Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,80

distance, slicing into the sky like an engraved knife. From here, it only looks black and mean, and locked up tight until the new queen comes.

The attendant stops outside a small door and bows. Pietyr knocks and then enters.

The room is a small, circular study that looks almost like a priestess’s hovel, an odd little space hollowed out of a rock. Beside its solitary window, Natalia seems nearly too big for it.

“Come,” she says.

“I was surprised that you summoned me here,” he says.

“I knew it was what you were waiting for,” she says. “A glimpse of your prize. Is it everything you imagined?”

Pietyr looks out the window and whistles.

“I must admit that I always thought there should be three towers instead of two. Three, for the queens. But now I see. The construction is astounding! Even two is a supreme achievement.”

Natalia walks across the room and bends before a small cupboard, her footsteps loud as a horse’s hooves on a cobblestone drive. There are very few floor coverings. It must make the servants’ legs ache terribly.

Natalia pours two glasses of straw-colored liquid. May wine. He can smell it from the window. It is a strange choice. A drink for a poisoner child. He takes it and sniffs, but he does not detect any added toxins.

“What is the occasion?” he asks. “I have not had May wine in years. My stepmother used to make it for me and the cousins in the summer. Sweetened with honey and strawberry juice.”

“Just as I used to make it for Katharine,” Natalia says. “She was always so fond of it. Though at first it made her sick as a dog, the poor thing.”

Pietyr takes a sip. It is very good, even unsweetened.

“It is from a Wolf Spring vineyard,” Natalia says. “Naturalists may be a filthy lot, but they know how to grow a grape. A small sun in every fruit, they say.” She snorts.

“Aunt Natalia. What is the matter?”

She shakes her head. “Are you a pious boy, Pietyr? Do you know much of the temple?”

“Not overmuch,” he says. “Marguerite tried with me, after she and Father married. But it was too late.”

“It is never too late. She persuaded your father to leave the council, did she not? To give up the capital and his family.” She sighs. “I wish Paulina had not died. It was a great insult to her when Christophe married Marguerite.”

“Yes,” he says. “But this is not why you brought me here.”

Natalia chuckles.

“You are so like me. So direct. And you are right. I summoned you here because the temple is moving against us. Have you heard whispers of something called ‘the Sacrificial Year’?”

“No,” Pietyr says.

“I am not surprised. You are quite sequestered, with Katharine. The Sacrificial Year refers to a generation of queens where one is strong and two are weak.”

“A generation like this one.”

“Yes,” she says. “And that much of the story is true. Even I remember that—a story told to me by my grandmother, told to her by hers. But the temple has decided to deviate.”

“How?”

“They are saying that in Sacrificial Years, the two weaker queens are taken apart by a mob following the Quickening Ceremony.”

“What?” Pietyr asks. He sets down his wine unsteadily, and it sloshes onto the window ledge.

“They are saying that a great mob rose up and tore the arms and heads from their bodies and tossed them into the fires. And they intend to do it to Katharine and Arsinoe. They are trying to make Mirabella a White-Handed Queen.”

Pietyr holds his breath. White-Handed Queens are well-loved by the people. They are second only to a Blue Queen. But there has not been one in two hundred years.

“That part of the Sacrificial Year story is not true,” Natalia says. “At least not as I have ever heard it.”

“Is old Luca so desperate, then?” he asks. “There must be something wrong with their elemental.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the temple is only seizing upon opportunity. It does not matter. What matters is that we know.”

“How do we know?” Pietyr asks.

“I was informed by a foolish bird from the mainland. He whispered it into my ear.”

Pietyr runs his hands over his face. Katharine. Sweet Katharine. They intend to take her arms and her head. They intend to burn her.

“Why am I the only one here, Natalia? Where are Genevieve and Lucian and Allegra?”

“I have not told them. There is nothing that they can do.” She looks out the window, across the city and into the countryside. “Nothing on this island