Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(74)

Jules Milone. She knows from the stricken expression on Katharine’s face that she saw her, too. It was unmistakable.

‘What?’ Luca asks. ‘What did you see?’ The High Priestess edges closer.

Mirabella turns to her sister. She draws her nearer and rubs the tattoo of Katharine’s crown gently with her thumb.

‘The beginning of the line,’ Mirabella whispers. ‘And the end. The dead queens rise and the Goddess has chosen her champion.’

‘But why her?’ Katharine asks. ‘Why not us? We are of her. Descended from her!’

‘I do not know, Kat. Maybe because we are of that line. And that line has gone too far in the wrong direction.’ She lowers her head. ‘Maybe there is no reason at all. But you saw her. We cannot deny it.’

‘So what do we do? Are we not queens anymore?’

‘We will always be queens,’ Mirabella says, her hands on her smaller sister’s shoulders. ‘So we will fight the dead. And we will fight the mist. We will help her.’

She turns away from the shrine and feels the jeweled and painted eyes of the first queen on her back.

‘Let us go back to the horses, Luca. We have much to consider.’

Mirabella gathers her skirts and prepares to make the long climb out of the temple. But before she can, a foul wind whips into the space, and all of their torches are extinguished.

‘Strong wind,’ the High Priestess says. ‘The tide must be coming in. Mira, relight them.’

She does, first her own and then Luca’s, and the cave is illuminated again. Katharine has crumpled onto the floor.

‘Queen Katharine!’

They hurry to her and kneel. She has gone cold. And too late, Mirabella knows why.

‘The dead queens,’ Mirabella whispers as the dagger stabs into her stomach.

She shoves Katharine away and staggers back, hand pressed against the blood that soaks through the black of her gown.

‘What have you done?’ Luca shouts.

‘No, it was not me!’ Katharine grips her head with both hands, the bloody blade dragging across her cheek. ‘It was them!’

The dead queens had found her in the temple. They had returned somehow and found her in this sacred place.

‘They would wear your skin,’ Katharine cries. ‘Run, Mira. You have to run!’

Mirabella turns and races up the damp stone steps, through the narrow passageway with her torch thrust before her. She ignores the wet warmth that sticks her gown to her legs, her breath loud in the cavern as her footsteps ring off the rock. When she hears the dead queens scream with Katharine’s voice, she wants to cry.

She bursts out of the mouth of the cave and stumbles in the sand. Somehow, she reaches her horse and climbs onto his back.

‘Go, go,’ she moans, and he obeys, galloping up the cliff path. She can see the summit. She can see her way to Sunpool. To the rebels and to Arsinoe. The horse is good, strong and steady. He can run for half a day, well past the shadow of Indrid Down. He can carry her to safety. He leaps the last strides up onto the cliffs.

And Mirabella loses her grip and tumbles from the saddle. Dazed, she rolls onto her stomach and grimaces, fist pressed to her belly. She is bleeding badly. Weakening. But what she sees when she looks back makes her claw and shove against the ground to get away. Katharine has come up the path. Only it is not Katharine. This is what she meant when she said the dead queens wore her like clothing. The rotting skin mottling her cheeks. The milky eyes. The blackness seeping from her and rising like smoke.

‘Katharine!’

The dead queens shake their head. When they smile, dark wetness shows between their teeth, as if their mouth is watering.

Mirabella calls her storm; she has no choice. She gathers her lightning as the queens lift her up by the arms, but her gift slips through her fingers like so much blood. They have done it. Weakened her, and made her a ready vessel.

‘Katharine,’ she cries, and touches her sister’s face. ‘You can’t let them have me!’

The dead queens recoil. The eyes close, and when they open, they are Katharine’s again, clear and black and suffering. Afraid.

‘Little sister.’ Mirabella smiles. ‘Do not let them have me.’

‘I am so sorry, Mira.’

Katharine starts to cry, and Mirabella exhales. The blade against her throat is only a sting, and then Katharine shoves her clear, over the side of the cliff face. The wind at her back as she falls is like the wind atop Shannon’s Blackway. When she strikes the rocks below, it only hurts for a moment.

Katharine rides back to the Volroy alone. She could not remain on the beach, watching Luca weep and hover over Mirabella’s body, looking this way and that, back to the cave, up the path to the cliffs, as if there were something to be done. Nor could she stay and listen to the dead queens snapping their jaws, muttering bitter nonsense as they stared down at their broken vessel on the rocks.

As she storms into the Volroy, one of her guards bows and hurries forward to meet her.

‘Queen Katharine. We found the commander this afternoon unconscious—’

‘Get away from me!’ Katharine bellows. ‘Leave me alone!’ Except she is never alone. Not in the empty halls, not when she presses her hands to the sides of her head so hard she thinks she will crack her skull. Nor when she slams the door of her rooms closed behind her and listens to her breathing in the quiet.