Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,91

do anything to make you appear strong. So that no one will be able to say that this is a Sacrificial Year.”

THE MILONE ENCAMPMENT

“We used to share our meat,” Ellis says, “instead of dividing into separate feasts. Poisoners, naturalists. Warriors. Elementals. Even the giftless. We were all one on festival days when I was young.”

“When was that, Granddad,” Jules asks. “One or two hundred years ago?”

Ellis grins and sends Jake over the top of the table to nip her fingers.

The morning after the Hunt is quiet. Everyone in the meadow is either working or resting. Or tending their wounded. As predicted, many within the great horde were injured. But there has been no word of any deaths. Some have begun to whisper that this Beltane is blessed.

But it cannot be blessed with Arsinoe gone.

Camden climbs clumsily onto Jules’s lap and sniffs at the bandaged cut on Jules’s shoulder. It is not from the bear. The great brown she left where she found him, snug in his den. Instead, she went on to her stag and brought him down fast, one cut with her knife across his throat. But a thrashing hoof caught her as she held him down.

Jules reaches over the table and slices Cam a thick piece of the stag’s heart.

“That stag is the finest take of the Hunt,” Cait says. “By rights that heart should go into a stew for the queens.”

“Send the rest of it, then,” Jules says. “All the queens are not here. And Arsinoe would want Cam to have her portion.”

Behind the table, Madrigal’s tent rustles. Jules frowns and squeezes her cougar. That tent has been rustling since she woke. Rustling and giggling. Madrigal is not alone.

“Get up and out of there,” Cait says, and kicks the flap. “There’s work.”

The tent flap rises. Matthew holds it up so that Madrigal can duck beneath his arm.

Cait and Ellis freeze. Matthew has been with Madrigal, but that does not make any sense. He loves Aunt Caragh. Or he did. Madrigal’s fingers slide down the open collar of his shirt, and he smiles. Grins, even, like a guileless hound that has been chasing thrown sticks.

Jules jumps up from the table so quickly that she unseats Camden.

“What have you done?” she shouts. Her hand slams down. Everything on the tabletop shakes. “Get away from him!”

“Jules, no!” Ellis grasps Camden around the neck just as she is set to spring. Matthew steps in front of Madrigal to shield her, and Jules growls.

“I,” Madrigal says. “I . . .”

“I don’t care if you are my mother! You shut your mouth!”

“Juillenne Milone.”

Jules quiets. She clenches her fists, and her teeth, and tears her eyes from Matthew and Madrigal to look at her grandmother.

“You get out of here now,” Cait says calmly. “Go.”

Jules takes several deep breaths. But she calms, and Ellis releases Camden. She turns on her heel.

“Jules, wait,” says Madrigal.

“Madrigal,” Cait says. “Keep quiet.”

Jules stalks away into the Beltane crowd. She is lost in it in seconds.

For a while she walks without purpose, an angry girl and a mountain cat cutting a wide path. Matthew and Madrigal seemed so at ease. Not at all like new lovers. With Madrigal’s frequent disappearances, it is impossible to determine when it started.

“I hate her,” Jules says to Camden quietly. Selfish Madrigal, constantly acting without thought. She had created chaos for Jules’s whole life and never did anything to fix it beyond pouting. Now she has Matthew. She always did like to take things from Caragh. Even this last thing. The only thing Caragh had left.

“Jules!”

She turns. It is Luke, shouldering his way through people.

She had not been sure he would come. Loyal Luke. He had believed in Arsinoe since the beginning. He was the only one who never doubted.

When he reaches Jules he wraps her in a warm embrace. Hank the rooster flutters down from Luke’s back to peck a hello to Camden.

“I am glad you’re here,” Jules says. “You are one of the only welcome sights I have had at this festival.”

He holds out a package wrapped in brown paper.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“The dress I made for Arsinoe,” he says.

Jules squeezes the fabric inside the bag.

“Why did you bring it?” she asks. “When she is not here to wear it?”

“It was never for her. She asked me to make it for you. She told me to make it well and to make it shine. For you and the eyes of your young man.”

Jules holds the package to her chest. Sweet, foolish Arsinoe, to