Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,102

it in time . . .”

Madrigal takes up the bowl and walks toward her with the knife. Arsinoe rolls up her sleeve.

“Do not think that way.” She slices deep into Arsinoe’s arm. “She will be here.”

Arsinoe’s blood drizzles into the bowl like honey from a comb. It blooms bright red in the water and stirs up the herbs and ground petal bits. Between her blood and the bear’s, it will be half water and half blood. She cannot imagine having to drink it.

“Will the magic still work if I throw this up onto the stage?”

“Hush,” says Madrigal. “Now, you can’t carve the rune into your hand. There are too many old rune wounds there, and this one can’t afford to be muddied. You’ll have to draw it. Then press it to the bear’s head, coated in the potion. Save enough to pool into your palm after drinking the rest.”

“Are you sure I have to drink it all? Can’t the bear and I share it?”

Madrigal presses a cloth to the cut and squeezes Arsinoe’s arm hard. “Stop joking! This is no small spell. It will not make the bear your familiar. Perhaps not even your friend. If Jules is not strong enough to hold it after guiding it through the valley, then it may still tear you apart in front of everyone.”

Arsinoe closes her mouth. They should not have asked Jules to do this. Joseph was right—it is too much. Holding the bear in the quiet woods would be difficult. Holding it steady in front of a roaring crowd and blazing torches seems nearly impossible.

“If only we could dye Jules’s hair black and let her be queen . . . ,” Arsinoe says sarcastically.

“Yes,” says Madrigal. “If only.”

Outside the tent flap, Jake barks.

“Arsinoe,” Ellis says. “It’s time.”

Madrigal holds the young queen by the shoulders and gives her one steadying shake. “When Jules arrives, she’ll get the blood to me, and I will send the potion to the stage with her. It’s all right. There is still time.”

Arsinoe steps out of the tent, and a lump lodges in her throat. Standing outside her tent are not only the Sandrins and Luke and the Milones, but half of the naturalists in the valley.

“What are they doing here?” Arsinoe whispers to Joseph.

“This?” Joseph asks, and smiles. “Seems that someone heard rumor of your performance. Queen Arsinoe and her great brown bear.”

“And how did that happen?”

“Once Luke caught wind of it, the entire valley knew within an hour.”

Arsinoe looks at the people. Some smile at her in the torchlight. Her whole life they have thought her a failure, yet at the first hint of hope, they move to follow her, as if it is what they wanted all along.

Perhaps it was.

QUEEN KATHARINE’S STAGE

The temple decreed the order of the Quickening performances. Katharine is to be first. The priestesses have set the long mahogany table with the poisoner’s feast. The torches are lit. She needs only to climb up onto her stage and begin.

Katharine cranes her neck to view the crowd. The sea of faces and black-clad bodies stretches in front of all three stages and along the coast. Katharine’s stage is in the middle. Directly before hers is a raised dais, where the suitors sit, with High Priestess Luca.

“So many priestesses,” Natalia mutters from beside her.

“Yes,” Katharine says. Her stomach tenses. Natalia is a strong source of comfort, but she wishes that Pietyr had changed his mind about not attending.

“All right, Kat,” Natalia says. “Let us go.”

They walk up together. Katharine smiles as luminously as she knows how, remembering not to look rigid and formal like her elemental sister. But still the crowd’s eyes on her are somber. When Mirabella takes her stage, no doubt they will grin like fools.

Genevieve and Cousin Lucian stand in the front row. She nods to them, and for once, Genevieve does not scowl.

Katharine and Natalia take their places at the head of the table.

“Trust me,” Natalia says. “Say the words loud.”

Katharine’s gown rustles against her legs. It is a very fine garment to be ruined by Gave Noir stains. She can only hope that none of those stains will be caused by her sickening.

Before them, priestesses remove the lids from each poison dish and announce the contents. Inky cap mushrooms stuffed with goat cheese and wolfsbane. Codfish stewed in yew berries. Tartlets of belladonna. Deathstalker scorpions, sugared and buttered, beside a dish of clotted oleander cream. And cantarella wine. The centerpiece of the feast is a great, golden pie