Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(89)

For a few moments, Arsinoe wanders, unsure which way Emilia went. But then she hears a familiar shout. Emilia is just down the ridge, scolding a group of soldiers around a burned-down cookfire.

When Arsinoe reaches them, the soldiers scatter, seemingly more eager to face the entire queensguard than to stay and face Emilia.

‘Is that wise?’ Arsinoe asks. ‘Yelling at them like that so close to a fight?’

‘The coming battle is the only reason I did not have them whipped.’ Emilia holds up a spit bearing what appears to be the well-eaten remains of a roasted lamb. ‘They stole it from a farm we passed. When I warned all to be sure to pay for anything we took. We march as liberators, not thieves!’ She tosses the spit into the ash. ‘They will make enemies for the new crown before it is even on Jules’s forehead.’

‘Jules’s forehead? So you mean to put it on her in ink, like Katharine’s?’

Emilia cocks her head. ‘I don’t often agree with a poisoner, but I do like that. A crown etched in blood. A permanent mark. And less clunky than a circlet or some jewel-encrusted hat. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with Jules?’

‘I needed to ask you something. I need to ask you to do something.’

‘What?’

‘Do you remember how you said you didn’t think Billy should fight?’

Emilia looks away. ‘I should not have said that. And I did not mean it the way you took it. It is not that I do not think him justified in fighting. But I have seen what the poisoners did to him. I have watched him as he trains and see how his right arm cannot quite stop trembling. Do you want me to hold him back? You should have asked sooner. Now we are preparing to march, and it will not be easy—’

‘I don’t want you to keep him back.’ Arsinoe bites her lip. ‘I want you to look after him.’

Emilia blinks like she has misheard.

‘Please, Emilia. I’m asking you.’

‘I cannot. I will be beside my queen.’

‘Jules doesn’t need you. You wanted her to be a warrior . . . and now she is one. But Billy isn’t. And if he faces Rho alone, he’s going to get himself killed.’

Emilia sighs.

‘You know we are all likely to die. Yet you want me to worry about one pitiful mainlander.’

‘That’s exactly what I want. Please.’

‘All right!’ Emilia throws up her hands. ‘I will try. But there are never any guarantees in battle.’

‘Thank you.’ To both of their surprises, Arsinoe leaps forward and hugs her. Briefly.

‘Ah well,’ says Emilia. ‘It is to be expected, I suppose. Always like a boy, to be in need of protection.’





THE BATTLEFIELD




Katharine sits astride her stallion when Genevieve rides up on her black gelding, both Genevieve and the horse outfitted in poisoner purple and skulls over silver armor.

‘We have managed to draw the rebels down and to the west,’ Genevieve says. ‘They have given up the good ground to the north.’

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ Paola Vend says as her mount trots up beside her. ‘They are untrained. Made up of farmers and laborers. Innkeepers. Their numbers are large, but they will prove to be of no use with no one capable of leading them.’

Katharine looks out upon her army. They hold formation and perfect position. Across the battlefield, the force they face is nowhere near as polished. Their armor is motley and lacking. Some have only a breastplate and no arm guards. Many have no helmets. The tips of their spears waver in the air instead of holding high and upright. But within that army are naturalists and elementals, oracles and warriors. Over their heads, hawks and crows circle and cry. Dogs growl at their sides, and their horses stamp angrily with no need to be urged forward. Fire flickers across knuckles, and clouds gather above. The warriors’ arrows will never miss, and the oracles will know the moves of their opponents before they themselves do.

‘They are soldiers of every gift,’ Katharine says.

‘A legion-cursed army for a legion-cursed queen,’ says Genevieve.

Katharine swallows. Somewhere out there is Juillenne Milone, the Legion Queen returned, sent by the Goddess to exact her vengeance, and who Mirabella would have fought beside. But Mirabella is dead. If she were not, it could all have been different.

Inside Katharine, the only thing that races is her pulse. She sent so many of the dead queens into Rho that she is nearly empty, so she knows that the cowardly sweat that breaks onto her forehead is hers and hers alone. She squeezes the reins hard in her hands.

‘Your sister Arsinoe will be out there, somewhere,’ Paola says. ‘She turned away from the crown during the Ascension, when she had a right to it. Only to ride on the side of a rebellion and try to steal it from your head.’

‘If she can take it, she can have it,’ Katharine says, and Genevieve and Paola look at her in surprise.

In the distance to the right, the queensguard parts before a figure on a hulking black horse. From where they stand, Rho’s face is not visible, nor her black eyes or the black veins stretched across her like spiderwebs. Only her red braid and the waves of something dark that emanate from her form almost like mist.

‘What is that?’ Genevieve asks.

Katharine presses her lips together grimly.