Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(18)

“You know that I can protect you just as well as Richard,” Daphne says, and Arsinoe groans.

“I should be going with you. Who will look out for you? Who will make sure that you’re safe?”

Henry’s hands draw back to his sides. “I wish you had said something else.”

“What else?”

“You think of me still as a child. How can you not see what I have become? That I am not some tottering little boy.”

“Henry—”

“Well, I am not a boy. I am a man. I will be a king, and I will be a lord. Your lord,” he adds, and Arsinoe likes him a little less.

“Daph. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“But that’s the way it is,” Daphne snaps. “Thank you, Lord Henry, for reminding me.”

He storms out, and she spins so fast that Arsinoe is near sick to her stomach. But when she stops, it is to face a mirror, and Arsinoe sees why she is dreaming in the body that she is.

Daphne’s hair and eyes are black as night. Even her natural hair, cropped short and barely peeking out from beneath the wig. Daphne may be a foundling, but she is a foundling queen of Fennbirn.





INDRID DOWN TEMPLE




Anxious butterflies tumble in Bree Westwood’s stomach as the carriage draws to a stop before Indrid Down Temple. The carriage door swings open, and she looks up, taking it all in: the grandeur of the facade, so fiercely black, with carved gargoyles snarling down. It is not as beautiful as the temple in Rolanth; it lacks the soft, artful touches, but she must admit it is imposing. Struck in the center of the capital like a great black sword into the earth.

“Do you need someone to go in with you, miss?” the driver asks. “Announce you?”

“No.” Bree steps out of the coach and rolls her shoulders back. “I am expected.”

Her legs kick out in long strides, the show of confidence easy after years of practice. But she hates the wobbly feeling in her knees and the butterflies still boiling in her belly. She hates that High Priestess Luca summoned her at all, but mostly, she hates that she felt compelled to show up.

When the heavy temple doors close behind her, cutting off the sounds of the city and trapping her along with the breeze, she nearly bolts. She should not have come. Luca should have come to them. She should have come to Westwood House on her knees after what she did to Mirabella. Instead she appointed Bree to the Black Council—along with herself and her pet monster, Rho, of course—and wrote that Bree should join her for tea at the temple before appearing at the Volroy.

“This way, Miss Westwood,” says a tall, reedy priestess with a light blond braid sticking out from her hood. Ice-blond and in the capital: probably an Arron. Indrid Down Temple must be crawling with them. Bree glances at the priestesses sweeping or tending the altar, praying before the great black glass in the floor that they call the Goddess Stone. Their white hoods and black bracelets are supposed to strip them of their names and gifts. But Bree feels like she is walking through a nest of vipers.

She follows the priestess through the temple’s interior rooms, past the small open cloister, and down a set of steps into a chamber lit only by torches.

“The High Priestess’s rooms are not far.”

Bree stops. “I will wait for her here.”

“But—”

“Just bring her to me.” She shrugs out of her cloak and slings it across the back of a chair. “And tell her not to tarry.”

She does not look at the priestess before she goes, so she does not know whether the girl’s mouth dropped open. But it probably did. Perhaps telling the High Priestess not to tarry was going a little too far.

Bree considers sitting in the chair, affecting a bored pose as she waits. But the chair faces the door and the hall where Luca would approach from, and angry as she is, Bree knows that were she and Luca to stare at each other for the length of the hall, she would look away first. So instead she wanders the confines of the small stuffy chamber, studying the fragments of ancient mosaic on the floor and the hangings on the wall: poisoner depictions of deaths by boils, and a snake wreathed in poisonous flowers. There are also tapestries of familiars and battles, but they are much, much smaller.

“Bree Westwood. I am glad you have come.”

Bree turns. The High Priestess stands in the doorway with a look of affection on her face, hands folded.

“Of course I came. You named me to the Black Council. Mother was thrilled. She’s installed an entire household for me in the north end of the city.”

“Good. And are you finding it comfortable?” Luca steps aside as a priestess arrives carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. She sets it on the table.

“Shall I serve?” the girl asks.

“No.” Luca waves her away. “I will serve. If you will sit, Bree?”

“I will not.” She lifts her chin. It is a hard thing to refuse Luca, whom she has known and been fond of for most of her life. Whom she has been taught for so long to revere. “One pot of tea and a seat on the Black Council is not going to make everything better.”

“I see.”

“You joined with them and ordered her execution!”

Luca nods. She pours cups for them both and sweetens her own with honey. “But she was not executed.”

“No thanks to you. You would have been there when it happened. You would have stood there and watched while Queen Katharine killed her!”