Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,88
has walked this room? Breathed this air?”
Mirabella carries her torch above her head, urging the flame a little higher to better view the ceiling. She sees depictions of sun and stars, water and waves. Dogs and deer. She sees figures racing through forests of trees, telling stories she has never heard. She sees the shrine.
The gold is so bright in the light of the torch that it hurts her eyes. Upon the floor, plates of ancient bronze still sit, corroded green by minerals. Once, they must have held the offerings of the people or the burning herbs of priestesses. She looks up at the image behind the shrine, depicted in jewels and black tiles.
The first queen of Fennbirn.
“Katharine. Come here.”
Katharine comes to her side, and they look upon her, their ancestor. The origin of the line. Above her head is a crown in gold and below her feet, three dark stars: the first triplet sisters.
“Do you see her?” Mirabella asks as Katharine takes her hand.
“I see her.”
The first queen of Fennbirn is shown with five arms. Upon each of her hands rests each of the gifts. Fire in a clenched fist. An apple in an open palm. A clutched dagger. An open eye, faced out. And a snake twisting through her fingers. The first queen was a Legion Queen.
Mirabella reaches out toward the image, the lightest of brushes against her ancient cheek. When her fingertips touch, the picture in her mind comes fast. Strong enough to rock her back on her heels, and to ripple into Katharine through their joined hands.
Jules Milone. She knows from the stricken expression on Katharine’s face that she saw her, too. It was unmistakable.
“What?” Luca asks. “What did you see?” The High Priestess edges closer.
Mirabella turns to her sister. She draws her nearer and rubs the tattoo of Katharine’s crown gently with her thumb.
“The beginning of the line,” Mirabella whispers. “And the end. The dead queens rise and the Goddess has chosen her champion.”
“But why her?” Katharine asks. “Why not us? We are of her. Descended from her!”
“I do not know, Kat. Maybe because we are of that line. And that line has gone too far in the wrong direction.” She lowers her head. “Maybe there is no reason at all. But you saw her. We cannot deny it.”
“So what do we do? Are we not queens anymore?”
“We will always be queens,” Mirabella says, her hands on her smaller sister’s shoulders. “So we will fight the dead. And we will fight the mist. We will help her.”
She turns away from the shrine and feels the jeweled and painted eyes of the first queen on her back.
“Let us go back to the horses, Luca. We have much to consider.”
Mirabella gathers her skirts and prepares to make the long climb out of the temple. But before she can, a foul wind whips into the space, and all of their torches are extinguished.
“Strong wind,” the High Priestess says. “The tide must be coming in. Mira, relight them.”
She does, first her own and then Luca’s, and the cave is illuminated again. Katharine has crumpled onto the floor.
“Queen Katharine!”
They hurry to her and kneel. She has gone cold. And too late, Mirabella knows why.
“The dead queens,” Mirabella whispers as the dagger stabs into her stomach.
She shoves Katharine away and staggers back, hand pressed against the blood that soaks through the black of her gown.
“What have you done?” Luca shouts.
“No, it was not me!” Katharine grips her head with both hands, the bloody blade dragging across her cheek. “It was them!”
The dead queens had found her in the temple. They had returned somehow and found her in this sacred place.
“They would wear your skin,” Katharine cries. “Run, Mira. You have to run!”
Mirabella turns and races up the damp stone steps, through the narrow passageway with her torch thrust before her. She ignores the wet warmth that sticks her gown to her legs, her breath loud in the cavern as her footsteps ring off the rock. When she hears the dead queens scream with Katharine’s voice, she wants to cry.
She bursts out of the mouth of the cave and stumbles in the sand. Somehow, she reaches her horse and climbs onto his back.
“Go, go,” she moans, and he obeys, galloping up the cliff path. She can see the summit. She can see her way to Sunpool. To the rebels and to Arsinoe. The horse is good, strong and steady. He can run for half a day, well past the shadow of Indrid