Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(3)

‘Let him wake,’ she growls, but the dead queens do not respond. She can feel them staring at him through her eyes. Perhaps she can even feel a little remorse.

No. Regret, perhaps, but not remorse. They did what they had to do to Pietyr to keep him from sending them back into the Breccia Domain. With his bumbling, flawed, low-magic spell that caused them so much pain, he gave them no choice. And every day and night since then, they have reminded Katharine by raising their rot to mar the surface of her skin, by humming through her blood and her mind in soothing, comforting tones. They are part of her now, and they will not be moved.

He would have harmed us. Weakened you. We would protect us. Protect you.

‘Be silent,’ Katharine whispers. ‘Be silent!’

‘Our apologies, Queen Katharine,’ one of the healers says, and bows his head.

‘We will take our counsel into the hall so as not to disturb you,’ says another, the one from Prynn, and motions to her colleagues.

‘No.’ Katharine stands. ‘Forgive me. This accident—his illness—I cannot think.’ And it seems that Greavesdrake is always full of whispers. At the end of every hall. Behind every closed door. ‘Speak plain and tell me your thoughts. What is wrong with him? When will he recover?’

They straighten nervously, huddling and rustling like a flock of birds.

‘I know there is no good news,’ she says, reading their faces. ‘But I would have your opinions.’

The healer from Prynn steps back toward the bed. She was the one who took the most aggressive approach to Pietyr’s examination, prodding his gums, pulling on his fingers and toes. It was hard for Katharine to stand there and watch him be poked at, lying unresponsive while a stranger turned his head back and forth and peered inside his ears. When they peeked under the bandages wrapped around his hand, Katharine held her breath. It had been ugly business when she sliced into the rune, mangling it to hide it from discovery. She had made so many cuts that his palm looked like it had been torn apart. But sweet Pietyr had not been awake by then. He had not felt it.

‘The wound on his hand continues to heal. Though it is still impossible to tell what caused it. And it does not seem to be the source of his illness. There are no dark lines stemming from the cuts, no foul odor—’

‘Yes, yes,’ says Katharine. ‘So you have said before.’

‘We think it likely a trauma inside the skull. An unlucky vessel that burst or became clotted. It would leave no outward sign and would require no external impact. You said you found him lying on the floor. It is likely that, when the vessel burst, he simply fell there. There was probably little pain or what there was would have been brief.’

Katharine stares at his sleeping face. He is still handsome when he sleeps. But he is not himself. What makes Pietyr Pietyr is the glint in his eye, the clever and cutting curve of his mouth. And his voice. It has been too many days since she heard his voice. Nearly weeks.

‘When will he wake?’

‘I do not know, Queen Katharine. That he continues to breathe is a good sign. But he is unresponsive to stimuli.’

‘So much blood . . .’ When Katharine returned to her senses after the failed spell and found Pietyr lying beside her on the floor, his face was a mask of red.

‘There is no way to tell the extent of the damage,’ the healer says. ‘We can only wait. He will need round-the-clock monitoring . . . care and feeding—’

‘Leave us,’ Katharine says, and listens to their footsteps shuffle into the hall. She takes his hand and kisses it gently. She should have banished the dead queens when he gave her the chance. If only she had not been such a coward. They know she cannot oust them now, not with her reign assailed from all sides: the mist, the Legion Queen, her sisters’ return. She used to think that the dead queens had made her strong. Now, too late, she knows the truth: the strength was theirs and theirs alone. And they would see her weak forever, to keep her as their puppet.

‘I did not know,’ she whispers against Pietyr’s cheek. ‘I did not know that this is what they would do.’

When Katharine walks out of Pietyr’s sickroom an hour later, tired and dazed, she stumbles directly into Edmund, Natalia’s old butler, carrying a tray of tea.

‘I thought it might be welcome,’ he says softly.

‘It is,’ Katharine says. ‘But I have had enough of sitting in that room. Perhaps in the drawing room or the solarium.’ She trails off and puts her hand to her eyes.

‘Perhaps right here on the floor. It is still your home if you wish it. A tea party on the carpet.’

‘Just like we never used to have,’ Katharine says. But she smiles at him, and they step aside as a maid enters Pietyr’s room. ‘Where are the healers?’

‘They have clustered in the library,’ Edmund replies. ‘And are demanding lunch.’

‘I suppose that they will need to eat.’ Katharine and the butler fall in step beside each other down the hall. ‘Poor Edmund. I have turned your household upside down.’

‘Nonsense, my queen. It is good to have heartbeats in Greavesdrake again. Even the heartbeats of new staff and strangers. Since Natalia was killed, it has not felt like a great house so much as a shrine.’

How right he is. As they ascend the stairs, the sounds of people in its farthest corners, the bustle and occasional laughter of servants, make Greavesdrake feel alive again. Still draughty and dark, of course. But alive and no longer haunted.