Two Dark Reigns

by Kendare Blake

  “You must be of some use!” Emilia shouts.

  Billy steps between them. “You quiet down. If there’s anything Arsinoe can do, she’ll do it. But she doesn’t need your barking and threats. Where’s Mirabella?”

  Emilia bares her teeth. She could skewer Billy like a cube of goat meat, but he does not waver. “Probably wandering the streets, basking in the adoration of the people. She showed herself during the attack. The queens’ secret is out. So you may as well lose that ridiculous scarf. Not that it was doing much anyway.”

  Arsinoe turns to Mathilde. “Are there still healer’s stores here in the castle?”

  “No. But there is a shop in the marketplace. I will take you.”

  The shop is not far. Mathilde takes Arsinoe and Billy to it and gently moves the old proprietor to the side of the counter. Both she and Arsinoe frown when he bows.

  “Old habits,” Arsinoe mutters, and then she gets to work, gathering bowls and ingredients with her uninjured hand, her mind focused and relaxed, so confident in the movements that it is almost like watching someone else navigate her body.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Billy whispers.

  Arsinoe shrugs. “Seem to.” She opens a jar and sniffs. Elder flower. Not what she needs, but it does remind her to set Billy aside near the shopkeep. Most of the stock will be for healing, but some jars are bound to contain true poisons.

  She pauses a moment and chews a fingernail, thinking of how best to administer the sedative. A salve perhaps? Something to rub into the skin? Though who was to say she would be able to get close enough to do the rubbing. Something to load into a dart, then? Or to coat the edge of a blade?

  “No,” she murmurs. No matter what condition Jules is in, the thought of shooting her or cutting her makes Arsinoe sick to her stomach.

  “Down the hatch it is,” she says, and begins. She grabs bundles of pale skullcap and strips the petals. Grinds root of valerian into a paste. Pushes the whole mess through a sieve with oil made from betel nut. At the last moment, she squeezes her fist, letting several thick droplets of blood fall from Camden’s scratches into the oil. “I need to thin it out with liquor.”

  “A sedation?” The shopkeep nods and fetches a bottle down from a shelf. “Try this and a little sugar. Helps it go down.”

  She uncorks the bottle and sniffs. It smells like Grandma Cait’s terrible anise cookies.

  “That’ll do.” She pours it into the bowl and adds sugar, then transfers the mixture into a bottle and caps it. “Are you a poisoner, shopkeep?”

  “No, my queen. I’m of no particular gift. Where did you learn the craft, if I may ask? Not many poisoners down in Wolf Spring.”

  “I learned it nowhere, I guess.”

  “So it’s true you are a poisoner, then. There was rumor after the Ascension that you had been a poisoner in naturalist garb.” He nods knowingly. “Amongst the healers, we hoped it was so. That maybe there had risen a poisoner somewhere who could be something other than wicked and corrupt.”

  “I’m still no queen.” Arsinoe tucks the bottle into her sleeve. “But I thank you for the use of your shop.”

  By the time they return to the castle, to Emilia guarding the locked door, they are out of breath.

  “I thought you would never arrive.”

  “Was it so long?” Arsinoe asks as Emilia picks up the end of a rope. The rope is attached to a noose that she has managed to loop around Camden’s neck. “That can’t have been easy.”

  “Or safe,” Billy adds.

  “The hard part comes now,” Emilia says, looping the length of rope around her hand. “Are you ready?”

  “Should you—” Billy takes her arm. “Should you really go in there alone? I know it’s Jules, but . . . it doesn’t sound like Jules.”

  “It will in a few minutes.” Arsinoe pulls out the bottle of greenish liquid. “All right, Emilia.”

  “Pay no attention to her eyes,” Emilia says gravely. “It is only broken blood vessels.”

  Arsinoe heads for the door, and Emilia jerks back on the rope. The sight of poor Camden struggling at the end of it, snarling and charging, reaching with her claws, makes her want to weep.

  She turns the key in the lock and slips inside, closing it up and locking it tight again. Then she stops. And listens. Her belly pressed to the wall.

  “Jules. It’s me.” She cannot hear anything. The screaming and crashing, even Camden’s struggles outside have stopped. She cannot even hear Jules breathing.

  “Arsinoe.”

  “Yes.” She sighs and turns around. “Thank the Goddess, Jules—” The plank of wood flies straight for her throat. She dives and hits the floor hard, covering her head and sliding through debris. Every piece of furniture is broken, bashed into pieces and strewn about, the remains so small that she cannot tell whether she is looking at what is left of a bed or a chair or a table.

  And pressed against the opposite wall is Jules. They have managed to bind her arms and legs with heavy chain. Twisted and on the floor, small as always, she does not look a threat. Except for the hatred on her face and her bloodred eyes.

  Only the burst vessels, Arsinoe thinks. But if it is, she has burst every one. Not a speck of white remains. Just pure, bright red, her pretty blue and green irises set in the centers like gems.

  “Arsinoe, help me.”

  “That’s what I’m here to do, Jules.”

  “Help me!” she screams, and Arsinoe is blown back. Her head strikes against the stones hard enough to bounce, and her vision wavers. Using every ounce of courage, she scrambles across the floor and grasps Jules by the neck. She wraps her legs around her, too, and pulls out the bottle.

  “This will not taste good,” she says, and forces it between Jules’s teeth, pink with blood. It takes Arsinoe a moment to realize that Jules has bitten part of her own lips off.

  “Oh, Jules,” she whispers, and squeezes her tight. When the bottle is empty, she hooks both arms around Jules’s chest and hangs on as she convulses. By the time it is over, Arsinoe is weeping harder than she has ever wept in her life, but Jules’s eyes are closed. She is asleep.

  The door to the room opens, and Camden bounds inside to lie beside Jules and lick her face. She licks Arsinoe’s hand, too, and grunts at her, as though ashamed.

  “It’s all right, cat.”

  “It worked,” she says to Billy at the door between Emilia and Mathilde.

  “We know. Camden stopped fighting. Just all of a sudden, she stopped fighting the rope.”

  Emilia shoves her way inside, wiping tears from her face and neck. She takes Jules from Arsinoe and nestles her onto her lap.

  “Don’t take off the chains,” Arsinoe says. She starts to get up, and Emilia grasps her by the wrist.

  “Thank you, Arsinoe.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Even if she didn’t do it for you,” Billy says, and puts his arm around Arsinoe’s shoulders as they leave. “Are you all right? She didn’t hurt you?”

  “No.” She kisses his fingers. “But I need to go and find my sister.”

  “Of course. I’ll . . . stay here. Keep an eye on Jules for you.”

  She finds Mirabella in the rear cloister, seated on a stone bench with a cloth of cheese and bread. Daphne’s words echo through her mind. My elemental sister had to die to make the mist. And yours must die to unmake it.

  “Arsinoe!” Mirabella sees her and comes quickly. “You are safe! And Billy?”

  “He’s fine. Braddock, too. We brought him along.”

  “To Sunpool?”

  “No. To the mountain.” She presses her hand to her temple. She is exhausted, and still there is more to do. Find a way to ease Jules’s legion curse. Inform the people of Sunpool not to hunt for bear in the nearby woods. And kill her sister. “No,” she whispers. “Never. Not even for the entire island.”

  “What for the entire island?”

  Mirabella leads her back to the bench and they sit. She stuffs bread and
cheese into Arsinoe’s hands. How Arsinoe would like to tell her what Daphne said, if only to promise that they will find another way. But until she finds one, she thinks it is best not to.

  “Have you seen Jules?” Mirabella asks. “Is she still . . . ?”

  “I crafted a tonic. A sedative. She’s resting now.”

  “Good,” Mirabella says. “I knew she would be fine.”

  “She’s not fine. She’s not better.” Arsinoe starts to cry again, and Mirabella pulls her close. “I don’t know what to do.” Arsinoe gasps. “She’s not even Jules: her eyes are full of blood. She doesn’t even know me.”

  Mirabella rocks her gently, and Arsinoe clings to her.

  “Everything is going wrong, Mira, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “No, no, no,” Emilia says to the people gathered in the street before the castle. “Our Legion Queen is well. She was injured in the attack by Katharine the Undead but only slightly. She is shut up now in grief for her mother, who was murdered by the Undead Queen herself.”

  “And what of the elemental? The naturalist?”

  “They have long been allies of Juillenne Milone. But they have abdicated, and that abdication stands. Be patient, friends, and be ready. Continue your work. They have struck first blood, but we shall have answer for it soon enough.”

  Mirabella watches from behind the cracked open door. When Emilia comes back inside, she jumps at the sight of her in the shadows.

  “They strip us of our proper title,” Mirabella says. “The elemental? The naturalist? Do we not even have names anymore?”

  “No names that matter. No titles of importance. Isn’t that the way you wanted it?” Emilia stalks deeper into the fortress, her gait fast and lithe but no trouble for Mirabella to keep up with.

  “It is. It is only strange to hear. You are a very fine orator. No doubt you had plenty of practice, spreading the legend these past months.”

  “Was there something you wanted, Mirabella? I am very busy, as you can see. Walls to fortify. Grain to unload. And this afternoon, the queen’s mother to burn.”

  “But Jules is not yet out of her room. You would burn Madrigal before she is well enough to say a proper goodbye?”

  Emilia stops. She turns and presses Mirabella backward, down into a shadowy corridor until her back is against the stones, and Emilia’s hand is hot on her shoulder.

  “Out with it, then,” Emilia snaps.

  “I want to know what your plans are now.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now that everything is changed. Jules is . . . unwell. I have not been able to speak to my sister for days because all she has done is concoct more potions and tonics to help her. Yet you tell these people—who risk their lives and have left their homes—that she is unhurt and in mourning?”

  “Jules will be fine. She will be our queen.”

  “Perhaps once,” Mirabella hisses. “But you and I both saw what we saw at Innisfuil. You cannot put that on the throne. Let us take her away to the mainland. The curse may be eased, away from the island.”

  “No.” Emilia presses a finger to Mirabella’s chest. “Your sister would never allow it.”

  “Arsinoe will do anything that might help.”

  “And what of the mist? Since the day the temple took you, they have said that you were for the island. Its great protector. Will you leave us to it after what we both saw?”

  “But when did the mist start to rise, Emilia? Was it the moment Katharine stepped into the crown? Or was it weeks and weeks later, when you sought to elevate Jules above her station?”

  Emilia bares her teeth, and Mirabella braces for anything: a strike to the head or an unseen blade slipped between her ribs. But in the end, the warrior merely spits on the ground and walks away, and Mirabella lets out her breath.

  It takes a few moments to collect herself before she can go up to the room they have designated as hers. It was meant to be shared with Arsinoe, but since she returned from the mountain, Arsinoe has not slept there, if she has slept at all.

  She turns her head at a knock, and Billy pokes his head in.

  “Have you seen Arsinoe? She’s not with Jules.”

  “No. And even when I seek her out, she does not want to see me. Has she . . . Is she angry with me because of what I let happen to Jules?”

  “Of course not. What happened to Jules was not your fault. She’s relieved that you’re safe. It’ll be better once Jules is better.” He smiles, covering up the words that echo through both of their heads.

  But we are not leaving anytime soon.

  “Do you need anything?” he asks.

  “No. Thank you.”

  He closes the door, and Mirabella hears a familiar trill come from the window.

  “Pepper.”

  The little woodpecker flies from the stone sill to her shoulder and pokes a bit at her hair. Then he sticks out his leg. Another note has been tied to him, this time labeled with an M in familiar scrawling script. She unrolls it and reads.

  We have spoken with the queen, and we too believe she is true. We have departed for Indrid Down. The decision is yours, but we will be here if you need us.

  -B&E

  Mirabella takes a deep breath. She strokes the woodpecker’s chest feathers. Then she sets the message down, unrolled, upon the table.

  GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

  Pietyr lays the stones he took from the Breccia Domain onto the floor of Katharine’s old bedroom, inside the circle of thin rope he has soaked with his own blood.

  “The rope looks so fragile,” says Katharine as another stone knocks hollowly against the wood.

  “It should not matter. That it is joined from end to end is what is important.” He had been soaking and staining it little by little, day by day, until the entire length was crimson and brown. Stiff to the touch. He has little more blood to spare, but spare he must when he reopens the rune that Madrigal carved into his palm.

  Katharine wanders toward the windows. Her hand slips over the back of the sofa and over the desk. All her old, childhood things.

  “Do you think Mirabella is on her way to me?” she asks softly.

  “I do not know, Kat.”

  “Do you think if she comes, Arsinoe might come, too? That they might stand behind me, united?”

  “I do not know, Kat.”

  Pietyr steps back, surveying his work. He wishes bitterly that Madrigal had not died. He does not know what he is doing. Perhaps she lied to him, and he is not doing anything at all. Katharine cocks her head at his crude circle, the ends of the rope set apart to allow them to step inside.

  “Is that it?”

  “Seems to be. Do you feel anything?”

  Katharine rubs her arms and grimaces. “Only for the stones. They do not like them. They do not want them here.”

  He looks at her. Fetching and queenly in black riding breeches, a smart black jacket, ready to do as he instructs.

  “Do you trust me, Kat?”

  She looks up at him in surprise. “Of course I do.”

  “Even after . . .” he says, and looks down in shame.

  “Even after,” she says, and smiles. Her smile, not the dead queens’. They were his doing—he was the one who pushed her down and let them in—but now he will make it right. He holds out his hand and leads her inside the circle. When he joins the ends of the rope, he thinks he feels something ripple through the room. Some slight shift in the air. Then it disappears, and he is not sure.

  Perhaps he should have chosen another place to perform the ritual. The temple, perhaps, before the Goddess Stone. Or somewhere on the grounds of the Volroy. Sacred spaces. But Madrigal never mentioned any particular place, and Greavesdrake was somewhere private, where they would not be interrupted. The place where they first met. And to Katharine, the place that still feels the most like home. Greavesdrake has been the seat of Arron power for a hundred years. It must be good enough.

  “Will it hurt, Pietyr?” she whispers.

  “I think
so.” He shows her the rune cut into his palm. “You are not afraid of that?”

  She shakes her head, but her eyes are full of fear, even as she keeps her voice resolute.

  “After that boy by the harbor,” she murmurs. “After Madrigal. We have no choice.”

  He bends down to kiss her hand and slides a blade from his belt.

  The first cut is the hardest. Seeing her pale skin split and the red run through her fingers. But he works quickly, and she makes not a sound, the room so quiet that he can hear the first drops strike the floor.

  With her rune complete, he releases her wrist and turns to his own. Cutting through the scabs burns and he bites his lip, but though he cuts, not enough blood comes. The strength of his poisoner gift has healed them too well, and he will have to cut deeper.

  “Pietyr,” Katharine says. “I feel strange.”

  “Strange?” he asks, and she falls to her knees.

  “Katharine!”

  He falls beside her and holds up her arm. Dark veins stand beneath the skin, and the blood that pours out of her is less red than burgundy.

  “They are afraid. They do not want to leave me.”

  “Do not listen to them.” He cups her cheek and nearly recoils at the gray rot spread across her face. “They are only fighting,” he says, but in his mind, he remembers Madrigal’s warning.

  Surely you must’ve considered that she may not be alive at all, except for them. She may truly be undead, and the moment she is emptied of the last of the queens, her body will break and shrivel up. Just like it would have had they not intervened in the first place.

  “I am with you, Kat. You will be fine.”

  Katharine screams and doubles over, and he presses his cut rune against hers, locking their hands together. The shock that goes through him sends him onto his back. And one of the Breccia stones rolls out of the circle.

  “Pietyr, it hurts.”

  “Hold on, Kat.” He grinds his teeth. Her blood splashes darkly onto the stones, and her screams fill the room. Another shock passes through him as the queens scratch for purchase inside Katharine, and his leg jerks, sending another stone rolling. He squeezes his eyes shut.