Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(49)

‘Anne!’ Bea shouts, and fires as the first of the queensguard comes through the door. She drops him with one bolt, right to the head. ‘Go!’ She shoves Billy farther out the window and coughs. The smoke inside is already thick.

‘What about you?’ he asks, but she shoves him again, so hard he nearly loses his grip and falls to the cobblestones. As he climbs, desperately finding one foothold after another, one fingerhold after the next, he hears someone begin to fight the fire inside. What has become of the warriors inside? Were any able to make it out? He reaches the side of the building, throws his arm over the roof and starts to drag himself up.

The bolt catches him in the ankle, and he reaches back without thinking, losing his grip on the roof. He falls. When he comes to, he is facedown on cold, wet straw, staring at a set of boots. Before he can so much as shake his head, he is lifted until his feet dangle, like a newborn puppy picked up by his scruff.

‘Let go!’ he shouts. Then he looks into her eyes and stops speaking. Even in the dark, he can see that they are black, like the queens’ eyes. But they bleed that blackness in veins down the cheeks, and in wetness, like tears.

‘What are you?’ he asks, just before she knocks him unconscious.





THE VOLROY




When Rho comes to Katharine’s chamber to inform her of the rebels’ capture, she knows it before she arrives. The dead queens still inside Katharine sense the return of their dead sisters, lent to Rho in the cells beneath the Volroy.

Katharine lights a lamp.

Inside Rho, the dead queens have made themselves right at home. Though Katharine had not given many, their blackness spills from the tall priestess’s eyes like tears. And though Rho speaks in a gentle voice, she cannot seem to stop baring her teeth.

When Rho has finished telling her that two rebel warriors and the suitor William Chatworth Junior have been captured within the capital, Katharine extends her hand.

‘Give them back.’

Rho shrinks.

‘I know,’ Katharine says. ‘But you must. You are not a true vessel. You are not a queen. I will give them to you again, when they are needed.’

Rho nods, and Katharine cups her cheeks almost like a kiss. The dead queens slide out of Rho’s mouth and into her own, down her throat like trout released into a stream.

With the boost to her gift gone, Rho collapses to one knee. She wipes her face, breath heavy.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Queen Katharine.’

‘Then take me to the prisoners.’

Rho leads her down, through the gate that leads below, the cold, stale air blanketing them even against the warmth of their torch.

‘I feel strange,’ Rho says quietly.

‘That is to be expected.’ Katharine watches the priestess as they go. The more steps they take, the more Rho seems to return to herself. The warrior is strong. It is why Katharine chose her. She is strong enough perhaps to satisfy the dead sisters and keep their minds off Mirabella. At least for now.

The prisoners are housed on the first level beneath the castle. Two warriors, one with a crossbow bolt sticking out of her shoulder and another whose back and side have been badly burned. The smell of burned flesh wrinkles Katharine’s nose before she sees the extent of it: one whole arm of the warrior is charred, her clothing fused with her skin. Half of her hair is gone as well, and the scalp is bright red and weeping.

‘Have the healers mix a salve,’ she says to the guard. ‘And get someone to remove the bolt. Rebels they may be, but they are still our subjects and will receive treatment.’

‘What about me?’

Katharine turns.

‘I’m not your subject.’

‘Indeed, you are not.’ She looks into the eyes of William Chatworth Junior, the first suitor she kissed. He has been wounded as well, and favors his leg. ‘So it really is you. I admit I am surprised. I thought my commander might have caught a decoy.’

‘Your commander,’ he says, and shudders. ‘What is she? What’s wrong with her?’

‘Nothing.’ Katharine gestures to Rho, who looks completely well again, red hair shining beneath her white hood.

‘When she took me, there was something . . .’

‘You must have been mistaken. Moonlight plays tricks on the eye. As does panic.’ She looks over the faces of her queensguard, and sees how they avoid Rho’s gaze. The furtive glances they send her way. Katharine will have to speak with them. Assure them that their commander is nothing to fear.

‘What were you doing here?’ Katharine asks.

‘Touring the capital,’ he spits.

Katharine laughs. ‘You are brave. We will see for how long. Whatever you were planning, it will not happen now. And my foster family, the Arrons, will be most pleased to discover that we have captured the son of the man who murdered Natalia.’

‘My father? He murdered—’

‘Yes. He strangled her. Perhaps to aid your escape.’ Katharine narrows her eyes. He seems so bewildered. Disbelieving.

‘If he . . .’ He hesitates as if unable to even utter the words. ‘He didn’t do it for me. Where is he now?’

‘Where is he now?’ Katharine turns on her heel and stalks back down the corridor. She gestures to Rho as she passes. ‘She killed him.’