Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(32)

‘The High Priestess . . . does she know about the first temple?’

‘Yes, but perhaps no more than I do.’

If only it still existed. The answers it must hold. Mirabella picks up a book and runs her hand across the cover.

‘I have been reading about the other queens. But I can find no mention of any before Queen Bethel the Pious. Are there other, older volumes kept elsewhere?’

Dennie’s brow knits in thought. ‘Perhaps in other temples. Perhaps pilfered away to the Volroy. Or even to Greavesdrake Manor. Or perhaps, those ancient queens have also been lost to time.’

‘As long as there has been the island, there have been the island’s queens,’ Mirabella says absently, and the initiate nods. Everyone on Fennbirn knows that. And they know the first, though she has no name. The first queen, known only through myth and legend. Bearer of the first triplets. Some say she was the Goddess herself, that she bestowed the gifts upon the early people and ruled for a hundred years. Mirabella has seen her in many paintings: a dark beauty with shadowed eyes, always depicted with her arms extended above the island and three dark stars beneath her.

But those are only artists’ renderings. Nothing ancient remains from her time. No accounts. No relics. Not even her name.

‘The Goddess herself,’ Mira muses quietly. ‘And what would that make us?’

‘My lady?’

‘Nothing. I was only wondering about those queens who have come before. Those ancient ones who are lost to us. What wisdom might they have? What secrets would they share? Was it easier in their times?’ She rubs her hands roughly across her face and her tired eyes.

‘It’s a shame no one knows where the ruins of the first temple lie. And it is a shame to have lost such a sacred site.’

‘It is a shame,’ Mirabella says. ‘Perhaps some queen someday will find it.’





GREAVESDRAKE MANOR




Whenever she can get away from the castle, Katharine goes to Greavesdrake to tend to Pietyr herself. Lately, it has not been easy. With Mirabella in the city, the whole of the Black Council is as jumpy as cats in a thunderstorm. The members want their Queen Crowned close at hand. They want to be sure that she is watching, and ready, like they are, should Mirabella prove to be less than trustworthy.

‘I am sorry I am late,’ she whispers to Pietyr as he lies resting peacefully in her old bedroom. There has been no more bleeding, and Edmund has told her that occasionally there are twitches of reflex in Pietyr’s legs or movement behind his eyelids. She knows that he will wake soon. She can feel it. And then he will be back with her, where he belongs.

‘And when you wake, we will be even. Truly even. You threw me down into the Breccia Domain, and I . . .’

As she looks at him, the dead queens rise, fascinated by him as he lies there. As if not even they can believe what they have done.

‘No,’ Katharine whispers. ‘Stay away from him. When we are in this room, you will not be here.’

The dead queens ignore her. Instead, they grasp for control of her hand and reach for his cheek, as if they might feel for warmth, and peel open his eyes to gaze inside them. It is indecent. Monstrous.

‘Get out,’ she orders.

They crowd inside her body, and her skin crawls with their soothing touches, their whispered apologies. So many excuses. So many cold embraces in the hopes that she will forgive them. But behind the comfort there is always the threat: Without us, sweet queen, you are a weak child. Without us, you will lose your crown, and then your head.

‘If you do not recede to the deepest, darkest corner of me,’ Katharine shouts, ‘so help me, I will cut you out and put you back into the stones myself!’

At her words, the dead sisters constrict in her blood so fast that it feels like a punch to the gut. She takes a deep, shaky breath. She must be more careful. Controlling her temper is better to manage them. But in the room with Pietyr, she only wanted them gone.

Katharine runs a hand across Pietyr’s forehead. It is dry, not clammy or feverish. She brushes his ice-blond hair back from his eyes. She is tired. The dead sisters, Mirabella, and the Black Council have left her weary, and she allows herself a moment to climb onto the bed with him. To snuggle down into the warm crook of his shoulder and listen to him breathe.

‘Please wake up,’ she whispers. She presses her lips to his and tries to will him to stir for a moment, she imagines that she feels his lips open against hers. But it is only pretend. She kisses him again and again, harder, on his mouth and cheeks and collarbone.

‘Queen Katharine.’

She jumps and turns to see Genevieve standing in the doorway.

‘Genevieve.’ Katharine extricates herself from the bed and straightens her apron. ‘What do you want?’

‘To look in on my nephew,’ she says. ‘And to look in on you.’

‘You were never so concerned with his well-being before.’ Katharine returns to the tray of food. It is soft, near liquid. Edmund has added warm milk to help it go down easier. In his unconscious state, Pietyr must be fed through a long, flexible tube.

Genevieve comes to Pietyr and leans down to kiss him on the head. Her long, blond braid falls from her shoulder and thumps against his cheek. She picks a bit of lint off her dark brown trousers before glancing at the bowl of cooling food. ‘Shall I help you?’