One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(81)

“You knew what the plan was,” she says out of the side of her mouth. “The plan didn’t work. Why do you think we had to run out here?”

“Fantastic.” Joseph sighs.

“Guards!” Genevieve Arron yells from the gallery, leaning so far over the railing that it looks like she might fall over it. Even from the distance of half the arena, Arsinoe can see how white her knuckles are.

“Take the fugitive queen and the naturalists to the cells!”

Arsinoe, Jules, Joseph, and Mirabella form a tight circle as the Volroy guards flood into the arena. Even with Jules and Camden, they cannot fight their way out. And they cannot run, except perhaps to go up and over the stands, and Mirabella could never manage it, still so weak.

“Arsinoe,” Mirabella says. “You could have gotten away. You should not have tried to save me.”

“I don’t think there was ever any saving us,” Arsinoe replies grimly. “I just didn’t want to be what they thought I was.”

“Stop!” Katharine waves her arms at the guards and the Council. “This is not over! I can still kill them! I can kill them both if you will remove that”—she points at Jules and sputters with rage—“that cursed naturalist girl!”

“Don’t you touch her!” Joseph and Arsinoe bark together.

“This is over!” Arsinoe shouts up to the gallery. “She can’t kill me, no matter what she thinks. And I refuse to kill anyone.”

“Nor will I,” adds Mirabella, and the High Priestess, on her feet beside Natalia Arron, closes her eyes. Luca inclines her head as Natalia murmurs to her and nods. Then Natalia whispers to the Council. At once, guards and priestesses run into the arena, separating Arsinoe and Mirabella from Katharine. Jules punches the first in the eye and knocks back another three.

“Don’t fight,” Arsinoe says. “It’s over, Jules. But I will find a way to get you out of this.”

“What about you?” Jules asks as the guards place nervous hands on her. She glares at them and jerks back and forth, not hard enough to free herself but hard enough that they know she could. “Arsinoe, what about you?”

Arsinoe stares after her as Jules is taken away with Joseph and Camden. But she has no answer.





THE VOLROY





The guards take them to the Volroy, as Arsinoe expected. But instead of hauling them into the Council chamber to be thrown at the feet of Natalia Arron and High Priestess Luca, they are brought quickly and quietly underground and put into the cells deep beneath the castle.

“You can’t leave us here,” Arsinoe argues as the door closes. “We would speak to the Council! Mirabella, call for priestesses!” She turns, but Mirabella lowers herself quietly onto one of the wooden benches. They have locked them up together at least, and in one of the nicer cells, with four walls and a door with a barred window, and plenty of straw on the floor.

Shouts and scuffling ring out in the corridor, and Arsinoe looks and sees Jules and Joseph being dragged past. Jules slams her escort hard against the stones when Camden yowls. They have the poor cougar choked between two long poles, attached to ropes around her neck.

“Let the cat go,” Arsinoe says, “and you’ll have an easier time of it.”

They frown but release their poles. Arsinoe’s throat burns with anger watching poor Camden scramble fearfully behind Jules’s legs.

“It’ll be all right, Jules,” she calls. “Joseph, take care! We won’t be down here long!” There is no reply. Just the sound of their scraping shoes growing fainter and fainter.

“We are a curse on the ones we love,” Mirabella says.

“Yes. But what were we supposed to do? Die like we were told?” Arsinoe turns away from the door and sits down on the bench beside her sister. “How do you feel?”

“Poisoned. But I suppose you know what that is like.”

“Actually . . . ,” Arsinoe starts, but stops when she hears Billy’s voice.

“Let me pass,” he barks. “She’s my betrothed. I will see her!”

“Is he talking about you?” asks Arsinoe.

Mirabella chuckles. “No, you fool. Of course not.”

Arsinoe rushes to the cell door and slaps her palms against the wood, her face to the bars.

“Stand aside,” she orders the guards, and is surprised when they do. It seems that in the Volroy queens are queens, even fugitive ones.

“Arsinoe!”

Billy runs to her. His fingers twist around the bars, and he shakes the door. He kicks at it.

“Damn these bars!”

“Never mind them.” Arsinoe puts her hands over his, and he stares at them like he cannot believe the touch is real.

“You’re alive,” he whispers, his smile a flash in the shadowy hall. “I should wring your neck.”

“Good luck reaching far enough in here to do it,” she says, and he laughs. “I’m sorry. I wanted to find a way to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He slides his hand through to touch her face.

“I think I’ve gotten us into a mess.”

“As usual. But we’ll get out of it. Everything will be all right. Now that you’re alive.”