Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(2)

“Midwife!” Philomene groaned as another pain tore through her.

“Yes, yes,” the Midwife replied soothingly. “It is only the afterbirth. It will pass.”

“It is not the afterbirth. It is not—”

She grimaced and bit her lip against one more push.

Another baby slipped out from the war queen’s womb. Easily and without fuss. She opened her black eyes and took an enormous breath. Another baby born. Another queen.

“A blue queen,” the Midwife murmured. “A fourth born.”

“Give her to me.”

The Midwife only stared.

“Give her to me now!”

She scooped the baby up, and Philomene snatched her from her hands.

“Illiann,” Philomene said. “An elemental.” Her exhausted, depleted face broke into a smile. Any disappointment of there being no new war queen vanished. For here was a great destiny. A blessing, for the entire island. And she, Philomene, had done it.

“Illiann,” the shocked Midwife repeated. “An elemental. The Blue Queen.”

Philomene laughed. She raised the child in her arms.

“Illiann!” she shouted. “The Blue Queen!”

The days spent waiting for someone to arrive at the Black Cottage were long. After the birth of the Blue Queen, the messengers raced back to their cities with the news. They had been at the Black Cottage, their horses saddled the moment the queen’s labor began.

A fourth born. It was such a rare occurrence that it was thought by some to be mere legend. At the Midwife’s announcement, none of the young messengers had known what to do. She had finally needed to screech at them.

“A Blue Queen!” she had shouted. “Blessed of the Goddess! All must come. All the families! And the High Priestess as well! Ride!”

Had only the triplets been born, just three families and a small party of priestesses would have come to the cottage. The Traverses for the naturalist queen. The burgeoning Westwoods for the elemental. And the Lermonts for the poor little oracle queen, to oversee her drowning. But the arrival of a Blue Queen meant that the heads of the strongest families from all the island’s gifts would come. The Vatros clan, who inhabited the capital and the war city of Bastian. And even the Arrons, the poisoners from Prynn.

Inside the cottage, beneath the dark brown beams supporting the ceiling, four bassinets sat beside the eastern wall to catch the sunlight of morning. All were quiet, except for the baby in the light gray blanket. The little oracle fussed almost constantly. Perhaps because, being an oracle, she knew what was to happen.

Poor little oracle queen. Her fate had always been sealed. Since the time of Mad Queen Elsabet, who used her prophecy gift to murder three whole families she said had plotted against her, oracle queens were immediately drowned. After wresting power away from Elsabet, the Black Council had made the decree. They would not risk such an unjust massacre again.

In the days following the birth, the Midwife burned the old queen’s bedding. It could not be cleaned, so soaked through with blood. She did not wonder where the old queen was or how she fared. Looking at the state of the sheets, she could only assume Philomene was dead.

Just over a week past the birth, the first of the families arrived. The Lermonts, the oracles from the northwest city of Sunpool, nearest to the Black Cottage, though they also insisted they had foreseen the child’s coming and had been ready to travel when the messenger arrived. They looked across the tops of the four black bassinets. They looked down gravely at the little oracle queen.

A day later came the Westwoods, new in their elemental dominance and foolish. They cooed over the elemental queen and brought her a gift of a blanket colored with bright blue dye.

“We had it made for her,” said Isabelle Westwood, the head of the family. “There is no reason she should not have it, even though her life is short.”

After them, the Traverses arrived from Sealhead, and that same evening the Arrons and the hard-riding Vatroses arrived within minutes of each other to bear silent witness. The Vatroses, rich and well-gifted from the war queen’s reign, brought the High Priestess with them from the capital.

The Midwife knelt before the High Priestess and gave the queens’ names. When she said, “Illiann,” the High Priestess clasped her hands together.

“A Blue Queen,” she murmured, and went toward the baby. “I can scarcely believe it. I thought the messengers had gotten it wrong.” She reached down and took up the child, cradling her in the crook of her white-robed arms.

“An elemental Blue Queen,” said Isabelle Westwood, and the High Priestess shushed her with a look.

“The Blue Queen belongs to us all. She will not grow up in an elemental house. She will grow up in the capital. In Indrid Down. With me.”

“But—” the Midwife sputtered. Every head in the room turned toward her. They had forgotten the Midwife was even there.

“You, Midwife, will cull the queen’s sisters. And then you will come with us.”

The Midwife lowered her head.

The naturalist queen was left in the forest, for the earth and the animals. The little doomed oracle was drowned in the stream. By the time the elemental queen was placed on the tiny raft, to be pushed out into the water and on to the sea, both she and the Midwife were weeping. Leonine, Isadora, and Roxane. Returned to the Goddess, who had given them Illiann to rule instead.