One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(97)

Genevieve’s arms fall to her lap. She seems to shrink right in front of them.

“Natalia is dead. Murdered.”

Katharine freezes. That cannot be right. Natalia, murdered? No one would dare. No one could.

“There must be some mistake,” says Pietyr. “Who? Who did it?”

“It does not matter who. We are over. Finished.” Genevieve’s fingers wrap around the corner of the bedsheets, shaking. “Look at this dead king! The temple will not have this . . . nor the Council. . . .” She looks around desperately as if she will find Natalia there somewhere, hiding. “What are we to do? We will have to stop Mirabella’s execution! Give her the crown instead! How those Westwoods are going to laugh—”

“Stop it!” Pietyr storms across the room. He grabs Genevieve by the arm and drags her to her feet. “Tell us what happened to Natalia. Tell us now.”

“William Chatworth strangled her,” Genevieve says. “The war priestess found him and put her knife into his chest. But by then, it was too late.”

A fat tear rolls down Katharine’s face. Too late. And the murderer dead as well, so she cannot have her vengeance, cannot poison him for days, for weeks, like he deserved. She would have crafted something for him to make him spasm so hard he broke his own back.

Katharine clutches at her stomach. Such pain, such anger boils up inside of her that she can feel even the dead queens cower.

“Natalia,” she whispers. “My mother.”

“Where is she?” Pietyr asks. “We would see her.”

“She is at the Volroy, being guarded by priestesses. Perhaps they will let you in.” Genevieve wipes at her own tears. “Before they execute Katharine as an abomination.”

“You are a disgrace,” Pietyr says suddenly. He had been staring out the window toward the Volroy as they spoke. Now he shoves Genevieve down onto the bed beside the dead king-consort. “No one is going to execute our queen. No true Arron would allow it.”

Genevieve jumps to her feet, fists trembling. “Natalia is dead!” she shouts. “Do you not hear what I am saying?”

Outside, below the window, the sound of hoofbeats announces another rider. It is a messenger. “They have escaped!” he calls up to the house. “The queens! They have escaped the cells and are gone!”

“Queens?” Katharine asks. “How is it ‘queens’? I poisoned Arsinoe myself.”

“What are we to do?” Genevieve moans. “I am not Natalia. . . . I do not—”

“Be silent, Genevieve, and listen to me,” Pietyr says. “Kat, listen. No one can be allowed inside here, do you understand? No one can see this body.”

“What will we do with it?” Katharine asks. “With him?”

“We will make up a tale.” Pietyr takes her face in his hands. “And you will be the Queen Crowned like we planned.” He looks at Genevieve. “Like we promised.”

He straightens his clothes and smooths his hair. He goes to bar the door.

“We will find Mirabella. And Arsinoe if she indeed still lives. And we will kill them. With no queens left, the temple will have no choice.”

“I do not understand,” Genevieve says. “If she still cannot bear the triplets . . .”

“That does not matter.” Pietyr closes the door and turns the key in the lock.

“Katharine will be the Queen Crowned,” he says. “It is just that she will be the last.”





THE INDRID DOWN WOODS





Arsinoe’s bear greets their running party by standing on his hind legs. He hardly knows these fast people in red-lined cloaks and swats at them defensively as they pass. Arsinoe stops below his chest. She is too out of breath to say his name, but his nose sniffs the air eagerly, and he lowers onto her shoulders, smothering her in bear fur and rolling her roughly around on the ground.

“Braddock,” she says when she is able. “You’re safe.”

He is safe but not the same. He is fur and bones. Those poisoners had not known how to feed him properly.

“We should not tarry here long,” says Emilia, and looks meaningfully at the queens. She is far more used to giving orders than taking them, Arsinoe could tell that at first glance.

“Jules!”

“Caragh!”

Jules and her aunt embrace beneath the weight of Joseph’s arm. It took Jules and Billy both to support him and help him through the forest.

“Can you help him?” Jules asks, but Joseph tugs free.

“I’m all right,” he says. “Just bind it tighter.”

Arsinoe gets to her feet. She turns Joseph into the moonlight and slaps his hands away when he tries to stop her. She lifts the bandage. Caragh leans down and looks for only a moment before straightening again.

“You see?” Joseph smiles. “It’s nothing. A scratch.”

Caragh’s eyes are wide and soft.

“Good,” Jules says, but she kisses Joseph very hard. One sob escapes her as she takes his hand and holds him up. But one sob only. She presses her forehead to his.

Arsinoe turns to Mirabella. Of course she has been listening. Her knuckles are pressed to her lips.

“What if we took him back into the city?” Arsinoe asks. “It’s Indrid Down. They have the best healers there. They must.”