In the midst of her dance, Mirabella reaches toward Joseph through the flames. Everyone can see. They must all know that they are together. That Jules is a fool.
In her chest, Jules’s heart turns sharp as a shard of glass, and something snaps. As it does, so does her hold on the bear.
Arsinoe knows that something is wrong when the bear starts shaking his head. His eyes change from serene to frightened and then to angry.
She steps back.
“Jules,” she says, but when she tries to get Jules’s attention, she cannot. Jules is staring intently toward Mirabella’s stage like everyone else.
The bear paws the wooden boards.
“Easy,” Arsinoe says, but she can do nothing. The low magic that binds them is not the same as a familiar-bond. The bear is afraid, and Jules has lost control.
There is no time to warn anyone as he roars and leaps from the stage and into the people, swiping sharp claws and throwing his head back and forth. No one can scatter. They are crowded together too tightly as they strain for Mirabella’s stage. Not even his claws cutting them down parts enough of a path, and the bear turns back for the stages.
“Jules!” Arsinoe shouts. But her shout is lost within the rest as the crowd begins to realize what is happening.
The bear climbs onto the middle stage, and Katharine screams. He barrels through the table of the Gave Noir, dashing it to pieces and sending it tumbling down to the sand. But he does not make it to Katharine. She is quick, and dives off the side to safety.
Priestesses draw their knives and advance with terrified faces. The bear slashes at the nearest one, and her white robes do nothing to hide all the red and loops of entrails that its claws rake out of her. At the sight of so much blood, the courage of the others fails, and they turn to flee with the crowd.
High Priestess Luca stands and shouts. The suitors watch in horror.
On the far stage, Mirabella has stopped dancing, but fire still burns across her chest and hips. It does not take the bear long to focus on her. He charges, tearing down torches and anyone who happens to be in his way. Mirabella cannot move. She cannot even scream.
Joseph leaps onto the stage, right in the bear’s path. He covers Mirabella with his body.
“No,” Arsinoe says. “No!”
Jules must know that it is Joseph. She must see. But it may be too late to call the bear back.
QUEEN MIRABELLA’S STAGE
Priestesses shout to protect the queen. But all Mirabella hears is the bellowing of the bear. All she feels are Joseph’s arms around her.
The bear did not strike them. It reared up on its hind legs. It roared. But in the end, it pawed at its face as though in pain and then dived off the stage to run down the beach.
Mirabella lifts her head and looks down at the scattered, panicked crowd. Most have found their way to safety through the cliffs and back into the valley. But several bodies lie motionless before the stages. The young priestess who attended Katharine’s stage lies now at the foot of it, her arms bent, her robes and her abdomen laid open for all to see. And so many more have been wounded.
“Are you all right?” Joseph whispers into her ear.
“Yes,” she says, and clings to him.
He kisses her hair and her shoulder. White-robed priestesses surround them with knives drawn.
“Calm yourselves!” Luca shouts, standing on the dais beside two shaky suitors. “It has gone!”
Mirabella peers over Joseph’s arm at the ruined stages. Arsinoe stands alone, her arms fluttering at her sides. Perhaps she did not realize the extent of the carnage she would cause.
“She sent that bear for me,” Mirabella says. “After everything I did to save her. She would have let it tear me apart if not for you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Joseph says. “You’re safe. You’re all right.” He holds her face in her hands. He kisses her.
“Where is Queen Katharine?” Natalia Arron shouts. “Luca! Where is she?”
“Do not panic,” says the High Priestess. “We will find her. She is not amongst the fallen.”
Natalia looks around wildly, perhaps to form her own search party. But all her poisoners have fled. Moans erupt from the foot of her stage, and she grimaces.
The bear knocked the Gave Noir off the edge, at the foot of the crowd. The poisoned food lies dashed across the sand. Several dog familiars lap eagerly at it.
“They have eaten some,” a woman weeps. “Stop them! Call them back!”
Natalia steps quickly to the front. “Isolate the food,” she orders, her composure regained and her voice even and deep. “The dogs must be brought to my tent for treatment. Quickly. Gather them up and keep the rest of them clear.”
Across the stages, Arsinoe retreats in the company of the Milones. The mask she wears makes any expression unreadable.
“How could she?” Mirabella asks, heartbroken. But even to her ears, it seems a foolish question for a queen to ask.
Joseph shushes her as he kisses her hair.
“Away from her now, naturalist.” Rho reaches out and drags Joseph back without effort. He does not struggle much when he sees the serrated knife in her hand.
“Leave him alone, Rho,” Mirabella says. “He saved me.”
“From his own queen’s attempt,” Rho says. She jerks her head, and three more priestesses come forward to lead Joseph away. Rho grabs Mirabella by the arm. Her fingers dig in deep, until Mirabella yelps.
“Back to your tent now, my queen. The Quickening is over. The Ascension Year has begun.”
THE BRECCIA DOMAIN
Branches scrape at Katharine’s face as she runs through the trees in the southern woods. Her heart pounds, and her knee throbs from when she fell against the stage. She falls again when her skirt twists in a bramble. With no torch, she has only the light of the moon as a guide, and there is not much of that deep in the trees.
“Pietyr!” she calls, weak and breathless. She did as she was told and ran straight from the Quickening to the five-sided tent and into the woods beyond.
“Pietyr!”
“Katharine!”
He steps out from behind a tree, holding a small lamp aloft. She stumbles to him, and he catches her against his chest.
“I do not know what happened,” she says. “It was so awful.”
The bear would have killed her. Split her open just like it had that poor priestess. It will be a long time before she can forget the crazed look in its eyes, and the sharp, wild arc of its claws.
“I hoped it would not come true,” Pietyr says. “I hoped that Natalia was right. That she had it under control. I am so sorry, Kat.”
She rests her head on his shoulder. He was kind to meet her here, away from everyone, for a few moments of solace. His arms take the chill from her skin, and the strange, deep-earth smell of the Breccia Domain calms her as she breathes it in.
Pietyr rocks her back and forth. He steps with her slowly until it is almost like dancing, and their feet slide across the smooth surface of the rock at the sides of the crevasse.
“Perhaps I should have stayed with Natalia,” Katharine says. “She could be hurt.”
“Natalia can take care of herself,” says Pietyr. “She is not the one in danger. You did the right thing.”
“They will be coming for me soon. Looking. We do not have long.”
Pietyr kisses the top of her head. “I know,” he says regretfully. “The bloodthirsty temple.”
“What?”
“I was not supposed to love you, Kat.” He takes her face in his hands.
“But you do?”
“Yes,” he says, and kisses her. “I do.”
“I love you, too, Pietyr,” says Katharine.
Pietyr steps back. He holds her gently by the shoulders.
“Pietyr?” she asks.
“I am sorry,” he says, and then he throws her. Down, down, down into the bottomless pit of the Breccia Domain.
THE ASCENSION YEAR BEGINS
THE ARRON ENCAMPMENT
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A day and a half after the disaster of the Quickening, Innisfuil Valley is nearly empty. The naturalists and the elementals have gone. So have the giftless and those few with the war gift. Even most of the poisoners have returned to their homes, except for the Arrons and those families most loyal to them.
Many priestesses still remain, including High Priestess Luca, as they organize search parties and scour the cliffs for Katharine. But they have searched the entire valley. The shore and the forest on all sides. Poor Pietyr has searched nonstop since Katharine disappeared.
But they have found no body and no answers.
Natalia sits in her tent, alone. She has not searched since yesterday, and the longer the search goes on, the less she wants to find her. Today, the body would still be Katharine. But soon, it would bloat and then decay. Natalia does not know if she can bear to find Katharine’s little bones, held together by sinew and a rotted black dress.
She drops her head into her hands, too tired to stand. Certainly too tired to take down tents and return to Indrid Down. To face the council and pretend that there is anything left for her to do.
The tent flap opens, and High Priestess Luca walks inside in her white robe and black collar. Natalia straightens, but it cannot be news of Katharine. If it were, Luca would have sent someone to fetch her instead of coming by herself, with no escort.
“High Priestess,” says Natalia. “Please. Come in.”
Luca half turns and makes sure that the tent flap is closed. Then she raises her nose and sniffs.
“This tent, Natalia. It smells like dying dogs.”
Natalia purses her lips. The familiar hounds brought to her after the Quickening died messily. There was no time to assemble a tidy poison. She used what she had on hand, and they convulsed and vomited on the rugs and pillows.
Luca takes down the hood of her robes and unfastens her collar, showing off a wrinkled neck and fine, bright white hair.
“I must depart soon,” she says. “For Rolanth and Mirabella.”
“‘Must,’” Natalia says with bitterness.
“A small contingent of priestesses will remain here. They will search until the little queen is found.”
For a moment, the two women regard each other. Then Natalia gestures to the chair opposite her at the small table.
Luca snaps her fingers and has a pot of tea brought in. When they are settled, and alone again, she sighs and leans back wearily.
“One of the delegations has fled,” Luca says. “The dark one, with the red flower in his jacket. His family was superstitious. They said this generation was cursed.”
“This was not a terribly successful Beltane,” says Natalia, and Luca laughs, once.
“If only we had taken that brat’s head and arms when we had the chance.”
“If only your Mirabella had let us.”
Luca adds cream and two lumps of sugar to her tea and sets a thin baked biscuit on her plate.
“There is no poison in it,” Luca says wryly of the tea. “Perhaps you can squeeze that snake of yours into your cup.”
Natalia smirks and then sips. “What can be done about Arsinoe?” Natalia asks.
“What about her?”
“She attacked the queens before the end of the Quickening. Before the Ascension Year had begun. It is a crime, is it not?”
“A violation by a day. It was a show of strength, whether we like it or not. The people will push back if we punish her publicly.”
“What good is the temple if it cannot enforce its own laws,” Natalia grumbles.
“Indeed,” says Luca. She takes a sip of tea, and eyes Natalia over the rim of her cup. “That lovely Gave Noir that you set,” she says. “All that poison, fallen into the sand. I snuck a bit of it into one of my priestess’s dinner. And oh!” Luca’s face lights up briefly. “She lived! She did not even sicken. Unlike those poor dogs you dispatched. What did you give them, Natalia? Arsenic?”
Natalia drums her fingers against the table. The High Priestess raises an eyebrow.
“Do not whine about our weakness now,” says Luca. “When we are only what you have made of us. When it is you who have turned the people away.”
“If the people turn away from your preaching, then it is not our fault. We have never sought to impose council will on the temple.”
“No,” says Luca. “Only to silence our voice.” She studies Natalia quietly. They have been adversaries for many years but have spent little time alone together, and never when they were not battling over something.
“It is strange,” Luca says, “that you have turned away from the Goddess. When she is the one who creates the queens. Whose power on this island preserves our way of life. I know,” she says when Natalia rolls her eyes. “You think it is you. The strength of your gift that keeps us safe. But who do you think gave that to you? She is the source of this thing you revere, yet you do not revere her. In your pride, you forget that she has given and that she is the one who may take it away.”
ROLANTH
Looking out the window of the bouncing coach, the streets of Rolanth are strangely quiet. The city expected Mirabella to return in triumph. Now that she has not, there is an air of loss. Shops in the central district have pulled down most of the Beltane decorations, though a few modest ribbons and wreaths remain. She was not exactly beaten, after all. Her Quickening performance was nearly a success.
Nearly. But thanks to Arsinoe, she had not even gotten to finish.
It will not be long until they are safely back at Westwood House. Though it will not be the same as it once was. Now that Katharine is missing and presumed dead, the temple will take a defensive position until it is determined what happened. Rho will have a small army near Mirabella night and day. Already armed priestesses surround the coach, as well as Sara and Uncle Miles’s coach ahead of them.
Mirabella doubts that Arsinoe will launch another attack so soon. But the temple will be ready for anything.
“I froze when that bear charged,” Mirabella whispers, and Bree and Elizabeth raise their heads from where they rest against the windows. “At first I thought it was a mistake. But it came right for me.”
Her friends look down sadly. They will not tell her that Arsinoe did not mean it. And she does not want them to. She has had days to relive that terror, and for the hurt in her heart to turn to anger. Perhaps Arsinoe also murdered Katharine. Perhaps she had some other creature waiting for her when she ran away into the woods.
Sweet little Katharine. Who she and Arsinoe used to swear to protect.
“Elizabeth,” Mirabella says. “You are a naturalist. Could you have done what Arsinoe did with that bear?”
Elizabeth shakes her head. “Never. Not with fifty of me. She is . . . stronger than any naturalist I have ever seen.”
“Or even heard of,” Bree says with wide eyes. “Mira, what will we do? If it were not for that boy, Joseph, you would be dead.”
Mirabella told them, afterward, who Joseph was and what happened between them. It came out in a rush, in her tent, when she was heartbroken in so many ways. Betrayed by Arsinoe and dragged away from Joseph, possibly forever.
“Dear Joseph,” Elizabeth says. “His love for you may save you again. If he is truly Arsinoe’s good friend, perhaps he will stop her. Perhaps he will help us.”
“I will not ask him to take sides,” Mirabella says.
“But someone will. Arsinoe. Or Luca. I don’t think that someone as strong as Arsinoe will hesitate to use her advantages.”
“That is good,” Mirabella says. “I do not want her to hesitate. I want her to push me and push me until I hate her.”
She looks back out the window, to escape the knowing sadness in Bree’s and Elizabeth’s eyes. They knew it would come to this. Everyone knew, except for Mirabella. But she is through being sentimental. Seeing that bear, and Arsinoe’s cold face behind that mask, showed her the truth.
The sisters she loved at the Black Cottage are gone. Arsinoe saw her chance, an
d she took it. So next time, Mirabella will take hers as well.
GREAVESDRAKE MANOR
After a week of searching, Pietyr traveled back to Greavesdrake with Natalia. But once they arrived, he would not stay. Without Katharine, there was nothing for him there.
Natalia did not try to convince him otherwise. The boy was miserable. Even his dull country house was preferable to Greavesdrake, haunted by Katharine’s ghost.
Before he left, they had one last drink together in her study.
“You had me so convinced about the Sacrificial Year and the temple,” he said. “I thought they were going to take her head. I did not even think of Arsinoe.”
Now he is gone, packed into a carriage, and Natalia is again alone. Genevieve and Antonin went directly to their houses in town, fearful of her mood. They would not dare return without an invitation.
The servants too refuse to look her in the eye. It would be nice if any of them were decent enough to pretend that everything was all right.
Natalia walks down the main hall and listens to the spring wind rattle branches against the windows. The manor feels drafty this year. She will need workmen from the capital to inspect the windows and doors. It may not be hers for much longer, but she will not let the grand old house fall into disrepair.
In the long, red hallway that attaches to the staircase to her bedroom, she notes dust on the sconces and a small stack of clothing folded and set just inside the door to the hall bath. She stoops over to pick it up and stops.
She is not alone. There is a girl, standing in the foyer.
Her dress is a ruin, and her hair knotted and twisted through with filth. She does not move. She could have been standing there for a very long time.
“Kat?” Natalia asks.
The figure does not respond. As Natalia walks closer, she begins to fear that it is a figment of her imagination. That her mind has fractured, and at any moment, the girl will vanish or dissolve into a pile of lice.