Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(92)

She slices through the fabric of Emilia’s sleeve and works around the arm guards, using her blade to reopen the scars on her arm and hand. Then she does the same to herself, pressing their arms together and letting the blood mingle again. Setting it free.

‘What are you doing?’ Emilia tries to pull away, but it is too late. ‘No, Jules! You can’t!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jules says sadly as the curse rips through her. ‘But this is what I was made for.’

She shoves Emilia, tossing her like a doll, and Camden leaps from the saddle, growling. Every bit of bottled rage is released into her blood in an instant, and she kicks her horse, fixed on Rho.

When Jules charges down the hill, at first Arsinoe thinks she is falling. That is how fast she flies. Later, in Arsinoe’s memory, it will seem that Jules covered the ground between herself and Rho in one long bound, her horse’s hooves never touching the turf. The two commanders come together with their arms raised, teeth bared, and with so much speed that it seems they both must break upon the impact. Instead, when their swords cross, such a great force is released that it sends a shock wave across the battlefield, and levels the entire line in both directions. Including Arsinoe.

She comes to a breath later, ears ringing. Somehow she manages to stay in the saddle as her gelding struggles back onto his feet. For a moment, she does not remember where she is or understand the sights and smells around her. Blood and the filth of gut wounds. Brave, naturalist-urged horses stumbling with cracked spears in their chests, still lashing out hooves to fight even when their naturalist riders are gone.

That collision. That explosion. It must have been Jules and Rho. But how could Jules have—?

‘The tether.’ She cut it loose. She let the legion curse go free.

Arsinoe scans the battle and quickly finds them, circling each other with blades drawn, their horses fallen unconscious or perhaps even dead and rolled to the side as if they were thrown. Her heart aches for a moment for that good black gelding of Katharine’s who carried them through the mountains after the Queen’s Hunt. Jules should not have ridden him into war. Goddess knows, he had done enough for them already.

Arsinoe’s vision wavers, and she blinks hard; she clenches her teeth against the dull vibration in her ears. All across the battlefield, soldiers come to, looking dazed. It does not seem possible. Jules is so small and Rho such a hulking beast, Jules should have been thrown all the way back to the rebel camp. Pietyr Renard said that Katharine had sent the dead queens into him, and Arsinoe knows that Katharine has done the same to her commander.

It is almost too monstrous to think about.

Arsinoe tears her eyes away from Jules to search for Katharine. Her gaze passes over Billy, and she allows herself one breath of relief. He is alive. A little blood smeared across his jaw, but it does not seem bad, and might not even be his. But Emilia is nowhere near him. Perhaps as a warrior, Emilia can look out for him from a distance, relying on the accuracy of her crossbow bolts to keep him out of danger. Or perhaps she never meant to keep her promise, after all.

‘Arsinoe! Are you all right?’ Mathilde asks. The seer is unhorsed, and bright red blood leaks down her cheek from a cut above her eye.

‘I’m fine. Where’s Gilbert?’

Mathilde shakes her head, and Arsinoe sees a body lying not far away beneath a yellow cape.

‘Do you see my sister? Do you see Katharine?’

Mathilde points.

Katharine gallops in the midst of a dozen queensguard with her banners flying and flags draped from her horse’s reins.

‘I’m going for her. Stay back!’

‘Wait!’ Mathilde grips her leg as a sudden blast of horns rings out from the rear of the queensguard.

Arsinoe does not need to look to know what it is. She does not need to see the frantic soldiers scattering from the direction of the sea.

‘The mist,’ she whispers. ‘Come to join us at last.’

When Pietyr’s eyes met Katharine’s across the battlefield, he thought that he would freeze. That he would be killed by some queensguard sword, while he stood, struck dumb. But he had kept on fighting. She had called his name. He could read it on her lips. And the look in her eyes was not one of confusion, or hatred at seeing him in the rebel colors. It was only happiness. Relief. Yet Pietyr had kept on fighting.

As he makes his way through the chaos, that is the thought that keeps his sword arm strong and his legs moving forward. He passed the test. Face-to-face with his Katharine, he had kept on.

For she truly is his Katharine. The moment he spotted Rho riding across the field, he knew that the dead sisters were no longer inside Katharine’s skin. Poor Rho. He is the only other person who knows what it feels like to have those dead queens poured into you, and he does not wish it on anyone, not even her.

Pietyr steps over a fallen soldier and gasps; she looks so much like that little priestess that Bree Westwood is always running around with that he is almost fooled. It is hard to hear, and to get his bearings. The whole world is shouting and metal on metal. And on top of that, his ears still hum from being thrown to the ground so hard that he bounced when the legion-cursed queen and Rho collided.

‘Hey!’

Pietyr turns as Billy makes his way toward him through the struggling bodies.

‘Why are you not fighting?’ Pietyr shouts. ‘Instead of following me like a lost dog? They did not say we had to stay together!’