“I think I see it.” Billy jumps, and she grabs his arm to make sure he does not lose his balance and fall over the edge. “We’re almost there. Are you all right? You’re looking green.”
“I don’t know what it is about this place. I used to climb the high hills of Wolf Spring and look down all the time. But I think if I looked over the edge now I’d pass right out.”
“Don’t look, then.” He presses her against the cliff face protectively. “Just keep moving and focus on the bear behind.”
“It’s hard to miss,” Arsinoe says, and he laughs.
They trudge along, and after what feels like an age, Arsinoe lifts her head to peek over Braddock. She does not see any sign of a cave, and the snow is falling harder, blotting everything out.
“I thought you said you saw it!”
“I thought I did!” He wipes his eyes free of ice and tries to look again. “This mountain doesn’t want us to— Whoops!”
Braddock turns into the cave so quickly that they both fall forward onto their hands. But they waste no time scrambling inside, and Billy digs the stash of firewood from his pack and lays it out, deep in the cave where the wind does not reach. He strikes a match with trembling fingers and touches it to the wood. It goes out.
“Oh, I wish Mira were here,” Billy grumbles, and Braddock seems to agree. He snuffles doubtfully at the fire and shakes snow from his back. “Don’t get the wood wet, you big oaf!”
“Billy!”
“You know I love him. But I’m freezing.” He strikes another match and another, until finally the curls of bark and kindling begin to catch. The cave brightens with a warm yellow glow, and they can see the length of it. The cave opening is large, plenty of room to sleep a bear and several people. It tapers to the rear until it disappears in shadow, far down into the depths of Mount Horn.
“All right,” Billy says as they huddle close to the fire warming their hands. “What do we do now?”
Arsinoe walks farther into the cave. She listens to the hollow sound of her boots against the cave floor. Listens to the silence, and the lack of echoes. The way the wind dies and disappears. This cave is like the ancient clearing near the bent-over tree. It is like the chasm of the Breccia Domain. Another one of the many places on Fennbirn where the Goddess’s eye is always open, though this is perhaps the greatest: stone stretched into the sky and struck deep in the earth, to press against the Goddess’s pulse.
“This is the right place.”
After a time, they fall asleep beside the fire. Even the bear. Before Arsinoe drifts off, she murmurs, “I’m here, Daphne.”
And Daphne is there as well, with something else to show her.
In the dream, Daphne stands before a mirror dressed all in black. The light from the candles is low, and she wears Queen Illiann’s veil over her face. She holds two cups, and behind her, in the reflection, Arsinoe sees Duke Branden, seated on a bed.
I know what is in his cup. Daphne, what are you doing?
“Illy, what is taking so long?” Brandon asks, and Daphne nearly spills the poison, her hands are shaking so badly.
They are in a room in the Volroy that Arsinoe has never seen before, and Daphne is dressed as the queen.
You’re taking it into your own hands. Luring him off somewhere quiet, to kill him. Is this how Henry became king-consort? Was it all you?
Impatient, Brandon rises and comes to wrap his arms around her waist. “We will be married soon.” Arsinoe’s skin crawls. “Could you not wait?”
Thankfully, Daphne twists out of his grasp. She steps quickly away and then turns, thrusting out the poisoned wine.
Well, that’s not at all obvious. And to think the Arrons make it look so easy.
Branden hesitates. This was a foolish plan. He must suspect her, with her strange silence and trembling wrist. But then he sighs and takes the cup.
“A moment alone together,” he says. “Before the ceremonies and the crowds.” He raises the cup to his lips, and Daphne and Arsinoe hold their breath.
“But that will be our life, I suppose,” he says without drinking. “Or rather, your life that I am party to. No one has explained my duties as king, after all. Am I to oversee the servants? Manage certain accounts to the crown? Or is my only function to get you with child? Except that is not attributed to me either. Whatever grows in your belly is the fruit of your . . . Goddess.”
At the last word, something changes in his tone, and he looks at her and smiles.
He knows.
“Your first mistake was refusing to touch me,” he says. “All Illiann does when we are alone is paw at me like a whore.”
“Don’t call her that! Don’t you ever call her that,” Daphne growls as he reaches out and yanks the veil from her face. But Branden does not respond. He simply sniffs the cup.
“Whatever it is it cannot be detected by scent. Far better than anything you Centrans could have crafted. So you must have gotten it from one of these heathens.”
He steps closer.
“What would it have done? Made me choke? Made blood pour from my eyes and nose?”
Daphne, run.
“Why don’t we find out?”
Daphne shouts as he grips the back of her head and pushes the cup to her lips. She claws at him as the poison splashes against her neck and chin, and she and Arsinoe fight together in panic. It is a strange sensation, being so afraid of the poison. But in Daphne’s body, Arsinoe may become the first poisoner to know what it feels like to die by it.
Is this what causes the war, then? Between the island and Salkades? Was it the murder of the queen’s dear friend?
Arsinoe searches Branden’s eyes and sees pure glee. Glee and something worse. Something near lust. The sight of it adds shame to her fear. An odd mix of shame and rage, that he would enjoy doing this to Daphne so much.
Inside the dream, Arsinoe twists and screams like she did before, trying to break it. She does not want to know. She does not want to live it. The cup that grinds against Daphne’s teeth grinds against Arsinoe’s. Branden’s hands around Daphne’s throat make it impossible for Arsinoe to breathe.
“You will drink it,” he barks into her face. “You will drink it in the end!” His long fingers pry her lips apart, and he tips the poison to her mouth.
“Get away from her!” The shout came in tandem from Henry’s and Illiann’s throats. Startled, Branden lets go, and Daphne falls to her knees. She drags a pitcher down from the bedside table and splashes water against her face and neck, flushing out her mouth and spitting onto the floor.
“Get away from her,” Illiann orders as Henry draws his sword.
“Are you going to allow them to treat me this way, Illy? I am your chosen king.”
“King-consort,” she corrects. “And perhaps you are not.”
“Illiann,” he says, his voice soft, cajoling. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand all,” she says. “I am the queen.” She folds her hands atop her skirt. “Lord Redville. Please escort the Duke of Bevanne down to the cells.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You cannot imprison me! I am not one of your subjects. My father and my cousin the king will never allow it.”
“I care not what the king of Salkades thinks of what I do on my island. Lord Redville, take him.”
Daphne and Arsinoe watch silently as Henry points his sword at Branden’s chest.
“Don’t struggle. It’ll be better.”
“Very well.” Branden lowers his head and steps past Henry, but at the last moment, reaches for the iron beside the fire. He spins and swings it, landing a glancing blow across Henry’s jaw.
Henry!
Blood runs from a deep cut, and Henry falls to the floor as Branden raises the iron over his head.
“No!” Daphne and Illiann scream, their hands out as if to stop the attack.
Arsinoe feels something explode from the center of her. A flow of heat and a sense of elation.
One moment Branden was about to bl
udgeon Henry to death, and the next, the fire had set him ablaze.
Henry scrambles away as Branden falls screaming to roll across the rug. The fire goes out quickly, perhaps with Illiann’s help, but the damage is done.
“Send for a healer,” says Illiann, but Branden struggles to his feet, looking in horror at the burns across his arm and chest. He touches the black blisters on his face.
“Stay away from me, witch! Look what you’ve done! I’ll see you all dead for it. Fennbirn and Centra together will burn!”
Arsinoe startles awake with a deep intake of breath. She is herself again, lying on the stone floor of the deep, cold cave. The fire has burned down, but there is still light enough to see Billy and Braddock sleeping safely curled together.
She sits up and rubs her face, shaken from the dream, from the sensation of the poison running down her neck, and from the feel of Branden’s hands around it. She gets to her feet and rummages in Billy’s bag for another small piece of dry wood to add to the fire.
“Is that what you needed to say?” she whispers to the cave. “Is that why you brought me here? To confess?”
“To confess what?” Billy asks groggily, up on one elbow.
“It was her fault,” Arsinoe replies. “Daphne was the one who started the war between Fennbirn and Salkades.”
Something moves in the darkness at the rear of the cave, where it grows small and falls down into the heart of the mountain.
Billy scrambles back against Braddock, who wakes and lifts his head with a grunt.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Arsinoe says. Except that she does. She can see the shadow of the Blue Queen in her mind, scratching and dragging her way up the steep stone walls. She can see it so clearly that, when the ink-black arm slides around the rocks, she is not even surprised.
The shadow is just as hideous in the mountain as it was on the mainland. Elongated legs, thin bony fingers. The grotesque crown of silver and blue stones set atop her eyeless head.
“Is that her?” Billy asks breathlessly. “The Blue Queen?”
“No. It has never really been the Blue Queen.” She takes one step, all that she can manage on shaking legs. “It was your fault, wasn’t it, Daphne?”
The shadow slips forward. Arsinoe stands her ground as its jaws strain open, stretching the blackness apart like rotten skin.
“Yes,” the shadow says through softened lips, her words thick and spoken with a swollen tongue. “This was my doing. This and everything after. The war. The mist.” She looks down at herself. Long black fingers. A form that shifts like smoke. She reaches up to her face, and Arsinoe and Billy grimace as she pulls at the skin, tearing away strips of shadow to drop to the cave floor. She rakes down her arms, across her chest, until some semblance of Daphne shows through in a familiar inky eye and living skin.
“That night,” she goes on, her voice clearer and more the voice Arsinoe knows from the dreams, “I changed everything. I made a true enemy of the Duke of Bevanne and in so doing made an enemy of Salkades. And I discovered who I really was.”
“A lost queen,” Arsinoe says. “One of Illiann’s sisters.”
“Yes. I was one of those sisters drowned or exposed or smothered by the Midwife. The other elemental queen, given a name I will never know. But it didn’t matter. To Illiann and Henry, I was only Daphne.”
Daphne moves closer to the fire, picking off bits of shadow like scabs. “She kept my secret after we discovered it that night. She even helped me develop my gift. She wasn’t driven to kill me like the old stories say. Not any more than you were.
“I didn’t believe her at first. In Centra, kings made overtures of mercy often, only to change their minds on a whim and put their rival’s head to the block. But Illiann was different.”
“Daphne,” Arsinoe says. “Why did you want us to come here?”
Daphne stares soberly into the fire. She pulls a long strip of shadow from her neck and drops it into the flames to sizzle.
“The mist is rising against the island,” she says. “I would show you how to stop it. Because its creation was my fault.”
THE FATE OF THE BLUE QUEEN
It is strange to see Daphne outside of the dreams, a dead queen half-covered in shadow. And older. This Daphne is a full-grown woman. Her hair is long and lines lightly crease her face.
“Your boy is handsome,” she says, looking at Billy as he stands protectively in front of the bear. “He reminds me of my Henry.”
“Henry Redville,” Arsinoe says. “The king-consort of Queen Illiann.”
“The king-consort of the Blue Queen,” Daphne corrects her.
“What does that mean? What do we do about the mist? How do we keep it from rising?”
With every new question, Daphne shakes her head. “No.”
Arsinoe’s eyes narrow. She must remember that the Daphne before her is not the Daphne from her dreams. This Daphne has been long dead, and Arsinoe must remember that she knows her not at all.
“Why did you send me the dreams? Why did you show me your life?”
“So you would know us. So you would love us. To call you home.”
“Is that what you want? For one of us to come home to take the crown from Katharine?”
“A queen crowned cannot be uncrowned,” Daphne replies.
Arsinoe nods to the silver and blue stones. “Then how did you come to wear Illiann’s?”
Daphne grimaces, baring teeth that are still tipped in shadow.
“Don’t,” Billy murmurs. “Don’t make her angry.”
“I’ll make her whatever I need to make her to learn what we came for. People are dying. The mist is killing them. And if she won’t speak, maybe we ought to be talking to Illiann.”
Daphne rounds on her and despite her irritation, Arsinoe gasps.
“You can’t talk to Illiann,” Daphne says, crooked finger pointed to Arsinoe’s chest.
“Why not?”
“Because Illiann is not Illiann. Illiann is the mist.”
“You mean she made the mist,” Arsinoe says.
“No. I mean she became it.”
Became the mist? Arsinoe blinks. “That couldn’t be. It had to be some kind of spell. Some elemental trick—”
Daphne springs forward, elongated fingers wrapped around the sides of Arsinoe’s head. “No tricks,” she hisses, and presses her thumbs over Arsinoe’s eyes.
“Let go of her!” Billy shouts, and Braddock roars and swipes his paw furiously. But the fire flares up like a wall, burning them both and sending them reeling backward out into the snow. Even long dead, the elemental is still an elemental.
Arsinoe squeals and squirms. But Daphne’s cold grip is like a vise.
“See,” Daphne whispers, and shakes her hard, sending a jolt through Arsinoe’s entire body. And Arsinoe sees.
Daphne and Illiann stand atop the cliffs over Bardon Harbor in the driving rain. It is night, but the waves are lit bright orange and yellow by the fires in the burning boats. Some torched, others struck by Illiann’s lightning. Farther out, the sea is dark, but each illuminating flash reveals the horror of the battle: Selkan ships like a swarm upon the waves.
“There are too many!” Daphne shouts over the thunder. “Too many here, too many in Rolanth.” Salkades has besieged the entire eastern side of the island. Fennbirn will be overrun.
All this, Arsinoe sees in flashes. As she struggles against the shadow queen, she sees the ships and feels the rain sting her cheeks.
“My storm is not done yet,” Illiann calls. “I can roll them under the waves. All of them.”
“You can’t,” Daphne cries. “Henry is out there!”
Arsinoe twists her arm up between her and Daphne’s chests and wrenches it down hard, forcing Daphne to let go.
“Stop!” Arsinoe strikes out blindly with her fists. “Just stop!”
But Daphne leaps on her again, cold hands pressed to her ears, over her eyes, leaking into her mind.
Ill
iann falls from the cliffs, screaming, her storm still surging over the harbor. She falls, down to break upon the rocks, but when she does, her body is lost to the white. To the mist that bursts out from the foot of the cliffs and across the sea, to spread across the water north and south, choking the invaders as Illiann would have done with her own waves.
“There is no place on the island for sisters,” Daphne says, still clutching her. “We tried, she and I, but we failed. My elemental sister had to die to create the mist.” She releases Arsinoe’s head and drags her close by the collar. “And yours must die to unmake it.”
Arsinoe shoves her away. “No. You’re lying. Queen Illiann ruled for decades more. She had the next triplets.”
“I had the next triplets,” Daphne says, her eyes ablaze. “I stepped into her life. Stepped into her crown, with Henry by my side. ‘Daphne’ died at sea, in the battle. And out of grief, the queen was not seen publicly for a long time. Or at least not without a veil.”
“No. Someone had to know.”
“Many knew. But Fennbirn needed a queen. And soon the island’s secrets are lost to time. Like my real name.”
Arsinoe trembles, sick from the sight of Illiann falling to her death and from the thought that Mirabella—
“There has to be another way.” Except there does not and wanting one will not make it so.
“Now you know why I did not call to Mirabella.”
“Don’t you say her name,” Arsinoe growls. “And stay away from me! You’re a liar! You’re a murderer!”
“Murderer—?”
She advances on Daphne, her anger driving back the fear, and Daphne retreats farther into the cave. Farther and farther, and every shadow she steps into clings to her skin until she is back in the dark. Grotesque once more.
“We aren’t like you, me and my sister! And for the island or not, I will never hurt her!”
“Arsinoe? Are you all right?”
She looks back. With Daphne gone, the fire has died, and Billy and Braddock stare at her from the cave entrance.
Two Dark Reigns Page 30