Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,44

“You’d rather I’d been a naturalist. And you don’t really like me working with poisons. Nobody likes change, Jules.” She sighs. “And after all this, maybe you really are the island’s champion.”

“The island’s champion. Or its doom. I’ve heard it both ways.”

She means it as half a joke, but Arsinoe does not laugh. “Which do you think it is?”

“I think I should have been drowned as a baby. Or left in the woods. I think my family murdered an oracle because they didn’t have the stomach to do what they should have.”

Arsinoe swallows. That poor, murdered oracle hangs over them like a cloud. She cannot believe that it was Cait and Ellis who did it. Cait, who taught her how to build a fence. Ellis, who sang to them. She cannot believe that Caragh stood by as it happened.

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Arsinoe says. “I’d do it now if anyone tried to hurt you.”

“Even if I deserved it?”

Jules looks out, sending her naturalist gift into the sea. A dark shape crests in the waves, visible even through the shaded blue of the water.

“What is that?” Arsinoe asks just as the shark’s dorsal fin slices up. It throws itself onto the beach, tail thrashing, until it lies gasping upon the sand. It is beautiful, with shining, black eyes and a bright white belly, and terrible to see dying, its mouth open as if in a mix of confusion and regret. When Camden leaps upon its back and begins tearing into it with her teeth and claws, shredding the slick, gray skin, Arsinoe wants to clap her hands and shoo her off. But Camden is no tabby. Ears back and teeth red with shark’s blood, she would only snarl and dig her claws in deeper.

Jules pulls a knife from her belt and walks to the edge of the surf. With one fast motion, she stabs forward through the back of the head, and the shark goes still. “It’s good meat,” she says, and lays her hand on the creature gently. “Boil down the bones for broth. Even the fins are good eating. We need all of it that we can get.”

It is true enough. And Arsinoe has seen Jules use her gift to hunt before. It is part of what the naturalist gift is meant for. But somehow this time it seems like war.

“I still am a naturalist, Arsinoe. And I’m still your guardian. Part of me will always be doing this for you. To kill Katharine. To make sure you’re safe. But you’re right. I’m not the same. And by the time this is over, none of us ever will be again.”

When Arsinoe and Jules return to the city together, they are immediately approached by a messenger with word that they are to meet Emilia at the rear of the castle’s west stable.

“She likes to give orders, doesn’t she?” Arsinoe grumbles as they hurry to comply.

They find the stable predictably deserted, except for the horses who reside in the stalls. As she and Jules walk down the corridor, the horses sense Jules’s gift and stick their heads out to say hello. It would be comical were the mood not so cautious and the corridor not so eerily quiet. As they near the end, Jules reaches out to pat the nose of her own horse, the tall black gelding she stole from Katharine. She must be relieved, Arsinoe thinks, to know that she did not accidentally kill him during the battle at Innisfuil.

“Emilia?” Jules calls. “Are you here?”

“I am here.” Emilia steps out from the last stall.

“Well, you could have said something sooner,” Arsinoe mutters. “What’s going on?”

“We have a visitor.”

Arsinoe shifts her weight nervously as the cloaked figure steps out. Whoever it is, they are tall, and hulking with armor. At a nod from Emilia, they lower their hood, and Arsinoe gasps.

“Margaret Beaulin! What is she doing here? What are you—”

Jules puts an arm across Arsinoe’s chest.

“She’s come to pledge the whole of Bastian City and its warriors to our cause.” Emilia hands Jules a rolled paper, which Jules unrolls and Arsinoe reads over her shoulder. It is a treaty. A written treaty outlining the allegiance between Sunpool, the rebellion, and Bastian City. It carries the signatures of all the great houses of war.

“The Vatros clan,” Jules says. “Emilia, your father signed.”

“That does not surprise me.”

“Didn’t we already have the allegiance of the warriors?” Arsinoe asks, confused. “What does this matter?”

“You had those warriors loyal to the Vatroses,” Margaret