Two Dark Reigns

by Kendare Blake

  Jules turns from Mirabella, who has risen to her feet, to Arsinoe, and Arsinoe looks between Jules and her sister.

  This is not why they came back. But how can she turn Jules away when she needs them so badly?

  “Please? Please, Arsinoe? Mirabella? Delay your trip to the mountain until we return. Until my mother is safe.” She grasps Arsinoe by the shoulders and squeezes.

  “All right, Jules,” Arsinoe says. “We’ll go with you.”

  That night, the room that Arsinoe shares with Mirabella and Billy is quiet as the three of them prepare for bed.

  “Mirabella, did you get something to eat?” Arsinoe asks to break through the quiet.

  “Some cheese and bread.”

  “Did you need something more? I can see if there’s any stew—”

  “No.”

  Arsinoe stares at her sister as Mirabella folds back the blankets on her makeshift cot. Her shoulders are straight and stiff, her movements brusque.

  “Mira, are you angry with me?”

  “Why would I be angry with you?” Mirabella asks, and finally turns. “You have only promised our involvement in a war.”

  “You don’t want to fight? You won’t help?”

  “Of course I will help. You volunteered me.” And then she goes back to her blankets, slapping down the flat pillow with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Arsinoe stammers. “I thought it’s what you would want to do. I thought it was the right thing.”

  “I thought the right thing was going to the mountain,” Billy says, sliding out of his jacket. “I thought we weren’t going to get involved.”

  “You’re mad at me, too?”

  “You spoke for all of us, Arsinoe,” Mirabella says. “You decided, without discussion.”

  “Billy, you don’t have to go,” Arsinoe starts, and instantly realizes it is the wrong thing to say. She has never seen him look at her like that. Like she has hurt him and does not understand him at all.

  “I can tell Jules that you’ve changed your minds,” she whispers.

  “We’re going.” Billy sits down on his blankets to remove his shoes and stacks them loudly beside the wall. “We just aren’t speaking to you until it’s over.”

  “Fine.” Arsinoe shrugs. “Then I’ll leave you alone. I’ll go sleep with Jules.”

  “Good,” Mirabella says as she gets into bed. “Go and discuss your battle plans.”

  INDRID DOWN

  Rho has assembled the soldiers in the inner ward of the Volroy grounds so that Katharine may survey them before riding out. Every one appears focused, straight backed, and clean of dress. The spears and shields held at rest are perfectly aligned. The only irregularities are the horses moving within the mounted cavalry: a swish of a tail or a stomping foot. They are, for all appearances, a true army.

  “Kat? Are you ready?”

  She turns and finds Pietyr, looking so handsome in a queensguard commander’s uniform that she would like to delay the march for a few minutes and tear him right out of it.

  “Nearly,” she says. “I have sent one of my maids back into my room for something.”

  “Genevieve is still pouting about being left behind,” Pietyr mutters. “Expect to hear about it before we depart.” He leans down and kisses the curve of her neck. “What is your maid fetching you?”

  “A keepsake,” Katharine says, and smiles as the maid appears, carrying a small black lacquered box that usually sits beside Sweetheart’s cage. When the maid reaches them, Katharine opens it and takes out the only thing she keeps inside: Arsinoe’s mask.

  “I stripped it from her after I shot her during the Queens’ Hunt.” She runs her fingers down the cheek, so smooth and cold to the touch and painted so fiercely with red slashes. “Do you think it will fit?”

  “I think if you wear it,” Pietyr says, “you will drive the naturalist to do something foolish.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” She slips it into the sleeve of her cloak. “But I will bring it anyway. For luck.”

  Genevieve brings Katharine’s black stallion and holds him while she mounts. He is outfitted handsomely in silver armor, his reins strung with the poisoner flags. Rho rides up beside her, and Katharine holds her horse firm as he dances in place.

  “How many are here?”

  “Five hundred,” Rho replies. “One hundred horsed. Another thousand are garrisoned in Prynn and ready to march should something go wrong. But I do not think we will need them.”

  “Good. Where is Madrigal Milone?”

  “They are bringing her up now. I’ll see to it.” Rho rides away, and Genevieve looks up from checking Katharine’s stirrups and cinch.

  “If my sister were here, I would ride beside her. Since she is not, I should ride beside you. It is what she would want.”

  “What she would want is for you to do what you do best. Stay. Be my eyes and my ears here. Pietyr and Antonin will look after the Arron interests in the field.”

  “Pietyr and Antonin,” Genevieve mutters. “There should be an Arron woman at the head of your armies. Instead, you choose a priestess.”

  “If Natalia were here, she would have chosen Margaret Beaulin. She was no fool; she knew how to put the war gift to use.”

  Genevieve lifts her chin toward the other council members on horseback: Pietyr and Antonin, waiting on thick, black chargers, and Bree Westwood, on a light brown mare.

  “Why her, then?”

  “The priestess who sends my messages will be more comfortable if she is there.” She looks through the ranks for Elizabeth in her white-and-black robe but does not see her. Perhaps she will join them as they ride.

  “But . . . Bree Westwood!”

  Katharine groans.

  “Perhaps I am bringing Bree Westwood in the hopes that she will die.” She presses a heel to her horse’s side to move him off. Though she is no longer poisoning Katharine to the brink of a scream, Genevieve can still put a strain on a perfectly good day.

  Katharine turns her horse in a slow circle, watching his breath puff in a small cloud as they pass the waiting soldiers. Innisfuil Valley will be frozen and covered in snow. A clean, white field for her army to tromp through. In her veins, the dead queens call for blood; they show it to her in vulgar images of snow stained red. Cold mud and flesh churned into each other.

  “Quiet, quiet,” she murmurs, and flexes her fists, wondering what she would find if she looked inside her gloves. Live, pale fingers? Or black, rotten ones?

  She catches Pietyr’s eye and he smiles at her just as Rho returns, half dragging and half escorting their prisoner.

  “Bind her hands and put her on a horse. A sweet palfrey, who will not be easily startled.”

  “What of the bird?” Rho holds up a burlap sack. It beats like a heart as the crow inside flaps nervous wings. “I could put it in a cage. Leave it here. She will not die without it.”

  “How can you trade me without my familiar?” Madrigal asks, and jerks out of Rho’s grasp. She is filthy from the cells, but still her loveliness shines through. Even past her resentful, miserable scowl. Katharine has always thought of naturalists as a rugged sort, suited for working with their hands and bathing every other week. But this one is not like that. This one has been pampered.

  “Or maybe you don’t really mean to trade me?”

  Katharine takes a deep breath.

  “Keep your crow in line. If I allow her to come and she tries to fly, I will put a bolt in her chest myself. Do you understand?”

  Madrigal nods. Rho reaches into the sack and pulls the crow out flapping. Once released, she dives directly for Madrigal’s arms and stays there.

  “Tether them together,” Katharine orders. “Give it just enough room to hop from hand to shoulder.”

  “You’ll never get my Jules,” Madrigal says after she has been put onto her horse. “If you truly hoped to, you should have kidnapped someone else. My daughter doesn’t even like me. She is not even going to show up.”

  SU
NPOOL

  “You’ve chosen the warriors who are going with you?”

  “Yes. Well, Emilia did.”

  Arsinoe and Jules sit together before the hearth, watching the fire crackle and burn.

  “It’s been a bit of a wonder—” Arsinoe tears into a chunk of bread and drags it through the stew broth left from her dinner. When she had shown up at Jules’s door after being ousted (or ousting herself) from the room she shared with Billy and Mirabella, Jules had immediately called for more food. “Watching Emilia these last days. She’s . . . hard not to listen to.”

  “She does know how to give orders.” The corner of Jules’s mouth crooks upward. “You don’t like her.”

  “I don’t trust her,” Arsinoe corrects. “But she cares about you.”

  Jules bends and spoons up the last of the stew to drop onto Arsinoe’s plate.

  “Sorry there’s not much. And sorry there’s no poison in it.”

  “Hmph. I’m not enough of a poisoner to miss it. Though you’re right about the quantity.” The loaf of bread was small, and she could have only a plate and a half of the stew, but it is good. Rich and full of root vegetables and meat.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” Jules says.

  “Don’t thank me,” Arsinoe replies. “Thank Mirabella, and Billy. Me, you never even had to ask.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Jules says, and Arsinoe feels Camden’s tail wrap affectionately around her ankle.

  “I always knew I’d see you.” Arsinoe sips from a cup of warmed watered wine. “Somehow, I knew.”

  Jules smiles and takes up her own cup. They knock them together and drink awhile, watching the fire.

  “So what do you think you’ll find up the mountain?”

  “I’ve no idea. I’m just going to learn what I can.” She glances at Jules from the corner of her eye. “You’re not afraid, about tomorrow? Or worried, about any of this?”

  “The only thing I’m afraid of,” Jules says, “the only thing I regret, is that I can’t do this alone. That others have to risk themselves with me.”

  Arsinoe sighs. “More has changed than just your hair,” she jokes, and Jules laughs and punches her.

  “This quest you’re going on,” Jules says, “it isn’t dangerous, is it?”

  “Oh, don’t start that again. You’re the Legion Queen now. It’s not your job to look out for me, not that it ever was. But I sure did appreciate it.”

  She sets her plate on the floor for Camden to lick and heaves up out of the chair.

  “Where are you going?” Jules asks.

  “Big day tomorrow. Don’t you think we ought to get some sleep?”

  “I suppose so. Though someday I’d like to hear more. About what it’s like on the mainland.”

  Arsinoe smiles. “Someday I’ll tell you.”

  That night, Arsinoe dreams a Blue Queen dream for the first time since deciding to return to the island. But is not like the other dreams.

  This dream is of the mist. And of the bodies inside it. Torn apart. Choked. Rotting. This dream is a blanket of white closing in around her friends, around Jules and Camden, and Billy and Mirabella, blotting out the island and carving up everything it touches.

  It ends with the shadow queen crouched on her chest, her long cold fingers pressed against Arsinoe’s head. She does not speak. She still cannot. But Arsinoe knows what she means.

  INNISFUIL VALLEY

  The queen’s army sets up camp on the eastern side of the valley, spreading tents and horses and soldiers like black ants across the snow-dusted field and all the way through the cliffs to the frozen beach. Antonin and Rho send scouts up the cliffside. Nothing that moves through the valley will escape their attention, and no crafty rebel force can creep up on them from behind.

  “There has never been a war like this,” Pietyr says, staring out at the soldiers, some of whom seem no more than girls still in their freckles. “A rebel against a queen. It has been a long time since we have seen war of any kind. So who knows what to expect?”

  “This is not a war, Pietyr,” says Katharine. “This is a trade. It will not come to fighting.”

  “You seem very certain.” He brushes his knuckles across her cheekbone. “Are you all right here, Kat? So close to the Breccia Domain?”

  Her mouth crooks. “I wondered about that. That deep, dark place.” Her eyes flicker toward the southern woods. “I can feel it opening and closing like a mouth. And they feel it, too.” His hand slides into hers. He feels the cold of her even through the gloves. “Part of them is still down there, Pietyr. Part of them always will be.”

  “Do you want to go to it?”

  “Never. I will never return to it again. I could never be sure . . . whether I would be able to stand or if I would dive straight down inside.”

  She sighs, and he feels her press close, his wicked little Kat whom he cannot get enough of.

  “Come,” she says, her breath hot in his ear. “Close the tent flap and lie with me awhile. No one will notice we are gone. No one will interrupt us once they hear the sounds that I am making.”

  “I cannot, my pet.” He steps out of her reaching embrace, though he would much rather fall into it. He must be careful, so close to carrying out his plans. With Katharine wrapped around him, he forgets how to think, and the last time they were together, he devoured her so desperately, he was sure he had given away his fears. “Rho will bellow if I do not help with the soldiers.”

  He takes her gloved hand and turns it over to kiss the bare skin of her wrist, to feel her pulse against his lips. She says she is fine so near the Breccia, but she is not. With the source of them close by, they have changed her; he can feel their influence turning her sharp, like she was during the Ascension when they sought the crown. The closer they marched to Innisfuil, the more she barked at the soldiers. The more poison she ate at meals. The more she hunted with her horse and crossbow. He saw her shoot down a hawk in flight with perfect war-gift aim. He watched her skin a rabbit like removing a glove, and lick the blood from her fingers.

  He backs out of the tent, leaving Katharine to rest or pout, and turns and runs directly into the High Priestess.

  “Luca! Forgive me.”

  “It is all right. I am nothing if not sturdy. Is the queen inside?”

  “Yes,” he says, and steps out of the way. But Luca seems to change her mind.

  “Walk with me a moment, will you, Pietyr?”

  As she leads him through the encampment she pauses every few steps to lay a blessing on the head of this person or that, soldiers who touch her robes as they pass or simply drop to one knee.

  “What is wrong, Master Arron? You have seen these blessings before.”

  “Of course. They just . . . remind me of who you are. I suppose in our close quarters on the Black Council, you have become less the High Priestess and more Luca to me.”

  “I have lost my mystique.” Luca laughs. “Well. In the capital, none of these soldiers would do more than step out of my way. But all regain their faith in the face of a coming battle.”

  “Queen Katharine is still sure it will not be a fight.”

  “And I hope she is correct.”

  “But you do not think she is.”

  Luca bites her lower lip and tilts her head thoughtfully. “I think this rebellion has come too far to end without a battle.” She folds her hands. “Did you ever discover a solution for the problem we discussed? The problem of spiritual possession?”

  “It was not a problem. Only a curiosity.”

  “Ah.”

  They pass by the priestess’s tent and come upon Bree and Elizabeth. Bree nods when she sees him, but when she looks upon Luca, her lips press together in a firm line.

  “Is that—?” Pietyr asks, and points to a small black-and-white woodpecker climbing about on Elizabeth’s robes.

  “It is!” Elizabeth scoops him up and shows him to Pietyr happily. “He rejoined us this morning, flew into my chest so hard he
nearly pierced my heart!”

  “He seems very . . . proud of himself.”

  The bird, once again in Elizabeth’s lap, crawls up and down her legs excitedly and makes small chirping sounds.

  “He has been like this since he returned,” says Bree. “We have fed and watered him, but he will not be calm. Perhaps he is proud.”

  “No. He’s trying to tell me something.” Elizabeth reaches down to stroke his back, and he pecks her hard between the fingers. “Ouch! And he’s getting very upset that I’m not understanding what it is.”

  Pietyr glances at Luca, who has fallen silent, watching the bird. “Well, I am sure you will figure it out.”

  SUNPOOL

  Just after dawn, Jules and Arsinoe stand together near the city gate, the stone of the square stretched out before them. The edges are crowded with what appears to be the entire rebellion, risen early to see their leader off.

  “Seems like I should be more tired,” Jules says. “We hardly got a wink of sleep.”

  “Nor me,” says Arsinoe as Camden yawns. Soon enough, Emilia and Mathilde will arrive with the small band of warriors and Mirabella and Billy, who have gone to the stable with them.

  Jules lets go of a shaky exhale and looks Arsinoe up and down. Arsinoe tugs at her cloak and the coat underneath.

  “You look like a real mainlander in Billy’s clothes.”

  “Ha. Can you believe they nearly fit?” Arsinoe holds up her arms. Then she frowns. “Listen, Jules, I can’t go with you after Madrigal.”

  “What? Arsinoe—”

  “I’ve got to go on. I’ve got to go up the mountain. I can’t explain it. I just know I have to.”

  “Can’t it wait even a few more days? We’ll ride fast through the pass to the valley—”

  “No. I’m sorry. If there’d been more time . . . if I’d told you more of what I’d seen . . . what I’d dreamed, maybe you’d understand.” She puts a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “But it will be fine, Jules. You don’t really need me anyway. Mira is more than enough.”