One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  “I can’t breathe, Jules,” she says, and gulps air. She feels Camden press warm fur against her legs, and then Jules is there, to hold her up. “You were right. I shouldn’t have played with it. I didn’t know how to be careful.”

  “Hush, Arsinoe,” Jules whispers. There are too many people gathered on the dock. Too many ears.

  Arsinoe waits until the boat is out of sight and turns back toward shore, her feet hammering the wooden planks. The faster she gets back to the Milone house, the faster this day will be over.

  “Queen Arsinoe!” someone shouts as she crosses the docks toward the hill road. “Where is your bear?”

  “Well, he’s not in my pocket,” she snaps without pausing. “So he must be in the woods.”

  ROLANTH

  The letter from Natalia is addressed to the High Priestess and not the queen, but Rho insists that it be opened by gloved novices in a windless room. She will not allow Luca to touch it before it is thoroughly examined.

  “You are being ridiculous,” Luca says. The priestesses have been with the letter for most of the morning, and none of them have fallen ill with so much as a paper cut.

  “There is nothing to be gained by poisoning me.” Luca paces across her room indignantly. “And if there were, Natalia would have done it by now. Goddess knows, she has had many chances.”

  She goes to her eastern window and throws the shutters open for the breeze. As far north as it is, Rolanth does not get terribly hot, but in summer, her rooms in the temple can still feel stifling. Her old quarters in the capital were much better. When her legs were young, she walked off tension on the many stairs of the east tower of the Volroy. She sighs. She is so old. If Mirabella is crowned and they return to Indrid Down, she will have to be carried up and down in a litter.

  Finally, her chamber door opens, and Rho enters with the letter in hand. From the look on her face, Luca knows that she has ignored the order not to read it.

  “Well?” Luca asks. “What does it say?” She snatches the letter angrily, but Rho does not flinch. Rho never flinches. Her toughness is as much a comfort as it is annoying.

  “See for yourself,” Rho says.

  Luca’s eyes skim over it so greedily the first time that she barely comprehends a word and must start again.

  It opens with only her name, “Luca,” as if she and Natalia are old friends. No “High Priestess.” No other greeting. The corner of Luca’s mouth twists upward.

  “She wants to push the queens together for the high festivals. With Midsummer in Wolf Spring and the Reaping Moon to be held here.”

  “They are plotting something,” Rho says.

  Luca purses her lips and reads the letter again. It is short, and for Natalia, almost conversational.

  Luca reads aloud. “‘Surely you would welcome the chance for your Mirabella to make good on her promises.’” She puts the letter down and scoffs. “Surely.”

  “She fears a stalemate. She does not want the Ascension to end with queens locked in the tower,” says Rho. “She knows that poisoners do not fare well there.”

  “Mirabella may not either if Arsinoe is still alive with her great brown bear.” Luca taps her chin.

  “You know that by sending this letter she is lulling you with courtesy. She knows that we could stop it if we chose. The Black Council does not have the final word when it comes to the high festivals.”

  Luca kicks at embroidered pillows that have fallen onto the floor.

  “I think we should do it,” she says. “Mirabella is strong. And whatever action the Arrons have planned to take, at least it will not come as a surprise.”

  “We will take care,” Rho says. “But with the three queens face-to-face, I like our chances. She is strong, like you said.” Rho’s eyes sparkle. Despite her cautious words, she craves bloodshed.

  Luca lowers her head and asks the Goddess for guidance. But the only answer that hums into her bones is the one she has known all along: that if the crown is meant to be Mirabella’s, then she will rise up and take it.

  “Luca?” Rho asks, always impatient. “Shall we begin preparations for an envoy to Wolf Spring?”

  Luca takes a breath.

  “Do it. Get started right away. I am going to take some air.”

  Rho nods, and Luca leaves to wander down the steps and through the temple, keeping clear of the gathered worshippers who flock to the altar daily.

  As she passes one of the lower storerooms, she reaches out to close a door that is slightly ajar and glimpses someone inside. It is the suitor, Billy Chatworth, searching through the temple stores with a large brown chicken perched beside him on a few crates of dresses.

  “High Priestess,” he says when he sees her, and bends a shallow bow. “I was after some fruit, to attempt a pie with.”

  “To add to your chicken?” she asks, and chuckles. “You do not need to do all of this. The priestesses will prepare meals for you.”

  “And leave me with so little to do? Besides, I’m not in the habit of having my life in anyone’s hands but my own.”

  Luca nods. He is a handsome lad, with sandy hair and an easy smile, and despite his devotion to Queen Arsinoe, Luca has come to like him. She does not trust him, and priestesses watch his every move, but to Luca, his fondness for Arsinoe is only evidence of a good heart. Once she is dead, he will learn to love Mirabella in the same way.

  “Will you take a walk with me, Billy?” she asks. “These old legs need to stretch.”

  “Of course, High Priestess.”

  He takes her arm, and they go out through the courtyard and past the vegetable gardens, toward the roses. It is a fine day. A light, cool breeze races toward the basalt cliffs of Shannon’s Blackway, and pink and white roses bounce with bees from the apiary.

  “How are you and Mirabella getting along?” she asks.

  “Well enough,” he says, but there is more fondness in his voice now than when she asked a few weeks ago. “She’s growing thin on my cooking. But I am getting better, I promise.”

  “Well, you cannot get any worse. She has told me about your stews.”

  They pass Elizabeth and she waves, with netting around her face from gathering honey.

  “Could I get a measure of that?” Billy asks.

  “I will bring some to the house later,” Elizabeth calls. “And some grain for your chicken.”

  Luca turns to look behind them. She had not noticed that the brown hen was following from the storeroom.

  “You have found a familiar, it seems,” Luca says. “Will you bring her back to Wolf Spring when you go?”

  “I suppose I will. But who knows when that may be.”

  “Sooner than you think.” Luca stops, and turns to face him. “Have you heard much of the Midsummer Festival?”

  “The next high festival,” he says. “I have heard Sara and the priestesses discussing preparations.”

  “Here in Rolanth, the elementals sacrifice a small barge of vegetables and rabbit meat. They set it alight in the river and push it out to sea.” Luca turns south, toward the city, remembering all the past festivals she has presided over. Sometimes Mirabella would put on beautiful displays of water spouts. Luca had felt so close to the Goddess in those moments. She knew then that she was precisely where she was meant to be, doing precisely what she was meant to do.

  “In Wolf Spring,” she goes on, “they set lanterns on their boats, and take to the harbor at twilight. They throw grain into the water to feed the fish. It is more rustic, perhaps, but quite lovely. I went there for the festival many times as a girl.” She sighs. “It will be nice to see it again.”

  “Why would you go to the Wolf Spring Festival?” Billy asks suspiciously.

  “We will all go. You, and I, and Mirabella, and the Westwoods. The Black Council and Queen Katharine. I am about to send word to Indrid Down that the queens will spend the remaining High Festivals together. Midsummer in Wolf Spring and the Reaping Moon here, in Rolanth.”

  “You’re putting them t
ogether. So that one will die.”

  “Yes,” she says. “That is the way things work in an Ascension Year.”

  GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

  Nicolas has targets set on the long, level swath of grass past the rear courtyard. He nocks an arrow and fires it near the center of the target, just to the left of the one he fired before that.

  “Beautifully done,” Katharine says, and claps. Nicolas sets down his bow and lets her take her turn. To his credit, the smile on his face flags only slightly when hers strikes right dead center.

  “Not as beautiful as that.” Nicolas bends and kisses the back of her gloved hand. “Not as beautiful as you.”

  Katharine blushes and nods downfield toward the targets.

  “It will not be long until it is a true contest. You are becoming quite good. I cannot believe you have never practiced archery before.”

  Nicolas shrugs. He is nearly as handsome as Pietyr, even dressed strangely in a white mainland shirt and white shoes. His shoulders stretch the fabric when he takes position with his bow, and the underside of the gold hair against his collar is darkened with sweat.

  “I had no interest in it,” he says, and lets another arrow fly. It goes slightly wide. “Not as good. You must have distracted me.”

  “My apologies.”

  “Do not apologize. It is a welcome distraction.”

  Katharine reaches for another arrow. Her bow is newly fashioned, longer, and harder to draw than her old one. But then, her arms have never been stronger.

  She nocks an arrow and fires it. Then another. And another after that. The sound the arrows make when they hit is solid, and satisfying. She wonders if they would sound the same catching Mirabella in the back.

  “I do not have to inspect the target to know that those were better shots than mine,” says Nicolas as they set down their bows and move toward a small stone table beneath the shade of a tall, leafy alder tree.

  “I have been practicing archery since I was a small girl. Though I must admit, I was never that skilled at it. A few months ago, those arrows might have been lost in the hedge.”

  On the table are two silver pitchers and two goblets. One is filled with Katharine’s drink: straw-colored May wine, sweetened with honey and fresh berries, both poison and not. The other holds wine for Nicolas: dark red and cooled with water. Impossible to mistake for the other.

  “They tell me we are to depart soon, for Wolf Spring,” Nicolas says. “And I was just becoming accustomed to Greavesdrake Manor.”

  “We will not be away long. And their Midsummer ritual is said to be beautiful: floating lamps flickering in the harbor. I always hoped I would see it. I just assumed I would have to wait until after I was crowned.”

  Nicolas takes a large gulp of wine. He looks at her slantways and his eyes narrow with mischief.

  “I will long to return to your home and the capital. But I truly cannot wait to see you face-to-face with your sisters. I hope,” he says, and reaches for her gloved hand, “that you will not leave me back when it happens.”

  “Leave you back?” she asks.

  “When you kill them. You will, of course.” He gestures toward the bows, toward the targets full of arrows. “And the servants have told me of your skill with a knife. Throwing them near to a target? I would very much like to see that.”

  Katharine’s stomach tightens with pleasure, and a tingle rolls up and down her back as if touched by unseen fingers.

  “Would you indeed,” she whispers. “Perhaps you only think so. You might feel different when you saw your future queen slide a knife into her pretty sister’s breast.”

  Nicolas smiles.

  “I come from a family of soldiers, Queen Katharine. I have seen much of that. And worse.” He takes another swallow of wine. It gathers at the corners of his mouth, bright red. “And I do not like to be back from the action.”

  Katharine’s pulse quickens until her heart beats so fast it seems there is more than one in her chest. The look in his eyes brings blood to her cheeks. She has seen that look before, on Pietyr, right before he would pull her to him and take her to bed.

  “Natalia prefers that I poison from the safety of her bosom,” she says. “That is how the Arrons like to do it. Quiet and refined. Nothing pleases them more than pleasant dinner conversation that ends when someone’s face falls dead to their plate.”

  Nicolas lets his eyes move over her body.

  “There is charm in that,” he says. “But I would see your hands around their throats. A memory to take with me on the night of our marriage.”

  Giselle clears her throat.

  “Ahem, pardon me, my queen.”

  “Giselle,” Katharine says. “Forgive me. We were so . . . engrossed . . . that we did not hear you.”

  Giselle looks from Katharine to Nicolas, and flushes slightly at their expressions.

  “Natalia sent for you,” the maid says. “She says you have a guest.”

  “But I am already entertaining a guest.”

  “She says you must come.”

  Katharine sighs.

  “Please, you must go,” Nicolas says. “You don’t want to keep the lady of the manor waiting.”

  Katharine trudges up the stairs and down the hall to Natalia’s study.

  “Natalia,” she says, “you sent for—” The rest of the words do not leave her mouth. Because standing in the middle of the room, his back straight and eyes bright as a frightened rabbit’s, is Pietyr.

  “I knew you would want to see him right away,” Natalia says, smiling. “Do not be too hard on him, Katharine. I have already given him a stern lecture about leaving us for so long.”

  But of course he would want to. Out of fear that she would send him to the cells beneath the Volroy, down so deep that he would never again see the sun. Out of terror that she would order Bertrand Roman to batter his brains out against the stones of the long, oval drive. Or that she would do it herself.

  “No doubt you two would like to be alone,” Natalia says.

  “No doubt,” Katharine agrees.

  The cages of dead birds and rodents were cleared out of Katharine’s rooms when Nicolas arrived, but though her windows are kept open daily to combat the smell, it still lingers, and she hopes that Pietyr can detect it when he walks inside. The smell of death. Of pain. And not of hers, anymore.

  He enters the room ahead of her, so he does not see it when she takes up the short-bladed knife from one of her tables. He walks into her bedchamber unaware. So bold. As if he still has the right to be there.

  He taps the glass sides of Sweetheart’s cage, and the snake lifts her pretty head.

  “I see Sweetheart is well,” he says, and Katharine leaps upon him.

  She drags him to the bed and twists her body around his, kneeling on the mattress to grip him from the back. One arm wraps around the crown of his head as the other drags the knife lightly across his throat.

  “Kat,” he says, and gasps.

  “This will be messy.” She presses the knife harder into his skin. It will not take much. The edge is sharp, and his vein is close. “Giselle will have to fetch me a new coverlet. But it is true what Natalia says. You cannot poison a poisoner.”

  “Kat, please.”

  “Please what?” she growls, and squeezes his head tighter. His pulse races under her hands. But even as she wants to carve into his neck, she remembers what it was like, pressed against him like this. Her Pietyr, who she loved and who said he loved her. The scent of him, vanilla and ambergris, brings angry tears to the corners of her eyes.

  “How could you, Pietyr!”

  “I am sorry,” he says as the knife cuts into his throat.

  “I will give you sorry,” she hisses.

  “I had to!” he shouts quickly to stop her from cutting more. “Kat, please. I thought I had to.”

  Her grip on his head does not loosen.

  “Why?”

  “There was a plot. Natalia told me of it in the days before Beltane. The prieste
sses, they had devised a scheme. To make Mirabella a White-Handed Queen. After your poor showing at the Quickening, they planned to charge the stages. They planned to cut you into pieces and feed you into the fires.”

  “But I did not have a poor showing,” Katharine says, pressing the knife down again.

  “I did not know that! When you came to me that night, beside the Breccia Domain, I thought that you were running from them! And I could not stand to see them touch you.” His hand strays up to her arm and she steels herself, but he does not try to draw the knife from his neck. He only touches her softly.

  “I thought they were coming to kill you. And I could not let them. I would rather it be me.”

  “So you pushed me down that hole!” Katharine screeches through her teeth. Her whole body trembles with the rage of it. The shock and confusion when he shoved her.

  It was a crime what he did. It was betrayal. She should slash his throat and watch his blood pool around her legs.

  Instead, she draws back and throws the knife into the wall.

  Pietyr crumples forward, his hand pressed to the shallow wound on his neck.

  “You cut me,” he says softly in disbelief.

  “I should have done worse.” He turns to look at her, and she relishes the fear in his eyes. “I still might. I have not decided yet.”

  Clever, calculating Pietyr. He has dressed just so, in his dove-gray shirt and dark jacket, and he has kept his hair a little longer, the way she likes it best. Looking at him on her bed, she hates him, and is angry in so many ways. But he is still her Pietyr.

  “I would not blame you. But I am sorry, Kat.” He looks at her full, round shoulders. “You look different.”

  “What did you expect? One does not get pushed into the Breccia Domain and crawl out again unchanged.”

  “I have wanted to come back to you for so long.”

  “Of course you have. Back to the seat of Arron power.”

  “Back to you.” His fingers twitch with wanting. He lifts his hand to caress her cheek.