Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,8
familiar. So Arsinoe clears her throat and brightens her tone. “But when she’s quiet, Camden’s basically fine. Her old self. If Jules is resting, she can go in with you.”
She unbars the door. Inside, Jules lies on the pile of straw, pillows, and blankets that Arsinoe and Emilia arranged for her. Her hands and feet are chained. Ellis frees Camden from the wall, and the cougar trots quickly into the room. She circles Jules twice before lying down and resting her head in the hollow of Jules’s shoulder.
Without a word, Cait kneels in the straw and gathers her granddaughter into her lap. Ellis places his hand on her shoulder. It is harder to watch than Arsinoe expected, and her throat tightens.
“I’m so sorry, Grandma Cait.”
Cait takes Jules’s hand, so dug into the links of the chain that she has to pry it loose. “Don’t say that. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“If not mine, then whose?”
“No one’s,” Ellis says.
“They say she tried to save her,” Arsinoe whispers, her voice choked. “She tried to save Madrigal.”
“Of course she did,” Cait says. “That was always her way. Saving you, protecting you, trying to keep you out of trouble. And before you, there was Joseph. Our Jules was born a guardian, just as she was born a naturalist, and a warrior. Just as she was born cursed.”
After Cait and Ellis leave Jules and drift away to rest, Arsinoe remains. She stays in the tower of the castle with Camden, idly scratching between her ears and looking down on the city. There is much activity below. So many goods and supplies coming in that the gate is rarely closed. So many weapons being forged and horses being shod that the fires at the smithy are always burning. Sunpool, not so long ago a failing ruin, has come alive again with war.
When she hears footsteps on the stairs, she expects that it is Billy, but instead, a man knocks and enters, wearing the yellow-and-gray tunic of the seers.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says, glancing at Jules’s barred door.
“Forgive the intrusion, but I need to know where to house the new naturalists. The newcomers from Wolf Spring.”
Arsinoe rubs at her brow. The tower with Jules had become her hideaway, and his intrusion is an intrusion indeed.
“There’s no need to house them anywhere. They’ll not be with us long. And they’re naturalists. Perfectly happy in tents by the sea.”
“Surely some will want to stay?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“What is he asking you for, anyway?”
Arsinoe does not bother to stifle her groan when Emilia walks into the room, with no warning or announcement. The warrior’s footsteps are only heard when she wants them to be. She grasps the man harshly by the shoulder and spins him away from Jules’s door.
“You are not to be here. And you are not to ask her anything.”
“I only thought . . . in the absence of the Legion Queen—”
“In the absence of the Legion Queen, I will handle all arrangements,” Emilia growls.
“Good Goddess,” Arsinoe says as the poor fellow hunches low and tries to sidle from view. “He only asked me because I am a naturalist and I am from Wolf Spring.”
“Naturalist, poisoner . . . ,” Emilia grumbles. “You wear whatever hat suits you at the moment.”
Arsinoe sighs. “They’ll be fine on their own. They’ll figure it out,” she says, and the man nods.
“No,” says Emilia. “Place them in the vacant wing of the Lermont estate and whoever does not fit in the empty servants’ quarters adjacent. We need them rested and comfortable if they are to fight.”
“They aren’t to fight,” Arsinoe whispers.
“Some will fight. More than you think.” Emilia gestures with her chin, and the man bows to her and leaves to see it done. Arsinoe waits for her to leave as well, but to her extreme displeasure, Emilia does not.
“Is there anything else?”
Emilia looks past her to the partially open door where Jules lies. She has not told anyone besides Mathilde about Mirabella’s defection, and Arsinoe knows why. Emilia does not want the rebellion shaken. Not before their Legion Queen is well again.
It is something to be thankful for, she supposes, and then immediately hates herself for thinking it. She looks at Emilia with a softer expression and tries to remember the hours the warrior has spent by Jules’s side.
“Emilia, I—”
Emilia’s eyes flash to hers, full of contention, setting Arsinoe’s teeth back on edge immediately. But before either can hurl another