One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  Candles have burned in the windows of every town they passed through, in honor of Queen Arsinoe. And that is the way it should be.

  Margaret waves her hand, oblivious to Katharine’s grave tone.

  “Let them mourn and be done with it. Her name will not be spoken after your crowning. It will be lost in time. Like a pebble in a river.”

  Katharine’s gloved fingers grip the wood of her chair so tightly that it squeaks.

  “Katharine?” Pietyr asks. “Are you all right?”

  Katharine snatches up her cup of tainted wine. She wants to throw it into Margaret Beaulin’s face, leap upon her, and pour it down her war-gifted throat.

  Perhaps someday. But not now. She stands, and the musicians stop playing. The poisoners stop dancing midstep.

  “A toast. To my sister Queen Arsinoe.”

  Jaws drop slightly. They titter as if expecting a joke. But Katharine is not joking, and eventually, Natalia walks to her wine cup and holds it aloft. After a moment, the others follow suit.

  “It would be easy to hate her,” Katharine says, thinking of her sister, her eyes losing focus on the crowd. “Another queen standing in the way. But Queen Arsinoe was an innocent in this. Just as much an innocent as I. Before that bear”—she gestures toward it—“before Beltane, the people felt about her what they felt about me. That we were weak. Born to die. Sacrifices to the chosen queen’s legend. So let us not forget the queen we truly hate. The darling of Rolanth and the temple.”

  Katharine holds her cup high.

  “So I toast to Queen Arsinoe, my sister, whom I killed with mercy. It will not be so when I kill Queen Mirabella. Queen Mirabella will suffer.”

  THE BLACK COTTAGE

  By the time Jules reaches the Black Cottage, she is too exhausted to be cautious. She pushes the spent horse the last strides through the trees; in the stream, he nearly stumbles and falls. She has to jerk up hard on his poor head to keep him on his feet.

  “Caragh!”

  She trots across the dirt path through the edging of waxed-leaf shrubs. Her voice is strained and odd-sounding. It seems like forever since she heard any voice at all. For hours it has been nothing but hoofbeats and rustling trees.

  “Caragh!”

  The front door of the cottage opens, and her aunt Caragh steps cautiously outside.

  “Juillenne?”

  “Yes,” Jules says. Her shoulders sag. They ache beneath Arsinoe’s weight. “It’s me.”

  Caragh does not speak, but her chocolate hound bounds through the door and down the stone steps to jump at the horse and bay happily.

  “Aunt Caragh, help us!” The words come out thin as air as she slides sideways out of the saddle, dragging Arsinoe’s body with her. But she does not hit the ground. Caragh’s arms are there to catch her.

  “Jules,” Caragh says. She cups Jules’s face between her hands and then feels all up and down her bones. Beside them, her hound sniffs excitedly all over Camden, collapsed in the grass. Finally, Caragh pushes Arsinoe’s short black hair away from her face. Her lips tremble when she sees the scars.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Jules whispers.

  Footsteps shuffle through the cottage door onto the porch, and Jules looks up at an old woman dressed all in black and stout as a small ox. Stark white hair falls over her right shoulder in a long braid.

  “Caragh,” she says. “They cannot stay here.”

  “Who is she?” Jules asks. “I thought you were alone. I thought your banishment . . . your punishment was to be alone here until the new queens come.”

  “That’s Willa,” Caragh explains. “The old Midwife. Someone had to teach me.” She looks toward the old woman. “I won’t turn my niece away.”

  “It is not her I care about.” Willa nods toward Arsinoe. “That is a dead queen. And no queen may return here once she has grown. Not unless she is carrying her triplets.”

  “She’s not dead!” Jules shouts. “And you will help her!”

  Willa snorts.

  “Such orders,” she grumbles as she walks down the steps. “I see the resemblance now between you and your aunt.”

  “Turn her, Jules,” Caragh says. “Let me see.”

  “Be careful. Don’t touch it. It’s a poisoned bolt.”

  Caragh’s hand stops in midair.

  “A poisoned bolt? Jules, there’s nothing to be done about that.”

  “No, you—” Jules hesitates. But what does it matter if Caragh knows their secret? Everyone on the island thinks Arsinoe is dead. That she is really a poisoner makes no difference now.

  Jules opens her mouth to speak, but stops when she sees Willa’s unsurprised expression.

  “You knew,” says Jules. “You knew all along.”

  Willa reaches down and grasps one of Arsinoe’s arms.

  “Get her inside,” she says gruffly. “She is barely alive, but we will see what can be done. I am a poisoner as well. I can handle the bolt.”

  Jules jerks awake in an unfamiliar bed. It is full dark out, and she reaches across the blankets to Camden so the big cat can soothe her with a purr. Then she remembers. They are at the Black Cottage. With Arsinoe. And Caragh.

  Removing the poisoned bolt, cleaning and sewing the wound closed went easier than Jules had expected, mostly because Arsinoe never regained consciousness. Willa’s sure hands twisted and pulled, rubbed and tugged until the queen lay beneath a soft blanket, looking as calm and serene as if it were no more than a well-earned nap. Afterward, Caragh helped Jules down the hall to another room, where she and Camden were asleep as soon as they closed their eyes.

  Jules slides out of bed, still in her clothes and shoes, and Camden stretches and jumps to the floor. There are lights casting shadows in the hall. Caragh or Willa must still be up somewhere.

  Jules slips softly to the room where they put Arsinoe and peeks inside. The queen’s breathing is shallow but visible in the steady light of the candle on the bedside table. Jules watches for a few moments, but Arsinoe will not wake tonight. So she tiptoes farther toward the other source of light, hoping to find her aunt.

  The Black Cottage is no small place. It is larger than the Milone house and full of fine things: silver candelabras, glorious oil paintings, and rugs so plush that she cannot resist wriggling her toes in them. She pauses briefly to peer up a long, dark staircase and then follows the light and sounds through the sitting room to the kitchen.

  The chocolate hound hears them coming and trots out. She dances a happy, sniffing circle around Camden before leaning her long body against Jules.

  “You’re awake,” Caragh says when Jules enters the kitchen, which is brightly lit by several yellow lamps. “How is Arsinoe?”

  Jules sits down at the table opposite her. “Still resting. Still breathing.”

  “From the look of you when you arrived, you should still be sleeping as well. That poor horse of yours is snoring in the barn, you can be sure.”

  “He’s not mine,” she says, though she supposes that he is, now. “I stole him. From Queen Katharine.”

  “Hmph,” says Willa, who had crept up behind her very quietly for someone using a cane. “What in the world is happening with this Ascension Year?” She sets down bundles of goldenrod and yarrow beside Caragh as she grinds oils and herbs with a mortar and pestle. “It is a good thing she came when she did. These are all in bloom.”

  “We have more,” Caragh says. “Jarred and hanging dried in the storeroom.”

  “Fresh is better,” Willa says, and taps her on the chin.

  Jules watches silently as the two women talk. There is an easy fondness between them that is strange to see. Jules is glad that Caragh has not been lonely. She is glad to see her smile. But it is not how she imagined her over the last five years.

  “Do you know nothing about the Ascension, then?” Jules asks. “Don’t you get any news?”

  “Worcester brings us supplies every month,” says Willa. “In his little cart, pulled by his good shaggy pony. Some
times he brings us news.”

  “And sometimes he comes twice,” says Caragh. “When Willa is looking particularly fetching.” She chuckles, and Willa makes a face.

  “What is that?” Jules asks. She points to the mortar and pestle.

  “An ointment for Arsinoe.”

  “And make it thicker than you did the last time.” Willa stretches her back. “I am going to get some sleep before the queen wakes. If she wakes. She lost a lot of blood, and she is weak. It was a very long ride for you, I gather.”

  Jules went as fast as she could. Maybe she should have gone somewhere else. Somewhere closer.

  Willa walks past and grasps her shoulder firmly.

  “Do not worry too much. She was always the toughest of them, even when she was a girl.”

  “You . . . remember her, then?”

  “Of course I do. I remember all of them. Until they were six, they were mine.”

  And then she leaves, and Jules and Caragh are alone.

  Caragh studies Jules, her head cocked as she separates leaves from flowers and drops them into the bowl of the mortar.

  “You have grown up so well, Jules. So pretty.”

  “I have barely grown up at all,” Jules mumbles. “I’m shorter than everyone at home.”

  “Tiny,” Caragh says, “but fierce.”

  Camden’s ears flicker back and forth as if to agree. Camden has always taken compliments better than she has.

  “I knew you were strong when you were a girl. But I never imagined a mountain cat.” She looks down. “How are Mum and Dad?”

  “They’re fine. They miss you.” Jules holds her hand out to the hound, who comes to rest her chin on Jules’s knee. “They miss you, too, Juniper,” she says, and the dog pants happily. “Jake especially.”

  “And how is Madrigal?”

  Jules hesitates. How to tell Caragh about Madrigal and Matthew? About their baby? And should she tell her, when it is not her place, and when it will make no difference, with Caragh banished to the cottage?

  “Madrigal is Madrigal. I’ve long since stopped waiting for her to be anything different.”

  “That’s probably wise,” says Caragh. “But she does love you, Jules. She always has.”

  Not like you did, Jules wants to say.

  “I never thought I’d see you again, Aunt Caragh.”

  Caragh grinds harder on the mixture of ointment. Her time at the cottage has put more muscle on her arms, and more thickness to her waist. Her brown-gold hair is long and unstyled. She is still beautiful. Jules has always thought Caragh was just as beautiful as Madrigal, only in a different way.

  “They’re bound to let me out of here someday,” Caragh says. “And replace me with some good priestess. Someone like Willa. Not long after the new queen is crowned, I should think.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because this punishment was an Arron grudge against the Milones. And the next queen won’t be an Arron queen. Willa seems certain of it, and having raised the young girls, she must know.”

  “She must,” says Jules darkly. “Though maybe she’s not so certain now.”

  THE WESTERN SEA

  The journey from Wolf Spring to Rolanth by sea is fast. Faster than traveling by wagon by several days. That morning, Mirabella watched priestesses release birds from the deck, back to Rolanth to announce the return of the queen.

  She wonders whether word of Arsinoe’s death will beat them there. Whether she will return to candles in the windows and her people dressed for mourning in crimson and black. She hopes so. Then she will not have to be the one to tell them.

  When the ship passed around Cape Horn, many lights were visible from the shore. But Cape Horn is much farther south than Rolanth.

  Mirabella stares at the dark, wood walls of her cabin. She has not been much use on this journey, letting other elementals guide the ship. She has lacked the will, since Arsinoe’s death. They do not need her, anyway, with so many able to control the winds. And Sara is strong enough with water to handle the currents by herself.

  Someone knocks.

  “Yes?”

  The door opens, and Billy pokes his head inside. She has not seen much of him since leaving port. The one time she approached his quarters, she heard him weeping through the door, and turned away.

  “Care for some company?”

  “Please.” She gestures for him to come inside and sit.

  “My room is too quiet,” he says. “I miss Harriet and her clucking.”

  Mirabella sets aside the book she had been paging through. She ought to sit properly, swing her legs off her bed and move their visit to a table. It is improper for her to recline, with Billy seated beside her feet. But what does she care? They are not strangers. And she does not have the energy to worry about impropriety anyhow.

  “Harriet will be well, with Joseph’s family?” she asks.

  “She’d better be. If I return to find her in a stew pot . . .” Billy trails off. His cheeks are gray. Ashen. He has not looked at her since coming inside. Only past her. He meant to use her as a distraction from his grief, and she is failing him.

  “It is not much longer until we reach Rolanth,” Mirabella says, lifting her voice.

  “I know. You’re all cheaters, you elementals. Calling the winds and pushing the waves. This barely qualifies as sailing.” He smiles, but it looks wrong without touching his eyes.

  “At least you saw her again,” Mirabella says gently. “At least you had time with her. I hope that your last moments were good ones.”

  “I should have told her. I never told her.”

  “I am sure that she knew.”

  “How could she? All I did was tell her that she was unfit. Unsuitable. Infuriating, with none of the makings a man looks for in a wife.” He laughs hollowly. “And that was true. But I would have overlooked all that.”

  Mirabella exhales. She meant to chuckle.

  Billy reaches onto the side table and picks up a couple bits of jewelry that Bree left lying there. “This is such a strange stateroom. Things left out. Nothing nailed down.”

  “No need for that on an elemental ship.”

  He curls the black-and-silver bracelet in his fingers and drops his hand into his lap.

  “What will you do now?” he asks. “Will you forget her too?”

  Mirabella turns to her wall as though she can see through it to the tossing ocean outside. As she always does, she feels the elements all around her. The lightning she could crackle through the clear sky. The wind that would scream for her. The soft hum of the flame atop her candle. She could reach out with her gift and use the sea like her fist. Topple the ship and press it with waves until it cracked. All the elementals on board could not stop her.

  But Billy is there, whom Arsinoe loved. And somewhere is Jules, who is still being hunted. And Kat. She must not forget about Kat.

  Still so much work to be done.

  “I will not forget her if you stay and help me to remember,” Mirabella says. “If you stay and help me to avenge her.”

  “Stay,” he says.

  “Yes. And rule with me, for her.”

  They regard each other in the quiet, dim light. He seems as surprised to hear it as she is surprised to ask. Since she was a child, Luca tried to convince her that she was an important queen. It was a lesson she neither believed nor wanted. But she believes it now.

  “You would choose me as your king,” he says.

  “King-consort,” she corrects him. “But yes.”

  “Is that what she would want?”

  “I do not know. But we must marry someone. And the ones we would have . . . we cannot have.”

  Billy stares at her hard.

  “So we are a good match.” Then he shakes his head. “I can’t do this. So soon after. It feels wrong.”

  “You want to avenge her, do you not? Or would you give up now and go back to the mainland? Will you go and pay court to Katharine, her murderer?”

  “No,”
Billy barks, and his expression turns dark. “Never.”

  “Then stay and be a part of it.” Mirabella holds out her hand. She needs him to say yes. She suddenly cannot bear the thought of him leaving. He—the only suitor who loved her sister—he must be king.

  “I wanted her to have everything,” he says, staring at her hand. “I wanted to have everything with her.” Mirabella waits. She lets him wipe his eyes and take his deep breaths. Billy Chatworth has a good heart. He is smart, and strong, and loyal.

  “Will we seal this bargain with a handshake, then?” he asks.

  “Is that how it is done on the mainland?”

  “Only between men of honor,” he says, and slides his hand into hers.

  It is not the first time they have touched. But this touch is charged with the knowledge that one day they will exchange much more than a handshake. Billy’s fingers slip out of hers, and he looks away, guilty. But Arsinoe and Joseph are not there to judge.

  “So what now?” he asks.

  “Now we take the fight to Katharine.”

  The ship reaches port in Rolanth not long after, and Bree and Elizabeth come to take Mirabella above. They are surprised to find Billy already there, fastening her light summer cape about her shoulders.

  “You’re wearing all black,” Elizabeth says to him.

  “Black is the color of mourning where I come from.”

  “Well, here it is the color of queens,” Bree says. She unties the gauzy crimson scarf at her throat and reties it onto his. “There. For your Arsinoe.”

  He touches it and looks at Mirabella.

  “Or should I be in all black? For you?” he asks, but she shakes her head.

  “No,” Mirabella says. “That is fitting.”

  Bree and Elizabeth exchange a glance. Not even they know about the betrothal agreement. Word would spread too fast, and Mirabella did not want Luca’s questions, or Sara’s worries.

  Mirabella and Billy step up onto the deck together to face the massive crowd gathered at the Rolanth docks. All around the port, candles burn in the proud, white buildings, and the people are dressed in black and crimson to mourn a queen. Their eyes are somber and chins high. The only sound is the cawing of seabirds fighting over fish scraps.