Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,33
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.