Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,90

he stares at the tapestry behind the throne and wishes and wishes that she would step out from behind it.

When he hears shuffling feet near the door, he thinks it is only a changing of guard. He pays no attention to it at all until someone gives a muffled cry and a body thumps to the rug.

He twists his head. All he can make out are whispering white robes. At once, he is surrounded by them and feels his feet and hands cut free.

“Luca?” He flexes his fingers and tries to push himself up.

“Help him,” the High Priestess whispers, and he is hauled up by the arms.

“What’s happening?”

“What do you think is happening?” Luca slides her knife back into the sheath at her belt. “I am getting you out. Would you rather stay?”

He does not argue. He hobbles quietly along with the priestesses out of the throne room, and through the dark castle to the kitchen entrance. Outside, a priestess holds a saddled horse, with something large and dark thrown over the front of the saddle.

“Quickly, quickly.” Luca takes his arm and helps him to mount. He feels what the shape is at once and tenses.

“What is this?” he asks. “Who?”

“It is”—her mouth tightens—“it is Queen Mirabella.”

Billy’s heart seems to stop. It cannot be Mirabella, this cold, stiff shape rolled into a blanket. But from the look on the High Priestess’s face, he knows it is.

“I am sending her home with you. I could not protect her. Tell her sister that it was Katharine and the dead queens who did it. Tell her to come and fight. The temple and the High Priestess will not get in her way.”

Billy adjusts Mirabella carefully in his arms. “I can’t believe—”

“Nor can I. But there is no time. The path through the rear gate is clear. I know you are a mainlander, but you will have to find your way from there. We can offer you no more help.”

He takes up the reins. The blood has returned to his fingers and lower extremities, but they are still sore and clumsy.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“For Mira,” she says. “And perhaps for me. Now go!”

Billy turns the horse and rides through the gate. When he is safely out, he turns back and sees Luca with her hand raised in farewell. He raises his in return. After all, Katharine will know she was the one who freed him, and he doubts that he will ever see her alive again.

SUNPOOL

For Jules and Emilia, the ride back to Sunpool is grave and filled with silences. After seeing the surviving children from Bastian City safely to Wolf Spring, where they were welcomed with gruff embraces, as Jules knew they would be, they traded for fresh horses and, after a brief reunion with Matthew and little Fenn, returned to the road. Emilia did not want to talk about Margaret. Neither of them wanted to speak about what they saw at Bastian City and what could have done it. But as Sunpool draws ever nearer, they will have to soon enough.

The road from the south winds near to the sea, and when the rebel city comes into view, so does the western shore. Only a season ago, Arsinoe and Mirabella came aground there. Jules can almost see them, sputtering and cold, stumbling onto the dunes.

Ahead in the city, lookouts will see them coming. The gates will open. Arsinoe will run out. She will leap at the horses, relieved they have returned. She will tell them how stupid they were for going in the first place.

But she’ll understand, Jules thinks. After she hears what we have to say.

“They are opening the gates,” Emilia says. “And there is a rider.”

Jules looks. She sees no one coming from the city.

“No. On the road. There.” Emilia juts her chin. A lone figure on horseback appears from where they had been hidden behind the rise of a hill.

Camden raises her head, and with a grunt, leaps off the back of Jules’s horse to race ahead to them.

“Who could that be?” Emilia asks.

Jules watches her cat’s happy, flailing tail. She nudges her horse into a canter.

“I don’t believe it. It’s Billy!”

Together, she and Emilia race to meet him. She is astounded that he is alive, let alone free. But when Camden recoils, crouching low, she and Emilia slow their horses.

“How did he get free?” Emilia wonders. “And what is that he’s carrying?”

He pulls up when he sees them, far short of the open gate and