Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(83)



Arsinoe chuckles softly. ‘Don’t say “crop”; don’t say “whelp” . . . You have too many rules, Jules.’

‘I never said you couldn’t say “whelp”.’

Arsinoe’s smile fades. ‘That’s right. That was Mirabella.’ They watch as Camden swats playfully at Braddock’s behind. It is a wonder how well they play together. Camden gnaws on Braddock’s leg, and he sends her rolling through the wet moss. She comes up shaking her head, her fur stained dark and sticking up in places, only to go right back to gnawing.

‘She needed this,’ Jules says, her eyes on her cat. ‘It’s lifted her spirits.’

‘And Braddock’s, too.’ But not theirs. They linger in the comfort of each other’s company, but it cannot last.

‘Sometimes I just want to run to Grandma Cait and have her take me home.’

‘So do I,’ says Arsinoe. ‘And I’m surprised she sends Caragh to the war meetings. I kind of hoped she would advise us.’

‘She does advise me. Just not in front of a council.’

‘What does she say?’

‘That we can’t win. But that we have to try.’

‘She’s not so great at raising spirits either, then,’ Arsinoe says, and Jules puts a hand on her shoulder.

‘My spirit will rise when the battle is over. And I see you alive on the other side.’ She pulls Arsinoe into a hug. ‘Be alive on the other side.’





INDRID DOWN




‘The rebel army is marching.’

Genevieve comes to stand behind Katharine’s shoulder as she looks out the window, down at the city. For days, the citizens of Indrid Down have fortified their homes, boarding windows and bringing storage barrels inside.

‘Queen Katharine. Did you hear me?’

‘I heard you,’ Katharine says. She and Genevieve watch as an old horse that is more bones than meat is led quickly down the street, perhaps for safekeeping at some farm in the countryside.

‘Should we have the outlying farms searched? Conscript more supplies for the siege before the rebels arrive?’

‘It will not be a siege. It will be a battle. And a final one.’ ‘Should we relocate those we can who are not fighting?’ Katharine nods to the boarded-up windows.

‘They know what is coming. They choose to remain. Half of them will probably take up arms against me.’

Genevieve steps up beside her, hands white and trembling on the stone of the window ledge. She is afraid. They are all afraid. For all of the arrogance and strength on the Black Council, none of them has seen a war.

‘Kat, do not give up!’ She fixes Katharine with her lilac eyes. ‘My sister did not raise you to stand aside!’

‘Your sister raised me to do what I am told. She raised me to serve. To please.’ Katharine flexes her hand and feels the dead queens there, just below the surface, taking up more and more space as the days go by. She has certainly served them well. ‘I loved Natalia. And she loved me, in her way. But she never believed. And now you do not believe either. You think that Arsinoe and Jules Milone march to us with an army of elementals and naturalists and warriors, with oracles to show them our traps and the giftless to rush our cavalry. You think they will overcome us with a flurry of diving hawks and lightning strikes. You have no idea what my army can do.’

‘Then you are not afraid?’ Genevieve asks. ‘You do not fear we will lose?’

Katharine lowers her eyes sadly.

‘No. We will not lose.’





MOUNT HORN




The afternoon sun is warm on her back when Arsinoe climbs the trail up the slope of Mount Horn with her bear. Though most of the snow has melted in the lowland meadows, the trail itself is still coated in white.

Behind her in Sunpool, the rebel army leaks from the city gate in a steady stream. She will catch up when she is finished. They will have not gotten far, an army that size and unused to marching. The first night that they make camp, Emilia will scream herself hoarse getting them organized. But Arsinoe must admit, it is impressive how quickly they moved once Jules gave the order.

Arsinoe keeps her pace steady and leans into her bear. She squints her eyes and tries to see Jules riding her black gelding at the head or Emilia on her bright red charger but does not find them. Billy is there, too, somewhere, on a borrowed horse. Carrying borrowed weapons. To fight in a borrowed war.

Before she left for the mountain, Billy asked if he could accompany her.

‘It’s queens’ business,’ she had said.

‘Like you have with Katharine.’

‘Yes. Like I have with Katharine.’

He had not argued, as if even asking had been only an act, a line he was supposed to say. At night, he still held her like he would never let her go. But something had changed. Since his time as Katharine’s prisoner, Billy has not been the same.

‘There is no future for queens,’ she murmurs, and Braddock nudges her gently with his head.

When they step inside the cave, the air smells of the stone of the mountain and the thawing earth. She reaches into her pack for wood, to start a fire to warm her chilled hands, and for a piece of dried fish to thank the bear for his company. It takes some time to get the wood lit; her fingers fumble with the matches and she has never been as good at assembling the wood as Jules. But soon enough, the cave is lit by orange light, and she sits down beside Braddock, her eyes on the shadows in the rear, where the cave plummets to the center of the mountain.

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