One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(102)

“That’s it!” Billy shouts. “That’s home. I’d know it anywhere!”

Home. His home. Arsinoe throws her arms around Mirabella, and they huddle on the foredeck, so tired that their laughter sounds nearly like tears.

“I was afraid it was the island,” Arsinoe says. “Like it was on Beltane. But we made it! Jules! Jules, look!”

Jules is seated beside the rail with Joseph pulled across her lap. He is not moving.

Billy leaps down from the helm and rushes below to let Camden up; they can hear the poor cat butting against the door. In moments, she leaps onto the deck, lashing her tail angrily, and bounds to Jules. But when she sniffs at Joseph, she lets out a long, low moan.

“No.” Arsinoe runs to them. “No!”

She kneels and touches his cold face.

Billy turns away and curses. He grips the rail and shouts at no one.

“But we’re here,” Arsinoe says. “We made it!”

Jules grasps her, and they hold each other tight.

Mirabella approaches quietly, her ragged, torn skirt rustling and soaked with salt water.

“Oh, Joseph,” she whispers, and begins to weep.

“I’m sorry,” Arsinoe says as Jules struggles up from underneath them. Joseph’s face is peaceful. But he cannot really be gone. Not their Joseph.

Jules wanders across the deck. “Will you have a funeral for him?” she asks. “Billy, will you?”

“Of . . . of course we will,” he says.

“Jules?” Arsinoe asks. “What are you doing?”

Jules is faced back toward the mist that shrouds the ghost of the island.

“All that sailing,” she whispers. “Yet it’s still not far. I won’t even need to row long to reach a port.”

“Jules!” Arsinoe scrambles up. She goes to her and takes her by the arm. “What are you talking about? You are not going back.”

Jules shakes her off, and Arsinoe’s mouth drops open.

“I can’t go,” Jules says. “You know I can’t. I belong in one place, and that’s there.” She nods to the island. But she cannot really want to return. She must just be afraid. And sad. But they are all sad.

Jules reaches out and looses one of the small whaling boats from the starboard side.

“No.” Arsinoe slaps her hands. “I’m sorry about Joseph. I know you loved him. I loved him, too! But you can’t go!”

“You don’t need me anymore,” Jules says, and actually smiles. “You’ve fought, and you’ve won.”

“We have won. Don’t you see?” Arsinoe turns around and points to the mainland.

“There’s everything, right there! There’s freedom, and choices, and a life spent together! No one to tell us we weren’t meant to be. No crown. No Council. No killing. We get to decide who we are now, outside of all that.”

The boat rocks gently, and the mainland shines green under summer sun. There is no mist. No one waiting to kill her or tell her to kill.

The whaling boat splashes into the water. Jules and Camden are already inside it.

“Wait,” Arsinoe says. She reaches for the rigging, but Jules casts off. “Wait, I said!”

They look up at her sadly.

“I don’t want to go without you,” Arsinoe whispers.

“I know. But you have to.”

The moment Jules’s oars touch the water, the island’s mist creeps out. It swirls around the boat greedily with something that almost seems like relief. Like affection. As if it was Jules, truly, who the island was trying to keep.

“Look after them for me,” Jules calls to Billy and Mirabella.

“Jules, get back on this ship!” Arsinoe takes a deep breath, about to jump over the rail, but Billy grabs her by the shoulders. He pulls her to his chest, and she shouts and struggles, watching Jules grow smaller until the mist thickens and Arsinoe can no longer see her face.

“It will be all right,” Billy says. He squeezes her, hard. Mirabella comes closer and takes her hand.

“It will be,” Arsinoe whispers as tears drip from her chin.

She turns her head to look into the sun, toward an unknown country. An unknown future. Anything could await them there, and the possibilities cloud her mind. She does not remember what it was like not to live in fear or in resentment, of being killed or of having to. She hears Jules’s voice calling to her across the water.

“I love you, Arsinoe.”

“Jules, come back!” She turns around. “It’ll be different, you’ll see!”

But when she looks, Jules and the island are gone. The mist of Fennbirn has disappeared, and where it was only moments ago there is only the sea, clear and sparkling.





The queens of Fennbirn will return.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS





You would think that the more of these you write the easier it would become, like eventually it would just be a laundry list of thank you, thank you, check, check. Alas, it isn’t, because with each new one, the folks you have to thank have done so much more even than they did the last time and any acknowledgment feels inadequate. This whole page should have jazz hands all over it is what I’m saying.

Thank you to my amazing editor, Alexandra Cooper, for cracking the pacing whip and the detail whip and the art of subtlety whip (which is a hard whip to wield), and all the other myriad whips you seem to own to get this book into shape. Thank you to my agent, Adriann Ranta-Zurhellen, who is, I’ll just say it, the best agent who has ever agented or will ever agent on this or any other planet. Thanks to Olivia Russo for wrangling publicity with such a deft and organized hand.