One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(38)

“There now, there now,” Billy says, gathering Elizabeth close and trying to quiet her. “Mirabella, stay back.”

Footsteps echo down the corridor: priestesses coming to investigate the screams.

“Get Pepper back into your robes!” Bree hisses.

But the poor bird is panicked. Thinking fast, Mirabella stumbles into the doorway to divert attention so Elizabeth can calm down and collect him.

“What is it?” the first of the priestesses demands. She looks Mirabella over head to toe, and the others push into the storeroom. When they see the fallen girl, a few of them moan miserably. The girl was one of them. One of theirs.

Luca pauses briefly in her pacing to touch Mirabella’s hair. Mirabella is on the sofa in Luca’s rooms, wedged snugly between Bree and Elizabeth and an embroidered pillow.

The door opens, but it is only an initiate carrying a tray of tea and cookies, which Billy dutifully tastes even though it will all go untouched.

“I do not want you to do that anymore,” Mirabella says.

“It’s what I’m here for,” he says gently. “I knew the risks. As did my father when he sent me.”

“You were here to make a point,” Luca corrects him. “And so your father could garner favor with us. Personally, I think he is mad to put you in this poisoner’s path, even with my priestesses tasting before you.”

“No one else must do this,” Mirabella says. “No tasters. No more.” The dead girl’s face floats in her mind, warring with another image locked inside her: little Katharine, sweet and smiling.

The door opens again. This time it is Rho. She has taken down her hood, and red hair blazes past her shoulders.

“Who was it?” Luca asks.

“The novice, Rebecca.”

Luca presses her hands to her face. Mirabella did not know her, except for seeing her pass by in the temple.

“She was . . . ambitious,” Luca explains, sitting down finally, in one of her overstuffed chairs. “She must have been testing the dress.”

“Alone?” Rho asks. “And by putting it on?”

“She was a good priestess. Devoted. From a farm in Waring. I will write to her family and send blessing. We will place the ashes in an urn after she is burned, in case her mother wishes her remains be returned.”

Mirabella winces. It is all so fast. So businesslike.

“Did she suffer?” Mirabella asks. “I do not care if you think it a weak question, Rho. I want you to answer.”

Rho’s jaw unclenches. “I suppose I do not know, my queen. From the skin raked under her fingernails, I would say yes. But the poisoning was fast. No one heard her cry out, and she did not have time to leave the storeroom for help.”

“Do we know what it was?” asks Luca.

“Something absorbed through contact with the skin. The wounds are localized near the bodice, where the dress fit the tightest. We will examine it before it is destroyed, to look for hidden pins or razors.”

“Katharine,” Mirabella whispers. “You are so terrible now.”

“Rebecca should never have put on that dress,” Rho says.

“But she would not have known,” Bree protests. “Do you not see? That dress was blue! It was not sent for the queen. It was sent for one of us!” She glares up at Rho. “Why would she do that?”

“She is clever, this poisoner. If she cannot get to you directly, she will goad you into action by killing those in your household.”

“She is not clever.” Elizabeth’s voice is low as she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. Mirabella puts her arms around her. “She is cruel.”





WOLF SPRING





In the clearing, beneath the bent-over tree, Arsinoe lets Madrigal take fresh blood from her arm. Overhead, thin green leaves rustle on the ancient branches.

“There,” Madrigal says. “That’s enough.”

Arsinoe presses a cloth to staunch the bleeding. “Do you have anything to eat?” she asks, and Madrigal tosses her a sack. Inside is a skin of cider and some strips of dried meat.

She eats, but the bloodletting does not really bother her anymore. Her arms and hands are so covered in scars that she has not been able to roll up her sleeves all season.

Madrigal bends slowly down over the small fire she built when they arrived. She is not more than two months pregnant, but already her belly shows.

“Do you hope for a girl?” Arsinoe asks.

“I hope for you to focus,” Madrigal says, and blows on the flames.

“But if you had to choose.”

Madrigal looks up at her wearily. She has never seemed less enthusiastic about performing low magic. The child saps her strength.

“It doesn’t matter.” She sits back on a log. “The Milones whelp only girls, but the Sandrins only boys.” Her hand passes over her stomach. “So we will have to wait and see whose blood will out.”

A wind, cold for this time of year, sweeps through the clearing, and the old tree’s leaves hiss like snakes.

“The other queens are coming,” Madrigal says, inhaling the breeze. “If you want to curse your sisters, we must do it now.”

Arsinoe nods. A memory rises of little Katharine with daisies in her hair. Of Mirabella holding her tight when the priestesses tried to kill her when she washed ashore at Innisfuil. She pushes them away.