Five Dark Fates

by Kendare Blake

  “And then Arsinoe and I will leave,” she says out loud. She says it out loud, because with each passing day, she believes it less and less. Dangerous as her presence in Indrid Down is, she feels more at home in the capital than she ever did on the mainland. The mainland is strange rules and limitations, imposed traditions to keep things orderly. But this—this is what she was raised for: intrigue and political movements.

  Veil still crumpled in her hands, she steps into the corridor directly beside the initiate priestess, who gasps when she sees who she has escorted up the stairs.

  “Oh!” Mirabella’s eyes widen. She pretends to try to hide herself. “I was not expecting you to be waiting!”

  The initiate, flustered, tries to look everywhere else but at Mirabella’s face.

  “It is all right,” Mirabella whispers when she has put her disguise back on. “The Queen Crowned knows I am here, though my presence must remain a secret.”

  “I won’t speak a word!”

  “Good. I thank you.” She squeezes the girl’s hands, and the initiate sinks into a fast, low curtsy. Mirabella quickly tugs her back up. Her respectfulness will get them caught. “But, as long as I am here, might you be able to sneak me into the temple library? Hidden away in the Volroy, I am afraid I am dreadfully bored. I would enjoy exploring the temple collection, if only for a few hours. I would require somewhere private.”

  “I know just the place.” She leads Mirabella deep into the temple, down to the library on the lower level. It is smaller than Mirabella expected and poorly lit, with only a few windows. She squints, and the initiate hurries to light the lamps. Mirabella notes the way they flare. It is true then; the girl was an elemental before joining the temple, and it makes Mirabella feel more at ease, even though she knows it should not.

  “You’ll not be bothered,” the initiate promises. “Few come to the library at this time of day, and I will do what I can to keep the area clear. Shall I fetch you . . . at dusk? If you do not find me first? My name is Dennie.”

  “Dennie?”

  “Well, Deianeira. But who wants to say all that?”

  Mirabella chuckles. “It is a queenly name. As much of a mouthful as Mirabella. Dennie, it is. And if you like, you may call me Mira.”

  Dennie’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head vigorously as she turns to leave. “No, I could never!”

  Alone amidst the books, Mirabella removes her veil. The room has such a lonely feel that she can believe no one else has been there in the last month. But it is very clean and does not smell of dust or mold. The books appear to be well preserved and no doubt carefully organized. And even though it is a modest collection, she does not know where to start.

  She wanders the rows and runs her finger across the leather-bound spines. So much of the island’s history sits resting here. Kept and recorded, and hidden away. Effectively buried. And it is not only books, but ledgers, journals, artwork, and tapestries, relics from time and reigns gone by. She had come to the library to snoop for only a little while, but she really could linger happily until sundown.

  After a few minutes of wandering in aimless wonder, she begins selecting volumes and pulling them from the shelves, taking them back to her small table by the armful. Then she sits down and begins to read.

  Within the crisp, seldom-turned pages, accounts of past queens are easy to find. There are several volumes devoted solely to the tales of the Ascensions, and in them she reads the familiar stories of Queen Shannon and Queen Elo, the strong elementals whose murals grace the walls of Rolanth Temple and whose stories she knows nearly as well as her own. Beside them are the Ascensions of Queen Elsabet the mad, and Queen Bernadine, the naturalist champion of Wolf Spring. Bernadine’s Ascension is depicted in paint, a small illustration of faded red blood and a fierce black wolf. They are grand tales, romanticized. Descriptions of triumph. Mentions of the queens who were killed—and who also vied fiercely for that same crown—are sparse and rarely congratulatory. In reading of the Ascension of Queen Theodora—a naturalist whose familiar was a horse—her fallen sister is simply described in terms of her condition after the horse had trampled her into the road.

  Mirabella flips more pages, her eyes moving quickly. So many queens who have come before. Each faced her own challenges, both before and after the crown. But only one has returned and recently made her presence known. Queen Illiann. The Blue Queen. Creator of the mist. There should be volume upon volume about her. Yet after more than an hour of searching, Mirabella has found nothing. She finds tales of Queen Andira, the White-Handed naturalist whose sisters were both born oracles and drowned. She finds reference to Queen Caedan, the first Blue Queen, born over a thousand years ago. But nothing of Illiann.

  She closes the book she had been perusing and stands, looking over the shelves and the many trunks. There are no holes in the stacks, no suspicious spaces. But whatever there was must have been taken.

  “Hello?” The initiate, Dennie, pokes her head out from the entrance and then steps inside to curtsy. “Mmmm . . . Mirrr . . . m’lady?”

  Mirabella rolls her eyes and laughs. M’lady will have to do. “Yes?”

  “Is there anything you need? Tea? Some food?”

  “No, I—” Mirabella pauses, her focus still on the shelves. “I am reading the histories of past queens, and I find that I cannot . . . That is, there does not seem to be anything here about the last Blue Queen. Queen Illiann. Does the temple really house nothing here?”

  “We do,” Dennie says. “But all that we had was taken recently to Greavesdrake Manor, at the request of Genevieve Arron.”

  “Of course it was.” Mirabella sighs. “Queen Katharine told me that she had set Genevieve to look into it.” She leans her head back and stares at the ceiling as if she can see right through it, all the way up to Luca. Maybe if she grabbed her by the shoulders and shook, all of the answers would simply fall out of her. “Goddess. Now I am thinking like Arsinoe.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. The Arrons—do they often make demands upon the temple? Is it easy for the priestesses to function here, so close to the crown and the council?”

  “It can be difficult,” Dennie admits. “Though perhaps the greatest difficulty lies in simply being acknowledged. Sometimes I think that the Black Council has forgotten the reason that the capital city was founded here in the first place.”

  “And what was that?”

  “It was the site of the first temple, of course.”

  “This”—Mirabella gestures around them—“this was the very first temple?”

  “No. This is a monument to the Volroy. Completed before it but made to match. The first temple has been lost to time. Like so many things. But you mustn’t worry about us. It has been much better since the High Priestess returned.”

  “The High Priestess . . . does she know about the first temple?”

  “Yes, but perhaps no more than I do.”

  If only it still existed. The answers it must hold. Mirabella picks up a book and runs her hand across the cover.

  “I have been reading about the other queens. But I can find no mention of any before Queen Bethel the Pious. Are there other, older volumes kept elsewhere?”

  Dennie’s brow knits in thought. “Perhaps in other temples. Perhaps pilfered away to the Volroy. Or even to Greavesdrake Manor. Or perhaps, those ancient queens have also been lost to time.”

  “As long as there has been the island, there have been the island’s queens,” Mirabella says absently, and the initiate nods. Everyone on Fennbirn knows that. And they know the first, though she has no name. The first queen, known only through myth and legend. Bearer of the first triplets. Some say she was the Goddess herself, that she bestowed the gifts upon the early people and ruled for a hundred years. Mirabella has seen her in many paintings: a dark beauty with shadowed eyes, always depicted with her arms extended above the island and three dark stars beneath her.

  But those are only artists’ renderings. Nothing a
ncient remains from her time. No accounts. No relics. Not even her name.

  “The Goddess herself,” Mira muses quietly. “And what would that make us?”

  “My lady?”

  “Nothing. I was only wondering about those queens who have come before. Those ancient ones who are lost to us. What wisdom might they have? What secrets would they share? Was it easier in their times?” She rubs her hands roughly across her face and her tired eyes.

  “It’s a shame no one knows where the ruins of the first temple lie. And it is a shame to have lost such a sacred site.”

  “It is a shame,” Mirabella says. “Perhaps some queen someday will find it.”

  GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

  Whenever she can get away from the castle, Katharine goes to Greavesdrake to tend to Pietyr herself. Lately, it has not been easy. With Mirabella in the city, the whole of the Black Council is as jumpy as cats in a thunderstorm. The members want their Queen Crowned close at hand. They want to be sure that she is watching, and ready, like they are, should Mirabella prove to be less than trustworthy.

  “I am sorry I am late,” she whispers to Pietyr as he lies resting peacefully in her old bedroom. There has been no more bleeding, and Edmund has told her that occasionally there are twitches of reflex in Pietyr’s legs or movement behind his eyelids. She knows that he will wake soon. She can feel it. And then he will be back with her, where he belongs.

  “And when you wake, we will be even. Truly even. You threw me down into the Breccia Domain, and I . . .”

  As she looks at him, the dead queens rise, fascinated by him as he lies there. As if not even they can believe what they have done.

  “No,” Katharine whispers. “Stay away from him. When we are in this room, you will not be here.”

  The dead queens ignore her. Instead, they grasp for control of her hand and reach for his cheek, as if they might feel for warmth, and peel open his eyes to gaze inside them. It is indecent. Monstrous.

  “Get out,” she orders.

  They crowd inside her body, and her skin crawls with their soothing touches, their whispered apologies. So many excuses. So many cold embraces in the hopes that she will forgive them. But behind the comfort there is always the threat: Without us, sweet queen, you are a weak child. Without us, you will lose your crown, and then your head.

  “If you do not recede to the deepest, darkest corner of me,” Katharine shouts, “so help me, I will cut you out and put you back into the stones myself!”

  At her words, the dead sisters constrict in her blood so fast that it feels like a punch to the gut. She takes a deep, shaky breath. She must be more careful. Controlling her temper is better to manage them. But in the room with Pietyr, she only wanted them gone.

  Katharine runs a hand across Pietyr’s forehead. It is dry, not clammy or feverish. She brushes his ice-blond hair back from his eyes. She is tired. The dead sisters, Mirabella, and the Black Council have left her weary, and she allows herself a moment to climb onto the bed with him. To snuggle down into the warm crook of his shoulder and listen to him breathe.

  “Please wake up,” she whispers. She presses her lips to his and tries to will him to stir for a moment, she imagines that she feels his lips open against hers. But it is only pretend. She kisses him again and again, harder, on his mouth and cheeks and collarbone.

  “Queen Katharine.”

  She jumps and turns to see Genevieve standing in the doorway.

  “Genevieve.” Katharine extricates herself from the bed and straightens her apron. “What do you want?”

  “To look in on my nephew,” she says. “And to look in on you.”

  “You were never so concerned with his well-being before.” Katharine returns to the tray of food. It is soft, near liquid. Edmund has added warm milk to help it go down easier. In his unconscious state, Pietyr must be fed through a long, flexible tube.

  Genevieve comes to Pietyr and leans down to kiss him on the head. Her long, blond braid falls from her shoulder and thumps against his cheek. She picks a bit of lint off her dark brown trousers before glancing at the bowl of cooling food. “Shall I help you?”

  “No, I will do it,” Katharine says, and takes up the tubing in her hand.

  “Look how you are trembling. Let me do it. I am very deft, I promise.”

  Reluctantly, Katharine gives it over, and Genevieve lubricates the tube with oil. She tilts Pietyr’s head back, and Katharine holds her breath as Genevieve guides it smoothly down his throat. He does not fight it much before the reflex swallows it down.

  “The funnel.”

  Katharine hands it to her, and she affixes it to the end of the tube.

  “How are you faring with Mirabella, Katharine?” Genevieve asks as she spoons the vegetable mash. “You say she is here by your invitation, but I know you. I am surprised you have not killed her already.”

  “Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think. I am not so bloodthirsty as to place my own vengeance above the interests of my island.”

  “And what if your bloodthirst is at the very heart of the island’s interests?”

  “What are you talking about?” Genevieve knows something. Her lilac eyes are narrowed with contentment.

  “There,” she says as the last of the mash goes down the tube. She reaches for the goblet of water and sniffs. It has been infused with hemlock.

  “It is Pietyr’s favorite.”

  “A nice addition. It is important to nurture his poison gift as he recovers.” Genevieve pours it slowly, flushing the last of the food down into Pietyr’s stomach. Then she carefully removes the tube and wipes his mouth.

  “I have received an interesting report from my spies in Sunpool. It seems the rebellion has found a solution for the problem of the attacking mist.”

  “What solution?”

  “The death of an elemental queen.”

  Katharine scoffs. “What are you talking about?”

  “I would not have believed it either, had I not also previously discovered this during my research into the Blue Queen.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out pages of ancient-looking parchment. She hands them to Katharine. “But the call for the death of an elemental queen, when put together with this, makes the puzzle complete.”

  Katharine unfolds the pages. They appear to be from a journal of some kind. “This is from the journal of Henry Redville,” she says. “Queen Illiann’s king-consort.”

  “I know,” Genevieve muses. “It is a lucky thing they were even kept. For who preserves the thoughts of a king-consort?”

  Katharine reads on. What follows in the pages is a largely rambling account of a man wracked with guilt, and quite possibly in his cups. It is a confession of sorts. Written to Queen Illiann as if she was not there and had been gone for many years.

  “Why would the death of an elemental queen stop the mist?” Katharine asks.

  “Because according to Henry Redville, the death of an elemental queen was what formed it in the first place.” Genevieve gestures to the pages. “Read on.”

  Katharine’s eyes move feverishly across the scrawling hand of the king-consort. It is a muddled composition, so full of apologies that Katharine wants to slap him, though he is long, long dead. “‘Please forgive Daphne, who has continued to love you as her sister,’” Katharine reads aloud. “‘Please forgive me, who was not strong enough to repel the Selkan attack. Your death upon the cliffs that night haunts us both, and we have often been unable to enjoy our happiness, as it came at the loss of you. Sometimes I wonder if this is truly what you would have wanted, but they insisted that the line of queens must go on, and Daphne was still a queen . . .’” Katharine stops. “What is he speaking of? Her death? The Blue Queen reigned in peace after the creation of the mist for another forty years!”

  “Did she? Not according to that. No, Queen Illiann was killed, by who he does not say, and after her body created the mist, this . . . Daphne . . . was put on the throne to rule in her place.”

  “But the Blu
e Queen’s sisters were all to have been put to death, days after birth. Could this Daphne have really been a queen?”

  “Enough of a queen to fool the populace for another forty years. Enough of a queen to bear the sacred triplets.” Genevieve looks at the yellowed papers. “I cannot say for sure—there is no record of a triplet born under the name Daphne—but I think she is actually the other elemental born: Roxane. It would have been the only way for their deception to work.”

  “Queen Illiann replaced by another queen.” A Queen Crowned replaced so easily.

  Genevieve stands and takes the pages back, folding them and returning them to her pocket. “I have done as you asked. Become your eyes and ears. So now we know why Mirabella truly fled the rebellion. Because they planned to kill her to put an end to the mist.”

  Katharine looks at her. “And now you would have me do the same. When I have given her my word she would be safe.”

  “Her safety or the safety of the island,” Genevieve says, weighing them on her hands.

  “She has already secured the safety of the island. She fought the mist and won.”

  “She fought the mist, yes, but she did not win. Not for good. It will return. We should kill her now, and put an end to one threat at least.”

  “No.” Katharine shakes her head. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I do not know. I only sense that I need her.” For what? Not even she can say for sure. To help her rid herself of the dead queens? But how? She cannot allow the dead queens to set one foot inside her powerful sister.

  “Katharine, you are being unreasonable.”

  “I cannot bear the triplets, have you forgotten that?” Katharine snaps. And once it is past her lips, it is like she has known all along. “I need another queen. A trusted one. One who loves me enough to bear them for me in secret!”

  Genevieve’s mouth drops open. Then it closes, and she nods. She even seems impressed.