Five Dark Fates

by Kendare Blake

Mirabella lets the rug fall, but it is too late.

  Katharine’s eyes narrow.

  “Get away from there.”

  “I was only—”

  “I know what you were doing!”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” Mirabella says, “considering that I do not.”

  “I came here to ask you . . . and immediately find you searching my room!”

  “Ask me? What did you want to ask me?”

  “Something that requires trust.”

  “Then ask.” Mirabella opens her hands. “Ask for trust. Earn it. Or can you only demand? After a queen is in her crown, does she lose the ability to ask for anything?”

  Katharine’s lip twists into a snarl. But it fades as quickly as it came.

  I am not afraid of her today, Mirabella realizes.

  “Ever since I arrived in the capital,” she says, “I have done everything that was expected of me. I faced the mist. I have contacted no one from the rebellion. Not even our sister. And I have not gone against you, though I should have. Your treatment of Billy is a disgrace.”

  “You have a soft heart for mainlanders. I had such plans for you, Mirabella. Such hopes.”

  “What plans, Kat? Beyond the mist?”

  “You call me ‘Kat’ sometimes.” Katharine nods toward the empty bed. “Like he did. You are too many things, you know. Too charming. Too powerful. Even too beautiful. It would make you easy to mistrust if you were not also too good.

  “I think I am remembering you. Like Arsinoe did. Perhaps that is why they keep us apart: to keep us from our memories. To keep us from each other. I would tell you the truth now. But I am afraid to.”

  “There is a crown forever etched into your head,” Mirabella says quietly. “What have you to fear?”

  Katharine touches it, the black band, stretched across her brow. “Luca is so shrewd. Even Natalia was impressed. They thought of me as a silly girl. A child, to be controlled. They still think so.”

  “To rule as queen is to be ruled as well by the interests of the people. Of the island.”

  “It is in their interest that I speak now,” Katharine says. “It is for the island that I will tell you the truth. The night of the Quickening, Pietyr threw me down into the Breccia Domain. I nearly died.”

  “He threw you? But—does he not love you?”

  “Pietyr loves me. He was confused. And it was in a way lucky, because it was in the Breccia Domain that I was found. By the dead queens.”

  “The dead queens?”

  “Those sisters who lost their Ascensions and whose bodies were cast into the heart of the island. They found me. Healed me. And joined with me so that I could win.”

  “‘She is full of the dead,’” Mirabella whispers.

  “An impossible story, I know.”

  Mirabella thinks of all the strange things she has seen Katharine do. The way she does not shiver. Her uncanny abilities with knives and crossbows. How she devours poison with a naturalist gift. “And they are with you?” she asks. “Now?”

  “Not now,” Katharine says. “Or, not all. I have sent them out. That is what happened to Pietyr. I sent them into him, by mistake.” She gestures to the rug at Mirabella’s feet. “That stain there that you are so curious about. He was trying to banish them. And I let them out. I did not even know I could. And now they have a taste for it. They seek out new vessels. They seek out you.”

  “No.” Mirabella’s skin tightens at the thought. Her elemental gift rises in defense, and the air crackles with electricity. “If that is what you ask, I will never allow it.”

  “Nor will I. You are too powerful, as I said. If the dead sisters had control of you, no one would be able to stop them. Not me. Not the mist.”

  “Then what is your plan for me?” Mirabella asks. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to help me be rid of them. I want you to be my big sister. And I need you, to help me to continue the line.”

  Slowly, Katharine reaches out and takes Mirabella’s hand. The touch feels different—her fingers are warm today, even through the gloves—and Mirabella folds them in her own without hesitation.

  “What has happened to me,” Katharine says, her words halting, and ashamed. “. . . carrying the dead for so long . . . it has made it impossible for me to carry the next triplets. These gloves I wear are not for fashion. They are to keep me from harming people by touch. To keep my skin from poisoning anyone by accident. I am . . . compromised.”

  “Kat,” Mirabella says, and looks down.

  “After Nicolas was killed, Pietyr and I feared that my reign would be the last. But the line of queens is not as straight as we are led to believe. There have been other methods to maintain the line. Nontraditional methods. And now that you are here—” Mirabella looks up. Katharine’s eyes are wide with hope.

  “You want me to bear the triplets,” Mirabella says breathlessly.

  “Yes,” says Katharine. “I need you to ensure that Fennbirn’s queens do not end with me.”

  Katharine watches Mirabella. Her pretty sister has never learned to camouflage her emotions. She is afraid, confused, shocked.

  “I do not know what to say.”

  “Perhaps I have told you too much.”

  “At least I know now,” Mirabella says. “Why the mist has risen. Why it reaches for you.”

  “You do not know that. It may rise in opposition to Jules Milone, to the legion curse—”

  “Katharine!” Mirabella’s admonishment is a fevered whisper. “You reign beside the dead!”

  “Dead queens,” she corrects. “Who had just as much right to the crown—”

  “Queens they may have been, but to support them would be no different than supporting the rise of the rebels. They lost. Neither Legion Queen nor undead queens were ever meant to rule.”

  “So you will not?” Katharine shrinks. She can almost hear the Black Council laughing at her, even Pietyr, for thinking her sister would help.

  “I will not ally with them,” Mirabella says. “But nor will I turn my back on you. You are not them, Katharine. And you are different when they are quiet. The boy at the pier—Madrigal Milone—”

  “Yes. They guided my hand. They grow stronger. Bolder. When they assert themselves, sometimes it is like I am being worn. Like they are wearing my skin.”

  “And they would wear me?”

  Katharine nods. “You are the vessel they want. In you, they would be unstoppable.”

  “And you . . .” Mirabella squeezes her eyes shut as if she cannot believe it. “You . . . put them . . . in Rho? How does she bear them?”

  “She was willing. I did not force her. If I had she would have ended up just like Pietyr. Rho is strong; they may be happy with her, for a time.”

  “But only for a time,” Mirabella says grimly. “To stay, they require a queen.” When Mirabella looks at her again, Katharine struggles not to fidget. “You were not willing,” she says.

  “No. I was weakened. The fall. I should have died. That is how they are allowed. The vessel must be willing, or weakened to the point of near death.”

  “Katharine.”

  Katharine remembers that tone. She remembers that voice from a long time ago. Even then, Mirabella, the eldest by not even an hour, had perfected that blend of exasperated, disappointed, and sympathetic. It makes Katharine feel as though she has just been caught with her finger in a pie. It makes her feel protected.

  “I wish I did not have to ask you, believe me,” she says. “To carry the next triplets. I hope it did not make you feel like a broodmare.”

  Mirabella arches her eyebrow and chuckles lightly. “If I did not before, I do now.” She sighs. “I cannot give you an answer, Kat. Not yet.”

  “There is much to think about, I know.”

  “It is more than that. So many old queens have returned. To you and to Arsinoe. Perhaps even to me, in the form of the mist. Old queens to new.”

  “Living queens or dead,” Katharine whispers, and M
irabella’s eyes flicker to hers.

  “Yes,” she says thoughtfully. “Living queens or dead.”

  THE TWO PRISONERS

  SUNPOOL

  Arsinoe wakes covered in sweat and kicks her blankets away. It has been a long time since she got her facial scars, and they are completely healed. But sweat still makes them itch.

  “Bad dream?”

  Jules and Camden lie on the floor beside her, Jules on her side, head propped on an elbow, her other hand lazily stroking the cougar’s back.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was sleeping.” Jules nods toward two more lumps on the floor. “Just like Granddad and Luke.”

  Arsinoe blinks. Ellis and Luke are asleep, snoring softly under their blankets and familiars: the white spaniel, Jake, curled up between Ellis’s feet and Hank, the rooster, clucking peacefully on Luke’s chest.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  Arsinoe rubs her eyes. “I remember everyone celebrating in the great hall, and then we came up here and Luke brought more ale.”

  “A lot more ale,” Jules says, and shuts her eyes. “The room is still tilting.”

  All of Sunpool had celebrated the taking of Pietyr Renard. Mathilde even flexed her barding muscles and sang the tale of his capture. It was a good story. Emilia breaking into Greavesdrake Manor and silently rushing the halls, incapacitating servants with the blunt handle of her dagger. Then pulling Pietyr Renard from the queen’s own bed. She just threw him over her shoulder and carried him out. With him unconscious, she said it was a little like kidnapping a rolled-up rug.

  “What were you dreaming about?” Jules asks.

  Arsinoe frowns. She dreamed that she had received a package from Katharine. But she had been too afraid to open it. It had been prettily wrapped in soft blue paper and tied with a black bow, but she knew that if she opened it, she would find Billy. Dead, folded up or in pieces.

  “Nothing. I don’t really remember.”

  “How long have I known you?” Jules asks.

  “What?”

  “How long?”

  Arsinoe sighs. “Since we were six.”

  “Since we were six,” Jules repeats. “And you don’t think I know when you’re lying?”

  Arsinoe gets to her feet. The dream has left her with a chill. She craves some crispy, fatty bacon and eggs fried in the same pan. “I think you know me so well that it doesn’t matter whether I lie or not. You know what I was dreaming about anyway.”

  Jules purses her lips, but she stands, too, satisfied. Then she doubles back over. “You had far more ale than I did; how are you so spry?”

  “Poisoner constitution.” Arsinoe pats her belly. “It would take a lot more than that to give me a headache.”

  “I need more sleep. Go without me.”

  Arsinoe leaves the room, careful not to disturb the sleeping men, dog, and fowl. She arrives in the great hall and finds it a wreck: upended bottles spill wine and ale across tables to drip puddles on the floor, and half-eaten chunks of bread lie here and there, along with bones from a roasted bird. There are plenty of people, too, who did not make it to their beds and settled for a bench or a tilted-back chair.

  “You will have to serve yourself.” Emilia is seated at a table alone, in the slanting shadow of early morning.

  “I didn’t see you there. Is that some unknown warrior trick?”

  “Becoming invisible?” Emilia grins. “That would be a very good trick. Here.” She pushes her plate of food across the table. Some of it is eaten, but she must have overloaded it in the kitchen, because there is plenty left. “I think we are the only ones awake in this entire city.”

  “If that’s true,” Arsinoe says, and picks up a bit of fried potato, “then who cooked the food?”

  “Where is Jules?”

  “Hungover. She went back to bed.”

  “She left me for you last night.” Emilia smiles ruefully. “As always.”

  “I didn’t ask her to choose.” Arsinoe takes up a fork and shovels down egg, still good even if it is cold. “But if I had, she would have chosen me.”

  “For now.”

  “For”—Arsinoe pokes her with the fork—“ever.”

  It feels odd, arguing with Emilia over Jules like this. She does not care for Jules the way that Emilia cares for Jules. She knows that it is different. But she cannot help feeling possessive.

  Possessive for who? she wonders. Am I guarding Jules for myself or for Joseph’s ghost? Shouldn’t it be for Jules to decide when it is time to let him go?

  It should be. And it will be. And maybe when she does, things between Arsinoe and Emilia will have to change. She squints up at her between bites of food, and Emilia gives her a haughty, know-it-all wink. Maybe not.

  “Where’s the hostage?”

  “At the Lermont house, under the protection and guard of the seers. Mathilde is there with him now.”

  “The Lermont house?” Arsinoe asks. Long ago, the castle was the Lermont house. But as their numbers dwindled, it was abandoned for a large white manor house in the southwest corner of the city. “Why not put him under guard here?”

  “Too many people come and go within the castle. Lermont House is quiet. More easily watched. Though I do not know what use he will be as a hostage or who would want to take him. He cannot move or speak. We have kidnapped a dead body. Not good protection for your Billy if Katharine comes to terms with that.”

  Arsinoe stops eating. “Katharine would never . . .”

  “You don’t think so? She is the queen now. She has no time for foolish first loves. If I were on her Black Council, that is what I would advise.”

  “So you think she’ll kill Billy anyway.”

  “That is what I fear.” She looks at Arsinoe gravely. “But I am sorry, Arsinoe. I did try.”

  Quickly, Arsinoe eats the rest of the food. She wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Emilia did try. And Arsinoe will not let that effort go to waste.

  “Where are you going?” Emilia asks.

  “I’m going to wake up Pietyr Renard.”

  Arsinoe has never been to the Lermont house. She has seen it, though, passing by on her errands in that part of the city. The best butcher is not three blocks away, where she often goes to fetch scraps for Braddock, Camden, and the other familiars. But standing outside the gate, she feels out of place. It is early morning, even to those who did not spend the last night celebrating, and the Lermonts are the first family of Sunpool. Who is she to barge in on their household?

  As she works up her nerve to march up the flagstone walk, the front door opens and a man steps out. She recognizes him as Gilbert, the oracle who foretold the opportunity for Mirabella’s rescue. She remembers the way his fingers broke the surface of scrying wine that seemed like blood, and now, after how badly things went in the capital, the sight of him brings a sour taste to her mouth.

  “Hello,” she says. “Did you foresee me coming?”

  “No. But I did see you standing at my gate.”

  “Of course.” She walks up the slate-gray stones to shake his hand, but he keeps them folded and instead bows slightly. Then he steps aside and welcomes her into the house. Once inside, she does her best not to gawk. The oracles have such an enigmatic reputation. But the interior of the Lermont house is like any other. There are no garish runes painted on the walls, no bones or beads strung from the ceiling. The fortune-telling shop she found on the mainland had a stranger feel. The only thing that sets Lermont House apart, so far, is a small marble pedestal set near the window in the sitting room.

  “Do you use that to scry out of?” she blurts, then hunches her shoulders apologetically.

  “Yes,” Gilbert replies. “Though it is easier to use the ones in the sight garden. Here we tend to use a simple bowl of water. Would you like me to take you to him?” He laughs when Arsinoe’s eyes widen. “It does not take a seer to know why you have come. It is this way.”

  He leads her through the first floor
of the house and up a set of stairs.

  “Are you the only one awake?”

  “Except for the guards.”

  “Guards?”

  “You missed them. They knew who you were, of course, and let you pass. Here.” He stops beside a window and draws back the drape to point out a guard positioned behind the hedge, armed with a spear. A bow and a quiver of arrows rests beside her in the snow. “And there, the edge of his shoulder.” He points across the yard. Arsinoe had not had any hint of the guards when she walked by. “Mathilde has gone to her room to bed, and when she wakes, she will likely return to the castle. I think she is satisfied now that Master Renard is safe with us.”

  In the hall, he opens the last door on the right and steps back so that she may enter first. Arsinoe walks in and whistles.

  “Safe with you and very comfortable.” The room where Pietyr rests has to be one of the finest in the house. The drape is floor-to-ceiling lace, all white, and the bed is hung with white curtains. Beneath her feet, the floors shine brightly, and crystal vases, bowls, and candlesticks adorn nearly every flat surface. The air smells of sugared lemons. She hopes they did not oust one of their own just to accommodate an unconscious poisoner.

  “Don’t worry. This room was unused. It was hastily prepared but well, I think.”

  “You can read minds?” Arsinoe asks warily.

  “Sometimes. Just now it was easy enough. But do not worry. Scrying is the only reliable aspect of my gift.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I mean, maybe a little. But it’s impressive.”

  “I am the strongest one left now that Theodora is gone.”

  Arsinoe nods and tries very hard not to think about masking her thoughts while simultaneously trying to think quietly. In the bed beside the broad wall of windows, Pietyr Renard lies motionless beneath thick white blankets. Next to the bed is a chair stuffed with gray pillows, a yellow throw slung over the arm. It must have been where Mathilde sat, all night, keeping watch.

  “And there has been no change?”

  “Nothing,” Gilbert replies. “He is now as he was when we laid him down.”

  Arsinoe frowns. It was what she expected to hear, but just once, could not things be easy? “Maybe if I slap him across the face,” she says in a bright, quick voice.