The Oracle Queen (Three Dark Crowns #0.1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,27

that is a lie. They can never let Elsabet out again, not without losing their heads.”

“Shut your mouth,” Sonia snapped.

“I won’t have you lying to them. If they do this, they should know what it is they are doing. They are deposing a Queen Crowned.” She waited. A small ripple of doubt passed through them, but it amounted to only a shuffling of feet and some hard, nervous swallows. Not that she had really expected more. She had truly just wanted them to know.

“Give up your sword, Rosamund, and come quietly. I’ll put you in the very best of the cells, you have my word.”

Rosamund stepped forward.

“You can’t win.” Sonia’s eyes glittered. She drew her sword. “There is no point in trying. No point in fighting. The cause is lost. Already the soldiers have eliminated the Howes. They say Catherine and the rest of them burned up in a fire of their own making. And as for your house . . .”

Rosamund thought of Antere House. Her brothers, laughing in the kitchen, the wives planning some grand hunt. Her mother, old now and unwell, but still ruler of them all. And the girls. The sweet, wild girls who slept with their wooden swords in their arms like dolls and covered her face with kisses when she returned from the Volroy after a long day.

“You should not have told me about my house, Sonia.”

“Why not?”

“Because now there is no one for me to protect by surrendering.”

Rosamund drew her sword with a bellow and brought it arcing down directly at Sonia’s head, so fast that the other warrior could not fully block it, and the blade glanced down along her arm, finding its way through her armor and drawing blood. Those who saw Rosamund fight always said it was a wonder she could move so fast, with her bulk and size. They said watching her was like watching a dance of red and silver.

Rosamund’s sword clashed again with Sonia’s, and she pressed up close as the other warrior glanced at the wide-eyed soldiers. “None of them will intervene. None have the stomach to face me outside of training. How many do you think are secretly hoping that I will win?”

Sonia growled and shoved her away. They met and clashed and fell back again, and it was clear whose war gift was the stronger. Sonia panted, soft from so long sitting on the Black Council. Rosamund’s sword was light as a dagger in her hand.

“Stand down!” Sonia shouted, and threw three fast knives, guiding them with her gift. But Rosamund knocked them all away. Then she picked them up and sent them back, her own gift too strong to be deflected, so that Sonia had to dodge and duck.

“Sonia Beaulin, in your fine black cape and fancy, shining boots. Dressed up in a warrior’s clothes with no war gift to speak of.”

Teeth bared, Sonia charged, slashing and striking with all her might. Together they stumbled into a table. They knocked up against the watching, astonished soldiers. She sliced into Rosamund’s shoulder, and Rosamund fell across the long table and rolled, but came up on one knee and laughed when she saw Sonia panting.

“Weak,” Rosamund said. “Pampered, Black Council pet.”

Sonia leaped, and Rosamund blocked and kicked. Sonia spit blood onto the wood floor.

“You’re too small for this, Beaulin. Why don’t you send the rest of my army in here to finish what you can barely start?”

Sonia wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “You are truly mad,” she said. “Your whole family is dead. They tell me your mother was stabbed in her bed.”

“My mother would never die in bed.” Rosamund bellowed and charged her again, metal on metal like a song in her ears and Sonia’s frustration turning to fear like a song in her heart. Sonia pushed back with her gift; Rosamund felt it, like a hammer against her chest. But Rosamund’s gift pushed back harder.

“Guards!” Sonia shouted, and they stepped forward like cautious dogs to surround Rosamund and Sonia in the center of the room.

“They won’t follow you,” Rosamund said, her smile full of red teeth, “unless you do it yourself.”

“They already follow me,” Sonia growled.

Rosamund fought as bravely as she could, for as long as she could. She cut down three, then four of her trusted soldiers. She ran them through. She knocked them back and sent them flying. But every one she dispatched was replaced by two, and the swords began to land. Blood ran down her arms, her legs;