that?” she asks, and takes the stairs by two. She finds Emilia and Mathilde in a room on one of the upper floors, pacing before a closed door. Camden is standing up against the wood, mewling miserably.
“Emilia? What’s going on? What’s wrong with Camden?” Arsinoe bounds inside, and Emilia thrusts a finger into her chest. But before she can utter anything aside from a growl, Mathilde drags her off. “Mathilde, who’s in there?”
“Jules is in there.”
“Why—”
“The legion curse has come unbound. Madrigal is dead. Killed by Katharine. And Jules . . .” She stops and lets Arsinoe listen to the sounds coming from behind the door. Screams. Guttural bellows. The impact of objects striking the walls hard enough to rattle them. And the terrible, terrible sound of fingernails dragging against the stone.
“You should let the cat go in with her,” Arsinoe says numbly.
“She will hurt the cat. They will hurt each other.”
That cannot be true. Slowly, Arsinoe walks toward the cougar. Jules and Camden are joined. They would never—
She shouts as Camden turns and attacks, raking claws across Arsinoe’s hand. The blood comes fast and spatters across the floor.
Billy and Mathilde drag her back, and he takes out a handkerchief and presses it to the cuts.
Arsinoe stars at the cat in disbelief as Camden hisses and spits.
“What’s wrong with her?” Billy asks.
“The curse. It is affecting her, too.”
“You, poisoner,” Emilia snaps. “You must calm them.”
“How?”
“There must be some tonic, some sedative. You must make it.”
“I’m not that kind of a poisoner,” Arsinoe says, but even as the words leave her mouth, her mind returns to the pages of the book of poisons she borrowed from Luke’s shop.
Two Dark Reigns Page 31
