Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(75)

She tried to rid herself of the dead queens. To distance herself from them. Appease them. She has tried to control them and lull them into silence. They had won her a crown. But they had cost her Pietyr. And they had made her murder her sister.

We are you now, they whisper as they twist themselves back into her veins.

Do not fight us, anymore.

In the quiet shadows of the throne room, Billy lies on his stomach, hands bound behind his back. His feet are bound to his hands. He has stopped being able to feel either set hours ago.

He turns his head to the side, which makes it easier to breathe. He is not sure what poisons they gave him today. Perhaps they did not give him any. But every time food or drink passes his lips he imagines for hours that he can feel the effects: his throat closing, his stomach and chest tightening. At night, he weeps with silent panic, alone and tied and hating that it is only his imagination making him suffer.

But it is not all in his head. The Black Council has been inventive in his torture. Renata Hargrove is a master of knots and continues to find new ways to twist and truss him. Paola Vend prefers setting him to impossible tasks and laughing and kicking him when he fails. She challenged him to find a sewing needle in a bowl of grain using only his tongue. She made him try for an entire day. When he failed, Antonin Arron dipped the needle in wasp venom and stuck it in each of his fingers, and the swelling made it much more difficult to serve the bastards their tea.

Mirabella has not visited him since the first night. And he has had to admit that Arsinoe is not coming either. He is glad of that. He would never have her risk herself. But at night, in the dark, fearing his tongue is beginning to thicken, he stares at the tapestry behind the throne and wishes and wishes that she would step out from behind it.

When he hears shuffling feet near the door, he thinks it is only a changing of guard. He pays no attention to it at all until someone gives a muffled cry and a body thumps to the rug.

He twists his head. All he can make out are whispering white robes. At once, he is surrounded by them and feels his feet and hands cut free.

‘Luca?’ He flexes his fingers and tries to push himself up. ‘Help him,’ the High Priestess whispers, and he is hauled up by the arms.

‘What’s happening?’

‘What do you think is happening?’ Luca slides her knife back into the sheath at her belt. ‘I am getting you out. Would you rather stay?’

He does not argue. He hobbles quietly along with the priestesses out of the throne room, and through the dark castle to the kitchen entrance. Outside, a priestess holds a saddled horse, with something large and dark thrown over the front of the saddle.

‘Quickly, quickly.’ Luca takes his arm and helps him to mount. He feels what the shape is at once and tenses.

‘What is this?’ he asks. ‘Who?’

‘It is’—her mouth tightens—‘it is Queen Mirabella.’

Billy’s heart seems to stop. It cannot be Mirabella, this cold, stiff shape rolled into a blanket. But from the look on the High Priestess’s face, he knows it is.

‘I am sending her home with you. I could not protect her. Tell her sister that it was Katharine and the dead queens who did it. Tell her to come and fight. The temple and the High Priestess will not get in her way.’

Billy adjusts Mirabella carefully in his arms. ‘I can’t believe—’

‘Nor can I. But there is no time. The path through the rear gate is clear. I know you are a mainlander, but you will have to find your way from there. We can offer you no more help.’

He takes up the reins. The blood has returned to his fingers and lower extremities, but they are still sore and clumsy.

‘Why are you doing this?’ he asks.

‘For Mira,’ she says. ‘And perhaps for me. Now go!’

Billy turns the horse and rides through the gate. When he is safely out, he turns back and sees Luca with her hand raised in farewell. He raises his in return. After all, Katharine will know she was the one who freed him, and he doubts that he will ever see her alive again.





SUNPOOL




For Jules and Emilia, the ride back to Sunpool is grave and filled with silences. After seeing the surviving children from Bastian City safely to Wolf Spring, where they were welcomed with gruff embraces, as Jules knew they would be, they traded for fresh horses and, after a brief reunion with Matthew and little Fenn, returned to the road. Emilia did not want to talk about Margaret. Neither of them wanted to speak about what they saw at Bastian City and what could have done it. But as Sunpool draws ever nearer, they will have to soon enough.

The road from the south winds near to the sea, and when the rebel city comes into view, so does the western shore. Only a season ago, Arsinoe and Mirabella came aground there. Jules can almost see them, sputtering and cold, stumbling onto the dunes.

Ahead in the city, lookouts will see them coming. The gates will open. Arsinoe will run out. She will leap at the horses, relieved they have returned. She will tell them how stupid they were for going in the first place.

But she’ll understand, Jules thinks. After she hears what we have to say.

‘They are opening the gates,’ Emilia says. ‘And there is a rider.’

Jules looks. She sees no one coming from the city.

‘No. On the road. There.’ Emilia juts her chin. A lone figure on horseback appears from where they had been hidden behind the rise of a hill.