Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,119

like it used to in the old days. With queens in the tower.”

Arsinoe is almost there. Katharine can feel her coming. Her angry, middle sister. Arsinoe is coming, and she has purpose: to do what Mirabella promised she would.

She will not want to kill you, the few dead queens whisper. She is weak.

“She will,” Katharine whispers back. “For what I did. For sending the others into Rho Murtra to grind Jules Milone’s bones into the mud.”

The only thing left to decide on is the place.

It should not be here, in these rooms of striped silk and brocade, clumsy furniture, and tea settings. Rooms that reek of ease and civilized capital business.

It should be somewhere stark and wild. Where Mirabella can see.

Katharine goes to the door. She calls down to Arsinoe. And then she hurries up the stairs to the door that leads to the battlements.

When Arsinoe bursts out onto the battlements, she is unprepared for the dizzying height, worse even than when she clung to the side of Mount Horn. She squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them, she sees Katharine, standing across the rooftop. The Undead Queen’s arms are bare and full of poison scars. She wears a black, corseted gown. And she looks almost happy to see her.

Arsinoe is not sure what she expected, but seeing her is a shock. After Pietyr’s descriptions of the dead queens, she imagined Katharine half rotten, her skin blackened and showing glimpses of exposed bone. She thought Katharine would simply charge—that they would charge each other—and there would be an end to it. Now, despite her anger and her hands clenched in fists, she cannot bring herself to simply walk across the rooftop and strangle her little sister to death.

“You came,” Katharine calls. “I knew you would. She said you would.”

“Don’t speak of her.”

“But you received it? The letter she sent?” Katharine’s eyes flicker hopefully to Arsinoe’s small, sharp knife. “You know what you have to do.”

“Aye,” Arsinoe growls. “I know what I have to do.” She clenches her fists. “Come and face me!” She squeezes the knife handle and waits, her breath hard, her pulse in her ears. But Katharine does not move. It only makes Arsinoe angrier, this calm exterior, this act. She did not come all this way to butcher a fawn as it slept. She wanted a fight. It has to be a fight.

“Come on!” she shouts. “You’re a joke in that crown. A giftless queen. When you found out that I was a poisoner, didn’t you think to ask old Willa? Didn’t you want to know that you were nothing but a weak-gifted naturalist? A weak, pathetic, nearly giftless naturalist, like I always thought I was. We were supposed to have each other’s childhoods, Katharine. Though I’d like to think I’d have handled yours better than you have.”

“It does not matter what I was,” Katharine says, frowning. “I am something different now. I know that you are angry—”

“Angry? I am more than angry!”

It is not working. Down on the battlefield, people are dying. Her friends are dying. Arsinoe lifts the knife. And Pietyr steps out from behind her.

Katharine rushes forward two steps.

“You are something different, Kat,” he says. “You are right about that.”

“You are well.” Katharine smiles, and her eyes shine. “You are well again.”

Arsinoe seethes at the happiness on Katharine’s face. She does not deserve it. She deserves cruelty. Pain. She should be allowed to feel nothing but regret. Arsinoe turns to Pietyr and puts her hand on his chest.

“He is well again,” she says. “You tried to kill him, and I woke him up.” She walks around him. When she trails her hand down his back Pietyr nearly jumps out of his skin, but to his credit, he stays quiet.

“He’s not here to return to you, Katharine. He’s here to declare that he is with us. With me.” She steels herself and grabs Pietyr’s face, kissing him hard. Then she shoves him away and runs for her sister.

Katharine knows that the kiss was not real. But it gave her sister the courage she needed. As Arsinoe runs at her, Katharine puts her hands up. Arsinoe’s knife swings in a slicing arc. It stabs through the meat of Katharine’s hand, lodging between her ring and pinkie finger.

She cries out as the dead queens hiss. They want to twist Arsinoe’s head around on her neck. But Katharine swallows them down.

“You killed her!” Arsinoe shouts through clenched teeth. Her knife shakes in Katharine’s flesh and saws into