One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(89)

THE WEDDING





As Nicolas takes his oaths before the High Priestess, Katharine’s mind wanders. It is not that she is not excited to be marrying him. She is. But it feels almost like the denouement, after the thrill of the crown inked into her skin. After the joy of pouring poison down her sister’s frightened throat. She had waited so long for that. She could almost spin in place remembering how Arsinoe struggled and how Mirabella screamed.

She slumps, sees Natalia watching, and straightens up again. It is just that there are so many oaths. Nicolas is not a queen, and he must swear, and swear, and swear his allegiance.

Only Natalia and the Black Council are present for the wedding, with Luca and a few priestesses. The small dark room in the East Tower is lit by three tall candelabras. Someone should have opened a window. The reek of the sacred incense is making her want to cough.

“Drink and be anointed,” Luca says.

They make him drink from her crowning cup and dab him with blood and oil. Poor Nicolas. He tries hard to look like he belongs there. But he keeps looking at her, like she might come to him instead of standing to one side. No one told him that the wedding of a king-consort is more to the Goddess than it is to the queen. That she will not even touch him. That they will not even kiss.

Katharine studies him in the candlelight. He is so handsome and a good match for her. But he is not Pietyr.

A tight, cold ball settles in the pit of her stomach. Pietyr tried to kill her. But only because he thought she would be killed anyway and killed horribly, by serrated knives and strangers pulling her apart.

Of course he could have hidden her instead. But that is not the Arron way. Arrons win, or they lose. All or nothing. And Katharine never expected him to be any different.

Finally, Nicolas finishes his vows and is allowed to face the queen. The priestesses bow to her. Even Luca. Then they file out of the room, followed by the Council. Natalia leaves without looking her in the eye, still angry about her choice of suitor. But Natalia is as a mother to her and will not stay angry forever.

Nicolas takes her gloved hands.

“That is it?” he asks. “I thought they would take my blood or burn their symbol into my chest. I thought we would be bound together by lengths of cord.”

“Is that what they do in your country?”

“No. In my country, we would both take vows. And my bride would wear white.”

“She would not if she were a queen,” Katharine says.

Nicolas lifts her hand to his mouth. He kisses it so greedily that his teeth graze the fabric. He has been respectful in his courtship. He has not even kissed her properly on the mouth. But when he pulls her forward and crushes her to his chest, his hands slide into her hair and cup the back of her head. He is not gentle or shy.

Katharine raises her elbows and pushes out of his grip.

“Not now,” she says.

“What do you mean, ‘not now’? We are married. You are mine.”

“We are each other’s,” she corrects him. He reaches for her again, but she moves away, her gown rustling like a rattlesnake’s tail. “I would see Natalia. I do not like it when she is angry with me.”

“See her later, Katharine. I don’t want to wait. I would have you out of those clothes. Skin to skin.” His eyes move over her hungrily. “I have been patient, and we are here, in our castle.”

“You have been patient,” she says. “But our wedding night will not be here. With everything so rushed and sudden there was no time to prepare even a bedchamber in the West Tower. It is all covered over in dust sheets. Full of coughing priestesses chasing away cobwebs.”

“Where, then? And when?”

“My rooms at Greavesdrake. Natalia has arranged a carriage to take us there.”

When someone opens the door to Natalia’s study high in the East Tower, she expects a servant. Some good and thoughtful boy come to bring her a hot cup of poisoned tea. But it is not. It is William Chatworth.

“Some other time, William,” she says, and returns to the letter she has been scribbling, another letter to her brother Christophe seeking the whereabouts of Pietyr, as well as to tell him what has transpired. Perhaps the news will finally jolt her brother out from underneath that wife of his, away from her country estate and back to the capital where he belongs.

“Not some other time. Now.” William strides into the room and helps himself to a pour of her brandy, so fast that she can barely slap it out of his hand.

“It is tainted,” she says as they stare at the shattered wet mess upon the floor. “With nightshade and fresh elderberry.”

Chatworth exhales. He flexes his fist and releases it. Then he swings back hard and slaps Natalia across the face.

Her head turns. She takes a step back, mostly from shock. It is shock more than the pain that makes her eyes water.

“Perhaps I should have let you drink it,” she says. The impact has driven her teeth into her cheek, and she spits a little blood down at his shoes. “But then again, I see that you are drunk already.”

“You married your brat to the Martel boy.”

“There was nothing I could do. You were there. She made her choice in front of everyone. Perhaps if your son had bothered to show up—”

“So say she changed her mind. That she was angry at him for not being at the crowning.”