Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(31)

‘I know just the place.’ She leads Mirabella deep into the temple, down to the library on the lower level. It is smaller than Mirabella expected and poorly lit, with only a few windows. She squints, and the initiate hurries to light the lamps. Mirabella notes the way they flare. It is true then; the girl was an elemental before joining the temple, and it makes Mirabella feel more at ease, even though she knows it should not.

‘You’ll not be bothered,’ the initiate promises. ‘Few come to the library at this time of day, and I will do what I can to keep the area clear. Shall I fetch you . . . at dusk? If you do not find me first? My name is Dennie.’

‘Dennie?’

‘Well, Deianeira. But who wants to say all that?’ Mirabella chuckles. ‘It is a queenly name. As much of a mouthful as Mirabella. Dennie, it is. And if you like, you may call me Mira.’

Dennie’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head vigorously as she turns to leave. ‘No, I could never!’

Alone amidst the books, Mirabella removes her veil. The room has such a lonely feel that she can believe no one else has been there in the last month. But it is very clean and does not smell of dust or mold. The books appear to be well preserved and no doubt carefully organized. And even though it is a modest collection, she does not know where to start.

She wanders the rows and runs her finger across the leather-bound spines. So much of the island’s history sits resting here. Kept and recorded, and hidden away. Effectively buried. And it is not only books, but ledgers, journals, artwork, and tapestries, relics from time and reigns gone by. She had come to the library to snoop for only a little while, but she really could linger happily until sundown.

After a few minutes of wandering in aimless wonder, she begins selecting volumes and pulling them from the shelves, taking them back to her small table by the armful. Then she sits down and begins to read.

Within the crisp, seldom-turned pages, accounts of past queens are easy to find. There are several volumes devoted solely to the tales of the Ascensions, and in them she reads the familiar stories of Queen Shannon and Queen Elo, the strong elementals whose murals grace the walls of Rolanth Temple and whose stories she knows nearly as well as her own. Beside them are the Ascensions of Queen Elsabet the mad, and Queen Bernadine, the naturalist champion of Wolf Spring. Bernadine’s Ascension is depicted in paint, a small illustration of faded red blood and a fierce black wolf. They are grand tales, romanticized. Descriptions of triumph. Mentions of the queens who were killed—and who also vied fiercely for that same crown—are sparse and rarely congratulatory. In reading of the Ascension of Queen Theodora—a naturalist whose familiar was a horse—her fallen sister is simply described in terms of her condition after the horse had trampled her into the road.

Mirabella flips more pages, her eyes moving quickly. So many queens who have come before. Each faced her own challenges, both before and after the crown. But only one has returned and recently made her presence known. Queen Illiann. The Blue Queen. Creator of the mist. There should be volume upon volume about her. Yet after more than an hour of searching, Mirabella has found nothing. She finds tales of Queen Andira, the White-Handed naturalist whose sisters were both born oracles and drowned. She finds reference to Queen Caedan, the first Blue Queen, born over a thousand years ago. But nothing of Illiann.

She closes the book she had been perusing and stands, looking over the shelves and the many trunks. There are no holes in the stacks, no suspicious spaces. But whatever there was must have been taken.

‘Hello?’ The initiate, Dennie, pokes her head out from the entrance and then steps inside to curtsy. ‘Mmmm . . . Mirrr . . . m’lady?’

Mirabella rolls her eyes and laughs. M’lady will have to do. ‘Yes?’

‘Is there anything you need? Tea? Some food?’

‘No, I—’ Mirabella pauses, her focus still on the shelves. ‘I am reading the histories of past queens, and I find that I cannot . . . That is, there does not seem to be anything here about the last Blue Queen. Queen Illiann. Does the temple really house nothing here?’

‘We do,’ Dennie says. ‘But all that we had was taken recently to Greavesdrake Manor, at the request of Genevieve Arron.’

‘Of course it was.’ Mirabella sighs. ‘Queen Katharine told me that she had set Genevieve to look into it.’ She leans her head back and stares at the ceiling as if she can see right through it, all the way up to Luca. Maybe if she grabbed her by the shoulders and shook, all of the answers would simply fall out of her. ‘Goddess. Now I am thinking like Arsinoe.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing. The Arrons—do they often make demands upon the temple? Is it easy for the priestesses to function here, so close to the crown and the council?’

‘It can be difficult,’ Dennie admits. ‘Though perhaps the greatest difficulty lies in simply being acknowledged. Sometimes I think that the Black Council has forgotten the reason that the capital city was founded here in the first place.’

‘And what was that?’

‘It was the site of the first temple, of course.’

‘This’—Mirabella gestures around them—‘this was the very first temple?’

‘No. This is a monument to the Volroy. Completed before it but made to match. The first temple has been lost to time. Like so many things. But you mustn’t worry about us. It has been much better since the High Priestess returned.’