Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,118
his handkerchief.
“Those poisoner manners.” She wraps the cut. “I’m glad I never learned them.”
They walk together, deeper into the Volroy, and Pietyr keeps her abreast of the turns. He whispers which rooms are which and tells her where they might try. She lets him do it to feel useful. He does not know that she once lived a life through Daphne’s eyes and knows pathways through the castle that he has no idea of.
They round a corner and come upon a small green space, a walled garden that Arsinoe remembers well.
“What is it?” Pietyr asks when she lingers.
“This was the Blue Queen’s favorite garden. Illiann, she used to sit here for hours.”
“How do you know?”
“I know lots of things that I shouldn’t know.” She looks at him sideways. She should not be going to Katharine with him. It does not matter that he said he would not interfere or that he swore to overthrow the crown. Hearts in love are unpredictable, and once he sees Katharine, all of his promises may be forgotten.
“Am I going to have trouble with you?”
“I told you you would not.”
“The word of an Arron?”
“It means more than the word of a Milone.”
“I doubt that,” Arsinoe says, and snorts. But the Milones have done their share of wrongs and kept their share of secrets. Just like the Arrons. And like the temple.
“You should be more worried about Katharine, in any case. You know what she is. How strong she is, thanks to the borrowed gifts, and how good she is with weapons. You know she is likely to kill you.”
“We are likely to kill each other,” Arsinoe says, her voice hard. “Yes, I know.”
She takes a deep breath. She hears Mirabella and Jules saying how foolhardy she is. How she never thinks anything through. But they would only say that because they love her. Deep down, they know as well as she does that this task can fall to no one else.
Quick as a cat, she draws her knife and shoves Pietyr against the wall, pressing the edge to his neck.
“If I were smart,” she says, “I would kill you. So tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“Because I am an ally. Because I swore I would not stop you.”
She presses the blade harder against his skin.
“Liar.”
Pietyr grimaces at the pressure of the knife, but he is not really afraid. He looks at her with his usual amount of disdain.
“Then I will tell you the whole truth to prove that I am not what you say.”
“The whole truth?”
“In order to reach you on the battlefield, I had to stab your boy, Billy.”
For a moment, she cannot believe what she has heard. Then she pulls him forward and slams him back into the wall, hard enough to make him believe she has the war gift.
“You what?”
“I did not kill him. But he refused to let me by. He seemed to think I had nefarious plans for you. He is rather gallant for a mainland idiot.”
“You stabbed him?”
“Yes. But I did not kill him.”
“How do you know? How do you know for sure?”
“A poisoner knows the body,” he says. “We know where to cut to make you feel it. We know how deep to make the blood run. And we also know how to keep you alive, to prolong the suffering.”
“If there was poison on your knife, I swear—”
He shakes his head as much as he is able to without being cut.
“There was none. The weapons were provided to me on the march, and I have been watched and searched regularly. When would I have had the chance?”
Arsinoe holds him for a long moment. Then she steps back, and Pietyr rubs at his neck.
“I did not have to tell you that,” he says. “But I am being honest. So please believe me when I say I will not interfere with you and Katharine. I just need to be there.”
Honest. The word does not even fit in his mouth right. But Arsinoe puts her knife away.
“You can’t stop me, Renard. It would be a waste of your life to try.”
He nods, and she walks past the garden, pressing her finger to her lips when footsteps sound down a corridor. She flattens against the wall and grabs the servant by the collar as soon as he turns the corner.
“Where is the queen?”
“He is a kitchen boy,” Pietyr says. “He might not know.”
“She—she is in her rooms.” The boy points skyward and to the west. Arsinoe lets him go.