One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(54)

“It would go back to the woods, I suppose.”

“But in Wolf Spring, I learned that familiars are granted unnatural long life,” Nicolas goes on. “Will it still? Or without the link to its naturalist, will it age and die as any other bear?”

Pietyr, seated beside Katharine, finishes his cup of May wine and slams it down on the table. “These are questions best posed to a naturalist,” he says. “Perhaps you would like to go back and ask them. Then they could take you on to Rolanth. You should be beginning your suit of Queen Mirabella soon, yes?”

Nicolas smiles and shrugs.

“Soon,” he says. “Unless my queen will kill her first.” He dips his head and kisses Katharine’s gloved hand, then gets up from the table. He approaches the bear, and Katharine watches as he dumps his cup of wine over its head.

“You cannot really like him,” Pietyr snaps.

“Why not? There is plenty about him to like. I have never seen his eyes on anyone but me, for example. And I have not found daisies in his hair, put there by lusty priestesses.”

“I have not had another girl since you, Kat,” Pietyr says quietly. “You have ruined me for them.” His eyes turn back to Nicolas, who is laughing and clinking cups with giftless Renata Hargrove from the Council. “He does not love you like I do. He cannot.”

“And how do you know, Pietyr?” Katharine asks, leaning so close that he must feel her breath against his ear. “What must he do to prove that he does? Must he throw me down into the Breccia Domain?”

Pietyr stiffens, and Katharine sits back and happily tosses a handful of poison berries into her mouth.

“You eat too much. You will be sick tonight.”

“Sick, perhaps,” she says, and eats another handful. “But I will not die. I have been poisoned and poisoned again since I was a child, Pietyr. I know what I am doing. You must relax and try to enjoy yourself.”

He settles into his chair, and crosses his arms, the only dismal spot in the room. The music from the country musicians is not refined, and the inn is plain and without a single chandelier. But the poisoners, so elated by the victory in Wolf Spring, do not seem to mind. Even Natalia dances, her back straight, smiling softly in the arms of her younger brother Antonin.

“Play louder!” Genevieve orders. “So if the elemental’s coaches pass by they will hear it!”

Everyone raises a cheer, and the musicians play harder. Katharine wishes that Mirabella could hear all this. See all this. But though coaches from Rolanth may pass by carrying priestesses, Mirabella will not be with them. The elemental queen and her Westwoods traveled to Wolf Spring by sea, where they can control the currents and shifting winds, and, of course, where they were sure not to run into any poisoners.

Margaret Beaulin approaches the table and bows. Then she leans against it, so drunk that her left eye has begun to wander in its socket.

“An inspired move, bringing the bear inside,” she says. “The only thing better would be if it were Arsinoe’s body lying strapped in the wagon.”

Katharine’s eyes narrow.

“A vanquished queen is deserving of her burial rites, Margaret,” she growls in a different voice. “She is worthy of the people’s love and affection.”

Candles have burned in the windows of every town they passed through, in honor of Queen Arsinoe. And that is the way it should be.

Margaret waves her hand, oblivious to Katharine’s grave tone.

“Let them mourn and be done with it. Her name will not be spoken after your crowning. It will be lost in time. Like a pebble in a river.”

Katharine’s gloved fingers grip the wood of her chair so tightly that it squeaks.

“Katharine?” Pietyr asks. “Are you all right?”

Katharine snatches up her cup of tainted wine. She wants to throw it into Margaret Beaulin’s face, leap upon her, and pour it down her war-gifted throat.

Perhaps someday. But not now. She stands, and the musicians stop playing. The poisoners stop dancing midstep.

“A toast. To my sister Queen Arsinoe.”

Jaws drop slightly. They titter as if expecting a joke. But Katharine is not joking, and eventually, Natalia walks to her wine cup and holds it aloft. After a moment, the others follow suit.

“It would be easy to hate her,” Katharine says, thinking of her sister, her eyes losing focus on the crowd. “Another queen standing in the way. But Queen Arsinoe was an innocent in this. Just as much an innocent as I. Before that bear”—she gestures toward it—“before Beltane, the people felt about her what they felt about me. That we were weak. Born to die. Sacrifices to the chosen queen’s legend. So let us not forget the queen we truly hate. The darling of Rolanth and the temple.”

Katharine holds her cup high.

“So I toast to Queen Arsinoe, my sister, whom I killed with mercy. It will not be so when I kill Queen Mirabella. Queen Mirabella will suffer.”





THE BLACK COTTAGE





By the time Jules reaches the Black Cottage, she is too exhausted to be cautious. She pushes the spent horse the last strides through the trees; in the stream, he nearly stumbles and falls. She has to jerk up hard on his poor head to keep him on his feet.

“Caragh!”

She trots across the dirt path through the edging of waxed-leaf shrubs. Her voice is strained and odd-sounding. It seems like forever since she heard any voice at all. For hours it has been nothing but hoofbeats and rustling trees.