One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(45)

Matthew reaches out and pulls Arsinoe to him. His Sandrin smile is firmly affixed, charming and handsome enough to make her blush. So Madrigal must not have told him what she saw in the flames either.

“That’s a pretty wreath,” he says.

Arsinoe swings the temple wreath around her finger.

“I’ve had prettier.” She thinks of the one Billy gave to her. She had to give it to Cait when the temple priestesses arrived with the wreath of the naturalist queen, which is more bouquet than wreath, really. So many sprays of purple and yellow wildflowers that the paper lantern will have to be squeezed into the center.

Back at the house, the side door slams, and Cait walks toward them with Eva perched on her shoulder.

“It’s time.”

“Already?” Arsinoe asks. “Won’t we wait for Jules?”

“We can’t wait any longer. As the hosts, we’re expected to be first. Jules knows. I’m sure she’ll meet us there.”

Arsinoe exhales and calls Braddock as Madrigal and Cait step into their places ahead of her, with Matthew to the rear. Ellis walks up and squeezes her shoulder.

“Stop,” she says, and smiles at him shakily. “It feels like you’re saying good-bye.”

“Never,” says Ellis. “Just telling you I’m here. So don’t worry about Braddock.”

Arsinoe nods. The fading Wolf Spring light is gentle and gold.

“Odd,” she says, “To feel so in danger on such a fine day.”

They begin to walk. All the way down, she cannot feel her legs. She just tries not to trip and keeps her left hand buried in Braddock’s warm fur.

By the time they arrive beside the cove, it is already full of people lining the docks and squeezing onto hastily assembled risers. High Priestess Luca stands at the water’s edge with three priestesses, including Autumn, head priestess of the temple in Wolf Spring. When Luca sees Arsinoe, she inclines her head. There is no threat in the gesture, but Arsinoe’s stomach quivers. She looks around anxiously for Jules, but Jules is nowhere to be seen.

Mirabella walks stiffly with Billy, following behind Sara and Bree. Today the Westwoods ignore that fact that he is only her official taster and treat him like a true suitor. So far, he has gone along with it, though he continually searches through the crowds for his Arsinoe.

Sara slows, and the line bunches together so that Uncle Miles and Nico nearly run into Mirabella’s heels. A good thing that her dress is short and has no train, or it would be covered in dirty footprints.

Mirabella cranes her neck. The delay was caused by coming too close behind Katharine’s processional, which is much longer and full of members of the Black Council. She cannot see more of Katharine than the back of her head, her hair loose except for one small bun pinned through with dark red blooms. She is arm in arm with her suitor, the handsome boy with the golden-blond hair.

They begin to move again, and Mirabella’s stomach hums with something like excitement. She is in Wolf Spring, where Arsinoe grew up. And somewhere near the water, Arsinoe waits. Only she will not be alone. Or smiling. And she will have a bear.

When they reach the shore, it is oddly silent. Mirabella expected glares from poisoners. Perhaps a little spit from naturalists. But there is nothing. No cheers or chatter. It does not feel at all like a festival.

As they take their place, Billy tenses. Arsinoe is there, and when she looks at Billy, a blush creeps across her cheeks from behind her mask.

Mirabella smiles to herself. There is no ill will today. Nothing will happen, nothing more than pretty lanterns floating on the water and a barge full of fruit and grain to burn into the sea. Arsinoe’s bear is calm, and Katharine seems interested only in her suitor, whispering in his ear so intimately that it is almost scandalous.

The Black Council schemed and lobbied hard to bring them here together. Mirabella is glad that they will be so bitterly disappointed.

Arsinoe looks across the shore at her sisters. It is the first time since the Black Cottage that she has been this close to both at once. Little Katharine has been overdone with makeup in the Arron fashion, but she no longer looks like a doll. Her chin is high and her cheeks full. The barest hint of a smile plays at the corner of her lips.

As for Mirabella, she is cold, as always. Her sisters are both queens and know what they must do.

“This is how it is,” Arsinoe whispers. “Someone’s going to die.”

“They should have chosen somewhere else to hold the ceremony,” says Nicolas. “Somewhere that does not smell like the inside of a clamshell.”

The wind has changed direction, carrying with it the scents of the Wolf Spring Marketplace. But Katharine does not mind. What little she has seen of Wolf Spring she likes. The wildness and the harbor full of rickety-looking fishing boats. They bob on the water and glow with paper lanterns in the blue light of dusk.

“The queens will come forward,” the High Priestess says, and Katharine quiets as Luca holds her hand out to the naturalist. “Queen Arsinoe.”

Arsinoe walks to the water’s edge, dressed not as a queen but as a farmer, just like she was at Beltane. She receives a lit paper lantern from a Wolf Spring priestess and leans down to awkwardly push her wreath.

“Queen Katharine.”

Katharine takes her lantern from an Indrid Down priestess. She places it in the center of her wreath and releases it, then smiles when her red roses bump Arsinoe’s wildflowers out of the way.