One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(63)

Katharine reads it and starts to scream.

“Kat!” Pietyr quickly dismounts. “Kat, what is it?”

She crumples the letter from Rolanth in her fist. It was not addressed to her. It was not addressed to anyone. It was a notice, found tacked to the gates of the Volroy.

Pietyr takes her by the shoulders, but she breaks free, screaming so loud she spooks the horses, and her new stallion bolts for the safety of the stables. Nicolas struggles to keep his mare still, his expression confused.

“Katharine!” she hears Natalia calling, running to her across the courtyard. “Kat! Are you all right?”

“How many of these are there?” Katharine shouts. She stalks toward Natalia and Genevieve and holds up the crumpled paper in her fist. “How many? You must have known! When were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Genevieve squeaks as Natalia pries the letter from Katharine’s fingers and reads.

“It is a challenge,” Natalia says. “Mirabella has challenged Katharine to a duel, to be held at the great arena in Indrid Down.”

“What?” Pietyr asks. “When?”

“At the next full moon.”

Genevieve moans. That is less than two weeks away.

Natalia grabs for the accompanying letter from the Council.

“It says they are everywhere,” Katharine says. “Tacked to every board and signpost in Indrid Down.”

“How did she manage it?” Genevieve asks shrilly. “It must have taken a small army to pull off such a stunt!”

“Then she must have used a small army,” Natalia replies.

Katharine grits her teeth. She recites the challenge from memory in a bitter voice.

“A duel. To be held the day of July’s full moon, in the arena in our great capital of Indrid Down. All are welcome to bear witness to the end of the Ascension and the beginning of a new elemental reign . . . !’” Katharine grabs at her hair and shrieks, tearing it loose of its bun. “Who has seen these?”

“There is no way to know,” says Natalia. “But if it were me, I would dispatch riders to every corner. I would make sure that the entire island hears of the challenge.”

“Must everyone be here to witness this?” Genevieve hisses. She throws her hand up at Pietyr’s mare, who has fled only a few paces away. “Even the horses? Shall I call the kitchen staff and the maids?”

“This is not the way.” Katharine begins to pace, biting at her nails and muttering to herself. “It is not what we planned. Not what we hoped. We would see her disgraced in her own city.” She spins angrily and points to the letter. “‘All are welcome to bear witness.’ Bear! Is that some slight against me and the way I dispatched Arsinoe?”

“If it is, I do not see how.”

Katharine takes a deep breath. She smooths her mussed hair. Mirabella will not get away with this. The supreme brat will live only long enough to regret ever coming to the capital.

“Kat,” Pietyr says gently, “a triumph is still a triumph, whether in Rolanth or Indrid Down. This will be even more gratifying in many ways, as it will be before all of those in the city who have watched you grow from a child. Mirabella’s boldness will only make it easier. And sweeter when she loses.”

Katharine pauses. Then she exhales, and the shoulders of everyone around her relax slightly.

“Perhaps you are right. Either way, she will be dead. Here we can arrange things the way we like. And I will not have to disturb the bear by making him travel.” She grabs the notice from Natalia and tears it down the center, smiling sweetly as the halves float to the gravel drive. “I will hold a ball, the night before. To welcome her.”

“Yes,” says Natalia. “That is a fine idea.”

Katharine nods, and blinks at them. They look terrified.

“Natalia, I am so sorry! I did not mean to carry on so!”

“It is all right, Kat. Though you must control your temper. What has come over you? You are behaving like an elemental.”

Katharine lowers her head. She curtsies to Natalia and walks alone toward the house. But it is not long before Pietyr catches up to her.

“A duel,” he says. “Katharine. What will we do? I cannot believe that the temple would allow it! The risk is too great, on both sides.”

“She thinks she can win,” Katharine says as they enter the manor, cool darkness enveloping them and making her skin prickle. “That the Goddess is on her side.” She reaches for belladonna berries piled high in a gold bowl on a foyer table and stuffs a handful into her mouth.

“She may win,” Pietyr cautions. “In the open space of the arena, she will have the advantage.”

“She will have no advantage.”

“Katharine. That is plenty of berries.” He takes her arm, but she wrenches away and eats still more, the juices running down her chin. “Kat, you will sicken!”

Katharine laughs.

“And what if Mirabella is right?” Pietyr asks. “What if the Goddess is on her side?”

Katharine turns on him, grinning with teeth full of poison, and for a moment her vision blacks out and makes his face a void, dark and bottomless as the pit of the Breccia Domain.

“It does not matter. They are on mine.”