Queens of Fennbirn (Three Dark Crowns 0.5)(3)

She looked down at little Katharine. The child was doomed already. “Change the queens’ gowns, Willa. So they are right.”

Willa looked from Arsinoe to Katharine. “If Mirabella is the chosen queen, then it will not matter.”

“It will not matter,” Camille agreed. She had known Willa since she was a girl. Willa had been a young woman then, deep in her midwife training, when she presided over the births of Camille and her sisters, and she was the one who raised them. She showered them with sweets and games. And they were happy.

“You cared for me so well, Willa,” said Camille. “You loved me.”

“I loved you all.”

“And you love me still.” Camille pressed her lips together. Through the nightmares, and the screaming fits, and the black blanket of depression that coiled round and round a queen’s neck as the birth neared. Through the days full of tremors, when Camille had tried to claw the babies out of her stomach. Willa was there. She brewed her teas to calm her. She told her it was normal. That the bearing of queens was always haunted by the fallen ones who came before, and the Black Cottage was full of ghosts. Even Camille’s own poisoned sisters.

It was the first time Willa had spoken of Camille’s sisters. After they were dead, fallen queens were never spoken of. They were forgotten, except by the families who had raised them, and the sister who survived. Camille had survived and become queen. Her sisters had not. The sisters of a true poisoner, they had died on the same day, in the same hour, writhing. Spitting blood.

“I love you still, and I will always, Camille,” said Willa. “But I cannot do this.”

“I am doing it.” Camille lay her hand on her Midwife’s shoulder. “I know that I took my crown off and threw it at you. But I am still the queen.”

In the morning, Queen Camille and her king-consort readied themselves to leave the island. It was a strange thing, to pack her own trunks and to dress her own sore body. But she would get used to it.

“Are you sure you are well?” Philippe asked. He glanced at the spots of blood on the floor, the pool of blood in her bed that had soaked through her clothes and cloth padding. “Our ship home can wait, if you need to rest longer. They won’t sail without us.”

“We go today,” Camille said. She felt weaker this morning than she had in the night, looking down on the new queens. But her time on the island was over. And she had done what she could to ease their paths.

It was not for them that you did it, her conscience amended. It was for you and for revenge.

“It was for the island,” she muttered. And it was not a terribly fulfilling revenge, anyway, when she would not be there to see it.

“What did you say? Camille—”

“I am fine, I said. The bleeding is normal.” She had begun to tremble slightly. The bleeding was a bit heavy, perhaps, but she was not sure. She had never birthed triplets before, after all.

Philippe watched her, then sighed and nodded. How relieved he would be to return to the world. His world, where men ruled. It gave her pause sometimes, wondering how he would change. He loved her on her island, but out there it might all be different. He might expect her to be something she had no idea how to be.

“I’ll take these to the carriage,” he said, and picked up the last of her cases. Camille followed, but she lingered in the hall near the open door of the nursery, where inside, Willa rocked and cooed to the new queens.

They said the old queen was glad to go. Glad to be done. That her queen-bearing, and her flight, was instinctual.

But when Camille looked at the babies, for just a moment she wished she had jaws like her beloved snakes, so she could unhinge them and swallow the girls back down under her heart forever.

“How can I go,” she whispered.

“You’ll forget,” Willa said gently. “The moment your feet cross the threshold. With every step you take across the island. When you set foot into the boat. You’ll forget.”

“I . . . worry for them.”

“Even though you know which one will be crowned?” Willa looked up; Camille looked away. Mirabella was the strongest child, true. And last night with the birthing blood rushing through her veins, she thought she had seen something in the little queen’s future. Something chosen. But in the daylight she remembered that she was only a used-up vessel. She knew what the queens were, but their fates were their own. She was no oracle.

“Will you change them back, after I am gone?” Camille asked, and then a pain tore through her, and she cried out. Willa left the babies to their bassinets and came to hold her by the elbows.

“Your skin is cold,” she said. She looked at Camille’s face and embraced her suddenly, kissing her forehead. “I will do as my queen wishes.”





THE DAY OF THE CLAIMING


Six Years Later





WOLF SPRING

Juillenne Milone stares at the colors swirling through the pearl, plucked fresh from an unlucky oyster that morning. She holds it up to the sun to admire the greens and pinks and gentle golds. It is very beautiful, and truth be told, she would rather not give it up. But Aunt Caragh says an offering is no use if it is something you do not want anyway, so she purses her lips and chooses the spot, directly in the middle of her patch of yellow daffodils. She digs deep and buries the pearl, getting dirt on her cheeks and somehow managing to sprinkle some into her dark brown hair. She prays to bless the young queens she and her aunt Caragh depart from Wolf Spring to see today, because Aunt Caragh told her to.