Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,6
crown,” Katharine says. “And if you are here, I would have them see you. You, the great elemental queen, come to fight by my side. If you are here, you will be of use. But only when I choose. Guards!” The door to the throne room opens, and in moments, Mirabella finds herself surrounded again by the points of spears.
“Take my sister to the king-consort’s apartment.” She turns to Mirabella. “My sweet Nicolas did not have the chance to enjoy it before he was killed in the fall from his horse, and I will not have such fine furnishings go to waste. And of course, there are no chambers designated to hold a Queen Crowned’s sister.” Katharine pivots on her heel, and shining black curls bounce over her shoulder. “I will send Bree Westwood and the priestess Elizabeth to see you. I am sure you would be comforted by their presence. And then I will have a small meal sent up. But do not eat too much. Tonight you will dine with me.” She stops at the door and smiles at Mirabella broadly.
“We have much work to do.”
Katharine goes from the throne room to the Black Council chamber and shuts herself inside. The moment she is hidden from view, she begins to tremble as she hugs herself and paces.
She had been face-to-face with Mirabella again, and she had done well. The black crown emblazoned across Katharine’s forehead had acted like a shield, giving her courage and lending righteousness to her words. It had been hard not to shout. Not to strike out preemptively. Everything about Mirabella put her on the defensive: the way she stood in the throne room, beautiful and regal, even in that hideous wreck of a dress; the lingering bonds of affection she still holds with many members of Katharine’s Black Council.
Perhaps it was a mistake to bring her here. Perhaps she is falling right into Luca’s trap.
Even the dead queens, as they hissed and sniffed around her, also tugged against Katharine’s edges, drawn to the strength of the elemental gift that flowed off Mirabella in waves.
“You would leave me for her.”
Never, they whisper. You are ours. We are you.
But Katharine feels them pull against her skin. She feels them rise up and nearly slip out of her mouth. The dead queens had a taste of being outside her, of moving through another person when they left her to rush into Pietyr. And they liked it.
We are with you, always.
“Always,” says Katharine as a plan begins to form in her mind. She could be free of them, and free of them for good, if she is careful, and if she is more clever than they are.
SUNPOOL
Wolf Spring arrived in time for Madrigal’s burning. Cait and Ellis Milone, their backs straight and rigid as knives. Luke, cheeks wet, in a deep crimson vest and coat he was sure to have sewn himself. And much of the city came with them. Madrigal burned, in the salt spray and wind, atop the chest-high pyre of wood that the workers of the rebellion had built. The priestesses of Sunpool had wrapped her in crimson cloth and covered her in crimson petals. The rebels left offerings of wreaths and colored shells. Birds’ eggs to crack and sizzle in the heat.
Together Wolf Spring and the rebellion watched as the pyre blazed, turning to ash the body that was not really Madrigal Milone any longer but merely the very pretty shell that could barely contain her.
Madrigal, Arsinoe thinks now, in the echoing whispers of Sunpool’s great hall. Madrigal was the sum of her actions. She was a laugh in a quiet room. In life, she had never liked for anything to be easy, and in death she was the same.
“I thought you were dead, too.”
At his voice in her ear, Arsinoe turns and grasps Luke around the waist. “I’m so sorry,” she says, over and over, and only lets him go when his black-and-green rooster, Hank, begins to flap and spur holes into her only good pair of trousers. They sit down together at the nearest open place.
“Where’s your boy?” he asks.
Arsinoe gestures to Billy in the crowd, where he spoons meat and gravy onto plates. All through the burning he let her lean on him without being seen to be leaning. When the flames touched the crimson cloth, he held her close.
“Getting you food, eh?” says Luke. “He knows you well.” Then he lowers his eyes. “The funeral was well attended.”