One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  Arsinoe tries to smile. To enjoy the daydream of the three of them together at last. But a daydream is all it is. In Sunpool or anywhere else they will be hunted. Their lives will be in disguise and in secret, on the move and on the run, and what kind of a life is that? Better than no life at all, Jules would say, but Arsinoe is not so sure.

  A rumble passes overhead when the gallery begins to fill with the duel’s most illustrious guests: Council members and Arrons.

  “It won’t be long now, Jules,” Arsinoe says. “Are you ready?”

  Jules cracks her knuckles.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Katharine tightens her leather armguard. Her bow has been restrung and her quiver filled with poisoned arrows made with fancy black and white feathers. At her belt, her slim, sharp throwing knives have been edged with enough curare to fell a horse. She also has a short-bladed sword. Though she does not intend to get close enough to use it, it would make for a fine and showy finishing strike.

  “Will you take the crossbow?” Natalia asks as she buttons Katharine’s black silk vest and smooths the sleeves of her shirt.

  “No. I have already used it on Arsinoe. Each of my sisters deserves her own special send-off.”

  Natalia holds up Katharine’s tall, light boots. Her skirt of soft black leather will just touch the tops of them, and her maid Giselle has braided her hair into a knotted bun. There will be no long tresses to pull, nothing to get into her eyes.

  “You seem so calm, Natalia,” Katharine notes. “So confident.”

  “I am always calm and confident.” Natalia kneels to lace the boots. When she starts to hum, Katharine narrows her eyes. Before the ball, Natalia had been terrified. Snapping at the guards and asking where Pietyr was a hundred times. Such a change, between the ball and today.

  A servant enters carrying a tray of edible poisons: belladonna berries and a savory tart of jack-o-lantern mushrooms. Fresh milk laced with more of Nicolas’s white snakeroot.

  “Katharine,” Natalia cautions. “Is that wise?”

  “I would not go into a duel hungry.”

  “Then let me send for something else.”

  Katharine cuts a large slice of tart and swallows half of the milk.

  “The pain is nothing,” Katharine assures her, wiping her chin. “I have endured much worse.” She pops a berry into her mouth as her stomach starts to churn, and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She is no little girl who would turn into Natalia’s skirts and weep. She is no weak queen to be thrown down the Breccia Domain. She is outfitted for battle. And after today, she will be the next Queen Crowned.

  Mirabella recovers from the poison faster than anyone dared hope, and the priestesses pray thanks to the Goddess. But it is still not fast enough.

  When she holds her hand out to a candle, she can light it, but she cannot make it flare. Water is a waste of time. She has not dared to test her lightning, and Luca says that she should not, that it would give the Arrons too much satisfaction to see only a rain shower form above the arena.

  “I feel like I failed you,” Billy says, standing behind her. “Now I have failed you both.”

  “You did not fail anyone. Not me. Certainly not Arsinoe.” The sadness in her loved ones’ eyes is hard for Mirabella to take. No one imagined that she could lose the duel before it even started. “Sooner or later, Billy, the poison always finds its target. This was not your fault.”

  The priestess fastening her light dress of black wool begins to weep. Rho cuffs her on the back of the head and steps forward to finish what she started, tugging Mirabella’s bodice tight.

  “Avoid her,” the red-haired priestess whispers. “Use your shield and avoid her as long as you can. Save your gift for one good shot.”

  THE QUEENS’ DUEL

  When the duel begins, everyone in attendance is on their feet, screaming regardless of their affiliation. None of them have ever seen a duel. The air is abuzz with excitement, even stronger than the scent of cinnamon-spiced sweets and roasted meat on sticks.

  Mirabella walks to the center of the arena. Wind blows her hair off her shoulders, and she pretends that it is her wind even as fear drenches her heart like cold water. Before the ball, her greatest fear was that her will would fail when she looked into Katharine’s eyes. How foolish she had been.

  She nods to the Westwoods and to Luca in the gallery. She would raise her arm, but the shining silver shield feels like it weighs more than she does.

  “When I was a child, I asked to play here,” Katharine says as she and Natalia stand at the entrance to the competition ground. “But you would never let me. Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” Natalia replies. “But this is no game, Kat.”

  Katharine taps the throwing knives at her belt and feels the sway of the sword strapped to her back. The crowd roars for Mirabella as she makes her entrance, but that is all right. It is the last time that anyone will ever cheer for her.

  “Poor Mirabella,” Katharine says. “So brash and impulsive. Coming to my city to challenge me. After it is over, they will call her a fool.”

  But that will not be fair. Mirabella did not know who Katharine really was. How could she? Not even Natalia knows that, and Katharine always thought that Natalia knew everything.

  “Go and sit in the gallery,” Katharine says. “I would walk in alone.” Natalia’s mouth tightens, so Katharine softens her voice. “I do not want you to miss it.”

  Natalia touches Katharine’s hair. Her eyes move over every inch: her face, her hands, the laces of her boots, as if she is trying to commit them to memory.

  Katharine almost shrugs her off. She wants to begin. She wants the crowd to roar for her.

  Natalia leaves, and Katharine waits until she sees her ice-blond head in the gallery before walking out with her arms raised.

  The crowd screams. From the oldest woman in the stands to the children watching from window seats in nearby buildings, they all scream. Only the priestesses remain still and silent. But of course they would; they are priestesses.

  The noise fills Katharine with pleasure, but it does not compare to the feeling she gets when she looks at Mirabella. Her pretty, regal sister is glaring at her. Yet underneath the glare is fear so thick that Katharine can almost smell it.

  “That is a very fine shield,” she calls out, and the crowd quiets. “You are going to need it.”

  Across the arena, Mirabella cringes as Katharine unslings her bow and nocks an arrow. She fires it and rolls to dodge any counter of lightning. But none comes. There is only the crowd’s moan when her arrow bounces off the shield. She nocks another and lets it fly, and Mirabella dives clumsily to the ground. Katharine dodges again, anticipating a counterattack. But again there is nothing.

  Something is not right.

  “What is this, Sister?” she shouts. “Is the great elemental afraid to fight?”

  Mirabella peeks out from behind her shield.

  “That would be a strange thing indeed,” she shouts back, though her voice is high and weak, “when it was I who issued the challenge!”

  Suspicious, Katharine advances until she is close enough to see the sweat dotting Mirabella’s forehead and to note the rapid rise and fall of her rib cage, too labored for so early in the fight. Her eyes are the eyes of a cornered dog.

  And it is plain to see that she has been poisoned.

  Katharine turns toward the gallery, where Natalia watches confidently beside the rest of the Black Council.

  “So this is why you were not worried.” It does not matter what she has done in the months since Beltane. To Natalia, she will always be a failure.

  Katharine drops her bow and quiver of arrows into the freshly tilled dirt. She pulls a throwing knife from her belt and takes careful aim. Mirabella cannot cover every inch of herself with that shield.

  With her sister crouched and poison-slowed, it will not be the glorious victory Katharine planned. But the end result will be the same.

  She throws t
he knife.

  It is not until her blade curves unexpectedly to the right that Katharine suspects the fight may yet be interesting.

  Mirabella dodges another knife. The boards creak and dirt settles onto Arsinoe’s head as the crowd above twists in their seats to get a better view.

  “Was that you?” Arsinoe asks Jules. “Or a bad throw?”

  “I don’t know,” Jules replies irritably. “I haven’t done much of this.”

  In the arena, Mirabella rolls and nearly loses her hold on the shield.

  “What is the matter with her?” Joseph asks from over Arsinoe’s shoulder. “Why doesn’t she strike?”

  “I don’t know,” Arsinoe says. But something is wrong. The crowd senses it too, murmuring in confusion every time Mirabella dodges an attack and does not counter.

  “Why won’t she do anything?” Jules growls, using her war gift to push another of Katharine’s knives wide. Her cheeks are red from exertion and her brown hair damp at the roots. “This won’t work if she refuses to kill! Legion cursed or not, I can’t spark fire!”

  “Good Goddess,” Arsinoe whispers as Katharine goes back to her bow. She shoots an arrow and pinions Mirabella’s trailing skirt to the boards of the arena wall. “Mirabella’s been poisoned.”

  Mirabella felt the feather of the poisoned arrow graze her leg when it passed. That is how close it came to being over. The sound of it sinking deep into the wood chilled her to the bone. She thought it was the sound of it burying itself in her thigh.

  She drops her shield to yank at her skirt, trying to rip it loose. But it is stuck fast. The material is too thick to tear through.

  Mirabella panics. She cries out and calls the wind to send Katharine flying halfway across the arena. But nothing more comes than a strong gust. It wobbles Katharine and sends her sideways onto her knee, but it does not even knock her over.

  Katharine laughs and draws the sword from the hilt on her back.

  “This was not the way it was meant to be,” Mirabella says.

  “Poor sister,” says Katharine. “You have heard those priestesses say you were chosen so many times that you actually came to believe it.”

  “Luca!” Mirabella screams. “Bree! Elizabeth!” She stops and takes deep, frightened breaths. “Turn away! Turn away and do not watch.”

  Overhead, the summer sky is cloudless and free of storms. The last she will see as her sister raises the sword. How strange, how humiliating, that this is how the poisoner will kill her, in a way where the poison on the blade does not even matter.

  “Katharine! Get away from her!”

  Mirabella flinches as Katharine is jerked backward, tossed toppling into the dirt. The shout came from the side of the arena opposite, and Mirabella cannot believe her eyes.

  It is Arsinoe. Arsinoe and Juillenne Milone.

  When Arsinoe saw the sword ready to swing down and sever Mirabella’s head, she did not think. She just bolted into the arena, and Jules followed. Jules followed like always, and used her war gift to send Katharine flying.

  The crowd screams at the sight of Arsinoe returned from the dead, and she realizes what she has done.

  Katharine rolls up onto her knee, her lips pulled back in a grimace of disbelief.

  “You!” she yells, and points at the two of them. “You, again!”

  “Yes, me again,” Jules growls. She steps in front of Arsinoe. Joseph and Camden run to Mirabella.

  And then the crowd finds its voice.

  “That is the naturalist!”

  “It cannot be; she is dead!”

  Arsinoe shifts her weight. There is no mistaking her, unmasked before the city. They see her scars, slashed across her cheek.

  “You are dead!” Katharine shrieks. “I killed you!”

  “You should have checked,” Arsinoe yells back. “The poisoned bolt never pierced my leather armor.” The stands rumble with shocked whispers.

  “I saw the blood!” Katharine screeches, and braces when Jules clenches her fists.

  “You saw what we wanted you to see.”

  “Arsinoe?” Mirabella asks. “Arsinoe, you are alive?”

  Arsinoe keeps one eye on Katharine as she walks to her sister. She stretches her hand out, and Mirabella’s fingers wrap around it.

  “But I saw you fall . . . in the forest . . .”

  “I’m a good actress. Born for the stage.” The lie is a gamble; all Katharine need do is ask her to show her back or even to raise her right arm quickly, and her poisoner secret will be out. But Katharine has not dared to make a move, and she will not, for as long as Jules is there.

  “Let me help you.” With Joseph’s help, Arsinoe tears the last of Mirabella’s skirt loose from the arrow to hang ragged at her knees. “I’ve never seen you look so awful,” Arsinoe says, and Mirabella laughs. “And you’re so tall. But you were always the tallest.”

  Mirabella’s eyes soften as Arsinoe’s words sink in. She knows that Arsinoe remembers her.

  “That is because I am the oldest,” Mirabella says, and lifts her chin.

  “By less than five minutes, to hear Willa tell it.”

  Jules whistles from the center of the ring. She motions with her head toward Katharine, then again to the crowd. There is no quick escape. Camden’s ears flicker back and forth, betraying Jules’s fear. Joseph steps up beside Arsinoe.

  “Well?” he asks. “What’s the plan now?”

  “You knew what the plan was,” she says out of the side of her mouth. “The plan didn’t work. Why do you think we had to run out here?”

  “Fantastic.” Joseph sighs.

  “Guards!” Genevieve Arron yells from the gallery, leaning so far over the railing that it looks like she might fall over it. Even from the distance of half the arena, Arsinoe can see how white her knuckles are.

  “Take the fugitive queen and the naturalists to the cells!”

  Arsinoe, Jules, Joseph, and Mirabella form a tight circle as the Volroy guards flood into the arena. Even with Jules and Camden, they cannot fight their way out. And they cannot run, except perhaps to go up and over the stands, and Mirabella could never manage it, still so weak.

  “Arsinoe,” Mirabella says. “You could have gotten away. You should not have tried to save me.”

  “I don’t think there was ever any saving us,” Arsinoe replies grimly. “I just didn’t want to be what they thought I was.”

  “Stop!” Katharine waves her arms at the guards and the Council. “This is not over! I can still kill them! I can kill them both if you will remove that”—she points at Jules and sputters with rage—“that cursed naturalist girl!”

  “Don’t you touch her!” Joseph and Arsinoe bark together.

  “This is over!” Arsinoe shouts up to the gallery. “She can’t kill me, no matter what she thinks. And I refuse to kill anyone.”

  “Nor will I,” adds Mirabella, and the High Priestess, on her feet beside Natalia Arron, closes her eyes. Luca inclines her head as Natalia murmurs to her and nods. Then Natalia whispers to the Council. At once, guards and priestesses run into the arena, separating Arsinoe and Mirabella from Katharine. Jules punches the first in the eye and knocks back another three.

  “Don’t fight,” Arsinoe says. “It’s over, Jules. But I will find a way to get you out of this.”

  “What about you?” Jules asks as the guards place nervous hands on her. She glares at them and jerks back and forth, not hard enough to free herself but hard enough that they know she could. “Arsinoe, what about you?”

  Arsinoe stares after her as Jules is taken away with Joseph and Camden. But she has no answer.

  THE VOLROY

  The guards take them to the Volroy, as Arsinoe expected. But instead of hauling them into the Council chamber to be thrown at the feet of Natalia Arron and High Priestess Luca, they are brought quickly and quietly underground and put into the cells deep beneath the castle.

  “You can’t leave us here,” Arsinoe argues as the door closes. “We would speak to the Coun
cil! Mirabella, call for priestesses!” She turns, but Mirabella lowers herself quietly onto one of the wooden benches. They have locked them up together at least, and in one of the nicer cells, with four walls and a door with a barred window, and plenty of straw on the floor.

  Shouts and scuffling ring out in the corridor, and Arsinoe looks and sees Jules and Joseph being dragged past. Jules slams her escort hard against the stones when Camden yowls. They have the poor cougar choked between two long poles, attached to ropes around her neck.

  “Let the cat go,” Arsinoe says, “and you’ll have an easier time of it.”

  They frown but release their poles. Arsinoe’s throat burns with anger watching poor Camden scramble fearfully behind Jules’s legs.

  “It’ll be all right, Jules,” she calls. “Joseph, take care! We won’t be down here long!” There is no reply. Just the sound of their scraping shoes growing fainter and fainter.

  “We are a curse on the ones we love,” Mirabella says.

  “Yes. But what were we supposed to do? Die like we were told?” Arsinoe turns away from the door and sits down on the bench beside her sister. “How do you feel?”

  “Poisoned. But I suppose you know what that is like.”

  “Actually . . . ,” Arsinoe starts, but stops when she hears Billy’s voice.

  “Let me pass,” he barks. “She’s my betrothed. I will see her!”

  “Is he talking about you?” asks Arsinoe.

  Mirabella chuckles. “No, you fool. Of course not.”

  Arsinoe rushes to the cell door and slaps her palms against the wood, her face to the bars.

  “Stand aside,” she orders the guards, and is surprised when they do. It seems that in the Volroy queens are queens, even fugitive ones.

  “Arsinoe!”

  Billy runs to her. His fingers twist around the bars, and he shakes the door. He kicks at it.

  “Damn these bars!”

  “Never mind them.” Arsinoe puts her hands over his, and he stares at them like he cannot believe the touch is real.