One Dark Throne
Page 31
Jules wanders across the deck. “Will you have a funeral for him?” she asks. “Billy, will you?”
“Of . . . of course we will,” he says.
“Jules?” Arsinoe asks. “What are you doing?”
Jules is faced back toward the mist that shrouds the ghost of the island.
“All that sailing,” she whispers. “Yet it’s still not far. I won’t even need to row long to reach a port.”
“Jules!” Arsinoe scrambles up. She goes to her and takes her by the arm. “What are you talking about? You are not going back.”
Jules shakes her off, and Arsinoe’s mouth drops open.
“I can’t go,” Jules says. “You know I can’t. I belong in one place, and that’s there.” She nods to the island. But she cannot really want to return. She must just be afraid. And sad. But they are all sad.
Jules reaches out and looses one of the small whaling boats from the starboard side.
“No.” Arsinoe slaps her hands. “I’m sorry about Joseph. I know you loved him. I loved him, too! But you can’t go!”
“You don’t need me anymore,” Jules says, and actually smiles. “You’ve fought, and you’ve won.”
“We have won. Don’t you see?” Arsinoe turns around and points to the mainland.
“There’s everything, right there! There’s freedom, and choices, and a life spent together! No one to tell us we weren’t meant to be. No crown. No Council. No killing. We get to decide who we are now, outside of all that.”
The boat rocks gently, and the mainland shines green under summer sun. There is no mist. No one waiting to kill her or tell her to kill.
The whaling boat splashes into the water. Jules and Camden are already inside it.
“Wait,” Arsinoe says. She reaches for the rigging, but Jules casts off. “Wait, I said!”
They look up at her sadly.
“I don’t want to go without you,” Arsinoe whispers.
“I know. But you have to.”
The moment Jules’s oars touch the water, the island’s mist creeps out. It swirls around the boat greedily with something that almost seems like relief. Like affection. As if it was Jules, truly, who the island was trying to keep.
“Look after them for me,” Jules calls to Billy and Mirabella.
“Jules, get back on this ship!” Arsinoe takes a deep breath, about to jump over the rail, but Billy grabs her by the shoulders. He pulls her to his chest, and she shouts and struggles, watching Jules grow smaller until the mist thickens and Arsinoe can no longer see her face.
“It will be all right,” Billy says. He squeezes her, hard. Mirabella comes closer and takes her hand.
“It will be,” Arsinoe whispers as tears drip from her chin.
She turns her head to look into the sun, toward an unknown country. An unknown future. Anything could await them there, and the possibilities cloud her mind. She does not remember what it was like not to live in fear or in resentment, of being killed or of having to. She hears Jules’s voice calling to her across the water.
“I love you, Arsinoe.”
“Jules, come back!” She turns around. “It’ll be different, you’ll see!”
But when she looks, Jules and the island are gone. The mist of Fennbirn has disappeared, and where it was only moments ago there is only the sea, clear and sparkling.
The queens of Fennbirn will return.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
You would think that the more of these you write the easier it would become, like eventually it would just be a laundry list of thank you, thank you, check, check. Alas, it isn’t, because with each new one, the folks you have to thank have done so much more even than they did the last time and any acknowledgment feels inadequate. This whole page should have jazz hands all over it is what I’m saying.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Alexandra Cooper, for cracking the pacing whip and the detail whip and the art of subtlety whip (which is a hard whip to wield), and all the other myriad whips you seem to own to get this book into shape. Thank you to my agent, Adriann Ranta-Zurhellen, who is, I’ll just say it, the best agent who has ever agented or will ever agent on this or any other planet. Thanks to Olivia Russo for wrangling publicity with such a deft and organized hand.
Thanks to the entire team at HarperTeen: Jon Howard, Aurora Parlagreco, Erin Fitzsimmons, Alyssa Miele, Bess Braswell, and Audrey Diestelkamp. I know I’m missing people here and it pains me. Thanks to Robin Roy, whose name I see in copyediting comment bubbles.
Thanks to Morgan Rath and Crystal Patriarche at BookSparks, for being amazing to work with and also for the fried chicken.
Thanks to Allison Devereux and Kirsten Wolf at Wolf Literary.
Thanks to my mom, who is pleased with anything I write; to my dad, who actually hasn’t started reading this series yet; and to my brother, Ryan, who *gasp* actually has. Thanks to Susan Murray for being excited about every new thing I tell her about the queens. Thanks to the wonderful novelist April Genevieve Tucholke for support and wise counsel through the art of tarot.
And to Dylan Zoerb, for luck.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Shawn H. Nichols Photography
KENDARE BLAKE holds an MA in creative writing from Middlesex University in northern London. She is the author of Anna Dressed in Blood, a Cybils Awards finalist; Girl of Nightmares; Antigoddess; Mortal Gods; Ungodly; and the New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns. Her books have been translated into eighteen languages, have been featured on multiple best-of-year lists, and have received many regional and librarian awards. Kendare lives and writes in Kent, Washington. Visit her online at www.kendareblake.com.
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BOOKS BY KENDARE BLAKE
Three Dark Crowns
One Dark Throne
Anna Dressed in Blood
Girl of Nightmares
Antigoddess
Mortal Gods
Ungodly
CREDITS
Cover art by JOHN DISMUKES
Cover design by AURORA PARLAGRECO
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
ONE DARK THRONE. Text copyright © 2017 by Kendare Blake. Map of Fennbirn by Virginia Allyn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943441
ISBN 978-0-06-238546-8 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-269045-6 (int.)
ISBN 978-0-06-269935-0 (special edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-269730-1 (special edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-274764-8 (special edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-279729-2 (special edition)
EPub Edition © August 2017 ISBN 9780062385482
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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