Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,57
the bedchamber.
“There is a fire in the fireplace,” Katharine says. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Only nerves. It helps, to play with the flames.”
Katharine looks back at the fire. But she does not move to it or hold her hands out to warm them. Perhaps she is warmed enough by the excitement of the coming parade. Her pale cheeks are even slightly flushed.
“Is everything all right, Queen Katharine? Was there something you needed?”
“Only to get away from the whispers of the Black Council in my ear. That the parade is a mistake. That to display you to the capital like this will somehow raise you up as queen.”
“And what do you say?” Mirabella asks.
Katharine cocks her head. “I say that the people can wish for you all they want; it will not make it so. And besides. They do not know . . . what plans I have for you.”
“Plans? What plans?” Mirabella steps away from the wall, sensing Arsinoe is still there. She has not fled down the passageway as she should. Instead, she is just behind the stone, listening.
“Soon,” Katharine promises. “Soon I will tell you everything.”
INDRID DOWN
Getting out of the castle is easier than getting in, and Arsinoe makes her way back through the city and into the hills, to Jules and Emilia, without any trouble. She slips off the road and into the sparse cover of winter trees and brush to the clearing where they wait.
“Arsinoe!” Jules and Camden stand, slipping out from underneath their fur blanket beside Emilia’s small fire. “Thank the Goddess.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I told you I knew what I was doing.”
“Did you see her?” Emilia glances at her from beneath her brow. She kneels beside the fire, skinning a rabbit to roast. “Will she be ready?”
“Well?” Jules asks when Arsinoe does not reply.
“I don’t know.”
Emilia tips her head back and throws her knife down to sink in the snow. “What do you mean you don’t know? Did you speak to her or not?”
“She’s up to something.”
Jules and the warrior trade a frown. They have come a long way and risked much. For what?
“So she won’t come,” Jules says quietly.
“I don’t know.” Arsinoe clenches her fists and presses them against the sides of her head. The rush of sneaking into the castle, of being so near both of her sisters, has begun to wear off and leave her shaky. “I was right there, Jules. So close I could have reached out and cut her throat. That’s why I should have come. To end Katharine. To put an end to all of this.”
“That is the poisoner in you,” Emilia says. She takes up her knife again and stands, wiping the blade on her trousers. “The assassin. We will have need of your skills yet, in the coming battle. But do not be too hard on yourself. Though you were born a queen—born to be a killer—Jules is right: you are not one.”
Arsinoe looks at her, surprised. She nudges Jules. “Are you telling everyone now?”
“So what do we do?” Emilia asks them both.
“Burn the black smoke,” Jules says. “Call Billy and the others back. We’ll leave Mirabella here, to do what she will.” She turns to Arsinoe. “I hope you’re right, and she really is up to something.”
After leaving Arsinoe outside the Volroy, Billy successfully joined the six warriors from the rebellion. Using the oracles’ visions as a guide, they secured lodging at a livery stable not far from the parade route and prepared to wait out the night.
As night falls, Billy sits with his shoulder against the east window of the hayloft. Three of the warriors are in the loft with him, and three more are below in the stables with the horses. Outside, the city is quieting, and torches and gaslights illuminate the streets. The small torches outside of the livery they sleep in cast a circle across the cobblestones and part of the fenced-in pen where a dozen horses doze or lazily munch hay. The flag hanging over the door is white and bears the face of a fox in gold and black paint.
“Here.” One of the warriors hands him a steaming mug. She is called Bea, and is one of Emilia’s most trusted fighters. To Billy she seems not fierce at all. She even looks a little like his sister, Jane, with soft cheeks and a small mouth. But he has no doubt she would not hesitate to put a knife right through his eye.