Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,74

my big sister. And I need you, to help me to continue the line.”

Slowly, Katharine reaches out and takes Mirabella’s hand. The touch feels different—her fingers are warm today, even through the gloves—and Mirabella folds them in her own without hesitation.

“What has happened to me,” Katharine says, her words halting, and ashamed. “. . . carrying the dead for so long . . . it has made it impossible for me to carry the next triplets. These gloves I wear are not for fashion. They are to keep me from harming people by touch. To keep my skin from poisoning anyone by accident. I am . . . compromised.”

“Kat,” Mirabella says, and looks down.

“After Nicolas was killed, Pietyr and I feared that my reign would be the last. But the line of queens is not as straight as we are led to believe. There have been other methods to maintain the line. Nontraditional methods. And now that you are here—” Mirabella looks up. Katharine’s eyes are wide with hope.

“You want me to bear the triplets,” Mirabella says breathlessly.

“Yes,” says Katharine. “I need you to ensure that Fennbirn’s queens do not end with me.”

Katharine watches Mirabella. Her pretty sister has never learned to camouflage her emotions. She is afraid, confused, shocked.

“I do not know what to say.”

“Perhaps I have told you too much.”

“At least I know now,” Mirabella says. “Why the mist has risen. Why it reaches for you.”

“You do not know that. It may rise in opposition to Jules Milone, to the legion curse—”

“Katharine!” Mirabella’s admonishment is a fevered whisper. “You reign beside the dead!”

“Dead queens,” she corrects. “Who had just as much right to the crown—”

“Queens they may have been, but to support them would be no different than supporting the rise of the rebels. They lost. Neither Legion Queen nor undead queens were ever meant to rule.”

“So you will not?” Katharine shrinks. She can almost hear the Black Council laughing at her, even Pietyr, for thinking her sister would help.

“I will not ally with them,” Mirabella says. “But nor will I turn my back on you. You are not them, Katharine. And you are different when they are quiet. The boy at the pier—Madrigal Milone—”

“Yes. They guided my hand. They grow stronger. Bolder. When they assert themselves, sometimes it is like I am being worn. Like they are wearing my skin.”

“And they would wear me?”

Katharine nods. “You are the vessel they want. In you, they would be unstoppable.”

“And you . . .” Mirabella squeezes her eyes shut as if she cannot believe it. “You . . . put them . . . in Rho? How does she bear them?”

“She was willing. I did not force her. If I had she would have ended up just like Pietyr. Rho is strong; they may be happy with her, for a time.”

“But only for a time,” Mirabella says grimly. “To stay, they require a queen.” When Mirabella looks at her again, Katharine struggles not to fidget. “You were not willing,” she says.

“No. I was weakened. The fall. I should have died. That is how they are allowed. The vessel must be willing, or weakened to the point of near death.”

“Katharine.”

Katharine remembers that tone. She remembers that voice from a long time ago. Even then, Mirabella, the eldest by not even an hour, had perfected that blend of exasperated, disappointed, and sympathetic. It makes Katharine feel as though she has just been caught with her finger in a pie. It makes her feel protected.

“I wish I did not have to ask you, believe me,” she says. “To carry the next triplets. I hope it did not make you feel like a broodmare.”

Mirabella arches her eyebrow and chuckles lightly. “If I did not before, I do now.” She sighs. “I cannot give you an answer, Kat. Not yet.”

“There is much to think about, I know.”

“It is more than that. So many old queens have returned. To you and to Arsinoe. Perhaps even to me, in the form of the mist. Old queens to new.”

“Living queens or dead,” Katharine whispers, and Mirabella’s eyes flicker to hers.

“Yes,” she says thoughtfully. “Living queens or dead.”

THE TWO PRISONERS

SUNPOOL

Arsinoe wakes covered in sweat and kicks her blankets away. It has been a long time since she got her facial scars, and they are completely healed. But sweat still makes them itch.

“Bad dream?”

Jules and Camden lie on the floor beside her, Jules on her side, head propped on an elbow, her other hand lazily stroking the cougar’s back.

“What are

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