One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  “If you feed him a fish he will be perfectly safe.”

  As the sun sets over the orchard and the braziers are lit for evening, Arsinoe and Jules stand back from the crowd. It is a good night. The children of Wolf Spring chase one another from hot brazier to hot brazier, fearless. Folk sit at tables playing games and nibbling on leftover pie. Camden leans against Jules’s legs, and Braddock lies somewhere in the dark, finally stuffed full of fish and apples and tired of the children’s shrieks.

  “They aren’t really so bad,” Jules says. “They could be much worse.”

  “I suppose so.” Arsinoe cocks her head wearily. Tommy and Michael are at a table near the roasted suckling pigs, nodding and chuckling at something Luke is saying.

  “Luke seems to like them.”

  “Don’t be fooled,” says Jules. “He finds them tolerable. You know his heart is pledged to Billy nearly as solidly as yours is.”

  “As mine is? I don’t remember making any pledges.”

  “Well. As soon as he gets back from Rolanth, maybe.”

  “Maybe.” Arsinoe snorts, and crosses her arms. Her heart skips. Her knife is no longer in her vest.

  “Jules, my knife is gone.” She pats herself all over, as if it might have moved to another pocket by itself.

  “It probably fell out when you were tussling with Braddock,” Jules says. “We can find it tomorrow, in the daylight.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” Arsinoe looks quickly over the people in attendance. Her people, talking and drinking. Luke calls to Tommy and Michael from the edge of the nearest row of apple trees and they get up to play a shadow game with the children. Before he goes, Tommy slices another serving of meat and eats it, and Arsinoe’s heart stops at the sight.

  He used her knife. The whole table had. Her knife, with the poisoned edge.

  “Oh, Goddess,” she whispers, and runs to the table to pick it up.

  “Arsinoe? What’s wrong?” Jules asks, running up behind her.

  “They used my knife! The knife I dropped!”

  It takes Jules a moment to understand. To her, Arsinoe is still not a poisoner.

  “Who was eating here?” she asks.

  “Both of the suitors . . . I don’t know who else! We have to send for a healer, Jules, now!” Arsinoe moves to bolt, but Jules holds her fast.

  “Send for a healer and say what? That our poisoner in disguise accidentally poisoned her own suitors? You can’t!”

  Arsinoe blinks.

  “What are you saying? That doesn’t matter now. They need help!”

  “Arsinoe, no.”

  She has grasped on to Arsinoe’s arm with a grip like iron when they hear the first cry.

  “Poison!” Luke shouts. “Poison! Send for the healers! The suitors have been poisoned!”

  “No,” Arsinoe whispers miserably, but Jules holds her fast and takes the knife to slide into her back pocket.

  “You did not mean to do this,” Jules hisses fiercely. “This is not your fault! And it’s too late to help them now.”

  GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

  “Poison the suitors? I did no such thing!” Katharine declares. “Why would I poison them before I even got to meet them?” She crosses her arms and turns her back to the tall windows in Natalia’s study.

  “Because they chose your sister,” Genevieve says. “Because she had two to your one. Because you could!” Genevieve crosses her arms as well, and Natalia rubs her temples with tired fingers.

  “Stop sniping at each other like spoiled children,” she mutters.

  “Well, she has truly made a mess of this,” Genevieve half-shouts. “Returning from the dead is one thing. But murdering mainland suitors?” She throws up her hands.

  “I did not do it, I said!” Katharine shouts back. “Natalia, I did not!”

  “Whether you did or did not does not matter. They are dead, and if you did not do it, then someone did it on your behalf. So what do we do now?” Natalia steadies her nerves with another sip of brandy tainted with yew. Except that she has already had too much, and her mind is sluggish when it should be sharp. She looks at her glass and then drains it anyway.

  “It could be worse,” she says. “The suitors will have families to appease, but once we would have had whole countries. We will not go to war over this.”

  “Think of the money it will take,” Genevieve grumbles. “The resources and favors. She will bankrupt the crown before she even wears it!”

  “At least they were cousins, so it is only one family to appease and not two,” Katharine mutters, and Natalia reprimands her with an arched brow.

  “The island will not like this.” Genevieve paces. When she stops, her whole body bounces with the motion of her tapping foot. “Word is spreading. The suitors were not the only ones to die. An old man and a little girl in Wolf Spring also fell to the poison. And this amid the talk of farmers dying in wildfires and lightning-struck cattle. This Ascension is going out of control!” She points at Katharine. “If you would just poison like Queen Camille did or Queen Nicola. Fast and clean. Poisons that found their targets and no one else!”

  “Genevieve, be quiet,” Natalia says. “How a queen poisons is a queen’s business. Issue a statement from the Council. Remind the people that the greatest Ascensions are bloody and turbulent. That it is when the strongest queens rise. Suitors die. It is known. If they had still been alive for the Beltane crowning, they may have died in the Innisfuil woods during the Hunt of the Stags.”

  “It is still a mess,” Genevieve says. But she says so more softly.

  “Natalia,” Katharine says. “I really did not—”

  Natalia waves her hand.

  “Whether you did or did not, we must find a way out of it.” She stands up and walks from behind her desk to look out the windows, at the great city of Indrid Down across the hills.

  “Those suitors did not matter anyway. Our alliance with the Chatworth boy’s father still holds. Chatworth has gone to great lengths to insinuate himself into the trust of the Westwoods, in case we have need of him, and the boy will make a fine king-consort when the time comes.”

  “Can we not get him away from my sister?” Katharine asks. “I do not like him standing between us. I want to go to her. I would look her in the eye when I carve up her pretty face with a poisoned blade.” She walks to Natalia’s decanter of brandy and pours herself a measure, then drinks it in one large gulp.

  “You take poison now at every meal,” Genevieve says.

  “How do you know?”

  “The servants talk. They say that you sicken long into the night. That you take too much and will do yourself harm.”

  But Katharine only laughs.

  “Have they not heard?” she asks. “You cannot kill what is already dead.”

  Natalia frowns. Rumors of the Undead Queen have not faded as they hoped. Instead they grow stronger, and Katharine is not helping the people to forget.

  “Kat,” Natalia asks thoughtfully. “Would you really like to go to Mirabella?”

  Katharine and Genevieve look at her curiously.

  “With the temple inspecting everything, it would be easier if you are face-to-face,” Natalia says. “So what if we put you together? Put you all together, for the Midsummer Festival. It is barely two weeks away. We could descend upon Wolf Spring.”

  “Perfect,” says Genevieve. “Whatever damage is done to Wolf Spring from the queens’ business will be penance for failing to protect the suitors. But High Priestess Luca will not like it.”

  “Who cares what she likes and does not like?” Katharine says. “If it were up to you, I would do nothing until Beltane was over, and the three of us would end up locked in the tower. I do not like to think of how I would fare trapped in close quarters with a bear.”

  “Besides,” Natalia says, “I think the High Priestess would force her queen’s hand as well. None were happy when Mirabella returned from the Ashburn Woods with Arsinoe still alive. If we offer to hold the festival of the R
eaping Moon in Rolanth afterward, I do not think she will object to Midsummer.”

  “I will discuss it with the Council at once.” Genevieve half-curtsies and then walks toward the door.

  “Wait,” says Natalia. “Let me send a letter to Luca first. Perhaps we can save ourselves an argument.”

  ROLANTH

  Billy has ordered a table set for two in the sunlit grounds behind Westwood House. It is a pretty table, with a bright white tablecloth and silver platters. But as Mirabella sits, the sun glints off one and nearly blinds her. So she calls some clouds, and soon the sky is filled with thunderheads.

  “What’s the point of dining outside?” Billy asks. “If you wanted shade, I could have had the table moved underneath the trees.”

  “I will not let them rain,” Mirabella says as he presses his lips together crossly. He has warmed to Bree and to Sara. And of course he could not resist Elizabeth. But when Mirabella speaks, he barely listens. Much of his time is spent in the city with Bree and her glassmaking apprentice, and when he is not there, he is with Elizabeth at the temple, fascinated by the white-robed priestesses and their black tattooed bracelets.

  Mirabella clears her throat and turns toward the cart of food. Fortunately, he is a good taster, taking complete control of the kitchen. Unfortunately, he is a horrible cook.

  “What have you brought for us today?”

  “Pork stew,” he says, “with spoon bread for dipping and, for dessert, a baked strawberry tart with cream.”

  “You are becoming quite skilled,” she says, and smiles.

  “Lying is a waste when you know I have to taste it.” He serves them both. The stew looks thin and strangely pale. A sheen of grease has collected on the surface. He uses her fork and knife to sample everything on her plate and waits in silence to see if he will fall over or froth at the mouth.

  “I don’t know why I bother,” he says. “The priestesses there”—he gestures into the shadows of the house—“they watched me prepare it and insisted on tasting it themselves.”

  “They do not trust you?”

  “Of course not. My father gave his word that I would do as I was told, but everyone knows how I feel about Arsinoe.” He clears his throat. “But regardless, I don’t want you eating anything except what I prepare, do you understand?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve been assured that if you die on my watch, Rho will saw off my head and send it back to my father on a barge.”

  Mirabella laughs. “We send many grisly things back on barges, it seems.”

  “Yes.” Billy arches his brow. “Joseph told me what Bree said to him before he sailed.”

  The cloth overlay of Billy’s cart clucks, and a brown chicken pokes her head out from under the covering, stepping out of the basket she was riding in.

  “There is a chicken in your cart.”

  “I know,” Billy snaps, and slaps his napkin across his lap.

  “Why is there a chicken in your cart?”

  “Because this was supposed to be chicken stew,” he says. “I’ve been hand-feeding this bird for days to be sure it was not poisoned before the fact. And now . . .” He pours Mirabella some water and drinks from her cup. The hen clucks, and Billy tosses down a chunk of bread.

  “Now her name is Harriet,” he says quietly.

  Mirabella laughs.

  “No doubt you think I’ve been spending too much time with lowly naturalists,” he says.

  “I would never say that. The naturalists are the island’s lifeblood. They feed us. They ensure good hunts.”

  “A very queenly answer. One you have been groomed to say?”

  “You think because I was raised for the crown I do not know how to think for myself.”

  Billy shrugs. He takes a spoonful of greasy stew and swallows it down hard before turning to the bread.

  “I’ve known girls like you before. Not queens, of course, but very rich, very spoiled girls who have grown up hearing nothing but praise. Nothing but talk of their family’s important place in the world. And I never liked any of them more than just to look at.”

  Mirabella takes a bite of pork. It is terrible. If all she has to eat between now and the crowning is food that Billy has cooked, she will be nearly as thin as Katharine.

  “Those are unkind words,” she says. “Your family is not poor, or you would not be here.”

  “True enough. Or it would be were my father not reminding me daily that he will take it all, that he will give it away if I don’t earn it.”

  “How must you earn it?” she asks.

  “By accomplishing whatever benchmark gets into his head that day. Being accepted into the right school, impressing the governor, winning a cricket match. Becoming king-consort of a secret, mystical island.”

  “But you ran away from the island,” Mirabella says. “With Arsinoe. You would give up your fortune for her?”

  Billy chuckles around a mouthful of bread.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I always planned on coming back.”

  Mirabella lowers her head and smiles. His words say one thing, but the truth lies in the color that rises to his cheeks.

  “Besides,” he says, “I hardly believe he means it anymore. The same threat used daily loses its shine, you know? Why are you smiling?”

  “No reason.” She stabs a piece of potato with her fork and drops it into the grass for the chicken. “It is tragic what has happened to Arsinoe’s suitors in Wolf Spring. But some part of you must be glad that they are not there with her anymore.”

  “‘Glad’ is not the word I would use when discussing it. Those lads are dead, and Katharine is insane. It could have just as easily been me who was killed. I don’t know whether you’re truly the ‘chosen queen’ like everyone around here seems to believe, but for Fennbirn’s sake, you had best hope that it’s not Katharine. She’ll be ruinous.”

  “The queen who is crowned is the queen who was meant to be.”

  Billy sighs.

  “My God. Isn’t it exhausting to parrot back temple rhetoric? Do you ever think for yourself?”

  “I thought for myself when I saved Arsinoe,” Mirabella says sharply, and the clouds overhead darken. “At Innisfuil, when they tried to cut her to pieces. And two days later, she sent a bear after me. So do not tell me she would be better for the island. She is just as heartless as Katharine.”

  He stabs at a chunk of pork like he wishes it was Mirabella’s eye.

  “She didn’t send that bear after you, you great idiot,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “No. What did you mean by that? Of course she sent it!” Mirabella glances at the priestesses near the house and lowers her voice. “Who else could control her familiar?”

  “Who else do you think?” Billy asks, his voice equally low. “Another strong naturalist, perhaps? One who would have just as much motivation to hurt you after you stole the boy she loved?

  “Perhaps someone who Arsinoe would always lie for?” Billy adds, but when Mirabella opens her mouth, he stops her. “Don’t say her name out loud. I shouldn’t have told you. Arsinoe’s going to kill me.”

  “Then,” Mirabella says as Billy goes back to prodding at his horrible meal, “Arsinoe never meant to hurt me.”

  “No. She didn’t. Arsinoe grew up believing that she would die. She just didn’t count on having so much to live for. Jules and Joseph and the Milones.” He smiles slightly. “Me. But what good is knowing any of this? This is the way of the island, isn’t it? The natural order. So what does it change?”

  Mirabella’s fingers dig into her napkin. She wants to scream or cry, but if she does, the priestesses will come running.

  “I almost killed her that day in the road,” she whispers. “Why did she let me do that?”

  “Maybe because she knew you had to. Maybe she wanted to make it easier on you.”

  Mirabella’s eyes fill with tears, and Billy quickly wipes his mouth. He scoops strawbe
rry tart onto his fork and holds it out.

  “Here,” he says. “You must try this.” As she takes the bite, he uses his thumb to discreetly wipe the tear that falls down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I suppose I haven’t even tried to consider your point of view. It was thoughtless of me.”

  “It is all right,” Mirabella says. “Does she know that you love her?”

  Billy raises his eyebrows.

  “Why would she when I didn’t? It wasn’t like I read in books. A thunderclap. Eyes meeting. Tortured glances. With Arsinoe it was more like . . . having cold water poured down your back and learning to enjoy it.”

  “And does she love you?”

  “I don’t know. I think she might.” He smiles. “I hope she does.”

  “I hope so too.” Another tear slides down her cheek, and Billy darts forward to discreetly hide it.

  “It is all right,” she says. “They will think I am only crying because of how terrible this strawberry tart is.”

  Billy sets down his fork, insulted. Then they both begin to laugh.

  WOLF SPRING

  They put the suitors in long wooden boxes to sail them home, as is the mainland tradition. The boxes seem small, and are so still that Arsinoe’s throat squeezes shut. She knew Tommy and Michael so briefly. Two boys who thought they might be king. Who perhaps thought it was all just a great game.

  The Black Council sent the poisoners Lucian Arron and Lucian Marlowe to examine the bodies, hoping to find evidence that they did not die from poison. But of course, they had.

  “Let them start as many rumors as they want,” Joseph says. “Everyone will know now that they’ve lost control of their queen.” He slips one arm about Jules’s waist and the other around Arsinoe’s, but she slides out of it. She killed those boys, not Katharine. She was careless, and she killed them.

  Arsinoe steps closer to the edge of the dock and watches as the ship bearing Tommy’s and Michael’s bodies casts off into the cove.