One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(16)

“Is that right?” Mirabella says through her teeth. “You just do things. Like what you did at the Quickening, when you sent your beast to slice me open?”

Arsinoe swallows and grimaces, her teeth tinged pink with blood. Then, to Mirabella’s astonishment, she actually chuckles, and her hand slides away from her vest to fall in the dirt.

“You thought I sent him for you.” She chuckles again. “Of course you would.”

“You did.”

“Did or didn’t, I haven’t sent him at you today, now have I?”

“You tried to kill me not two days after I saved you. You ungrateful brat!” Mirabella clenches her fists, careful to keep control of her elements. She wants to throttle her sister. Box her ears. Beat every last chuckle out of her. She could strike her with lightning now and be done with it. Arsinoe is an easy, immobile target.

“What are you doing here?” Mirabella shouts. “Why did you come out here?”

“To keep you out of Wolf Spring,” Arsinoe replies. “Away from the people I love.”

“I would never harm them.”

“They’re not so sure. Ascensions turn ugly. Ascensions are ugly.” Arsinoe pauses. “We could walk away. Let Katharine and the Arrons win. The poisoners have won three times before. Nothing much will change with a fourth, no matter what the temple lackeys say.”

“Abdicate?” Mirabella barks a sad laugh. “They would never let us. Stop trying to bargain when you have been beaten. You are the one who said it was the way things are. We kill or we are killed.”

Arsinoe breathes in slowly. She looks at the trees, and the light streaming through the clouds.

Mirabella’s mouth twists downward. Her eyes blur. She does not want to talk anymore. One fast bolt of lightning is all it will take, and if she looks away, maybe she will not be haunted by it afterward.

“Mirabella,” Arsinoe whispers.

“Yes?”

“When you go after Katharine, don’t hesitate. I know she was our little girl whose hair we braided full of daisies, but she isn’t anymore.”

“Jules, stop!” Joseph grabs Jules by the arm.

“We can’t stop! Can’t you see that storm? Didn’t you see the lightning?”

“Arsinoe is clever,” Joseph reasons. “She would never walk into this fight without a plan. Let her do it.”

“Let her do it. You would let her kill your Mirabella? Or are you hoping that she’ll lose?”

Jules jerks free, and Joseph does the only thing he can think of. He tackles her to the ground.

Her response is immediate and fierce. She elbows him in the temple and Joseph’s vision swims. But he does not let go. Not even when Camden’s formidable weight crashes into him and sends them all rolling.

“Joseph, let me go! Let go!”

“No, Jules, I can’t!”

She screams and strikes out with everything she has. The sound of their struggle has to be loud enough to reach the queens. If Arsinoe falls, at least she will know that Jules was there.

Camden’s teeth sink into Joseph’s shoulder and she jerks hard, trying to wrench him off.

“Ah!” he yelps. “Jules, please!”

“No!” she screams. “NO!”

It is so hard to keep his grip on her that he does not notice the quaking of the trees. He does not hear the branches rattling, not until the first one snaps and flies toward the ground to embed itself deep into the dirt.

Joseph ducks his head as more branches rain down, stabbing into the ground like knives. He lets go of Jules and covers his head with his arms.

At once, the branches stop. The trees stop quaking, and the only sound is of their frightened breath, and Camden’s nervous groans.

“What was that?” Jules asks. She struggles to her knees and gathers her mountain cat close, feeling all over her coat to make sure she was not cut or stabbed.

“I think,” Joseph pants, “that was you.”

“What was that?” Mirabella asks. “Did you hear that?” But of course Arsinoe heard it. And she knows those screams.

“That was Jules,” Arsinoe says, and struggles up onto her elbow, spitting blood. “Something’s happened to her! Did your priestesses do something?”

Arsinoe reaches into her vest, and her hand wraps around the handle of the poisoned knife. She does not want to do it. Mirabella saved her at Beltane. Mirabella loves her. But if Jules was hurt, they will all be hurt.

“No,” Mirabella says quickly. “They would not! And they are not that way. They are there,” she turns and points toward Highgate. Then she scowls. “Is this meant as distraction? It will not work!”

The storm grows dark again overhead, and Arsinoe considers her options. Perhaps she could still throw the knife, slide it into Mirabella’s heart. Poisoners are naturally good at those arts, or so she has heard. But even if they are, she has never practiced.

The rune in her hand begins to burn.

A tingling rune is not much of a warning, and Arsinoe screams right along with her sister when the bear crashes through the trees onto the road. He bellows, louder even than the thunder, and his strides are as long as a horse’s and just as fast.

“Wait!” Arsinoe shouts, and the bear hesitates just enough to keep him from slashing his claws across Mirabella’s chest.