Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,90

to be hidden away.”

Hidden away. Kept prisoner, under heavy guard. But she and Bree have been thwarting the temple’s attempts to lock her up since they were children. It is a wonder the priestesses have not given up by now, or gotten better.

Mirabella slips her hand up Joseph’s chest to curl around the base of his shoulder. He is warm from running and his pulse jumps at her touch. She presses closer until their lips are almost touching.

“You do not know me like you know Jules,” Mirabella says. “But do you want me just the same? Did it matter, what happened that night, in the storm?”

Joseph breathes hard. He looks at her from beneath a lowered brow. He does not have much resistance left. He did not have much to begin with.

She slides her other arm around his neck, and he kisses her hard, pressing her into the tree.

“It mattered,” he says against her. “But God, I wish it hadn’t.”

THE ARRON ENCAMPMENT

The poisoner kill is mostly birds, and a few rabbits. It will be nothing compared to the naturalist kill, but that is to be expected. The Hunt is truly the naturalists’ portion of Beltane.

Katharine joins Natalia in the long, white kitchen tent and finds Natalia wrist deep in feathers, plucking a pheasant.

“Should I,” Katharine starts, “have brought the servants?”

“No,” Natalia says. “The few we have brought are tasked with other things. But there are still birds to be plucked. Beltane makes servants of us all.”

Katharine rolls up the sleeves of her gown and grabs for the nearest bird.

Natalia nods approvingly. “Pietyr has been a good influence on you,” she says.

“He did not teach me to pull feathers,” says Katharine. “I may make a mess of it.”

“But you are self-assured. You are charming. You have grown up since he has come.”

Katharine smiles back and puffs feathers away from her nose. Most of the birds are destined for the feasts, but a few of the best will be reserved for the Quickening Ceremony and her Gave Noir.

“Is that not why you brought him to Greavesdrake?”

“It is,” Natalia says. “It was his task to make you a fanciable woman, and he has.” There is a bit of blood on her fingers. She has been pulling too hard and has torn the skin. “It was my task to develop your gift and to keep you safe. My task to make you the queen.”

“Natalia, what is the matter?” asks Katharine. “You sound as though you think you have failed.”

“Perhaps I have,” she says, and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper, though there is no one else in the tent, and no nearby shadows on the canvas.

“I hoped that Arsinoe’s escape would change their plans,” Natalia goes on. “That they would be too busy searching for the hideous brat. Or that they would deem it unnecessary. But I have seen the crate’s moving, and I know what is inside. All those serrated knives.”

Across the table, Katharine keeps working. The faraway, vacant look in Natalia’s ice-blue eyes, and the dread in her voice, chills Katharine to the bone.

“Arsinoe was a clever thing,” Natalia says. “A coward but clever. Using that mainland boy to sneak her away . . . Who would have thought it possible?”

“I do not think that they made it,” Katharine says. “I think they are both at the bottom of the sea. With fish biting away their cheeks.”

Natalia laughs. “Perhaps. But if she is at the bottom of the sea, she is still not here. And they will have only one target.”

“‘They’? Natalia, what are you talking about? Is something wrong? Do you think I will fail the Gave Noir?”

“No. You will not. It will be a spectacular success.”

Katharine flushes shamefully. The Gave is the thing she dreads. Since long before the humiliation of her birthday. Failing before Natalia and Genevieve is bad enough. To fail before the island will be so much worse.

“‘Spectacular’? That is not likely,” she says.

Natalia pushes the dead birds to the side. Her eyes travel over Katharine like she is seeing her for the first time.

“Do you trust me, Kat?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then eat from the Gave until your belly is swollen.” Her hand darts out to grab the young queen’s as fast as the strike of a snake. “Eat it without fear. And trust that there will be no poison.”

“What? How?”

“The priestesses may think that they are smart,” Natalia says. “But no one is better at sleight of hand than I am. And I will