One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(79)

When she holds her hand out to a candle, she can light it, but she cannot make it flare. Water is a waste of time. She has not dared to test her lightning, and Luca says that she should not, that it would give the Arrons too much satisfaction to see only a rain shower form above the arena.

“I feel like I failed you,” Billy says, standing behind her. “Now I have failed you both.”

“You did not fail anyone. Not me. Certainly not Arsinoe.” The sadness in her loved ones’ eyes is hard for Mirabella to take. No one imagined that she could lose the duel before it even started. “Sooner or later, Billy, the poison always finds its target. This was not your fault.”

The priestess fastening her light dress of black wool begins to weep. Rho cuffs her on the back of the head and steps forward to finish what she started, tugging Mirabella’s bodice tight.

“Avoid her,” the red-haired priestess whispers. “Use your shield and avoid her as long as you can. Save your gift for one good shot.”





THE QUEENS’ DUEL





When the duel begins, everyone in attendance is on their feet, screaming regardless of their affiliation. None of them have ever seen a duel. The air is abuzz with excitement, even stronger than the scent of cinnamon-spiced sweets and roasted meat on sticks.

Mirabella walks to the center of the arena. Wind blows her hair off her shoulders, and she pretends that it is her wind even as fear drenches her heart like cold water. Before the ball, her greatest fear was that her will would fail when she looked into Katharine’s eyes. How foolish she had been.

She nods to the Westwoods and to Luca in the gallery. She would raise her arm, but the shining silver shield feels like it weighs more than she does.

“When I was a child, I asked to play here,” Katharine says as she and Natalia stand at the entrance to the competition ground. “But you would never let me. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Natalia replies. “But this is no game, Kat.”

Katharine taps the throwing knives at her belt and feels the sway of the sword strapped to her back. The crowd roars for Mirabella as she makes her entrance, but that is all right. It is the last time that anyone will ever cheer for her.

“Poor Mirabella,” Katharine says. “So brash and impulsive. Coming to my city to challenge me. After it is over, they will call her a fool.”

But that will not be fair. Mirabella did not know who Katharine really was. How could she? Not even Natalia knows that, and Katharine always thought that Natalia knew everything.

“Go and sit in the gallery,” Katharine says. “I would walk in alone.” Natalia’s mouth tightens, so Katharine softens her voice. “I do not want you to miss it.”

Natalia touches Katharine’s hair. Her eyes move over every inch: her face, her hands, the laces of her boots, as if she is trying to commit them to memory.

Katharine almost shrugs her off. She wants to begin. She wants the crowd to roar for her.

Natalia leaves, and Katharine waits until she sees her ice-blond head in the gallery before walking out with her arms raised.

The crowd screams. From the oldest woman in the stands to the children watching from window seats in nearby buildings, they all scream. Only the priestesses remain still and silent. But of course they would; they are priestesses.

The noise fills Katharine with pleasure, but it does not compare to the feeling she gets when she looks at Mirabella. Her pretty, regal sister is glaring at her. Yet underneath the glare is fear so thick that Katharine can almost smell it.

“That is a very fine shield,” she calls out, and the crowd quiets. “You are going to need it.”

Across the arena, Mirabella cringes as Katharine unslings her bow and nocks an arrow. She fires it and rolls to dodge any counter of lightning. But none comes. There is only the crowd’s moan when her arrow bounces off the shield. She nocks another and lets it fly, and Mirabella dives clumsily to the ground. Katharine dodges again, anticipating a counterattack. But again there is nothing.

Something is not right.

“What is this, Sister?” she shouts. “Is the great elemental afraid to fight?”

Mirabella peeks out from behind her shield.

“That would be a strange thing indeed,” she shouts back, though her voice is high and weak, “when it was I who issued the challenge!”

Suspicious, Katharine advances until she is close enough to see the sweat dotting Mirabella’s forehead and to note the rapid rise and fall of her rib cage, too labored for so early in the fight. Her eyes are the eyes of a cornered dog.

And it is plain to see that she has been poisoned.

Katharine turns toward the gallery, where Natalia watches confidently beside the rest of the Black Council.

“So this is why you were not worried.” It does not matter what she has done in the months since Beltane. To Natalia, she will always be a failure.

Katharine drops her bow and quiver of arrows into the freshly tilled dirt. She pulls a throwing knife from her belt and takes careful aim. Mirabella cannot cover every inch of herself with that shield.

With her sister crouched and poison-slowed, it will not be the glorious victory Katharine planned. But the end result will be the same.

She throws the knife.

It is not until her blade curves unexpectedly to the right that Katharine suspects the fight may yet be interesting.