One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(62)

“You should be there to advise.”

“They already know what I would advise. Our eyes in Rolanth say they are overextended in renovating the central district. They will bankrupt themselves and ask the crown to bail them out.” She eats another fig and licks poison from her fingers. “Only Lucian Marlowe will argue their side. Saying that the crown’s coffers are for all queens, not just ours. Can you imagine?”

Natalia stares past Genevieve through the windows that overlook the drive. Katharine is somewhere out there, riding the bridle paths with her suitor and Pietyr. She alone deserves a moment to celebrate. Not the Council. They must keep working in preparation for the journey to Rolanth at the Reaping Moon.

“If I were to die,” Natalia says suddenly, “you would be the head of the family.”

Genevieve puts down her figs.

“Sister? Are you unwell?”

“I am fine.” Natalia walks to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Katharine on horseback. She has gifted her a flashy new stallion, all black, with long, lean legs and a smooth stride. He will not replace Half Moon, but she hopes that they will get along.

“Then what are you thinking of?”

Genevieve rises to a seated position and sets her sticky plate to one side.

“I suppose I am thinking of our mother,” Natalia replies. “And what she would say if she were alive to see us now.”

“Mother,” Genevieve says, and shudders.

Yes. Mother was terrifying. She held the Council, and Queen Camille, in a clenched fist. When she controlled the Arrons, the whole island feared them. The only thing the Arrons had to fear was her.

Natalia, though she has tried, has never been her mother’s match. And Genevieve is even less so. Genevieve inherited all their mother’s cruelty but none of her initiative, and so she is cutthroat but unreliable. She never knows where to strike.

“And what would mother say?” Genevieve wonders aloud.

Natalia crosses her arms.

“She would certainly say that we are horrible breeders. No children for me and none for you. Only a boy for Christophe.”

“But Antonin has two girls and will have more.”

Genevieve says nothing of children for herself. She has never shown much romantic inclination, and of the lovers she has had, those that lasted the longest were women. As for Natalia, the Goddess sent her Katharine, and she is more than enough.

She smiles, watching Katharine and Pietyr ride side by side out of the trees. The new stallion rises up on his hind legs when Katharine tries to slow him. She looks so delicate on his massive back, but soon she has him prancing docilely in a circle.

Natalia sighs.

“Enough of this. Has there been any word of the Milone girl? Any word of Arsinoe’s body?”

“None. And no one expects any. The naturalist knows her woods. If she hides the corpse away or buries it, no one will find it except for the bugs.” Genevieve raises an eyebrow. “It is the Milone girl who is the real problem. So strong and legion cursed? And with the war gift of all things. Something must be done.”

“Something will be done,” Natalia says. “But not yet. The legion curse is an abomination. It is my guess that the temple will take care of her for us. Which will give us a chance to keep our hands clean with Wolf Spring.”

Natalia presses her forefingers to the bridge of her nose.

“You will not be able to do this for much longer, sister,” Genevieve says.

“Do what?”

“Hide away in your hilltop manor. Soon, Katharine will be living in the east tower with her king-consort, and you will have no more excuses to avoid your Council seat.”

“Do not remind me.” Natalia narrows her eyes at a rider approaching up the long, tree-lined drive. A messenger. Riding fast. Katharine intercepts the letter, and tears it open. Natalia tenses. She rushes from the room when Katharine begins to scream.

Katharine pats her new stallion’s neck. Together they led Pietyr and Nicolas on a merry chase through the woods, and the stallion does not want it to end. But she keeps her hands firm on the reins until he quiets.

“Shall we go in for tea?” she asks the boys. “And later to the city, to buy sardines to feed my poor sister’s bear?”

“I do not like you so near that thing,” Pietyr says, and she rolls her eyes. During the parade back to the city, Pietyr flinched every time it fought against its ropes. “It is not happy with you, Kat, for what you did to its mistress.”

“Truly, Pietyr, I thought the same at first. But I have fed the bear many times since, and whatever anger it had is gone. It is as if it does not care at all.”

“Perhaps it’s no longer a familiar, now that she is dead,” Nicolas adds. “In any case, I enjoy seeing it, Queen Katharine. And perhaps hunting it, at this year’s Beltane Festival?”

She smiles, a little nervously. “Perhaps.”

Hoofbeats make them pause. They stop their mounts and wait for the messenger to canter up the drive.

“Good afternoon, Queen Katharine,” the girl says, breathless from her ride. She bows as deep as she can in the saddle. “I have a message for Mistress Arron.”

“I will take it.” Katharine holds out a gloved hand, and the messenger gives it over. She salutes them before riding away.

Katharine breaks the Black Council’s wax seal and opens the letter. Another letter is folded inside and falls out onto the ground. She dismounts to collect it, and Pietyr takes her stallion’s reins. When she turns the letter over, it reveals the blue-and-black wax of Rolanth. Of her sister Mirabella.