One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(66)

“That isn’t what I meant. I meant right now. Is there something you want to say?” Her eyes drift down to Madrigal’s belly. “If it’s that you’re pregnant, I can see that already.”

Madrigal glances toward her waist. It is early yet, but on her slight frame it shows enough for Caragh to know.

“Jules must be glad to be a big sister,” Caragh goes on. “I’m so proud to see her grown up strong and happy. And Joseph . . . He looks so much like Matthew. For a moment, I almost ran and jumped into his arms.”

Madrigal swallows. She murmurs something under her breath.

“Maddie, speak up.”

“Don’t call me Maddie,” Madrigal snaps.

But there is something that Madrigal wants to tell her. Some unpleasant thing, from the way she stands there, toeing annoying patterns into the dirt.

“The baby,” Madrigal says. “It’s Matthew’s.”

Caragh’s fingers grip the stall door. Every horse in the barn stops eating and looks at her, even Willa’s mean brown mule. Matthew. Her Matthew. But he is not her Matthew anymore.

“I just wanted to be the one to tell you,” Madrigal says, her voice uncertain. “I didn’t want Jules or Joseph to blurt it out.” She steps closer, soft, hesitant steps in the dust and straw. “Caragh?”

“What?”

“Say something.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’ve been waiting here like a fool, when I knew there was no hope in waiting? That things change out there, but nothing changes here? You don’t need me to tell you those things. I’ll leave here old and bent, like Willa. And you don’t need my blessing if you want to live my life for me.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Madrigal says as Caragh’s brown hound starts to howl.

“Quiet. The howl means company. And company means you have to hide.”

The old man and his pony cart take their time coming down the path to the Black Cottage. It is a good thing, for it gives Arsinoe plenty of time to get comfortable in her hiding spot, seated beneath a window. Peering out, she sees Jules and Joseph dart into the stables. Who knows where Madrigal is.

When old Worcester reaches the house, Willa helps him to unload his sacks of grain and jugs of wine, along with three or four wrapped parcels. They talk for what feels like an eternity before he finally turns his cart back down the path. Much of what they discussed seems to be about a letter he gave to her. She stands in the middle of the supplies and reads it again and again until Arsinoe loses her patience. She gets to her feet and throws up the sash.

“Willa! What is that?”

Willa walks the letter back into the cottage. The others emerge from the stable like squirrels from their burrows.

Arsinoe takes the letter and reads.

“What is it?” asks Jules as she comes inside.

“It’s an announcement,” Arsinoe says. “Mirabella is challenging Katharine to a duel.”

“Is that wise?” Madrigal asks. “A hunt is a risk, but a duel is riskier still. A show of frontal assaults. Both could die.”

“The Goddess will not allow both to die,” says Willa.

“How do you know?” Joseph asks.

“Because in all our long history, she has never allowed all of her queens to die. And I should know. Half of our library here is volumes of queen history.”

“But all of her queens wouldn’t be dead,” Jules says. “If both Mirabella and Katharine die in the duel, Arsinoe will still be alive.”

Every eye turns to her, and Arsinoe steps back.

“Maybe that is the plan,” Jules says. “The Goddess’s plan.”

But Willa waves her hand.

“No. Mirabella will be the Queen Crowned. Queen Camille knew it. The entire island has known it, until recently. Arsinoe has been granted her life, a fugitive life in secret. Nothing more.”

“You haven’t seen how many times she’s saved her,” Joseph says. “And brought her back. Just to live as a fugitive? I don’t believe it.”

Arsinoe scoffs. They have all gone mad, looking at her like that. Eyes big as dinner plates and twice as sparkly.

She stares past them, at a large woven tapestry hanging on the wall. It depicts the Hunt of the Stags, the ritual performed by suitors during the Beltane of a crowning year. The tapestry shows young men with bared teeth and shining knives. One lies disemboweled in the foreground, and the stag they hunted has fallen onto its knees. There is so much blood, it is a wonder the weaver did not run out of red thread. And that could be Billy, bleeding to death on the sacred ground of Innisfuil.

“All these brutal traditions,” Arsinoe says quietly.

“Arsinoe?” Madrigal asks.

For a long time, Arsinoe dreamed of a chance like this one. To run away. To disappear. But always the Goddess moved her about like a game piece, placing her where she wanted her. She even gave her Jules, legion-cursed Jules, who Luke had always said was put nearby for a reason. But what was that reason? To win her freedom? Or to win the crown?

Either way, Arsinoe is tired of wondering. She swallows hard and feels her scars, every one of them from her cheek to her ribs. From now on, she will do what she wants.

“We have to go to Indrid Down,” she says.

“Yes,” Jules says, and claps her hands. “Mirabella and Katharine will make their last stand, and when they fall, you will be there, waiting.”