One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(86)

“Billy,” William says firmly. “You’ll do as I say.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I won’t!” Billy shouts, and his father draws his hand back as if to strike him. But he stops short when Billy does not flinch. Billy has never noticed before, that his father is not as large as he once was. That as the years passed, Billy has actually grown to be the taller.

William looks down in disgust and searches his coat for a cigar.

“You won’t throw away everything for one girl,” he mutters.

“You’re wrong, Father,” Billy says, right before he turns and walks out the door.





THE QUEEN CROWNED





THE CROWNING





Katharine stands on the wooden block, studying her reflection in the mirror as Natalia straightens the skirt of her gown.

“Some naturalist sympathizer has freed the bear,” Natalia says. “We are searching the city but have not yet found him.”

“Let him go,” says Katharine. The bear does not matter anymore. All that matters now is the black satin against her skin. And the guests gathering in the inner chamber of the Volroy.

“When you dressed me last year for my birthday, did you think that we would ever be here? Moments before my crowning?”

“Of course I did, Kat,” Natalia says. But Katharine knows the truth. She has surprised them all.

Natalia helps her down from the block, and Katharine twirls once. The gown is simple but elegant. She wears no jewels, and her hair is loose and similarly unadorned. She looks strangely innocent. Almost like the girl she used to be.

“You are beautiful, Queen Katharine.” Natalia slides Katharine’s hair back over her shoulder. “I wonder that Pietyr is not here to see this. It seems a shame.”

Katharine frowns. “Oh well,” she says. “I will not miss one guest amongst so many.” And she refuses to think of Pietyr on a day like today. Soon she will be crowned. Then she will murder her sister Arsinoe, for real this time, with no escaping. And then she will be married.

She adjusts the fingers of her simple black gloves and smiles.

“So you are not disappointed?” Natalia asks. “That all of this must be done in such haste?”

“Not at all,” replies Katharine. “I only care that it is done.”

Katharine’s crowning is small by crowning standards. The public is not allowed to attend. Only the Black Council, and the temple priestesses, and members of the Arron family. It is a solemn affair with no joy on the faces of the priestesses. No joy on the faces of the Arrons either. Only nervousness. At her ceremonial crowning during next spring’s Beltane Festival, they will do better.

High Priestess Luca presides over the affair, straight-backed and imposing in her formal robes, especially for someone so old. She begins by reading the Council and the temple’s joint decree: Katharine would be crowned and Arsinoe and Mirabella executed by her. The decree does not mention her sisters by name. After today, they will never be mentioned by name again.

The air inside the chamber is cool and stale as Katharine kneels before the High Priestess. Luca will set the crown upon Katharine’s head herself, symbolically uniting the Council and the temple once more.

Katharine tries not to smirk. It cannot be easy for the proud woman to admit that she was wrong.

As Luca bends her head to pray, Katharine glances at her guests. Nicolas, with his secret smile. William Chatworth, the father of the suitor Natalia says she must choose. Genevieve, with steely, violet eyes. And Natalia herself.

The prayers end, and the attending priestesses rise. They offer Katharine water from a silver pitcher. They say it was collected from the River Cro, which runs down from the peak of Mount Horn. Though if it is, she does not know how they managed to get it there so quickly. Perhaps they always keep a pitcher on hand. But no matter. She drinks and it runs down her chin, ice cold, and Katharine is surprised to see that it is Cora, the head priestess of Indrid Down Temple, who holds the pitcher.

“Rise, Queen Katharine,” Luca says, and opens her palms. “Daughter of the Goddess. Daughter of the island.” Her hands have been anointed with scented oil, and a little blood. At a normal crowning, the blood would have been taken from the stag killed during the Hunt. Katharine wonders whose blood it is now. She would have offered to cut the throat of Arsinoe’s bear had someone not turned it loose.

Except for Luca’s few words, the crowning is largely silent. They do not ask her for vows or oaths. A queen is made of the island as the island is made of her. They have no right and no need to ask her to swear.

The High Priestess reaches for the wooden tattoo tool, simply carved, its tip a short bundle of needles.

The tattooed crown has not been done for generations. It was Natalia’s idea. Perhaps a bad one, Katharine thinks, as she watches Luca’s hands shake. She will be lucky if her crown does not zig and zag across her forehead.

“Do not worry,” Luca whispers as if reading Katharine’s mind. “I still put bracelets on many of my own priestesses.” She places the tool to Katharine’s brow.

The first strike is a shock. And there is no time to recover before the next, and the next, a seemingly never-ending sequence of pain as Luca taps the needles and black ink into Katharine’s skin just below her hairline.