Three Dark Crowns

  “I remember, Pietyr. You lifted me over the water.”

  “But I will not, tomorrow night. I will not be able to.”

  “What do you mean?” Katharine asks.

  “Listen to me, Kat,” Pietyr says. “Natalia thinks that she has this all in hand. But if she does not . . .”

  “What?”

  “I will not be there tomorrow night at the Quickening,” he says. “If it goes wrong, I could not bear to watch it.”

  “You have no faith in me,” she says, hurt.

  “It is not that. Katharine, you must promise me something. If anything goes wrong tomorrow night, I want you to run. Straight to me, at the Breccia Domain. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she says softly. “But Pietyr, why—”

  “Anything, Kat. If anything goes wrong. Do not listen to anyone. Just go there. Do you promise?”

  “I do, Pietyr. I promise.”

  THE QUICKENING

  THE WESTWOOD ENCAMPMENT

  Elizabeth drapes the black cloak over Mirabella’s back, and Bree ties it before her chest. It hangs carefully over the wet, herb-soaked black cloth wrapped around her hips and breasts. It is all she will wear for the Quickening Ceremony, except for the fire.

  “Your young man will not be able to take his eyes off you,” Bree says.

  “Bree,” Mirabella says, and shushes her. “There is no young man.”

  Bree and Elizabeth exchange conspiratorial smiles. They do not believe her, since they found her at the edge of the meadow after the Hunt, flushed and breathless. But Mirabella cannot bring herself to tell them about Joseph. He is a naturalist, and loyal to her sister. That may be too much for even Bree to understand.

  Outside, the light turns orange, on its way toward pink and blue. The ceremony begins on the beach at sundown.

  “Have you seen Luca yet?” Mirabella asks.

  “I saw her heading to the beach late this afternoon. She will have much to do. I don’t know whether she will make it back to see you before it is time.” Elizabeth smiles reassuringly. Yes, the High Priestess must be busy. It is not that she is furious with Mirabella for interfering with Arsinoe’s execution.

  “You ought to be angry with her, anyway,” Bree says.

  “I am,” says Mirabella. She is, and she is not. Luca has been dear to her all these years. The strife between them these past months has not been easy.

  “What are these priestesses about, Elizabeth?” Bree asks, peering out from between the tent flaps. “They are all acting strangely. Huddled together. Muttering.”

  “I don’t know. I am one of yours now, and they know it. They tell me nothing.”

  Mirabella cranes her neck to look. Bree is right. The priestesses have not behaved normally all day. They are even more hard and aloof than usual. And some seem afraid.

  “There is something in the air,” Bree says, “that I do not like.”

  THE MILONE ENCAMPMENT

  Arsinoe buttons another vest over another black shirt and straightens the ribbon on her mask. Behind her, Madrigal fidgets in a soft black dress.

  “Did Jules tell you?” Madrigal asks. “That she saw me with Matthew?”

  Arsinoe stops. She turns to Madrigal, surprised and disappointed.

  “Matthew?” she asks. “You mean Caragh’s Matthew.”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “To you and to all of us, that’s who he is. I imagine that Jules was not too happy.”

  Madrigal kicks at a pillow and tosses her pretty chestnut hair.

  “No one was happy. I knew that you wouldn’t be. I knew just what you would say.”

  Arsinoe turns away from her again. “If you knew what we would say, then our words must not matter much. You did it anyway.”

  “Do not fight with me today! You need me.”

  “Is that why you told me now?” Arsinoe asks. “So I couldn’t give you the tongue-lashing you deserve?”

  But she does need Madrigal. On a small circular table sits the beginnings of the spell—a small stone bowl of water that has been boiled and cooled, scented with herbs and red rose petals. Madrigal pouts as she lights a candle and warms the edge of her knife in the flame.

  “I haven’t seen Jules yet,” Arsinoe says, changing the subject. “If she doesn’t make it in time . . .”

  Madrigal takes up the bowl and walks toward her with the knife. Arsinoe rolls up her sleeve.

  “Do not think that way.” She slices deep into Arsinoe’s arm. “She will be here.”

  Arsinoe’s blood drizzles into the bowl like honey from a comb. It blooms bright red in the water and stirs up the herbs and ground petal bits. Between her blood and the bear’s, it will be half water and half blood. She cannot imagine having to drink it.

  “Will the magic still work if I throw this up onto the stage?”

  “Hush,” says Madrigal. “Now, you can’t carve the rune into your hand. There are too many old rune wounds there, and this one can’t afford to be muddied. You’ll have to draw it. Then press it to the bear’s head, coated in the potion. Save enough to pool into your palm after drinking the rest.”

  “Are you sure I have to drink it all? Can’t the bear and I share it?”

  Madrigal presses a cloth to the cut and squeezes Arsinoe’s arm hard. “Stop joking! This is no small spell. It will not make the bear your familiar. Perhaps not even your friend. If Jules is not strong enough to hold it after guiding it through the valley, then it may still tear you apart in front of everyone.”

  Arsinoe closes her mouth. They should not have asked Jules to do this. Joseph was right—it is too much. Holding the bear in the quiet woods would be difficult. Holding it steady in front of a roaring crowd and blazing torches seems nearly impossible.

  “If only we could dye Jules’s hair black and let her be queen . . . ,” Arsinoe says sarcastically.

  “Yes,” says Madrigal. “If only.”

  Outside the tent flap, Jake barks.

  “Arsinoe,” Ellis says. “It’s time.”

  Madrigal holds the young queen by the shoulders and gives her one steadying shake. “When Jules arrives, she’ll get the blood to me, and I will send the potion to the stage with her. It’s all right. There is still time.”

  Arsinoe steps out of the tent, and a lump lodges in her throat. Standing outside her tent are not only the Sandrins and Luke and the Milones, but half of the naturalists in the valley.

  “What are they doing here?” Arsinoe whispers to Joseph.

  “This?” Joseph asks, and smiles. “Seems that someone heard rumor of your performance. Queen Arsinoe and her great brown bear.”

  “And how did that happen?”

  “Once Luke caught wind of it, the entire valley knew within an hour.”

  Arsinoe looks at the people. Some smile at her in the torchlight. Her whole life they have thought her a failure, yet at the first hint of hope, they move to follow her, as if it is what they wanted all along.

  Perhaps it was.

  QUEEN KATHARINE’S STAGE

  The temple decreed the order of the Quickening performances. Katharine is to be first. The priestesses have set the long mahogany table with the poisoner’s feast. The torches are lit. She needs only to climb up onto her stage and begin.

  Katharine cranes her neck to view the crowd. The sea of faces and black-clad bodies stretches in front of all three stages and along the coast. Katharine’s stage is in the middle. Directly before hers is a raised dais, where the suitors sit, with High Priestess Luca.

  “So many priestesses,” Natalia mutters from beside her.

  “Yes,” Katharine says. Her stomach tenses. Natalia is a strong source of comfort, but she wishes that Pietyr had changed his mind about not attending.

  “All right, Kat,” Natalia says. “Let us go.”

  They walk up together. Katharine smiles as luminously as she knows how, remembering not to look rigid and formal like her elemental sister. But still the crowd’s eyes on her are somber. When Mirabel
la takes her stage, no doubt they will grin like fools.

  Genevieve and Cousin Lucian stand in the front row. She nods to them, and for once, Genevieve does not scowl.

  Katharine and Natalia take their places at the head of the table.

  “Trust me,” Natalia says. “Say the words loud.”

  Katharine’s gown rustles against her legs. It is a very fine garment to be ruined by Gave Noir stains. She can only hope that none of those stains will be caused by her sickening.

  Before them, priestesses remove the lids from each poison dish and announce the contents. Inky cap mushrooms stuffed with goat cheese and wolfsbane. Codfish stewed in yew berries. Tartlets of belladonna. Deathstalker scorpions, sugared and buttered, beside a dish of clotted oleander cream. And cantarella wine. The centerpiece of the feast is a great, golden pie baked into the shape of a swan.

  The air fills with delicious scents. The first three rows of poisoners lift their noses to scent the air like alley cats at a kitchen window.

  “Are you hungry, Queen Katharine?” Natalia asks, and Katharine takes a breath.

  “I am ravenous.”

  Natalia stands to one side as Katharine eats. Her bites at first are tentative and small, as if she does not believe. But as the feast progresses, and the poisoners clap, she grows more confident. Pink-tinged sauce drips down her chin.

  The mainland boys on the dais wet their lips. What wonder they must feel, watching this girl who cannot die. It does not even matter that it is not real.

  Katharine pushes away the plate of candied scorpions. She ate three, clever enough to leave the tails crumbled in the yellow sugar. All that remains is the swan pie.

  Natalia guides Katharine around the side of the table, and the queen tears through the crust to scoop out the meat. That is all. Katharine washes it down with a full goblet of wine and empties it to the last drop.

  She slams her hands down on the table. The crowd cheers. Louder, it seems, out of sheer surprise.

  Natalia raises her eyes to the dais and finds Luca’s cold, stony gaze.

  Natalia smiles.

  QUEEN ARSINOE’S STAGE

  From her place behind the stage to Katharine’s right, the Gave Noir looks as grotesque as Arsinoe expected a ritual feasting of poison to look. She is unfamiliar with many of the poisons listed in the dishes, but even she must admit to being impressed as pale, petite Katharine swallows them down. By the time it is over, Katharine is coated in berry glaze and meat gravy to the elbows, and the crowd is screaming.

  Arsinoe clenches her fists and then remembers the rune drawn in her palm and quickly releases them. It cannot be smudged or muddied. This is not the best day to ask her palms not to sweat.

  “Arsinoe.”

  “Jules! Thank the Goddess!”

  Jules presses the small black bowl of potion into Arsinoe’s hand. Arsinoe makes a face.

  “Pretend that it’s wine,” Jules says.

  Arsinoe stares down into it. Drinking seems impossible. Though it is no more than four mouthfuls, it is four mouthfuls of salty, metallic, and tepid liquid. Blood from her own veins and the veins from a bear.

  “I think I see a piece of fur,” Arsinoe says.

  “Arsinoe! Drink it!”

  She tips the bowl back until it knocks against the wood of her mask.

  The potion tastes just as bad as she feared. It is surprisingly thick, and the herbs and roses do not help, providing only unwanted texture and chewiness. Arsinoe’s throat tries to close, but she manages to force it down, remembering to save enough to pool in the palm of her rune hand.

  “I’ll be just beside the stage,” says Jules, and disappears.

  The priestesses announce Arsinoe, and she steps up. The eyes of the crowd are as heavy as they were atop the cliffs, but she cannot think about them now. Somewhere, not far away, a bear is waiting.

  She walks to the center of the stage, the hastily assembled boards creaking beneath her feet. The blood-taste coats her tongue and rolls in her belly. She keeps her rune hand carefully cupped to her chest. It will work. It will look like she is praying. Like she is calling for her familiar.

  “Here, bear, bear, bear,” Arsinoe mutters, and closes her eyes.

  For a few moments, all is silent. And then he roars.

  People scream and part a wide path as he lopes toward the stage from the cover of the cliffs. He climbs up beside her without hesitation. The sight of his long, curved claws makes the cuts on her face itch. Somewhere to her right, Arsinoe hears Camden snarl and hiss.

  Arsinoe may not have long. Jules may not have much control. She has to get the blood and the rune pressed to his forehead.

  He comes closer. His fur touches her hip, and she freezes. His jaws are large enough to take half her rib cage in one bite.

  “Come,” she says, surprised that her voice does not crack. The bear turns his snout to look at her. His bottom lip hangs down, as bears’ bottom lips do. His gums are mottled pink. There is a black spot on the tip of his tongue.

  Arsinoe reaches out, and presses the bloody rune into the fur between the bear’s eyes.

  She holds her breath. She stares into the bear’s brown and gold-flecked eyes.

  The bear sniffs her face and slobbers on her mask, and Arsinoe laughs.

  The crowd cheers. Even those naturalists who doubted her throw their arms into the air. She ruffles the bear’s brown fur and decides to push her luck a little further.

  “Come on, Jules,” she says, and raises her arms in a wide V. “Up!”

  The bear slides backward. Then he stands on his hind legs, and bellows.

  The beach fills with cheers and shouts, the barking and cawing of happy familiars. Then the bear drops back onto all fours, and Arsinoe throws her arms around his neck and hugs him tight.

  THE DAIS

  The High Priestess watches the girl embrace the bear, and claps with the others. She has no choice. Amid the cheers and celebration, her eyes seek Rho, who faces her with eyes full of blood. Luca shakes her head. It is over. They have lost.

  Rho shakes her head. She bares her teeth and reaches for the handle of the knife at her side.

  QUEEN MIRABELLA’S STAGE

  “No one expected such a showing from Katharine and Arsinoe,” Sara Westwood says as she adjusts the fall of Mirabella’s cloak. “But it does not matter. It is still you they have come to see.”

  Mirabella cranes her neck toward where Katharine sits on her stage, in the middle of a poisoned table, and farther right, where Arsinoe stands, calmly stroking an enormous brown bear. She is not so sure that Sara is correct. But she can only do what she can do.

  The drums start before the priestesses call her to the stage. They extinguish all the torches, so her stage is dark, except for the warm, red glow of one brazier.

  Mirabella climbs the steps in three fast strides. She throws aside her cloak, and the crowd hushes. The quiet is absolute.

  The drums beat faster in time with her pulse. She reaches for the fire, and it leaps onto her hands. A murmur passes through the crowd as the flames stretch up her arms and roll across her belly.

  Working the fire is slow and sensuous. More controlled than when she calls the wind and the storms. The flames are bright. They do not burn her, but her blood still feels like it is boiling.

  She spins. The crowd gasps, and fire crackles in her ears.

  In the midst of the people straining toward her is Joseph. Seeing him nearly makes her take a misstep. His face is the face he wore on the night they met, lit by flames on a darkened beach. How she longs to pull him up onto the stage. She would clothe them both in fire. Burn them up together rather than far apart.

  She throws her head back as he calls her name.

  “Mirabella.”

  QUEEN KATHARINE’S STAGE

  Natalia watches the girl spin, on fire. The crowd is a sea of blank, enthralled faces. Mirabella has them in the palm of her hand.

  Something is shifting in the many rows of priestesses that line
the stages. Their fingers slip inside their cloaks, to rest on the hilts of their knives. One priestess with hair as red as blood stares at Natalia with a gaze so intense that she has to look away.

  The strength of Mirabella’s performance is difficult to believe. Even Natalia feels the pull, the draw to move toward her on the stage.

  She blinks and turns toward Luca and the old woman’s dark, burning eyes. The ruses that Natalia and the naturalists carried off do not matter. The temple will not waver. They will make the Sacrificial Year come true.

  QUEEN ARSINOE’S STAGE

  Jules can hardly hold the bear and watch Mirabella dance at the same time. The noise and movement of the crowd make him nervous, and beside Arsinoe, he begins to bob his head and scratch at the boards.

  Jules refocuses.

  “It is all right,” she whispers, with beads of sweat upon her brow, and in her mind, the bear tugs. He tugs hard.

  The crowd surges toward Mirabella, and Jules grits her teeth. When will the girl be done? The dance feels like it has gone on forever, though the people do not seem to mind. Jules takes a deep breath, and searches for Joseph. He will be somewhere watching, proud of her for what she has done with the bear.

  Only he is not looking at Jules at all. He is at the very front of Mirabella’s stage. Pressing toward her with the crowd.

  Jules can hardly believe the look in his eyes. If she were to shout his name at the top of her lungs, he would not hear her. He would not hear her if she were standing right beside his ear. The lust on his face sickens Jules’s stomach. He has never looked at her the way he looks at Mirabella.