Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,95
down and tearing off her own piece.
Luca snorts. “You did not.”
Bree smiles at her.
“Of course she didn’t,” Elizabeth says. “Bree is no use in a kitchen.”
“I am of no use anywhere,” she says. “Except as a queen’s companion. It is what I was raised for. And now . . .”
Luca dips her spoon into the soup.
“Blow on it first,” Elizabeth cautions. “We have to keep it near to boiling for it to stay warm up in these rooms. I don’t know why you prefer them. So high and drafty.”
“I liked them because I could see,” Luca says. “But I could not see enough.”
Bree watches the High Priestess quietly. Bree had been so angry when Luca crowned Katharine. When she pronounced Mirabella’s execution. But those feelings seem far away. She and Luca and Elizabeth, they are all who remain, the only ones who can truly remember Mirabella from that time before the Ascension.
Bree dips her bread into her bowl and takes a warm bite. Spring has come to the capital. The passes through the mountains are opening. New shoots of grass have begun to sprout. It is just taking longer for the air up here to realize it.
“What word is there from the Black Council?” Luca asks, and Bree clucks her tongue.
“You know I cannot tell you. The guards outside your door might be kind, but they are still always listening.”
Luca chuckles. She seems much the same, but if Bree looks closely, she can see that the edges of her pristine white robes are marred by dust. Her silver hair is clean and combed, but it has thinned, and the pink of her scalp has started to show. Once, Bree and Mirabella had sworn that Luca had been born old and therefore would never grow older.
“She will keep me here until I am dead,” Luca says, and Bree gives a start, worried that her face was too readable. “Or they will execute me. Those are my outcomes, and the only thing to be determined is the method of my downfall. Shamed publicly in the square? Or killed quietly and my body burned among the priestesses of Indrid Down Temple?”
“Those are not the only ways,” says Elizabeth, but her bright voice is unconvincing. She reaches into her hood for Pepper, like she always does when she is afraid or uncomfortable. But Pepper is not there. He is somewhere between the capital and Sunpool, on a pointless errand for a fallen queen. Perhaps he beat Billy’s horse and delivered the letter before Arsinoe knew Mirabella was dead. Bree hopes so. Delivering it now seems too unkind.
“Maybe the rebellion will win,” says Bree. “Maybe the Legion Queen will rule and let you go.”
“Katharine will send someone here to kill me if it looks like things are going badly. I can assure you of that.” Luca grabs Bree’s hand and lowers her voice to a whisper. “And do not speak so unless you want to find yourself in the Volroy cells!”
Bree’s eyes burn. She focuses hard to keep her gift from affecting the torches and scorching the walls.
“I believed her when she spoke of the truce. I had even come to like her.”
“So had Mirabella,” Luca says. “So had we all.”
“She murdered my best friend!”
“Bree.” Elizabeth eyes the closed door.
“I do not care.” Bree waves her hand; she sets every candle in the room alight, every lamp. She wants Katharine to appear before her so she can burn her alive. Except even as angry as she is, she would not have the nerve. No one has the nerve to stand against the Queen Crowned. No matter what kind of mess she has gotten them into.
“Soon enough, the rebellion will come. They will march their army through the mountains and down through the valleys and fields of Prynn.” Luca looks out the window, at the Volroy’s enormous towers. “They will come with the support of Rolanth and the temple.”
“And they will still lose! You know what Katharine is. You know there is something . . . about her, some power she wields.”
“Arsinoe will know it, too. She will receive Mirabella’s letter.”
Bree looks down. “How has it come to this?” she asks. “That we should welcome the rebellion and the end of queens?”
“I do not know,” says Luca, and wipes her mouth with a cloth. “But you girls had best not tarry.” She gets up, and Elizabeth reluctantly gathers the bowls and pitcher. Before she can leave, Luca takes Bree by the arm.