Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(34)

The Goddess, Arsinoe thinks.

The Goddess brings with her one more babe, a beautiful girl in bright blue and black, who bursts out from where she had been hidden in the Goddess’s skirts. “Illiann!” the actors cry. “Illiann, blessed and blue!” The crowd claps loudly, as does Illiann herself with a soft laugh. The girl playing her twirls in delighted circles and touches each of her “newborn” sisters on the forehead, and they fall dead to the ground.

If only it were really that easy. That clean. The play ends, and Illiann places a garland of flowers around the neck of the actress she judges to have been the best: the girl who played the birthing queen. But though they received no garlands, every single actress comes to kiss the Blue Queen’s robes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Illiann asks, and Arsinoe feels Daphne blush.

“It’s only . . . you’re so different from what I expected. They really love you. You really love them.”

“That is what it is to be a queen.”

“Not where I come from.”

“Is Centra truly such a terrible place? You rarely speak of it fondly. Am I to dread marrying Henry, then, if after my reign we are to return there?” Illiann regards Daphne from the corner of her eye. “You know, Daphne, that even if I do not choose Henry to be my king-consort, you will always be welcome here.”

“You would let me stay?” Daphne asks.

“Of course. You seem better suited for the island anyway. Perhaps that is why I love you so well and so quickly. You have the novelty and tales of a Centran but the spirit of the island. Though I do not know if you would truly stay if Henry must go.”

Arsinoe wishes for a mirror, to see what Daphne’s expression gives away, but then the dream moves ahead, as dreams do, of its own accord, time folding over on itself so that day becomes night and Arsinoe reels at the sudden change.

They are on the cliffs now. Atop the cliffs, overlooking the bay. And from the fires and drums, Arsinoe knows what she is about to witness. She has witnessed it before, from near that same spot, in her red-and-black painted mask.

The Disembarking Ceremony.

Why Daphne is there, Arsinoe does not know. Perhaps because she was ashore already. Perhaps because she has become Illiann’s new favorite. It does not matter. Daphne stands behind the queen, so close that Illiann’s black skirt billows against the edge of Daphne’s doublet. But they are not alone. So many maids and white-and-black-robed priestesses surround them that Arsinoe is surprised none have fallen off the rocks.

“It is nearly time,” one says, and giggles, and even in the darkness lit only by flames, it is easy to see the blush in her cheeks.

So many names pass by Arsinoe’s ears: suitors from Bevellet and Valostra and Salkades. Nearly a dozen, far more than the five she had to face at her own ceremony.

“Marcus James Branden,” says one of the maids. “He has caught everyone’s eye. He is the Duke of Bevanne. It is a lesser principality of Salkades, but his family holds great favor with their king and have substantial mining interests. Gold and silver, I think.”

“Marcus James Branden, the Duke of Bevanne.” Illiann grimaces. “He has so many names.”

“And what is a minor duke compared to Henry?”

“A duke from Salkades,” the maid persists. “Who commands the finest fleet of ships in the world.”

“So he’s rich and has a navy. He’ll trudge onto the beach decked out in velvet and slouching from the weight of the coin in his pockets.”

There is some last-minute pushing and prodding as the maids change their minds about one of Illiann’s bracelets and replace it with one of lapis lazuli stones. And none of them will stop gossiping, tittering about this or that suitor’s piercing eyes, and the pounding hearts of love.

Arsinoe is glad that it is only a dream and her true stomach is not there to be sick.

“When they look at you tonight,” someone exclaims, “your gift will spark into a flame.”

Arsinoe feels Daphne purse her lips.

“As someone who has been privy to the inner circles of the women, and of the men,” Daphne says, “I can tell you that the men on those ships are not talking about Illiann with such rosy-cheeked poetry.”

From the top of the cliffs, all eleven ships are visible in the harbor with flags aloft. It is Illiann’s nervous wind, the maids say, but Arsinoe cannot tell if that is true. Illiann looks like she always does. Composed and focused. A queen born to rule.

Then Illiann trembles, and over the bay, spiderweb-thin veins of dry lightning crack across the sky. Daphne gasps, and the queen glances at her with embarrassment.

“I suppose I am a little nervous. Do I look all right, Daphne?”

“Of course you do. You are beautiful. Henry has said many times that you are the most lovely girl he has ever seen.”

Did he really say so? Somehow I doubt it.

The boats launch toward the shore, lit with torches and lanterns, and garlands of flowers that go to waste, as they can hardly be seen in the darkness. They make landfall, and suitors disembark and pass by on the beach below, some nervous boys who mess up their bows, some laughing buffoons like Michael Percy and Tommy Stratford, those poor suitors whom Arsinoe accidentally poisoned.

The ones from Bevellet wear black cloaks hung with gold and carry fat red roses. Those from Valostra are each dressed in different light-wool stripes.