Five Dark Fates

by Kendare Blake

  The little bird flies onto her windowsill. She knows him immediately, even before he greets her with one bright chirp. For a moment, it feels as though he is Mirabella, come back to visit her, before Arsinoe remembers that Mirabella was no naturalist. Only a friend to one.

  She holds her hand out, and the black-and-white tufted woodpecker hops into her palm. He is tired, and agitated, the poor little fellow. His wings hang loose and away from his body, and his small sharp beak parts in a pant.

  Arsinoe is no naturalist either, but the moment his feet touch her skin, he settles down and fluffs his feathers. She carries him farther inside as his tiny, dark eyes drift shut, and sits down in her chair by the fire.

  “No sleeping yet, friend,” she whispers, and tickles his belly.

  Irritated, Pepper cracks one eye open. Then he thrusts out his leg with the note tied to it, shaking it slightly as if to urge her to hurry so he can get some rest.

  Arsinoe removes the note and unrolls it. Her breath catches when she recognizes Mirabella’s writing. She sets it in her lap and strokes the bird a moment. She thought it would be from his naturalist, Elizabeth. Or perhaps from Bree Westwood. When had Mirabella written it? When had she sent it? She purses her lips and looks down at the woodpecker. He is asleep already.

  She unrolls the parchment and reads.

  Please come to the capital. Katharine is not what you have heard. Nor what you have seen. Something has taken hold of her that only you can remedy. We three queens have been steered here by the Goddess for a reason. Me to face down the mist. Katharine to be the vessel. And you to banish them with low magic. I am sorry I left, but please come. Your sisters have need of you. Both of your sisters. With love, M

  Arsinoe sits quietly for a moment. Then she crumples the parchment and throws it into the fire.

  The morning they are to depart—the rebel army to Indrid Down and Arsinoe to the mountain—Arsinoe and Billy accompany Luke to be fitted for his armor. It is merely a helmet and breastplate. The rebellion has not had time to outfit its fighters in more. But Luke is excited nonetheless. He stands with his arms out and turns back and forth for them as Hank the rooster pecks at the metal to test its toughness.

  Luke should be behind the counter at the bookshop. He should be setting his table with biscuits and cakes or sewing handsome panels of embroidery into a gown. Luke is a creator of things, not a destroyer, and it is hard for Arsinoe to smile and nod as he shows her his crossbow and pike.

  “It’s a pity you can’t bring Braddock along,” Billy says, watching Hank kick his spurs into Luke’s helmet. “What tales they would tell of the battle afterward, of Queen Arsinoe riding into war on her great brown bear. We could have had him some armor made.”

  “They’ll tell those tales anyway,” Arsinoe says. “Half of every legend is made-up nonsense. They’ll talk about the two of you as well—running into the fray with a pair of armored chickens.”

  Luke’s eyes widen. “Harriet would look beautiful in armor! But she’s no familiar. Even Hank, who is as fierce as they come, must stay back from the fighting.” He looks at the rooster, who cocks his head defiantly. “Only the dogs and the flying birds will be safe. The larger familiars. Like Camden.”

  “No one will be safe,” Billy whispers, but Luke does not seem to hear.

  “Speaking of familiars, or false familiars, I’d better go and find mine. I’m taking him to the mountain with me before depositing him back at the Black Cottage.”

  In the disarray of travel with an army, in the chaos of battle, she and Luke might never see each other again. Good Luke, who has always believed in her, and who cries at the drop of a hat. But this time it is her eyes that are misting over.

  “I’ll find you before we march,” she promises, and he shakes her hand.

  As she and Billy leave the city in search of her bear, the rebels have started to line up, and the square is packed tight with rows and rows of saddled horses. Every street that leads from it is packed as well, with fighters waiting for the order to go. They sit on barrels or on their own packs of supplies, each one at least as afraid as they are determined.

  Arsinoe runs her fingers along Billy’s wrist to see if he will wince. “How are your injuries? Do I need to change the bandages?”

  “No. I don’t know what you put in that ointment, but—”

  “Magic,” she teases. “A little of my blood.”

  “Arsinoe.” He half smiles even as he makes a squeamish face.

  “You shouldn’t go,” she says finally. “You’re no fighter. You should stay behind the lines and direct the battle. Or find a ship and get out of here altogether.”

  “I’ve been training with the army. And I’m a fair shot with a bow, you know. Archery. My father insisted.”

  “Keep. To. The. Back.”

  “I’m a fast learner. I’m just as good now as half of these lads.”

  “But not near as good as these ladies,” Arsinoe says, and swipes him on the back of the head. “Mainlander.”

  “Arsinoe!”

  They turn at the sound of Jules’s shout. She and Camden are coming up behind, the cougar’s tail swinging lazily back and forth. Billy gives Arsinoe’s hand a soft squeeze.

  “Go with Jules,” he says. “She’ll be better at tracking down Braddock anyhow. Find me before we march.”

  “All right,” she says, and he kisses her. Then he jogs back toward the city gate and tips an imaginary hat to Jules and Camden.

  “Looking for a bear?” Jules asks. “I think I saw him earlier, searching the vines for early berries.”

  “Far too early for those.”

  “I might have ripened him some,” Jules says. She points, and they walk along the wall toward the most tenacious of the berry vines. It does not take long to find Braddock; his broad, brown backside is difficult to miss.

  “We just came from seeing Luke. He’s being fitted for his armor,” Arsinoe says. “He doesn’t seem to know that it’s real. Hank seemed more concerned than he did. I wanted to grab him by the neck and scream at him.”

  “Scream what?”

  “That he doesn’t belong in armor. That he doesn’t belong in a fight.”

  “Neither do you,” Jules says. “Of all the queens, you’re the least likely to come out of this intact. Katharine has become a warrior, thanks to the borrowed gifts of the dead. And Mirabella was—”

  “A thunderstorm. A wildfire.”

  “Yes. But you? Despite your affinity for shoving people, you’re no fighter. You fight with your wits. With subterfuge. And magic.”

  “Like a poisoner,” Arsinoe says. “I suppose I was always like one, deep down. We’re such a terrible crop of queens, all of us. None of us is what we were supposed to be.”

  “No,” says Jules. “We’re all more. And don’t call yourselves a ‘crop.’ You’re not a vegetable.”

  Arsinoe chuckles softly. “Don’t say ‘crop’; don’t say ‘whelp. . . .’ You have too many rules, Jules.”

  “I never said you couldn’t say ‘whelp.’”

  Arsinoe’s smile fades. “That’s right. That was Mirabella.”

  They watch as Camden swats playfully at Braddock’s behind. It is a wonder how well they play together. Camden gnaws on Braddock’s leg, and he sends her rolling through the wet moss. She comes up shaking her head, her fur stained dark and sticking up in places, only to go right back to gnawing.

  “She needed this,” Jules says, her eyes on her cat. “It’s lifted her spirits.”

  “And Braddock’s, too.” But not theirs. They linger in the comfort of each other’s company, but it cannot last.

  “Sometimes I just want to run to Grandma Cait and have her take me home.”

  “So do I,” says Arsinoe. “And I’m surprised she sends Caragh to the war meetings. I kind of hoped she would advise us.”

  “She does advise me. Just not in front of a council.”

  “What does she say?”

  “That we can’t win. But that
we have to try.”

  “She’s not so great at raising spirits either, then,” Arsinoe says, and Jules puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “My spirit will rise when the battle is over. And I see you alive on the other side.” She pulls Arsinoe into a hug. “Be alive on the other side.”

  INDRID DOWN

  “The rebel army is marching.”

  Genevieve comes to stand behind Katharine’s shoulder as she looks out the window, down at the city. For days, the citizens of Indrid Down have fortified their homes, boarding windows and bringing storage barrels inside.

  “Queen Katharine. Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” Katharine says. She and Genevieve watch as an old horse that is more bones than meat is led quickly down the street, perhaps for safekeeping at some farm in the countryside.

  “Should we have the outlying farms searched? Conscript more supplies for the siege before the rebels arrive?”

  “It will not be a siege. It will be a battle. And a final one.”

  “Should we relocate those we can who are not fighting?”

  Katharine nods to the boarded-up windows.

  “They know what is coming. They choose to remain. Half of them will probably take up arms against me.”

  Genevieve steps up beside her, hands white and trembling on the stone of the window ledge. She is afraid. They are all afraid. For all of the arrogance and strength on the Black Council, none of them has seen a war.

  “Kat, do not give up!” She fixes Katharine with her lilac eyes. “My sister did not raise you to stand aside!”

  “Your sister raised me to do what I am told. She raised me to serve. To please.” Katharine flexes her hand and feels the dead queens there, just below the surface, taking up more and more space as the days go by. She has certainly served them well. “I loved Natalia. And she loved me, in her way. But she never believed. And now you do not believe either. You think that Arsinoe and Jules Milone march to us with an army of elementals and naturalists and warriors, with oracles to show them our traps and the giftless to rush our cavalry. You think they will overcome us with a flurry of diving hawks and lightning strikes. You have no idea what my army can do.”

  “Then you are not afraid?” Genevieve asks. “You do not fear we will lose?”

  Katharine lowers her eyes sadly.

  “No. We will not lose.”

  MOUNT HORN

  The afternoon sun is warm on her back when Arsinoe climbs the trail up the slope of Mount Horn with her bear. Though most of the snow has melted in the lowland meadows, the trail itself is still coated in white.

  Behind her in Sunpool, the rebel army leaks from the city gate in a steady stream. She will catch up when she is finished. They will have not gotten far, an army that size and unused to marching. The first night that they make camp, Emilia will scream herself hoarse getting them organized. But Arsinoe must admit, it is impressive how quickly they moved once Jules gave the order.

  Arsinoe keeps her pace steady and leans into her bear. She squints her eyes and tries to see Jules riding her black gelding at the head or Emilia on her bright red charger but does not find them. Billy is there, too, somewhere, on a borrowed horse. Carrying borrowed weapons. To fight in a borrowed war.

  Before she left for the mountain, Billy asked if he could accompany her.

  “It’s queens’ business,” she had said.

  “Like you have with Katharine.”

  “Yes. Like I have with Katharine.”

  He had not argued, as if even asking had been only an act, a line he was supposed to say. At night, he still held her like he would never let her go. But something had changed. Since his time as Katharine’s prisoner, Billy has not been the same.

  “There is no future for queens,” she murmurs, and Braddock nudges her gently with his head.

  When they step inside the cave, the air smells of the stone of the mountain and the thawing earth. She reaches into her pack for wood, to start a fire to warm her chilled hands, and for a piece of dried fish to thank the bear for his company. It takes some time to get the wood lit; her fingers fumble with the matches and she has never been as good at assembling the wood as Jules. But soon enough, the cave is lit by orange light, and she sits down beside Braddock, her eyes on the shadows in the rear, where the cave plummets to the center of the mountain.

  She is not afraid, this time. Not wary or even apprehensive. This time, she knows why she has come.

  “Don’t be shy, Daphne,” Arsinoe whispers. “You owe me.”

  She stares into the blackness at the shape of the stones. Finally, she gets up and stalks into the dark.

  “I didn’t come all this way to speak to a hole in the ground.” She waits. Any moment, Daphne will appear: a dripping shape, fingers tipped in sharp points and legs that stretch too long and bend in unnatural directions.

  Except that she does not. Arsinoe leans over the side of the stones, suspending herself above the abyss. Once, in her dreams, she had thought of Daphne as a friend. Perhaps she had even thought of her as a part of herself. She does not anymore.

  “Come out of there!” she shouts, and listens to her voice ring off the depths. “Mirabella is dead! And the mist remains! Did you ever really think it could be quieted? Or did you only want to see another dead elemental queen?” The questions hang in the air and echo back to her unanswered. She sees no movement in the shadows, no drifting bits of smoke. Nor does she sense her hidden behind the stones.

  Arsinoe reaches for her small sharp knife. She makes a shallow cut on the side of her hand and smears it against the cave wall. She squeezes her fist and lets her queensblood drip down, down, down to the heart of the island. But the mountain is empty. Daphne is gone and whatever force raised her is once again silent. She will be of no help to them.

  They are on their own.

  THE REBEL CAMP

  “It wasn’t easy,” Jules says as she and Caragh look down upon the army from Jules’s campsite on the knoll. “But we did it.” They moved an entire fighting force through the mountains. Below, rebels set up tents and construct temporary paddocks for the horses. Thanks to the naturalists, almost none were lost to lameness despite the uncertain and rocky terrain.

  “The rebels are rebels no more,” says Caragh. “They’re soldiers.” She inclines her head toward Jules. “Arsinoe should have caught up with us by now. Maybe she’s just lingering with Braddock.”

  “Maybe you should go back and see.” Jules looks at her aunt from the corner of her eye.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I want you to go back.”

  “Absolutely not.” Caragh shakes her head. “Your mother is gone. I’m no warrior, but I won’t let you go alone.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “But I’m all that—” Caragh stops.

  Jules looks at her. Caragh raised her, when Madrigal left. She taught her how to use her gift. And those years she spent away at the Black Cottage were all for her. For Jules. No one makes Jules feel safe like Caragh does. Even now, when she would ask for no more, all Jules wants is for Caragh to stay.

  “I need you to go back. For Fenn.”

  “Fenn has Matthew,” Caragh says, but her face falls.

  “I need you to go back for the others, to get them to safety if we fail. Every Milone’s life will be forfeit if we lose, and I can’t let that happen to Grandma Cait and Ellis. I need you in Sunpool to help the others fall back to Wolf Spring. And from there to disappear. Take my little brother. Take Matthew. And don’t let Katharine find you.”

  “Jules,” Caragh says. She reaches out and hugs her tightly, like she has not done since Jules was a little girl. Too soon, she turns and walks away. “I’ll go,” she says over her shoulder. “And if I see Arsinoe, I’ll send her in the right direction.”

  Caragh heads quickly down the hill, and passes Emilia on her way up.

  “Caragh?” Emilia calls. “Caragh, where are you going?” She joins Jules at her campsite. “Where
is Caragh going?”

  “I sent her back.”

  Emilia stares after her, as if considering the loss of another fighter. But then she nods.

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  “Arsinoe should have caught up with us by now.”

  “She’ll be here,” Emilia says, unconcerned.

  “We should send a scout back to look for her.”

  “Mmph,” Emilia grunts.

  “Is that a yes? I haven’t figured out how to interpret all of your noises yet.” She nudges the warrior in the shoulder. Emilia swats her away.

  “Do not try to disarm me.” She glances at Jules, annoyed. “And it was a no. We will not waste scouts. The battle is ahead, not behind.”

  “You know we need her and Daphne to stand against Katharine and whatever Katharine controls. What she did in Bastian—”

  “We only need you,” Emilia snaps. “Our Legion Queen. I hope that Arsinoe falls down that hole inside the cave. I hope she and her dead queen leave us in peace.”

  “You don’t mean that, and you don’t believe it. You’re brave, but you’re not stupid.” Jules looks down at the army, and stiffens. She cannot forget the things she saw in the warriors’ city. The brutality of it. And the utter one-sidedness.

  “Are you afraid?” Emilia asks.

  “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” She grins. “But the war gift . . . I enjoy the fear. I drink it like ale. Do you not feel that?” She turns to Jules and runs a finger along her chin. The touch and the look set off something deep in the pit of Jules’s stomach. Something that feels both familiar and completely new. “Do you not like it, even a little bit?” Jules takes a shaky breath, and Emilia steps closer to take her face in her hands.

  “It is not long before we fight. Not long before this is settled, one way or another. The fighting will be . . . chaotic. Full of blood and chance. We will lose friends.”