Five Dark Fates

by Kendare Blake

  Mirabella thinks of the dark basalt cliffs of Shannon’s Blackway. This place is a little like that, a similar cut to the rock. Not white like the cliffs of Sunpool but pale and brown like sand. “Yes, Bree and I used to race across them.”

  “Then what is the matter?” Katharine holds her hand out again, and Mirabella steels herself and takes it.

  Katharine leads her closer to the edge, so close that they can lean over and look upon the beach and see the waves striking the rocks. “According to Genevieve, these very cliffs are where the mist was created. This is where the Blue Queen cast her spell and called it to us, and all the years since, it has preserved our way of life. Protected us from the outside world.” Katharine snorts. “Well, until recently.”

  Mirabella stares at the ground where they stand. Did Queen Illiann once stand in the same place? Queen Illiann, the Blue Queen, who Mirabella feels like she almost knows, thanks to Arsinoe’s account of her dreams as Daphne, Illiann’s lost sister.

  “Look,” Katharine says, and points out over the water, where the mist has risen to swirl angrily, darting closer as if it would crash against the sides of the cliffs.

  “What does it mean?” Mirabella asks, unsure whether she is asking Katharine or Arsinoe or even Illiann, so long ago.

  “I think it means it does not like you standing here. I think it means it is afraid.” Together they watch the mist recede. “I used to be so jealous of you. Jealous of everything you are. Maybe I am jealous still, that you remember what we used to be.”

  “Arsinoe started to remember. Maybe you will as well now that we are together.”

  Katharine looks down, perhaps regretfully.

  “I am not like you,” she acknowledges. “I can be cruel. As I can be kind. And I am a better queen than you would have been because of it. It is time for us to return. So you may enjoy your new freedom! And I can announce our allegiance. And begin preparing for the parade.”

  SUNPOOL

  The morning after Jules’s reawakening, Arsinoe finds herself once again crowded inside the rebellion’s makeshift council chamber.

  “Can this not wait?” Arsinoe asks, looking from Billy to the Milones for support. “She’s barely had a moment to breathe.”

  “I know it is not the best time,” Emilia says. “But the matter of Mirabella’s defection must be addressed.”

  Arsinoe shakes her head. But no one disagrees. Not Mathilde, nor even Cait or Caragh. And Jules, though calm, seems weak and deflated despite a long night of sleep.

  “It must be made known that Mirabella has gone over to Katharine,” Emilia says.

  Arsinoe’s jaw clenches.

  “We don’t know that’s what’s happened. She might have been taken. The note might have been staged.”

  “She wasn’t taken. I know everything that happens in this city. Down to the routes that the rats take to feed.”

  “Well, that’s probably overstating things,” Billy says quietly, but Emilia pretends he is not even there. Arsinoe opens her mouth to argue, but Mathilde steps in between them.

  The seer has a calming way about her. Arsinoe has seen her silence a room by simply walking through it. Now she uses that stillness to shush Emilia and fixes Arsinoe with her steady gaze.

  “All of her things are gone. And Mirabella would not have been taken easily. Can you think of a reason that Mirabella would go?”

  “No,” Arsinoe says. She crosses her arms over her chest. Mirabella never supported the Legion Queen. But neither had she, not really. And that was certainly no reason to go to Katharine. “But—” She looks at Billy. “Did she overhear us talking about the cave?”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “No!” He opens his eyes wide. “Of course not!”

  “The cave?” Emilia asks, and even the Milones step closer. Only Jules hangs back warily as Billy holds his hands out to keep Emilia and Mathilde at bay, their attention fixed on him like wolves who have just noticed that a deer is limping. “Why”—he lowers his voice to a loud whisper—“why on earth would I tell her?”

  “Tell her what?” Emilia asks. “What happened at the cave?”

  Arsinoe faces them. She looks at Cait and Caragh and Ellis and considers for a long moment what to say. Jules trusts Mathilde and Emilia. But Jules’s trust is sometimes misplaced.

  “It’s a long story.” Arsinoe’s eyes lose focus, remembering the memory pressed into her head by Daphne’s long-dead fingers. Daphne and Queen Illiann standing atop the cliffs at Bardon Harbor, watching the ships of the enemy defy even the Blue Queen’s elemental storms. The argument and then Illiann plummeting to her death. Arsinoe squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe it was an accident. A fall. Maybe Daphne was not truly a murderer.

  Or maybe the island’s will always wins. Sister killing sister was nothing new on Fennbirn, after all.

  “It was revealed to me that there may be a way to stop the mist.”

  “What?” Cait asks, and she and Mathilde step closer. “How?”

  “The mist was created by killing a powerful elemental queen. The Blue Queen, Illiann. And so it may be unmade by killing another.” She looks at Jules, who as always, immediately knows what she means.

  For a long time, Emilia and Mathilde say nothing. Then Emilia throws up her hands. “And you let her get away! We had the key to eliminating the mist—here, right under our noses—and you let her run.”

  “What do you mean ‘let her run’?” Arsinoe shouts. “Even if she were here, you wouldn’t touch her!”

  “Stop!” Billy and Mathilde exclaim, and look at each other with the understanding that only reasonable people must feel.

  “In any case,” Billy says, “it doesn’t matter. Mirabella’s not here. She’s out of danger and out of reach.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily say that being at the Undead Queen’s court is out of danger,” notes Caragh.

  “And we will get her back,” says Emilia. “And when we do—”

  “You will do nothing,” Arsinoe growls. “And we don’t even know if it would work. Why take the word of a centuries-dead murderer? Mirabella is my sister!”

  “She is one life. And how many will the mist take if it cannot be stopped? Our rebellion seeks to bring peace to the island. And safety. We cannot just ignore—”

  “Yes, we can,” Jules says quietly. She looks at Arsinoe, her expression somber.

  “Jules,” Emilia objects.

  “No. It’s out of the question.”

  “But—”

  Jules presses her fingers to her forehead, and Cait moves to disband the meeting.

  “You heard my granddaughter,” she says. “She is the Legion Queen, and she will decide. Now let’s leave her to her rest.”

  They all file out, even Billy. Emilia’s eyes flash indignantly at Arsinoe as she goes, but not even she will speak against Cait. When they are gone, Arsinoe lingers with her hand on the door.

  “Do you need anything? Water? Wine? A haunch of something for Cam?”

  “Just you,” Jules says. “Stay.” She walks to the hearth and warms her hands. Arsinoe steps back inside.

  “How are you feeling? Are you sleeping? I could craft you a sleeping draught.”

  “I’m fine, Arsinoe. I’m well. You saved me again.”

  “Does that make us even?” Arsinoe asks, burying her fingers in the cougar’s scruff. “Or do I need to save you one more time?”

  Jules smiles wanly. Her brown hair hangs in unkempt waves to her chin, and they fall into her eyes as she picks at her bandaged wrist.

  “I feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years.”

  “It’s not easy to step right back into things. Emilia pushes too hard.”

  “It’s not Emilia’s fault,” Jules says. “I just don’t trust myself. I remember what I did.”

  “You weren’t you.”

  “Then who was I?” She looks down at her bandages, and at her bad leg, weakened and made painful b
y the poison she ate, poison that helped Arsinoe discover her true gift. “I’m broken in body,” she says. “And broken in mind.”

  “Is that what you see when you look at yourself?” Arsinoe asks. “Because it’s not what I see.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I see. No one should follow me. What I’ve done . . . I’m no leader. But Mirabella is.”

  Arsinoe looks at her in surprise.

  “I know I had my reasons to dislike her,” says Jules. “But she was the one. So strong. Strong enough to end us all, yet not a killer. You’re not a killer either, Arsinoe. I’m sorry that I tried so long to make you one.”

  “It’s okay,” Arsinoe whispers, not knowing what else to say. “And you know . . . that Mirabella doesn’t want to be the Queen Crowned.”

  “But you know her, don’t you?” Jules asks. “If she’s needed, she’ll do it anyway.”

  INDRID DOWN TEMPLE

  The initiate priestess leads Mirabella, disguised in a hood and veil, through the austere interior of Indrid Down Temple, past the rows and rows of pews in carefully preserved oiled walnut, and past the Goddess Stone that winks to her from behind its barrier of ropes. She leads her behind the altar and through the cloister and up, up, up the stairs that lead to the room Luca has taken for herself. Or rather, that she has taken back. Her old quarters from the time before she came to know Mirabella and before she abandoned the capital and the semblance of neutrality to live with her in Rolanth.

  Mirabella inhales and smells cold stone. There are so many stairs that her legs have begun to burn. They must be high enough to lean out a window and pat the heads of Arsinoe’s favorite gargoyles.

  “I hope you will forgive the distance,” says the priestess ahead of her, carrying a torch to light the path. “Many were surprised when the High Priestess elected to reclaim her old rooms. We had thought to prepare some more comfortable space on the ground floor.”

  The ground floor. Luca would never submit to that. She would force them to carry her up and down on their backs first.

  They reach Luca’s door, and the initiate bobs a curtsy and takes her leave, a little careless with her torch as she passes it near Mirabella’s face. Perhaps the girl had the gift of fire before she came to the temple and has not yet learned to be mindful of it.

  Mirabella knocks once and enters Luca’s chamber. What she sees inside is so familiar that for a moment she is transported across the island to those afternoons in Rolanth when she would race up to the High Priestess’s quarters for tea.

  “Look at you,” Luca says, bent over her desk and pouring a steaming cup. “Out and about, with no escort.”

  “The queensguard is waiting below with the carriage,” Mirabella says. She pushes back her hood and removes her veil, walking to one of Luca’s couches piled always with too many soft pillows. She unfastens her cloak and slings it across the arm. Then she nods to the tea. “Honey and lemon?”

  “Honey and preserved lemon,” Luca replies. “Fresh fruit will become a distant memory if the problem of the mist is not resolved soon. None of the importers from the mainland have been able to make it through. Or none of them have dared return once they heard what was happening.”

  “The naturalists will look after the island when the spring comes.”

  “Not even they grow lemons and oranges. We simply do not have the climate.” She sets the tray of tea on the table between the couches and hands Mirabella her cup. “The way you speak. ‘The naturalists will look after the island.’ The island. Not ‘us.’ As if you are not a part of it. What wonders there must be on the mainland to claim you after so little time.”

  “Yet I am here. Serving the island. Doing my duty, as you said.” Mirabella sets her cup down without drinking. Neither sit, and Luca manages to make standing look very comfortable, sipping her tea with her eyebrows raised, back straight and shoulders loose as if her old bones have never felt a single ache. “You seem younger here than you did in Rolanth, High Priestess. The air off Bardon Harbor must agree with you.”

  Luca smiles.

  “Why did you want to see me?” Mirabella asks.

  “Because I finally could! Now that you have found your way into the queen’s favor, I need not avoid you any longer. You must have realized that my not coming to see you was not without cause.”

  “I am sure you never do anything without cause.”

  Luca picks up a plate of biscuits and offers them: meringues topped with custard and a bright spot of jam. Mirabella’s favorite. She takes one off the plate.

  “How are you enjoying the capital now, with your newfound freedom? How are you finding your time with your younger sister?”

  Mirabella frowns, looking down at the meringue. She is very hungry. And though she would prefer to snub everything Luca offers, Arsinoe would not want her to waste food.

  “She is calling me Mirabella Mistbane,” Mirabella says, and Luca chuckles. “She has ordered special armor to be made for us both. Silver breastplates engraved with clouds and lightning for me and skulls and snakes for her. She wants to parade me beside her through the city.” She glances at Luca. “Are her moods always so changeable?”

  “Queen Katharine is quick to hate,” Luca replies. “But she will forgive you anything the moment you show her the smallest kindness. You and she share many traits, though they manifest in different ways. You are both softhearted. And you are both lethal.”

  “Lethal.” Mirabella looks Luca square in the face. “How is Katharine able to ingest so much poison?”

  “Her poison gift is strong.”

  “She has no poison gift,” says Mirabella. “Arsinoe is the poisoner.”

  “Perhaps there were two.”

  “Not according to Willa.” Mirabella’s eyes narrow. “Yet I have seen Katharine swallow poison after poison as if every meal is a Gave Noir. How? What low magic did you and Natalia Arron work on her to turn her into such a . . . talented queen?”

  Luca scoffs. “There was no low magic. No tricks. I was not working in secret with the Arrons. Up until the last, I was working in secret for you. Which is why I know you so well.” She lowers her voice. “I know it was not truly my words that swayed you to the crown. What are you doing here, really? What are you up to?”

  “Only what you told me to do. I am protecting the island, and trying to solve the puzzle that is my sister.”

  “And what will you do when you solve it? Whatever secrets she keeps do not matter. She is crowned.”

  “So much loyalty,” Mirabella says bitterly.

  “You learn to love the queen you have. You know this. Had you won the throne, you would have found Arrons lining up to become your allies. It is no different.”

  Except it feels different. Mirabella would have expected that the Arrons would quickly change their colors. Arrons are changeable and lack conviction. But it was a shock to come to the capital and find that Katharine had won over her two best friends.

  “Perhaps I am being silly,” she says, and to her surprise, Luca steps forward and embraces her, patting her lightly on the shoulder.

  “It is not silly, Mira. It is natural. As subjects, we must love our queen. But we have always loved you. And we are all glad that you have come home to us.”

  Mirabella takes the old woman’s hand. That familiar, wrinkled hand with its practical, short-clipped fingernails, the knuckles slightly swollen with age. She lowers her head and kisses it, and smells the almond oil that Luca massages into her skin.

  “Are you truly glad?” she asks. “Do you really still love me?”

  “Mira.” Luca’s brow knits. “What is the matter?”

  “I should not say,” Mirabella says, her eyes fixed upon Luca’s hands. “For I do not know if I can trust you. But I am going to ask you anyway, because I am lost here and without a confidant. And because you did love me, once . . .” She looks up at the High Priestess and finds her soft blue irises trembling.

  “Before Madrigal Milone died, she told me something about Kath
arine. ‘She is full of the dead.’ That is what Madrigal Milone said, just before her life ran out into the snow at Innisfuil. What did she mean?”

  Mirabella waits, and Luca pulls her hand free.

  “I have no idea. She was dying. Perhaps she was rambling. Perhaps you misheard.”

  Mirabella studies the High Priestess carefully. Her expression is haunted but not confused. “I did not mishear. You know something. You want to tell me.”

  “What do you mean I want to tell you?” Luca brushes her away and turns, walking to her desk to open drawers and move papers without purpose.

  “You have lied to me many times, Luca, and I have never been able to tell. So if I can tell now, it is because in your heart you want me to know.” She follows the High Priestess to her desk and grasps her by the arms.

  “‘She is full of the dead,’” Luca whispers.

  “Yes. What did she mean?”

  “A thought forms in my mind. . . .”

  Mirabella waits as Luca thinks, her eyes distant. “Tell me.”

  But Luca jerks herself loose. “It is not certain yet. And I will not speak against the queen.”

  “Not even if that queen is a danger?”

  “A danger to who?”

  Mirabella sighs hard through her nose. She picks up her cloak to leave and moves for the door. She will find no answers here. The best she can hope for is that Luca will not go running straight to Katharine to advise Mirabella be executed by poison in the square. But as she reaches for the doorknob, Luca speaks.

  “I will not speak against the queen,” she says again. “It is not my place. But if someone were to speak”—she looks at Mirabella meaningfully—“that someone would be Pietyr Renard.”

  Pietyr Renard. And just how was she supposed to get to Pietyr Renard? By all accounts, he was unconscious, at Greavesdrake. And Katharine would be sure to keep her beloved under heavy guard. Besides, if she ran directly to him the moment she had the slightest freedom, Katharine would guess her true intentions.

  Mirabella presses her lips together in frustration as she fumbles with the tangle of her veil. Back in Sunpool, the rebellion is still gathering, and Emilia will lead them to attack in the spring. By then she must know all there is to know about Katharine, if she is to find a way to bring peace back to the island.