One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  Elizabeth giggles.

  “Bree can barely slice bread for a sandwich.”

  “Oh, who needs to slice bread, anyway?” Bree steps into the storage room to help Billy search the crates.

  “What happened to buying from town?” she asks, her voice strained as they lift a crate lid. “My mother gave you money, and the priestesses would inspect whatever you bought.”

  “Yes, well, that money may have found its way into a very fine restaurant on Dale Street. And into a few of the pubs off the marketplace.”

  “Billy Chatworth,” Mirabella exclaims. “You have been feasting, and I have been eating jarred tomatoes on toast.”

  Billy grins.

  “I tried going into the market. But I didn’t care for the merchants there. They spat at Harriet like she was a familiar.”

  Mirabella’s smile fades. The resentment between the people will lessen in time. Luca says the island will be united under her once the crown is settled.

  “Perhaps I ought to go along—” Bree starts, and then Elizabeth screams.

  She shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand. Pepper flies from her hood and flaps in noisy circles around the storeroom, his little body striking the walls in panic.

  Elizabeth points with the stump of her wrist.

  The priestess dead behind the stack of barrels has not been dead long. Her cheeks are still pink, and gold curls fall softly across her forehead. From her neck up, she could be sleeping. But below it is a horror of swollen blood vessels so enflamed that they stand out on her chest like cracks in a vase. The bodice of the poisoned dress is tight and touches so much of her skin. Blue fabric streaked now with blood and the girl’s fingernails full of her own flesh, from trying to claw her way out of it.

  “There now, there now,” Billy says, gathering Elizabeth close and trying to quiet her. “Mirabella, stay back.”

  Footsteps echo down the corridor: priestesses coming to investigate the screams.

  “Get Pepper back into your robes!” Bree hisses.

  But the poor bird is panicked. Thinking fast, Mirabella stumbles into the doorway to divert attention so Elizabeth can calm down and collect him.

  “What is it?” the first of the priestesses demands. She looks Mirabella over head to toe, and the others push into the storeroom. When they see the fallen girl, a few of them moan miserably. The girl was one of them. One of theirs.

  Luca pauses briefly in her pacing to touch Mirabella’s hair. Mirabella is on the sofa in Luca’s rooms, wedged snugly between Bree and Elizabeth and an embroidered pillow.

  The door opens, but it is only an initiate carrying a tray of tea and cookies, which Billy dutifully tastes even though it will all go untouched.

  “I do not want you to do that anymore,” Mirabella says.

  “It’s what I’m here for,” he says gently. “I knew the risks. As did my father when he sent me.”

  “You were here to make a point,” Luca corrects him. “And so your father could garner favor with us. Personally, I think he is mad to put you in this poisoner’s path, even with my priestesses tasting before you.”

  “No one else must do this,” Mirabella says. “No tasters. No more.” The dead girl’s face floats in her mind, warring with another image locked inside her: little Katharine, sweet and smiling.

  The door opens again. This time it is Rho. She has taken down her hood, and red hair blazes past her shoulders.

  “Who was it?” Luca asks.

  “The novice, Rebecca.”

  Luca presses her hands to her face. Mirabella did not know her, except for seeing her pass by in the temple.

  “She was . . . ambitious,” Luca explains, sitting down finally, in one of her overstuffed chairs. “She must have been testing the dress.”

  “Alone?” Rho asks. “And by putting it on?”

  “She was a good priestess. Devoted. From a farm in Waring. I will write to her family and send blessing. We will place the ashes in an urn after she is burned, in case her mother wishes her remains be returned.”

  Mirabella winces. It is all so fast. So businesslike.

  “Did she suffer?” Mirabella asks. “I do not care if you think it a weak question, Rho. I want you to answer.”

  Rho’s jaw unclenches. “I suppose I do not know, my queen. From the skin raked under her fingernails, I would say yes. But the poisoning was fast. No one heard her cry out, and she did not have time to leave the storeroom for help.”

  “Do we know what it was?” asks Luca.

  “Something absorbed through contact with the skin. The wounds are localized near the bodice, where the dress fit the tightest. We will examine it before it is destroyed, to look for hidden pins or razors.”

  “Katharine,” Mirabella whispers. “You are so terrible now.”

  “Rebecca should never have put on that dress,” Rho says.

  “But she would not have known,” Bree protests. “Do you not see? That dress was blue! It was not sent for the queen. It was sent for one of us!” She glares up at Rho. “Why would she do that?”

  “She is clever, this poisoner. If she cannot get to you directly, she will goad you into action by killing those in your household.”

  “She is not clever.” Elizabeth’s voice is low as she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. Mirabella puts her arms around her. “She is cruel.”

  WOLF SPRING

  In the clearing, beneath the bent-over tree, Arsinoe lets Madrigal take fresh blood from her arm. Overhead, thin green leaves rustle on the ancient branches.

  “There,” Madrigal says. “That’s enough.”

  Arsinoe presses a cloth to staunch the bleeding. “Do you have anything to eat?” she asks, and Madrigal tosses her a sack. Inside is a skin of cider and some strips of dried meat.

  She eats, but the bloodletting does not really bother her anymore. Her arms and hands are so covered in scars that she has not been able to roll up her sleeves all season.

  Madrigal bends slowly down over the small fire she built when they arrived. She is not more than two months pregnant, but already her belly shows.

  “Do you hope for a girl?” Arsinoe asks.

  “I hope for you to focus,” Madrigal says, and blows on the flames.

  “But if you had to choose.”

  Madrigal looks up at her wearily. She has never seemed less enthusiastic about performing low magic. The child saps her strength.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She sits back on a log. “The Milones whelp only girls, but the Sandrins only boys.” Her hand passes over her stomach. “So we will have to wait and see whose blood will out.”

  A wind, cold for this time of year, sweeps through the clearing, and the old tree’s leaves hiss like snakes.

  “The other queens are coming,” Madrigal says, inhaling the breeze. “If you want to curse your sisters, we must do it now.”

  Arsinoe nods. A memory rises of little Katharine with daisies in her hair. Of Mirabella holding her tight when the priestesses tried to kill her when she washed ashore at Innisfuil. She pushes them away.

  She has to concentrate. More than half of a curse is about intent.

  “Does Juillenne know you asked me to help you?” Madrigal asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And she didn’t try to stop you?”

  “For someone who wants me to focus, you sure seem distracted. What will this curse do, anyway?” Arsinoe asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is not the same as a rune or a charm,” Madrigal replies. “A curse is a force sent out into the world. And once you set it loose, you can’t call it back. Whatever passes through this smoke today will bear your will, and the Goddess’s will. But it will also wield its own.”

  Low magic always wields its own will. Is that why it went out that day into the storm, to cast a net around Joseph and Mirabella? The cuts on her arm throb, and she feels the weight of some price she cannot yet dream of.

&nb
sp; Madrigal pours Arsinoe’s blood into the fire. The flames seem to jump at it, lapping it up, eating it without sound or sizzle. She pours it all and feeds it higher with cords soaked from past bloodlettings. Her murmurs are the same as murmurs to her unborn child.

  Behind her, the bent-over tree creaks, and Arsinoe stiffens, but that is foolish. It cannot move. It will not wake and pull itself free of its roots.

  “Think of them,” Madrigal says.

  Arsinoe does. She thinks of a little girl laughing and splashing in the stream. She remembers Mirabella, stern and ready to wade in if she fell.

  I love them, she realizes. I love them both.

  “Madrigal, stop.”

  “Stop?” Madrigal asks, and breaks eye contact with the flames.

  The fire rises in a wave and reaches for Madrigal. Arsinoe shouts and leaps to press her to the ground, smothering the flames with the sleeves of her shirt. In an instant, it is out, down to only smoke, but the stench of burned hair and skin is thick.

  “Madrigal? Madrigal, can you hear me?”

  Arsinoe takes Madrigal’s shaken face between her hands. Her shoulder was burned down deep, blackened, the red of flesh exposed. But Madrigal does not seem to notice.

  “My baby,” she murmurs. “My baby . . .”

  “What?” Madrigal’s stomach is unharmed, and she did not fall hard. The baby is fine. “Madrigal?” She brushes tears away from Madrigal’s cheeks.

  “My baby . . . my baby . . .” Her cries grow and the corners of her mouth twist down. “My baby!”

  “Madrigal!” Arsinoe slaps her. Just a little bit, nowhere near as hard as Cait even when Cait is playing, and Madrigal’s eyes jerk left and fix upon her face.

  The empty jar of Arsinoe’s blood, coated red, falls from Madrigal’s hand and rolls across the ground. Arsinoe dares a look back at the bent-over tree. It stands in its place, trying to seem innocent.

  “What happened?” Arsinoe asks.

  “Nothing,” Madrigal says.

  “Madrigal, what did you see?”

  “I saw nothing!” Madrigal snaps, wiping quickly at her face. “It was not about you! And it wasn’t real.” She stands up, her arms protectively across her belly. It was about the child, Arsinoe knows that much. And whatever it was, it was awful.

  Arsinoe looks again at the tree, at the sacred space. Low magic does not do only what one intends, but nor does it speak in falsehoods. The bent-over tree does not lie, and a spike of fear hits Arsinoe in the gut, for Madrigal and her baby, for Jules and the little sister or brother she will love so well.

  “You’re right,” Arsinoe soothes her. “It was my fault. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept seeing images of my sisters . . . memories. We can try again—”

  “We can’t try again!” Madrigal shakes loose and runs from the clearing. She does not stop when Arsinoe calls after her.

  Arsinoe looks down at the ashes of the fire, already cold. She could try again by herself. But somehow she knows that it would do no good. Midsummer is here, and she will have no more advantages than the secrets she has already been given.

  “The other queens are coming,” Arsinoe says to the tree. “And it seems that you want them here.”

  MIDSUMMER

  THE VALLEYWOOD ROAD

  Riding near the head of the Indrid Down caravan, Katharine lifts her nose to the breeze and inhales deeply. It is not far to Wolf Spring. She can almost smell the fish market. Theirs is said to be the finest catch on the entire island, and she hopes so, for Natalia has been craving a poison reef fish.

  “Will you tell me more about the Midsummer Festival?” Nicolas asks. He and Pietyr ride up on either side of her, so close that Half Moon snorts at the lack of space. “I understand there are to be feasting and lights.”

  “Lanterns burned into the harbor,” Pietyr interjects. “And ample opportunity for poisoning. Wolf Spring is notorious for drunkards; there will be confusion and movement. And Arsinoe will not dare use the bear in the midst of so many of her people.” He glares across the saddle at Nicolas, and Katharine has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

  “The bear does not frighten me,” she says. “I have brought something special for him.”

  At that, Nicolas smiles. Katharine has brought long, sharp pikes, perfect for skewering through the hide of a bear. He looked over them with great approval before they departed from Greavesdrake.

  “Tell me more about the queens, then, whom you will face. A naturalist and an elemental. Is it always so? I had heard of other queens. Oracle queens and war queens.”

  “There has not been an oracle queen for ages,” says Katharine. “Not since one went mad on the throne and ordered the execution of several of the families on her Council. She said they were plotting against her. Or rather, that they would plot against her in the future. She said that she foresaw it. Now when a queen is born with the sight gift, we drown them.”

  She expects him to pale; instead he nods.

  “Madness in a ruler is not to be borne. But what of the war gift? Why is there no war queen?”

  “No one knows why the war gift has weakened. The drowned queens explain why the oracle city of Sunpool has nearly emptied but Bastian remains. The war gifted remain. Yet there has not been a queen born with the war gift in generations.”

  “A shame,” says Nicolas. “Though you, sweet Katharine, are warlike enough for me.”

  He grins. Such a suitor she has attracted. He is refined and charming, but he craves blood. He says she is too bold to poison from a plate. That she is too skilled with knives and arrows to let that skill go to waste. When he said so, she nearly kissed him. She nearly pushed him to the ground. Natalia wants her to take Billy Chatworth as her king-consort to preserve the alliance between their families. But when the suitors engage in The Hunt of the Stags, a sacred hunt open only to them, Billy Chatworth will not stand a chance. Nicolas will hunt him as he hunts the stag. And then Katharine will be free to choose him.

  Calls from the lead guard make their way down the line.

  “We are nearly there,” says Pietyr. “It is just around the next bend.”

  “Then let us ride to the front.” Katharine puts her heels to Half Moon’s sides before Pietyr can protest, and Nicolas laughs as he races along behind her. As she crests the gradual curve that leads into Wolf Spring, salty sea air rises like a wall and rushes against her chest.

  They do not slow until they reach the outskirts of the town. As expected, it is not much to look at. Buildings of graying wood and signs bearing faded paint. But the people on the streets and in the shop windows stop what they are doing to stare, their gazes slightly hostile and very wary. When the rest of the coaches arrive, most seem relieved to be able to look away.

  “You do not even know where we are riding to!” Pietyr says angrily when he catches up.

  “Truly, Renard,” Nicolas says. “There is the town and there is the sea. How were we supposed to get lost?”

  Katharine chuckles. It is true. She does not know why it was necessary to have Cousin Lucian and giftless Renata Hargrove leave a week in advance to select their lodging. In a city this size, there could not have been more than four or five choices.

  “Where are we staying, Pietyr?” she asks.

  “The Wolverton Inn,” he replies. “The lead coach knows the way, if only you will follow it.”

  Katharine sighs.

  “Very well.” She slows Half Moon so the rest of their party may catch up, and adjusts the weight of the poisoned knives affixed to her hip. She lifts her chin as they ride through the streets, past the salt-hardened, hateful people. It is not much of a welcome. But she and her knives will have such a lovely time here.

  WOLF SPRING

  As the queens’ arrivals ripple through the town like a current, Wolf Spring comes alive. Workers pound wood and planks as they erect new viewing platforms to overlook the harbor. The Wolverton Inn and the Bay Street Hotel ready accommodations for their guests. Shopkeepers s
tay open a few hours later and find chores to do outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the undead poisoner or Mirabella the legendary elemental. According to Ellis—who has been their eyes and ears in town since the other queens arrived—even Luke stayed out late sweeping the walk in front of the bookshop. Though he did take Arsinoe’s crowning gown out of the window first.

  “We should have refused this,” Jules says.

  “We couldn’t,” Arsinoe replies.

  Katharine and the Arrons have already made themselves at home in their rooms at the Wolverton Inn, no doubt driving poor Mrs. Casteel and her young Miles half out of their minds with crazy, poisoner demands. And to the west, the temple hill swarms with Rolanth priestesses as they attempt to make the modest quarters of rounded stone fit to house Queen Mirabella.

  “It’s monstrous. Setting us up this way,” Arsinoe says. “Like pieces on a game board. If it’s the Goddess, then she is cruel. And if it’s the Council and the temple, then we’re fools for dancing to their tune.”

  “Maybe so,” Jules says. “But like you said, we couldn’t refuse.”

  “Why can’t we just stay here? I want to live our lives here, the way we always have.”

  From the corner of her eye, Arsinoe sees Jules clench her fists, and glances nervously at the trees to see if they will shake.

  “What about our happy ending?” Jules asks. “Isn’t that worth fighting for?” But when Arsinoe does not answer, she snaps, “Stop being such a child! If you win, you get to live, and that’s better than nothing!”

  Arsinoe flinches.

  “I wasn’t going to hit you,” Jules says. “Not any harder than usual. Not because of this curse.”

  “I’m sorry, Jules. You just startled me is all.”

  “Sure,” Jules says, unconvinced. “Sure.”

  “Is it getting worse?” Arsinoe asks. But they do not even know what worse is. The war gift growing stronger? Jules’s temper? Jules going mad?

  “I’m fine.” Jules takes a long, slow breath. “I wish it had gone better with you and Madrigal at the tree.”