“A duel in the arena favors me,” Mirabella presses. “Elemental queens have fared well before—”
Luca turns back to her spilled tea and pours again in the remains of the first cup. When she drinks, it drips onto her robes.
“I feel the Goddess’s hand in this, Luca. You must trust in me.”
“Her hand, perhaps,” the High Priestess says softly. “But the Goddess is not always kind, Mira. We cannot know her will. Even in those moments when I have felt most close to her . . . that I thought I saw a hint of her plans . . .” She gestures with a trembling hand. “One moment it is clear and the next it is gone.”
“Then how do we know we are doing the right thing?”
“We do not. We do our best, knowing that there is no choice and that she will have her way, in the end.”
THE BLACK COTTAGE
Willa walks past Arsinoe on the way to the kitchen.
“Goose and onion pie tonight.” Willa holds up a small yellow onion and chucks Arsinoe beneath the chin with it.
“Mmm,” Arsinoe replies uncertainly. “Was that . . . one of my favorites?”
“You do not remember?”
“I don’t.” Arsinoe follows her through the sitting room, looking at the paintings and the furniture. It would not have changed much, but nothing feels familiar. “Mirabella remembers everything. If she were here, the sentimental goof would be hugging that chair.”
“Even when she was a girl, Mirabella had far too much dignity to go about hugging chairs. Unlike you. How are you healing?”
Arsinoe follows her into the kitchen and rolls her shoulder. The wound from the crossbow bolt has closed. Before long, it will be no more than a fresh, deep scar. She can feel the new dead spot forming in her back, like the dead spots in her face. Another wound, another ruin.
“I’m all right.”
“Good. Then you can leave.” Willa takes down a bowl filled with dough she prepared that morning, and Arsinoe snorts.
“Were you always this affectionate? Or did you put us on swaddle boards and hang us off doors?”
Willa scoffs.
“We have not swaddled queens in seven ages.” Then she pauses in her kneading, and fixes Arsinoe with a sharp eye. “It isn’t that I want you to go. I never imagined I would see you again, after the day they took you. But if the Black Council finds you here, they will have my old neck and Caragh’s as well.”
“Not for long,” Arsinoe says. “Once Mirabella is crowned and replaces the Arrons on the Council with Westwoods, everything will change. They might even let Caragh go.”
“Perhaps.” Willa presses her lips together, but cannot quite hide her smile.
Arsinoe cocks her head.
“Is that what you want to happen? Why you did it? Why you switched us as babies?”
The old woman slaps the dough onto the counter and shakes flour down over it.
“What makes you think I was the one who switched you?”
“Who else?”
“Who else was here?” Willa asks. “The Queen. Your mother. I was only the Midwife, and the Midwife does as she is told.”
“But why would she?”
“Do you wish she had not?” Willa looks at Arsinoe sharply. “And in any case, she did not say. I gather that the Arrons were not kind. And during her rule, I do not think she liked what she saw within the poisoner Council. Besides, in Mirabella she saw the queen to come, and the queen always knows what she has. So there was little harm in sabotaging the other two.”
“Sabotaging the other two,” Arsinoe repeats, and her lips twist wryly.
“Queen Camille was a sweet girl. But the only one who ever loved her was her king-consort. She was glad to leave. She was glad to have done with her duty.”
“Hmph,” Arsinoe says. “It should sting, hearing that. But it doesn’t.”
“It does not because you are a queen. You are not like other mothers or other daughters. You are not like other people.”
Arsinoe takes up a knife and begins slicing onions. Seeing Willa work the dough has started to make her hungry.
“Did she go, then?” Arsinoe asks. “With her king-consort, to live happily off the island?”
“How should I know? Perhaps. It is what she wanted. Though they say that the weak ones do not live long after their triplets are born.
“A queen’s life is glorious and short. Whether she rules or dies in her Ascension Year. This is the way things are. Being put out by it will not change it.”
“The weak ones,” Arsinoe says, and stabs a mushroom. “But Mirabella will be a queen who rules into her fiftieth year. She’ll have her triplets and leave and die somewhere grand, an old woman.”
“Don’t crush me between your buttocks,” Caragh says gruffly, and slaps the rump of one of the chestnut saddle horses that Joseph and Madrigal rode in on. He and the other horse have had to share a stall in the small stable, and the close quarters have made them pushy.
“You used to use your gift instead of your hands. Or have you lost it, being here so long?”
Caragh sets her jaw and looks up at her pretty sister.
“I’ve never used my gift for something as frivolous as cleaning a stall.”
She opens the stall door and leaves, resting the pitchfork against the wall before moving down the line. She places a measure of grain into the black horse’s bucket and strokes his nose.
“Frivolous,” Madrigal says. She sucks her cheek indignantly. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Frivolity is strictly my domain, is that it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Of course you didn’t. You never say what you mean.”
Caragh clenches her jaw. She looks back at the black horse and smells the savory scent of his breath as he chews the grain.
“I haven’t seen a horse this well-bred in a long time. And those saddle horses, did you borrow them from Addie Lane? They aren’t bad at all.”
Madrigal puts her hands on her hips. She taps her foot. She has barely been at the cottage for a week and already she has climbed on Caragh’s last nerve.
“What do you want, Madrigal?”
“To look after my daughter.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I meant right now. Is there something you want to say?” Her eyes drift down to Madrigal’s belly. “If it’s that you’re pregnant, I can see that already.”
Madrigal glances toward her waist. It is early yet, but on her slight frame it shows enough for Caragh to know.
“Jules must be glad to be a big sister,” Caragh goes on. “I’m so proud to see her grown up strong and happy. And Joseph . . . He looks so much like Matthew. For a moment, I almost ran and jumped into his arms.”
Madrigal swallows. She murmurs something under her breath.
“Maddie, speak up.”
“Don’t call me Maddie,” Madrigal snaps.
But there is something that Madrigal wants to tell her. Some unpleasant thing, from the way she stands there, toeing annoying patterns into the dirt.
“The baby,” Madrigal says. “It’s Matthew’s.”
Caragh’s fingers grip the stall door. Every horse in the barn stops eating and looks at her, even Willa’s mean brown mule. Matthew. Her Matthew. But he is not her Matthew anymore.
“I just wanted to be the one to tell you,” Madrigal says, her voice uncertain. “I didn’t want Jules or Joseph to blurt it out.” She steps closer, soft, hesitant steps in the dust and straw. “Caragh?”
“What?”
“Say something.”
“What do you want me to say? That I’ve been waiting here like a fool, when I knew there was no hope in waiting? That things change out there, but nothing changes here? You don’t need me to tell you those things. I’ll leave here old and bent, like Willa. And you don’t need my blessing if you want to live my life for me.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Madrigal says as Caragh’s brown hound starts to howl.
“Quiet. The howl means company. And company mea
ns you have to hide.”
The old man and his pony cart take their time coming down the path to the Black Cottage. It is a good thing, for it gives Arsinoe plenty of time to get comfortable in her hiding spot, seated beneath a window. Peering out, she sees Jules and Joseph dart into the stables. Who knows where Madrigal is.
When old Worcester reaches the house, Willa helps him to unload his sacks of grain and jugs of wine, along with three or four wrapped parcels. They talk for what feels like an eternity before he finally turns his cart back down the path. Much of what they discussed seems to be about a letter he gave to her. She stands in the middle of the supplies and reads it again and again until Arsinoe loses her patience. She gets to her feet and throws up the sash.
“Willa! What is that?”
Willa walks the letter back into the cottage. The others emerge from the stable like squirrels from their burrows.
Arsinoe takes the letter and reads.
“What is it?” asks Jules as she comes inside.
“It’s an announcement,” Arsinoe says. “Mirabella is challenging Katharine to a duel.”
“Is that wise?” Madrigal asks. “A hunt is a risk, but a duel is riskier still. A show of frontal assaults. Both could die.”
“The Goddess will not allow both to die,” says Willa.
“How do you know?” Joseph asks.
“Because in all our long history, she has never allowed all of her queens to die. And I should know. Half of our library here is volumes of queen history.”
“But all of her queens wouldn’t be dead,” Jules says. “If both Mirabella and Katharine die in the duel, Arsinoe will still be alive.”
Every eye turns to her, and Arsinoe steps back.
“Maybe that is the plan,” Jules says. “The Goddess’s plan.”
But Willa waves her hand.
“No. Mirabella will be the Queen Crowned. Queen Camille knew it. The entire island has known it, until recently. Arsinoe has been granted her life, a fugitive life in secret. Nothing more.”
“You haven’t seen how many times she’s saved her,” Joseph says. “And brought her back. Just to live as a fugitive? I don’t believe it.”
Arsinoe scoffs. They have all gone mad, looking at her like that. Eyes big as dinner plates and twice as sparkly.
She stares past them, at a large woven tapestry hanging on the wall. It depicts the Hunt of the Stags, the ritual performed by suitors during the Beltane of a crowning year. The tapestry shows young men with bared teeth and shining knives. One lies disemboweled in the foreground, and the stag they hunted has fallen onto its knees. There is so much blood, it is a wonder the weaver did not run out of red thread. And that could be Billy, bleeding to death on the sacred ground of Innisfuil.
“All these brutal traditions,” Arsinoe says quietly.
“Arsinoe?” Madrigal asks.
For a long time, Arsinoe dreamed of a chance like this one. To run away. To disappear. But always the Goddess moved her about like a game piece, placing her where she wanted her. She even gave her Jules, legion-cursed Jules, who Luke had always said was put nearby for a reason. But what was that reason? To win her freedom? Or to win the crown?
Either way, Arsinoe is tired of wondering. She swallows hard and feels her scars, every one of them from her cheek to her ribs. From now on, she will do what she wants.
“We have to go to Indrid Down,” she says.
“Yes,” Jules says, and claps her hands. “Mirabella and Katharine will make their last stand, and when they fall, you will be there, waiting.”
“No, Jules. Willa is right. Mirabella is the chosen queen. And I think I was spared so I could help her.” She grasps Jules by the shoulders, crumpling the duel challenge in her fist. “I’m going to the capital, and I’m going to help Mirabella put down that poisoner queen.”
THE QUEENS’ DUEL
ROLANTH
Mirabella’s coaches are outfitted with silver fastenings and black plumes. The blue elemental insignia flies on flags beside the queen’s black ones. And there are white coaches too, white coaches pulled by white horses and filled with priestesses so that all of Indrid Down will know that the temple stands with her.
“Are you sure you would not rather go by sea?” Sara asks as they pack the last of Mirabella’s things into trunks. “It would be safer.”
“She would parade into my city,” Mirabella says. “So I will parade into hers.”
Sara holds up a gown.
“This, for the ball?”
Mirabella barely glances at it. It is some shiny, satin thing with a fitted bodice and wide straps.
“That is fine.” She turns about the room. Her room at Westwood House since she was taken from the Black Cottage. It is not bare; she has not overpacked. But it still feels emptied, like if she speaks too loud her voice will echo.
“And for the jewels?”
“Anything but black pearls,” she says. “I have heard that Katharine favors black pearls, and I do not want us to look alike.”
“You could never look alike,” says Billy.
Mirabella and Sara turn. Billy stands just inside the door. Sara cocks an eyebrow at his crimson shirt. He should not wear it when they go to the capital, still mourning for a fallen queen when he has declared for Mirabella. But no one will ask him to take it off. And the crimson will win them more favor from the naturalists.
Sara curtsies and leaves to give them privacy.
“How much longer will the mourning last?” Billy asks.
“Not long,” Mirabella replies.
Soon the candles and the crimson will be gone. The prayers said for Arsinoe at altars will cease. Vanquished queens are not spoken of past the Ascension Year. There is no hall in the Volroy that houses their portraits. No one even remembers their names.
“Are you ready?” she asks. “Do you have attire for the ball?”
“I do. Though I can’t believe we’re going to dance and feast with them the night before you kill her.”
“The ball is nothing more than Katharine’s way of regaining control. I set the duel, so she sets the ball. It is all quite transparent. And it will not work.”
Billy holds up a long, rectangular box. “I brought something for you.”
He opens it and takes out a choker of black gems cut into faceted ovals and set in silver. They sparkle as he turns them in the light, and she wonders how long ago he bought them, and if they were meant for someone else. But she will not ruin the moment by asking.
“Here,” he says, and Mirabella holds up her hair to let him place them around her neck.
“They are beautiful.”
“Far more beautiful than anything the poisoner has,” he says. “They can dress that little witch up any way they like. But she’ll still be a monster.”
“Do not say that word,” Mirabella cautions. “We do not say ‘witch’ here. No matter what we feel about Katharine, you must be careful when we are in the capital. I would have you be a popular king-consort among the people.”
Billy grits his teeth.
“Of course. It’s just what she did. . . .”
“I know.”
“I hate her. Don’t you? She took her from me. From us.”
Billy’s hand lingers on her shoulder, from fastening the choker, and Mirabella lays hers atop it.
“I met Katharine before Beltane,” he says. “My father wanted me introduced to all of you, before the other suitors.”
“You never came to me.”
“I chose Arsinoe before I could. But it’s the strangest thing. When I met Katharine, she seemed so sweet. Harmless, even. I actually pitied her. The girl I met was nothing like the one in Wolf Spring. But I suppose I only saw what she wanted me to see.”
“I suppose,” says Mirabella. “Billy, before we depart, I would have you pen a letter to precede us into the capital.”
“A letter? Saying what?”
“Saying that you will be my king-consort and will not pay court to Katharine. Phras
e it as meanly as you like. But I would have one more blow to her ego before she sees me at the ball.”
INDRID DOWN
Natalia and Genevieve walk briskly through the bustling streets of the capital after overseeing the improvements being made to the arena: repairs to the stands and extra risers built, a fresh coat of paint on the gallery rail, and all the vast competition ground tilled through and made soft, the tufts of long, hard grass and field stones removed by hand. It has been a long time since the arena was used for anything but fairs and carnivals. A long time since the island has seen a duel or even since it had a war queen who enjoyed watching battle sport.
“The hotels will run out of rooms,” Genevieve grumbles. “There will be tents set up along the roadsides. People will sleep on the streets.”
“Only for a few days. And while they are here, they will spend their money.”
Up and down the main thoroughfare on High Street, shop windows are filled with fresh displays of goods. Carts laden with golden smoked ducks and baskets of fruit travel down back alleys to be unloaded into storerooms. It is a chance for non-poisoner merchants to show their best, and they have been down at the Bardon Harbor docks since before dawn, fighting with the poisoner shops over the choice sea catch before it is laced with henbane and nightshade.
“They will spend money and make money,” says Genevieve. “The elemental merchants will set up stalls to sell their paintings and weavings and glass trinkets.”
Natalia watches her sister pout. After the duel is over, Genevieve is sure to be wearing an elemental jewel or two and parading about in a new silk scarf. Everyone knows that the finest ones come from Rolanth.
“May we stop for a bite to eat?” Genevieve asks, craning her neck toward her favorite cheese shop.
“We will take tea at the Highbern. Since we must go there anyway to finalize the ball.” Natalia takes a high step over a gutter and tugs on Genevieve’s sleeve to hurry her along. “Smile. We should not be seen with troubled frowns on our faces.”
“But we are troubled,” Genevieve says as she brightens her expression. “The duel is a disaster. They will be face-to-face, trapped there together until one lies dead. It will be just as if the Ascension were to end with them locked in the east tower. It is just what we have been trying to avoid!”
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