Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,73

searching for some kind of clue. Nothing—until her gaze catches on a bright, ugly rug.

It is not truly an ugly rug. Like everything else in Greavesdrake, it is very fine, spun from eggshell-colored silk. But it does not seem to belong. As if it is new. Or was hastily brought in from another room.

“But he is not lost, Katharine, not yet,” Mirabella says, and discreetly walks behind her. She toes the edge of the silk. What could it be hiding? A trap door? A carved rune? As she draws more of it up with her foot, the wood beneath appears darker. Stained.

“Mirabella?”

Mirabella lets the rug fall, but it is too late.

Katharine’s eyes narrow.

“Get away from there.”

“I was only—”

“I know what you were doing!”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Mirabella says, “considering that I do not.”

“I came here to ask you . . . and immediately find you searching my room!”

“Ask me? What did you want to ask me?”

“Something that requires trust.”

“Then ask.” Mirabella opens her hands. “Ask for trust. Earn it. Or can you only demand? After a queen is in her crown, does she lose the ability to ask for anything?”

Katharine’s lip twists into a snarl. But it fades as quickly as it came.

I am not afraid of her today, Mirabella realizes.

“Ever since I arrived in the capital,” she says, “I have done everything that was expected of me. I faced the mist. I have contacted no one from the rebellion. Not even our sister. And I have not gone against you, though I should have. Your treatment of Billy is a disgrace.”

“You have a soft heart for mainlanders. I had such plans for you, Mirabella. Such hopes.”

“What plans, Kat? Beyond the mist?”

“You call me ‘Kat’ sometimes.” Katharine nods toward the empty bed. “Like he did. You are too many things, you know. Too charming. Too powerful. Even too beautiful. It would make you easy to mistrust if you were not also too good.

“I think I am remembering you. Like Arsinoe did. Perhaps that is why they keep us apart: to keep us from our memories. To keep us from each other. I would tell you the truth now. But I am afraid to.”

“There is a crown forever etched into your head,” Mirabella says quietly. “What have you to fear?”

Katharine touches it, the black band, stretched across her brow. “Luca is so shrewd. Even Natalia was impressed. They thought of me as a silly girl. A child, to be controlled. They still think so.”

“To rule as queen is to be ruled as well by the interests of the people. Of the island.”

“It is in their interest that I speak now,” Katharine says. “It is for the island that I will tell you the truth. The night of the Quickening, Pietyr threw me down into the Breccia Domain. I nearly died.”

“He threw you? But—does he not love you?”

“Pietyr loves me. He was confused. And it was in a way lucky, because it was in the Breccia Domain that I was found. By the dead queens.”

“The dead queens?”

“Those sisters who lost their Ascensions and whose bodies were cast into the heart of the island. They found me. Healed me. And joined with me so that I could win.”

“‘She is full of the dead,’” Mirabella whispers.

“An impossible story, I know.”

Mirabella thinks of all the strange things she has seen Katharine do. The way she does not shiver. Her uncanny abilities with knives and crossbows. How she devours poison with a naturalist gift. “And they are with you?” she asks. “Now?”

“Not now,” Katharine says. “Or, not all. I have sent them out. That is what happened to Pietyr. I sent them into him, by mistake.” She gestures to the rug at Mirabella’s feet. “That stain there that you are so curious about. He was trying to banish them. And I let them out. I did not even know I could. And now they have a taste for it. They seek out new vessels. They seek out you.”

“No.” Mirabella’s skin tightens at the thought. Her elemental gift rises in defense, and the air crackles with electricity. “If that is what you ask, I will never allow it.”

“Nor will I. You are too powerful, as I said. If the dead sisters had control of you, no one would be able to stop them. Not me. Not the mist.”

“Then what is your plan for me?” Mirabella asks. “What do you want?”

“I want you to help me be rid of them. I want you to be