One Dark Throne

by Kendare Blake

  The barge nudges silently up against the nearest dock, disturbing nothing but a couple of roosting gulls.

  “Slowly, slowly,” Madrigal says as she helps Mirabella off the barge. “These docks are unfamiliar, and the moon gives us only so much light.”

  Billy helps Arsinoe and Jules to lift Joseph, and grimaces at all the blood. Arsinoe flashes a bracing smile.

  “It’ll be all right,” she says.

  “I hope so. You queens do have a way of working things out. All right, Joseph. Don’t dawdle. You weigh more than your slender frame would suggest.” He takes Joseph off their hands and aids him as he limps down the dock.

  “Are you ready, Jules?” Arsinoe asks. But Jules turns back to Madrigal, and to Emilia and the warriors.

  “I’m right behind you,” she says.

  Jules watches her friends creep along the docks. In the thick morning mist, they look like magic, like fairies, stealing in and out of view.

  “You won’t really go, will you, Jules?” Madrigal asks. Her hand is on her belly; she is always so worried about her unborn baby. Jules reaches out and touches her mother’s stomach.

  “Try to make peace with Aunt Caragh. She’s your sister. And a midwife now. She can help you with this.”

  “Peace. There may be no peace, but I will have this baby at the Black Cottage, if you will go there with me,” Madrigal says, but Jules does not reply. It will be better if she leaves. Better for Wolf Spring. Without her, the Black Council might decide to leave well enough alone. Goddess knows, they will have enough to deal with, after this debacle of an Ascension.

  “You should stay with us,” Emilia says fiercely. “Let the queens and the mainlanders go.”

  “I am her guardian.” Jules’s eyes follow Arsinoe through the harbor. “And I will remain her guardian. Until the end.”

  “This is where it ends,” says Emilia. “Though not for you. I sense a great destiny for you, Juillenne Milone.” She offers her hand, steady as stone. The warriors came to her aid for no other reason than she was one of theirs. They would take her, and even Camden. And Jules would very much like to see the halls of Bastian City.

  “Looking after her will be a great destiny.”

  On the docks, Arsinoe leads Mirabella by the hand. The affection between them is easy and natural, and it makes Jules’s chest ache. Her place beside Arsinoe is less now that Mirabella is there. She does not need Jules like she used to.

  “I can’t let her go alone,” Jules says. “There are still battles to fight.” She turns to face the warriors and her mother. “And I can’t let Joseph go either.”

  Emilia’s eyes flash. But she holds her tongue, and Jules and Camden step off the barge. It rocks as their weight leaves it.

  “When your battle is over,” Emilia says, “we will be here. Until then, be well. Take care of your queen.” She smiles down at Camden in the moonlight. “And your cat.”

  Emilia pushes off, and the barge slides quietly through the water, returning to rejoin the rest of the warriors. Madrigal paces along the edge, but there is no danger of her jumping. She presses a kiss to her palm and raises it in a wave. Perhaps she is crying, but if she is, through the fog, Jules cannot see it.

  Mirabella waits nervously as Billy and Arsinoe loose their ship from its moorings. There is a sadness in her and an uneasiness, but underneath she hums with excitement. Preparing to face the open waves, and the mists, and the Goddess who would see them dead; it is like Luca told her that day. It is clear, and she is right where she belongs.

  “Are you sure it’s not too big for you?” Joseph asks doubtfully. She has Joseph’s arm slung across her shoulders.

  “They have not crafted a ship that is too big for me.”

  Footfalls and paw steps sound across the dock, and Jules slides in under Joseph’s other arm. “Let me help,” she says, and she and Mirabella take him across the gangplank. They ease him down beside the portside rail on the main deck.

  “Can you secure him?” Mirabella asks.

  “Can you break us through the mist?” Jules asks back, and begins to lash him down with ropes. Mirabella pushes the wind, and the current, and the boat rocks forward. Jules nearly loses her footing and looks up at her sourly. But then she smiles.

  Billy and Arsinoe ready the sails, and Mirabella goes to the foredeck. She looks back at the shore, at the island. Even had she won the crown and ruled, she would have left the island eventually. But she never thought it would be like this. A fugitive queen and without even saying good-bye to her dearest Bree and Elizabeth.

  “Are you ready?” Arsinoe asks, a bit breathless from tugging ropes. Billy is at the helm, to help her steer. But he will not need to help much.

  “The people we leave behind,” says Mirabella. “They will take care of one another?”

  “I hope so,” Arsinoe replies. “I think so.”

  Mirabella turns to face the gray morning sea.

  “Then yes. I am ready.”

  THE VOLROY

  High in the West Tower, Katharine and Pietyr await news of the escaped queens. The High Priestess is there as well, and the Black Council, not to mention a gaggle of priestesses and Sara Westwood. They would have admitted Cait or Madrigal Milone too, had either of them bothered to come to the city for the duel.

  “Where is your king-consort?” High Priestess Luca asks, and Genevieve’s eyes dart around wildly. Pietyr is going to have to glue her eyes shut to keep from giving them away.

  “At Greavesdrake, High Priestess,” Katharine replies. “Resting.”

  They are surprisingly sedate, this group. Waiting calmly and with something that looks like patience. But it is not truly patience. It is shock. Their fugitive queens have broken out of their cells, and every person in the room feels the space where Natalia Arron should be.

  “This should never have happened,” Antonin says, seated at a dark, oval table with his head in his hands. “Two poisoner queens in the same cycle. Queen Arsinoe should have come to us. She should have been ours to raise.”

  “Along with you, Queen Katharine,” Genevieve says quickly, and Antonin looks up.

  “Of course along with her.”

  Katharine smiles through closed lips. Of course. But Arsinoe seems to have been the stronger poisoner. Had they been raised together, Katharine would have lived only until Mirabella was killed. Then she would have found herself at the sharp end of a knife. Possibly held by an Arron.

  Katharine turns toward the door. A messenger is arriving, and the gathered people rise from their chairs.

  “What news of Mirabella?” Luca asks sharply. “What news of the queens?”

  “We were too late,” the boy says, breathless. “They escaped on a ship.”

  “And you did not give chase?” Pietyr snaps, but the poor messenger looks at the ground.

  “There would have been little point with Mirabella at the helm,” Luca answers for him. “With her wind and her currents, no one was going to catch them.”

  “A gift as strong as hers, she might have sunk them for trying,” Sara adds, and Katharine narrows her eyes.

  “What direction did they sail?” Luca asks.

  Katharine drifts through the room, to the eastward-facing windows. From there, she can see clear past the port and on to the sea. But there is no tiny ship fleeing up the coast to Rolanth. There is no tiny ship anywhere that she can see.

  “They sailed straight out, High Priestess,” the boy says. “Straight out and away to the east.”

  “They must be found,” Pietyr says. “Stopped.” When no one hurries to move, he turns on them angrily. “It was you who decreed their fates! Will none of you now enforce the decree?”

  Katharine places her hands atop the cold, stone sill of the window. On her forehead, her scabbed crown has been wiped and made clean, once again a fine, black band. She stares into the distance and feels the muttering of the dead queens deep in her bones. She has done what they wanted. Become what they intended.

  Acros
s her city, the dawn grows bright. It shines off the black buildings and cobblestone streets, hueing them orange and pink. Katharine looks past the island and over the shimmering water. In the distance, the sky has remained dark. Storm clouds are gathering, and when she listens closely, she hears lightning crackling softly over faraway water.

  “Do not worry, Pietyr,” Katharine says, and their bickering stops. She turns and smiles a queen’s smile, with a queen’s confidence. Then she looks back at the sea and the confrontation that is about to take place there.

  “Neither of my sisters will be returning to the island. The crown and the throne are mine.”

  THE SEA

  Arsinoe steps up to the railing and watches the shore move farther and farther away. If they manage to pass through the net of mist, they will watch the whole island grow smaller, until it is only a shape, and then a dot, and then gone.

  Something furry brushes her shoulder. Camden, paws on the rail beside her, growling down at the waves. Arsinoe ruffles the big cat’s scruff and pulls her down to take her back to Jules.

  Joseph smiles up at her from Jules’s arms. “Here we are again,” he says. “The three of us, in a boat.”

  Arsinoe tries to laugh. But he is so pale. The makeshift bandages are soaked through with blood.

  “We should put Cam below,” she says to Jules. “Somewhere soft, or in a crate, before the journey turns rough.”

  “Will you put her there for me?” Jules asks. She will not leave Joseph. Not until they find a healer on the mainland.

  Arsinoe takes the cougar below to find a space for her.

  “Put her in a cabin,” Billy says, following her down. “That will be the safest spot.”

  They find the best one together, and Arsinoe kisses Camden’s head before shutting her inside.

  “How soon can we get to the mainland?”

  “I think that depends on Mirabella, doesn’t it? And the mist? I mean, I don’t like to think about what happened the last time—”

  Before he can say anything foolish, Arsinoe throws her arms around him and kisses him. He is surprised, and stiff, but it is better this time, without a mouthful of poison. She leans into his chest, and he holds her tightly. It is better than a great number of things.

  “We’d better get back up,” she says after she lets him go.

  “Right. Back up,” he mumbles, and follows her up the stairs.

  They have left Bardon Harbor behind. The guards from the wakened city were too late, and their horses’ hooves skidded to a stop on the shore. No one bothered to unmoor a ship to give chase, knowing that they could not catch up to Mirabella. And now, the dawn spills across the water in a thousand yellow sparkles, and the sea is calm.

  Perhaps they have truly been let go and the mist will part like a drawn-back curtain.

  The winds ruffle their collars at first and whip a little hair into their eyes. For as long as the skies remain clear they pretend it is only wind. A good sailing wind, to help them along. When the first of the mist slithers across the waves they try to pretend it is only fog, or froth. But soon enough the mist is a wall, and the storm is a gale. It is the Goddess, bearing down.

  “Do you think she still wants to keep us?” Arsinoe shouts as she stands beside Mirabella on the foredeck.

  Mirabella keeps her arms thrust down at her sides as she concentrates. “Perhaps it is one last test.”

  No one says that they should turn back. But every one of them is afraid. The net of mist lies heavily atop the water, white and so very thick.

  “Do not fear it!” Mirabella shouts.

  “Easy for you to say! You don’t know what it’s like to try to pass through! How it chokes you and turns you around!”

  Mirabella takes Arsinoe by the hand. “Are you ready, Sister?” she asks.

  “I am. We go through! Or we sink!”

  Mirabella pushes wind into the sails so hard that the entire ship jumps forward like a horse breaking its harness. The storm is as fine a storm as Mirabella has ever seen. She would be in love with it were it not trying to stand in their way.

  “Go back with them,” she says to Arsinoe.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Go back with them and hold tight to something.” She looks at her little sister’s terrified face as seawater slams over the rail. She smiles. “Hold tight to Billy, perhaps.”

  Arsinoe’s eyes shift away from the storm and she manages a laugh.

  “If you say so.”

  Mirabella watches her go. Jules has her arms wrapped around Joseph and gripping tight to ropes, soaked and miserable-looking already. Arsinoe joins Billy at the helm, and they cling to the wheel as the ship rises and falls.

  Mirabella turns back to the storm. The electricity in the air hums in her elemental veins. The dawn is gone. All is dark. The waves raise them up only to send them crashing back down, and the first of the lightning crackles across the sky.

  The net of mist swallows the boat to curl around the port side in thick, white fingers. Mirabella sends them surging ahead; she uses the wind to push the mist away. She calls more rain, more lightning to dance with the storm of the island.

  If the Goddess truly wanted to keep her, then she should not have chosen a storm as the means to try.

  Beneath the warring storms, it is dark as midnight. Only lightning illuminates their way, and it is terrifying: near constant. Arsinoe has never seen lightning strike lightning before, and after this is over, she has no care to again.

  Together, she and Billy fight to keep the wheel steady, half steering and half holding on to keep from being washed overboard. Joseph and Jules huddle together near the railing, arms wrapped around ropes. Mirabella stands alone on the foredeck, using one storm to fight the other.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can do this,” Billy shouts between the thunder. “I don’t know how much longer she can!”

  Arsinoe’s teeth chatter in the wet and the wind, her jaw clacking too hard to reply.

  They crest a wave and slam down. She bites her lip and tastes warm salt, but cannot tell whether it is blood or the sea. A wave tilts the deck hard to starboard, and for one frozen moment, it seems they will not come back upright. But they do. She barely has time to sigh with relief before another wave hits, with so much force it feels like being slammed into a wall.

  “Are you all right?” Billy shouts, and she nods, coughing. There is so much water and cold. She wipes salt from her eyes. Mirabella is still upright amid everything, and Arsinoe smiles. She does not know how anyone ever expected that she or Katharine could stand against that.

  Jules grabs Joseph by the arm and hauls him to her chest as the waves batter them against the railing. “Joseph, hold on to me! Hold on to me, and don’t let go!”

  “I will never,” he says, his voice soft and clear so close to her neck. His breathing is shallow, and he no longer shivers. She draws back to look into his eyes. There is too much seawater for tears.

  “What will we do,” she asks gently, “when we reach the mainland?”

  “Anything we want.” His eyes drift shut. “There is a great school there, and bells that ring like music. . . . We can learn anything we like.”

  “Anything,” she says. “And everything. And we will be together.”

  “We will be. Just like I planned.” He smiles that Joseph smile, and Jules kisses him and kisses him, even after she no longer feels him kissing back.

  The storm pitches them back and forth in the mist, but Mirabella clings to the rail like a barnacle, even though she is panting, and the strength is leaving her legs.

  The mist still holds them like a net.

  “I’ve got you, Sister,” Arsinoe says. “I’ll help you.”

  Mirabella blinks. Somehow Arsinoe fought her way across the deck. Somehow she is standing and pulling Mirabella back onto her feet. She slips her fingers into Mirabella’s hand and squeezes.

  “I’m no elemental,” Arsinoe says. “But I am still a queen.”

&n
bsp; Mirabella laughs. She screams. And they face down the storm one more time as wind pushes the sails taut and the waves strike hard enough to tear at their clothes.

  Perhaps if Katharine were there and they were three together it would have all gone easier. But as it is, they are only two, and the Goddess takes that much more convincing.

  When the storm dies, it dies so quickly that Mirabella’s storm continues to rage for long moments before she realizes. She trembles, and Arsinoe catches her when she seems about to fall.

  Around them, the white mist swirls and parts, revealing sunlight on the water, and in the distance, the dark shape of land.

  “That’s it!” Billy shouts. “That’s home. I’d know it anywhere!”

  Home. His home. Arsinoe throws her arms around Mirabella, and they huddle on the foredeck, so tired that their laughter sounds nearly like tears.

  “I was afraid it was the island,” Arsinoe says. “Like it was on Beltane. But we made it! Jules! Jules, look!”

  Jules is seated beside the rail with Joseph pulled across her lap. He is not moving.

  Billy leaps down from the helm and rushes below to let Camden up; they can hear the poor cat butting against the door. In moments, she leaps onto the deck, lashing her tail angrily, and bounds to Jules. But when she sniffs at Joseph, she lets out a long, low moan.

  “No.” Arsinoe runs to them. “No!”

  She kneels and touches his cold face.

  Billy turns away and curses. He grips the rail and shouts at no one.

  “But we’re here,” Arsinoe says. “We made it!”

  Jules grasps her, and they hold each other tight.

  Mirabella approaches quietly, her ragged, torn skirt rustling and soaked with salt water.

  “Oh, Joseph,” she whispers, and begins to weep.

  “I’m sorry,” Arsinoe says as Jules struggles up from underneath them. Joseph’s face is peaceful. But he cannot really be gone. Not their Joseph.