Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,105

lust on his face sickens Jules’s stomach. He has never looked at her the way he looks at Mirabella.

In the midst of her dance, Mirabella reaches toward Joseph through the flames. Everyone can see. They must all know that they are together. That Jules is a fool.

In her chest, Jules’s heart turns sharp as a shard of glass, and something snaps. As it does, so does her hold on the bear.

Arsinoe knows that something is wrong when the bear starts shaking his head. His eyes change from serene to frightened and then to angry.

She steps back.

“Jules,” she says, but when she tries to get Jules’s attention, she cannot. Jules is staring intently toward Mirabella’s stage like everyone else.

The bear paws the wooden boards.

“Easy,” Arsinoe says, but she can do nothing. The low magic that binds them is not the same as a familiar-bond. The bear is afraid, and Jules has lost control.

There is no time to warn anyone as he roars and leaps from the stage and into the people, swiping sharp claws and throwing his head back and forth. No one can scatter. They are crowded together too tightly as they strain for Mirabella’s stage. Not even his claws cutting them down parts enough of a path, and the bear turns back for the stages.

“Jules!” Arsinoe shouts. But her shout is lost within the rest as the crowd begins to realize what is happening.

The bear climbs onto the middle stage, and Katharine screams. He barrels through the table of the Gave Noir, dashing it to pieces and sending it tumbling down to the sand. But he does not make it to Katharine. She is quick, and dives off the side to safety.

Priestesses draw their knives and advance with terrified faces. The bear slashes at the nearest one, and her white robes do nothing to hide all the red and loops of entrails that its claws rake out of her. At the sight of so much blood, the courage of the others fails, and they turn to flee with the crowd.

High Priestess Luca stands and shouts. The suitors watch in horror.

On the far stage, Mirabella has stopped dancing, but fire still burns across her chest and hips. It does not take the bear long to focus on her. He charges, tearing down torches and anyone who happens to be in his way. Mirabella cannot move. She cannot even scream.

Joseph leaps onto the stage, right in the bear’s path. He covers Mirabella with his body.

“No,” Arsinoe says. “No!”

Jules must know that it is Joseph. She must see. But it may be too late to call the bear back.

QUEEN MIRABELLA’S STAGE

Priestesses shout to protect the queen. But all Mirabella hears is the bellowing of the bear. All she feels are Joseph’s arms around her.

The bear did not strike them. It reared up on its hind legs. It roared. But in the end, it pawed at its face as though in pain and then dived off the stage to run down the beach.

Mirabella lifts her head and looks down at the scattered, panicked crowd. Most have found their way to safety through the cliffs and back into the valley. But several bodies lie motionless before the stages. The young priestess who attended Katharine’s stage lies now at the foot of it, her arms bent, her robes and her abdomen laid open for all to see. And so many more have been wounded.

“Are you all right?” Joseph whispers into her ear.

“Yes,” she says, and clings to him.

He kisses her hair and her shoulder. White-robed priestesses surround them with knives drawn.

“Calm yourselves!” Luca shouts, standing on the dais beside two shaky suitors. “It has gone!”

Mirabella peers over Joseph’s arm at the ruined stages. Arsinoe stands alone, her arms fluttering at her sides. Perhaps she did not realize the extent of the carnage she would cause.

“She sent that bear for me,” Mirabella says. “After everything I did to save her. She would have let it tear me apart if not for you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Joseph says. “You’re safe. You’re all right.” He holds her face in her hands. He kisses her.

“Where is Queen Katharine?” Natalia Arron shouts. “Luca! Where is she?”

“Do not panic,” says the High Priestess. “We will find her. She is not amongst the fallen.”

Natalia looks around wildly, perhaps to form her own search party. But all her poisoners have fled. Moans erupt from the foot of her stage, and she grimaces.

The bear knocked the Gave Noir off the edge, at the foot of