Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(104)

Luca nods gently to Bree and Elizabeth. “You girls should return to camp before you are missed.”

“No.” They grasp Mirabella by the sleeves. “We can’t go so soon,” Elizabeth cries. “Will we see you again?”

Mirabella touches each of their cheeks. “I do not know. I do not mean to stay.” She pulls them in, holds them tight. “But she is right. You should go now and be safe.”

“No,” Bree says. “We will wait for her just beyond those trees. Where we cannot overhear but will still see if she tries anything. Come, Elizabeth.” They go, but reluctantly, fingers trailing along Mirabella’s hands and their eyes stuck solidly to Luca.

“They love you very much, those girls,” Luca says when they are a safe distance away.

“Do not say you love me, too. Or I will call a thunderbolt down on your head.”

“I would prefer a water spirit, if it is all the same to you. Like the first time we met.”

“Stop it, Luca. You cannot fool me anymore. What do you want?”

“I want you to come home.” She gathers her reins and leans against the pommel of her saddle. “I have spoken to the queen, and she will welcome you, if you turn away from the rebellion and put your support behind the crown.”

Mirabella blinks. What madness is this? Such that she cannot even muster a laugh.

“The people cannot see this rebellion as a rebellion of queen against queen,” Luca goes on. “If they do, with you and Arsinoe on one side and Katharine on the other, Queen Katharine will lose. But with you beside the crown, they will see the rebellion for what it really is: a doomed enterprise led by an abomination.”

“What about Arsinoe?” Mirabella asks. “She is a queen as well. And she will never leave Jules.”

“With you and Katharine standing together, Arsinoe will not matter. She has never mattered.”

“She matters to me,” Mirabella says, but the High Priestess does not respond. “And you believe her? You believe Katharine, that she will not have me executed? When we last met, she did not seem the kind of queen who was partial to mercy.”

“That was the Ascension.” Luca straightens as her horse paws, made nervous by the current in the air. “She is the Queen Crowned now. And she is a good one. Bree is on her council, as well as Rho and I.”

“A council seat. Is that what it took for you to stand by while she poisoned me before the capital? Is that all it took?”

“You would not fight,” Luca says, her anger showing. “I blame you for that. Though it still would have broken me to see you die and not be able to save you. But I would have done it for the island. It would have been my duty. As it is still yours.”

Mirabella shakes her head. “I am not a queen anymore. Nor is Arsinoe. You have my word that I will not interfere in this island business. But that is all I will give. Katharine will have to fight her own battles.”

“Fight her own battles? They are Fennbirn’s battles. You saw the mist; you saw what she faces. And you saw, too, the legion curse at work. The monster the rebels would put on the throne.”

“Jules Milone is no monster!”

“Her own people had to knock her unconscious. Perhaps once, she was able to control it. But now that the curse is unbound, her mind will not be spared. You have been brought back for a reason.”

“Arsinoe was brought back for a reason. And when that is known, we are leaving. The island let us go. She will not have us again.” She half turns away. “Go back now, Luca, and try to save your queen.”

“You cannot just shed your responsibilities.” Luca looks over her mainlander clothes. “You cannot put on a costume and become something else. You are a queen of Fennbirn island. A queen of the line, whether you have turned your back on the Goddess or not.”

Mirabella steels her heart and walks away. Even after all that has passed between them, it is difficult to go. Past one tree and then the next, farther and farther from Bree. From Elizabeth. Part of her wants to stop and spend more time arguing. To let Luca try to change her mind.

“Arsinoe will never turn against Jules,” she calls out. “And I will never turn against Arsinoe. She is my sister. I love her.”

“I know that,” Luca calls back. “But I think you are forgetting that once you loved them both.”





SUNPOOL




Arsinoe pauses for a brief rest on the top of a mossy rise. Just beyond, not more than an hour’s jog, is Sunpool.

“Finally.” Billy stops beside her and leans down, hands braced against his knees. “I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up that pace.”

Arsinoe shields her eyes and peers at the city, wondering if Jules and Mirabella have returned.

“They’ll be all right,” Billy says. “I’ve never known one as tough as Jules, and with Mira there . . . they were safer than we were scaling the mountain. You’ll see.”

Arsinoe nods and gets moving again, the jog easy as they go downhill. Braddock is no longer with them; they said goodbye at the edge of the woods.

Sunpool’s gates stand open as the rebels continue to welcome new arrivals, but the stream of them has slowed. The moment she is inside, she knows that something is different.

“They’re staring at you,” Billy says as Arsinoe tucks her scarf up tight over her scars. Every pair of eyes in the square seems to be watching with solemn curiosity. “Why?”