He is a great brown. She was not seeking him. She was on the path of a stag and would have caught up with her quarry over the next rise.
The bear does not want trouble. He has most likely retreated back into his winter den in order to avoid the hunters.
Jules draws her knife. It is long and sharp and can go through a bear’s hide. But the bear will still kill her if he decides to fight.
The bear looks at the knife and sniffs. Part of her wants him to come. She is surprised by that, by the heat of her anger and the weight of her despair.
“If you are looking for the queen,” she says, “you came too late.”
It is not necessary to see the elementals or the poisoners to know that the naturalists will have the largest cache of meat. So many hunters flood the trees, and there are so many shouts of victory. Most who Mirabella sees have game tied to their belts: rabbits or nice fat pheasants. No one who attends the naturalist feast will be eating field-raised goat; that is certain.
She and Elizabeth and Bree have run far with the hunters. Perhaps farther than they meant to. But the parties move so fast. It is nearly impossible to keep from being caught up in their current.
“The naturalist gift grows strong,” Mirabella says, thinking of Juillenne Milone and her mountain cat.
“I have heard whispers,” says Elizabeth, “of a girl with a cougar for a familiar.”
“They are not only whispers,” says Mirabella. “I have seen her. In the forest that day, with my sister.”
“With your sister?” Bree asks. She sounds alarmed. But in the dim light of the moon, she is only a shadowed shape.
“What?” Mirabella asks. “What is the matter?”
“Did you not wonder if the naturalists had grown clever as well as strong? That perhaps they had hidden Arsinoe’s strength all this time and that cougar is truly hers?”
“I do not think so,” Mirabella says.
“And besides,” adds Elizabeth. “Mountain cat or no, Arsinoe is gone.”
Mirabella nods. They ought to be heading back to the encampment. The poisoned priestesses will soon wake. But before she can say so, another hunting party comes upon them and sweeps them up into their run.
“Jules!”
It is only a harsh whisper, scarcely able to be heard above the cries of the hunters and Bree’s and Elizabeth’s laughter.
“Jules!”
Mirabella slows and then stops. Bree and Elizabeth run on without her.
“Joseph?”
He is alone, holding a low-burning torch. There are black marks on his face and on his shoulder. But it is him.
When he sees her, he freezes.
“Queen Mirabella,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“I do not know,” she says. “I probably should not be.”
He hesitates a moment and then takes her by the hand and pulls her behind a broad tree trunk where they will not be seen.
Neither knows what to say. They grip each other’s hands tightly. Joseph’s jawline is smeared with blood, just visible in the light of the dying torch.
“You are injured,” Mirabella says.
“It’s just a scratch,” he says. “I tripped over a log when the Hunt began. Lost my party.”
Lost Juillenne, is what he means. Mirabella smiles slightly. “It seems you are injured often. Perhaps you should not be allowed out alone.”
Joseph chuckles. “I suppose I shouldn’t. Since I’ve been back here, I have become a bit . . . prone to accidents.”
She touches the trace of blood on his chin. It is nothing serious. It only adds to his wildness, when coupled with the black stripes on his face and down his bare shoulder. She wonders who painted them, and imagines Jules’s fingers sliding over Joseph’s skin.
“I knew you would be here,” she says. “Even after Arsinoe’s escape. I knew. I hoped.”
“I didn’t think I would see you,” he says. “You are supposed to be hidden away.”
Hidden away. Kept prisoner, under heavy guard. But she and Bree have been thwarting the temple’s attempts to lock her up since they were children. It is a wonder the priestesses have not given up by now, or gotten better.
Mirabella slips her hand up Joseph’s chest to curl around the base of his shoulder. He is warm from running and his pulse jumps at her touch. She presses closer until their lips are almost touching.
“You do not know me like you know Jules,” Mirabella says. “But do you want me just the same? Did it matter, what happened that night, in the storm?”
Joseph breathes hard. He looks at her from beneath a lowered brow. He does not have much resistance left. He did not have much to begin with.
She slides her other arm around his neck, and he kisses her hard, pressing her into the tree.
“It mattered,” he says against her. “But God, I wish it hadn’t.”
THE ARRON ENCAMPMENT
The poisoner kill is mostly birds, and a few rabbits. It will be nothing compared to the naturalist kill, but that is to be expected. The Hunt is truly the naturalists’ portion of Beltane.
Katharine joins Natalia in the long, white kitchen tent and finds Natalia wrist deep in feathers, plucking a pheasant.
“Should I,” Katharine starts, “have brought the servants?”
“No,” Natalia says. “The few we have brought are tasked with other things. But there are still birds to be plucked. Beltane makes servants of us all.”
Katharine rolls up the sleeves of her gown and grabs for the nearest bird.
Natalia nods approvingly. “Pietyr has been a good influence on you,” she says.
“He did not teach me to pull feathers,” says Katharine. “I may make a mess of it.”
“But you are self-assured. You are charming. You have grown up since he has come.”
Katharine smiles back and puffs feathers away from her nose. Most of the birds are destined for the feasts, but a few of the best will be reserved for the Quickening Ceremony and her Gave Noir.
“Is that not why you brought him to Greavesdrake?”
“It is,” Natalia says. “It was his task to make you a fanciable woman, and he has.” There is a bit of blood on her fingers. She has been pulling too hard and has torn the skin. “It was my task to develop your gift and to keep you safe. My task to make you the queen.”
“Natalia, what is the matter?” asks Katharine. “You sound as though you think you have failed.”
“Perhaps I have,” she says, and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper, though there is no one else in the tent, and no nearby shadows on the canvas.
“I hoped that Arsinoe’s escape would change their plans,” Natalia goes on. “That they would be too busy searching for the hideous brat. Or that they would deem it unnecessary. But I have seen the crate’s moving, and I know what is inside. All those serrated knives.”
Across the table, Katharine keeps working. The faraway, vacant look in Natalia’s ice-blue eyes, and the dread in her voice, chills Katharine to the bone.
“Arsinoe was a clever thing,” Natalia says. “A coward but clever. Using that mainland boy to sneak her away . . . Who would have thought it possible?”
“I do not think that they made it,” Katharine says. “I think they are both at the bottom of the sea. With fish biting away their cheeks.”
Natalia laughs. “Perhaps. But if she is at the bottom of the sea, she is still not here. And they will have only one target.”
“‘They’? Natalia, what are you talking about? Is something wrong? Do you think I will fail the Gave Noir?”
“No. You will not. It will be a spectacular success.”
Katharine flushes shamefully. The Gave is the thing she dreads. Since long before the humiliation of her birthday. Failing before Natalia and Genevieve is bad enough. To fail before the island will be so much worse.
“‘Spectacular’? That is not likely,” she says.
Natalia pushes the dead birds to the side. Her eyes travel over Katharine li
ke she is seeing her for the first time.
“Do you trust me, Kat?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then eat from the Gave until your belly is swollen.” Her hand darts out to grab the young queen’s as fast as the strike of a snake. “Eat it without fear. And trust that there will be no poison.”
“What? How?”
“The priestesses may think that they are smart,” Natalia says. “But no one is better at sleight of hand than I am. And I will do anything to make you appear strong. So that no one will be able to say that this is a Sacrificial Year.”
THE MILONE ENCAMPMENT
“We used to share our meat,” Ellis says, “instead of dividing into separate feasts. Poisoners, naturalists. Warriors. Elementals. Even the giftless. We were all one on festival days when I was young.”
“When was that, Granddad,” Jules asks. “One or two hundred years ago?”
Ellis grins and sends Jake over the top of the table to nip her fingers.
The morning after the Hunt is quiet. Everyone in the meadow is either working or resting. Or tending their wounded. As predicted, many within the great horde were injured. But there has been no word of any deaths. Some have begun to whisper that this Beltane is blessed.
But it cannot be blessed with Arsinoe gone.
Camden climbs clumsily onto Jules’s lap and sniffs at the bandaged cut on Jules’s shoulder. It is not from the bear. The great brown she left where she found him, snug in his den. Instead, she went on to her stag and brought him down fast, one cut with her knife across his throat. But a thrashing hoof caught her as she held him down.
Jules reaches over the table and slices Cam a thick piece of the stag’s heart.
“That stag is the finest take of the Hunt,” Cait says. “By rights that heart should go into a stew for the queens.”
“Send the rest of it, then,” Jules says. “All the queens are not here. And Arsinoe would want Cam to have her portion.”
Behind the table, Madrigal’s tent rustles. Jules frowns and squeezes her cougar. That tent has been rustling since she woke. Rustling and giggling. Madrigal is not alone.
“Get up and out of there,” Cait says, and kicks the flap. “There’s work.”
The tent flap rises. Matthew holds it up so that Madrigal can duck beneath his arm.
Cait and Ellis freeze. Matthew has been with Madrigal, but that does not make any sense. He loves Aunt Caragh. Or he did. Madrigal’s fingers slide down the open collar of his shirt, and he smiles. Grins, even, like a guileless hound that has been chasing thrown sticks.
Jules jumps up from the table so quickly that she unseats Camden.
“What have you done?” she shouts. Her hand slams down. Everything on the tabletop shakes. “Get away from him!”
“Jules, no!” Ellis grasps Camden around the neck just as she is set to spring. Matthew steps in front of Madrigal to shield her, and Jules growls.
“I,” Madrigal says. “I . . .”
“I don’t care if you are my mother! You shut your mouth!”
“Juillenne Milone.”
Jules quiets. She clenches her fists, and her teeth, and tears her eyes from Matthew and Madrigal to look at her grandmother.
“You get out of here now,” Cait says calmly. “Go.”
Jules takes several deep breaths. But she calms, and Ellis releases Camden. She turns on her heel.
“Jules, wait,” says Madrigal.
“Madrigal,” Cait says. “Keep quiet.”
Jules stalks away into the Beltane crowd. She is lost in it in seconds.
For a while she walks without purpose, an angry girl and a mountain cat cutting a wide path. Matthew and Madrigal seemed so at ease. Not at all like new lovers. With Madrigal’s frequent disappearances, it is impossible to determine when it started.
“I hate her,” Jules says to Camden quietly. Selfish Madrigal, constantly acting without thought. She had created chaos for Jules’s whole life and never did anything to fix it beyond pouting. Now she has Matthew. She always did like to take things from Caragh. Even this last thing. The only thing Caragh had left.
“Jules!”
She turns. It is Luke, shouldering his way through people.
She had not been sure he would come. Loyal Luke. He had believed in Arsinoe since the beginning. He was the only one who never doubted.
When he reaches Jules he wraps her in a warm embrace. Hank the rooster flutters down from Luke’s back to peck a hello to Camden.
“I am glad you’re here,” Jules says. “You are one of the only welcome sights I have had at this festival.”
He holds out a package wrapped in brown paper.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“The dress I made for Arsinoe,” he says.
Jules squeezes the fabric inside the bag.
“Why did you bring it?” she asks. “When she is not here to wear it?”
“It was never for her. She asked me to make it for you. She told me to make it well and to make it shine. For you and the eyes of your young man.”
Jules holds the package to her chest. Sweet, foolish Arsinoe, to think of her instead of herself. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she had only done it because she knew even then that she intended to run away.
“Did she really leave us, Jules?” Luke asks. “Or was it the mainlander? Was she taken?”
Jules cannot imagine Arsinoe doing anything she did not want to do. But it is possible. And the thought will comfort Luke.
“I do not know,” she says. “She may have been.”
Luke sighs. Around them the faces are jovial. Untroubled festival faces. Most are probably glad that Arsinoe is gone. It is one less obstacle in Mirabella’s path. Now there is only Katharine. A poisoner, rumored to be weak and sickly.
“I suppose we ought to support Mirabella now,” Luke says. “I suppose we will have to grow to love her. It will be easier to do, since she didn’t have to slay our Arsinoe.”
Jules nods grimly. She will never love Mirabella, but for her own, small reasons. It does not mean she will make a poor queen.
“I saw the suitors’ ships when I passed Sand Harbor,” Luke says. “Five of them, though Billy’s doesn’t really count.”
Jules nods grimly as Luke tells her which flags the ships bear. Two from the land of Bernadine’s consort. One from Camille’s. One from someplace he cannot identify. But Jules is no longer listening. Billy’s father’s ship is at Innisfuil. With Billy aboard it? Somehow she does not think so. She doubts that Chatworth has any more knowledge of Billy and Arsinoe’s fate than anyone else.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Luke ponders. “The way we take mainlanders in to our bosoms, just so we can keep them out?”
In the harbor to the southeast, the delegation ships will wait until sunset, when they begin the procession toward Longmorrow Bay. There, they will lay anchor for the Disembarking. Had Arsinoe been with her, Jules might have taken Camden across the cliffs to spy. Now it hardly matters. Let Mirabella choose whoever she likes. He will have little power on the island. King-consorts are figureheads. Symbols of peace with the mainland.
“What is that?” Luke asks, and points.
Priestesses run down the path from the cliffs in a black-and-white line. Jules and Luke press forward to get a better view. So do many others. Small as she is, Jules has to jump to see over their heads and shoulders.
There is a disturbance near the Westwood tents. Or perhaps it is in the High Priestess’s tent. They are so close together that it is hard to tell. Luke prods a tall fellow in the back.
“Oi, do you know what’s going on over there?”
“Can’t be sure,” the man replies. “But it sounds like they caught the traitor queen.”
“That can’t be,” Luke says.
“I think it is. There are priestesses coming now.”
“Let us through!” Jules shouts. But the crowd is too dense. She growls, and Camden snarls and jumps against the man’s back, slicing his shirt. The e
dges of the fabric soak red, and he cries out.
The crowd parts. They also scream at her—horrible naturalist slurs about her and her beast. But she does not care. Behind her, Luke has gone for Cait and Ellis. If it really is Arsinoe, as Jules both prays and fears that it is, then she will need them all.
THE HIGH PRIESTESS’S ENCAMPMENT
It does not take long for the Black Council to assemble in the tent that Luca designated. The tent is small and mostly empty, with only a few rugs, and stacks of crates inside. It is flimsy and impermanent, but the weight of the people standing beneath it makes it seem as substantial as solid rock.
The poisoners Paola Vend and Lucian Marlowe, and war-gifted Margaret Beaulin, stand to one side with Renata Hargrove. Natalia Arron stands at the head. The head of the snake, Luca sometimes calls her. Behind her are the other Arrons of the council: Allegra, Antonin, Lucian, and Genevieve. Genevieve stands close at Natalia’s shoulder. She is Natalia’s ears on the council, they say. Her knife in the dark. Mirabella dislikes her on sight.
It is only by chance that Mirabella is there. She was with Luca when the priestesses came with the news of Arsinoe’s capture, and Luca did not have time to argue with her about leaving.
Across the tent, Mirabella and Jules briefly lock eyes. It is a charged moment in the midst of charged moments, and it does not last long. But afterward, Mirabella will remember the fierceness in Jules’s expression and how much she looked like the cougar beside her.
“Queen Mirabella should not be here,” Natalia says in her cold, steady voice. She is the only one in the tent whose heart does not appear to be pounding. “She has no voice on the council.”
“There are many here who do not have a voice on the council,” Cait points out.
“Cait,” Natalia says. “Of course you may stay. As fosters, all you Milones may stay.”
“Aye, and we thank you,” Cait replies sarcastically. “But is it true? Has she been found?”
“We will know soon enough,” says Luca. “I have sent priestesses to the coast to collect these travelers, whoever they may be.”