One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(15)

But what Madrigal told him about Jules cannot be true. That Jules is legion cursed and touched with war. Joseph saw a legion-cursed child once, and the poor boy was half mad, holding his hands over his ears and dashing his shoulder against a wall. Joseph and Matthew had come across them in Highgate as the boy’s family was traveling to Indrid Down Temple, where the boy would be mercifully poisoned and put out of his misery.

That is not Jules. To hear Madrigal tell it, the low magic spell that bound Jules’s curse is weakening, and the war gift may show itself any time she loses her temper. But Jules has lost her temper often, and he has seen no evidence of that.

He does not know what Madrigal is up to, telling him such lies. But he went after Jules anyway, to keep her out of the queens’ business. Because if she intervenes, the Council will have her hide, legion cursed or not.

Arsinoe screams when Mirabella brings her dying campfire roaring back to life. She cannot help it. The flames are so hot. The wood is charred to embers in seconds, and when she rolls away, she smells burned hair, and her mask is so hot for a moment she fears it melted to her cheek.

“You,” Arsinoe sputters. She rolls up against a tree trunk and scrambles to her feet. Mirabella is barely on the other side of the road. Arsinoe did not hear so much as a footstep or a snapped twig. “You’ve gotten quieter.”

“Perhaps you just sleep harder.”

Arsinoe glances down at her makeshift pillow, singed black now and full of lumpy clothes and hard cheese.

“That’s not likely.”

“Where is your bear?” Mirabella asks.

“I left him behind.”

“You are lying.”

Arsinoe swallows. The poisoned knife is a comforting weight in her vest, but she does not want to use it. She will have a hard time getting close enough to use it, anyway. That blast of fire was no trifle. Mirabella has found her nerve.

“You had better bring him out,” Mirabella warns, and a strange pulse settles over Arsinoe’s skin. She looks down. The hair on her arms is standing straight up.

The bolt of lightning shines bright white in the foggy morning, and the tree behind Arsinoe erupts in sparks. The jolt goes through the bottoms of her feet, and she drops into a tight crouch as it slams her teeth together. Pain rushes from her toes to the roots of her hair.

Talk, she thinks, but she can barely force her jaw apart. So she runs instead, one leg dragging as she makes for the cover of the trees. She hurls herself over a low shrub, and Mirabella’s fire eats it away behind her in an explosion of orange and hissing steam.

“Stop, stop!” Arsinoe shouts.

“You had your chance to stop,” Mirabella shouts back. “And you sent a bear for me instead.”

The wind changes direction, circling around Arsinoe’s collar, tossing her hair into her eyes. Mirabella is gathering a great storm overhead. The first gust shoves Arsinoe against a tree. A branch whips into her eyes, and a section of the burning shrub cracks loose and strikes her in the side, singing a hole through her vest and shirt. She winces, and looks down into the carved rune of low magic in her hand. She can feel the bear is on his way. She should have called him long ago.

The next bolt of lightning knocks Arsinoe off her feet. Pain, then stars, then blackness before her eyes, and she rolls bonelessly back into the road.

Jules is not far away when the first lightning strikes. The ground shakes, and the wind follows soon after.

Jules and Camden start to run.

“Jules, wait!”

She turns. Joseph hurries toward her in a wrinkled shirt.

“I can’t,” Jules calls. She points to the rising smoke. Arsinoe needs them.

Mirabella walks cautiously toward Arsinoe lying in the road. She holds the storm at the ready, to lash out on command, and keeps one eye on the woods. Her heart hammers in her chest, but so far, no great brown bear has come rushing out, roaring, and slashing its claws.

It must be there. Arsinoe said that she left it behind. A lie. It is only waiting until Mirabella drops her guard.

Arsinoe lies on her back in the road, one arm extended past her head. She is not moving. She looks like a dirty pile of twigs and rags. Mirabella nudges her with a toe.

“Get up.”

Arsinoe is completely still. Mirabella edges closer. Could it really be as easy as that?

“Arsinoe?”

She thinks she hears a mumble and flinches, looking about wildly for the bear. But still it does not come.

“What did you say?” Mirabella asks, and Arsinoe rolls over.

“I said, ‘one.’ Fire, lightning, wind . . . It would be nice if you would just choose one.”

Mirabella straightens. “Just because you have only one trick does not mean I must.”

“You don’t know anything about my tricks.” Arsinoe stares up at her from behind that infuriating mask. Her nostrils are ringed with blood. Her hand twitches toward the interior of her vest. There are old cuts on her palm. “You look different.” She glances at Mirabella’s brown cloak and her black hair held tight in a long braid. “All dressed up for your crown.” Arsinoe coughs and her eyes wobble. It is a wonder she is still conscious.

“Why did you come here?” Mirabella asks. “Are you giving up? Do you want me to turn you into a lump of charcoal?”

“Maybe? I’m not sure. I wasn’t raised like you were. We never made any plans. So now I just do things.”