Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,25
do feel guilt for leaving,” she says, staring down at her work. “Maybe that’s why I am doing this now.”
Arsinoe studies the strip of gray cloth. She studies the braid of dark brown hair and wonders who it belonged to. Beneath the bent-over tree the breeze has stilled, and even the fire burns quietly. Whatever it is Madrigal is doing, they should not be doing it. Low magic is for the simple or the desperate. Even when it works, there is always a price.
“Have you noticed that no one is panicking that your gift hasn’t come?” Madrigal asks. “Not Cait. Not Ellis. Not even really Jules. No one thinks you are going to survive, Arsinoe. Because naturalist queens do not survive. Not unless they’re beasts, like Bernadine and her wolf.” She ties a knot in the strip of cloth and uses it to anchor another knot around the braid of hair.
“Great Queen Bernadine,” Arsinoe mutters. “Do you know how tired I am of hearing about her? She is the only naturalist queen anyone remembers.”
“She is the only one worth remembering,” Madrigal says. “And for all their savagery, the people of Wolf Spring have gotten used to that. They have accepted it. But I haven’t.”
“Why haven’t you?” Arsinoe asks.
“I am not sure,” Madrigal says, and shrugs. “Maybe because I have watched you, growing up in Jules’s gifted shadow, the way I did in Caragh’s. Or maybe because I want my daughter to love me, and if I save you, she might learn to.”
She holds up the bit of braid and cloth. Arsinoe shakes her head. “It will go wrong. Something always does when it comes to me. Someone will get hurt.”
“It will hurt when your sisters kill you,” Madrigal reminds her, and presses the charm into Arsinoe’s hand.
It seems like a harmless bit of junk. But it does not feel that way. It feels far heavier than any braid and strip of cloth should feel. And more alive than any rosebud in her hand.
“The Goddess is here, in this place,” Madrigal says. “The priestesses pray to her like she is a being, some faraway creature, but you and I know better. We feel her inside the island. Everywhere. You felt her in the mist that night, in the boat, when she would not let you go. She is the island, and the island is her.”
Arsinoe swallows. The words feel true. Perhaps once, the Goddess was everywhere, stretched out over the sky all the way to the mainland. But now she is drawn in, curled up like a beast in a hole. Just as powerful. Just as dangerous.
“Is this Jules’s hair?” Arsinoe asks.
“Yes. I took it when I was brushing it this morning to put into a bun. It took forever to straighten it and braid it together.”
“What about the cloth?” It looks old, wrinkled, and dirty.
“A strip of Joseph’s shirt, from when he was a boy. Or so my mother says. He ruined it on a nail out by the barns, and Jules kept it after she gave him a new one. I don’t know how she remembers these things.” She snorts. “Of course, there are other things of Joseph’s that we could use, but we don’t want him charging Jules like a rutting stag.”
“This is a love spell,” Arsinoe says. “You are teaching me to use low magic, to do a love spell for Jules?”
“Is there any motivation in the world more pure?” Madrigal hands her the length of black ribbon. “Wrap them together and then tie them around with this.”
“How do you know how to do this?” Arsinoe asks. Though in truth it feels almost as if she herself knows how to do it. Her fingers twist the braid and cloth together effortlessly, and she would have known to reach for the ribbon even if Madrigal had not instructed her to.
“Off the island there is nothing else,” Madrigal whispers. “Close your eyes. Look into the flames.”
“Jules would want to do this herself,” Arsinoe says. “No, she would not do it at all. She does not need this.”
Across the fire, Madrigal purses her lips ruefully. Every girl in Wolf Spring knows about the Sandrin boys. Their mischievous smiles, and eyes like storm clouds reflected upon the sea. All that wind in their dark hair. Joseph will be that way now. And even though Arsinoe loves Jules, and thinks of her as beautiful, she knows that Jules is not the kind of beautiful that holds a boy like that.