One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(32)

“Well, you cannot get any worse. She has told me about your stews.”

They pass Elizabeth and she waves, with netting around her face from gathering honey.

“Could I get a measure of that?” Billy asks.

“I will bring some to the house later,” Elizabeth calls. “And some grain for your chicken.”

Luca turns to look behind them. She had not noticed that the brown hen was following from the storeroom.

“You have found a familiar, it seems,” Luca says. “Will you bring her back to Wolf Spring when you go?”

“I suppose I will. But who knows when that may be.”

“Sooner than you think.” Luca stops, and turns to face him. “Have you heard much of the Midsummer Festival?”

“The next high festival,” he says. “I have heard Sara and the priestesses discussing preparations.”

“Here in Rolanth, the elementals sacrifice a small barge of vegetables and rabbit meat. They set it alight in the river and push it out to sea.” Luca turns south, toward the city, remembering all the past festivals she has presided over. Sometimes Mirabella would put on beautiful displays of water spouts. Luca had felt so close to the Goddess in those moments. She knew then that she was precisely where she was meant to be, doing precisely what she was meant to do.

“In Wolf Spring,” she goes on, “they set lanterns on their boats, and take to the harbor at twilight. They throw grain into the water to feed the fish. It is more rustic, perhaps, but quite lovely. I went there for the festival many times as a girl.” She sighs. “It will be nice to see it again.”

“Why would you go to the Wolf Spring Festival?” Billy asks suspiciously.

“We will all go. You, and I, and Mirabella, and the Westwoods. The Black Council and Queen Katharine. I am about to send word to Indrid Down that the queens will spend the remaining High Festivals together. Midsummer in Wolf Spring and the Reaping Moon here, in Rolanth.”

“You’re putting them together. So that one will die.”

“Yes,” she says. “That is the way things work in an Ascension Year.”





GREAVESDRAKE MANOR





Nicolas has targets set on the long, level swath of grass past the rear courtyard. He nocks an arrow and fires it near the center of the target, just to the left of the one he fired before that.

“Beautifully done,” Katharine says, and claps. Nicolas sets down his bow and lets her take her turn. To his credit, the smile on his face flags only slightly when hers strikes right dead center.

“Not as beautiful as that.” Nicolas bends and kisses the back of her gloved hand. “Not as beautiful as you.”

Katharine blushes and nods downfield toward the targets.

“It will not be long until it is a true contest. You are becoming quite good. I cannot believe you have never practiced archery before.”

Nicolas shrugs. He is nearly as handsome as Pietyr, even dressed strangely in a white mainland shirt and white shoes. His shoulders stretch the fabric when he takes position with his bow, and the underside of the gold hair against his collar is darkened with sweat.

“I had no interest in it,” he says, and lets another arrow fly. It goes slightly wide. “Not as good. You must have distracted me.”

“My apologies.”

“Do not apologize. It is a welcome distraction.”

Katharine reaches for another arrow. Her bow is newly fashioned, longer, and harder to draw than her old one. But then, her arms have never been stronger.

She nocks an arrow and fires it. Then another. And another after that. The sound the arrows make when they hit is solid, and satisfying. She wonders if they would sound the same catching Mirabella in the back.

“I do not have to inspect the target to know that those were better shots than mine,” says Nicolas as they set down their bows and move toward a small stone table beneath the shade of a tall, leafy alder tree.

“I have been practicing archery since I was a small girl. Though I must admit, I was never that skilled at it. A few months ago, those arrows might have been lost in the hedge.”

On the table are two silver pitchers and two goblets. One is filled with Katharine’s drink: straw-colored May wine, sweetened with honey and fresh berries, both poison and not. The other holds wine for Nicolas: dark red and cooled with water. Impossible to mistake for the other.

“They tell me we are to depart soon, for Wolf Spring,” Nicolas says. “And I was just becoming accustomed to Greavesdrake Manor.”

“We will not be away long. And their Midsummer ritual is said to be beautiful: floating lamps flickering in the harbor. I always hoped I would see it. I just assumed I would have to wait until after I was crowned.”

Nicolas takes a large gulp of wine. He looks at her slantways and his eyes narrow with mischief.

“I will long to return to your home and the capital. But I truly cannot wait to see you face-to-face with your sisters. I hope,” he says, and reaches for her gloved hand, “that you will not leave me back when it happens.”

“Leave you back?” she asks.

“When you kill them. You will, of course.” He gestures toward the bows, toward the targets full of arrows. “And the servants have told me of your skill with a knife. Throwing them near to a target? I would very much like to see that.”