Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(51)

“It was not you with that boy, was it, Kat? It was them. The dead queens.”

“I do not know.”

“Yes you do. It is just that you do not want to admit it. Why? Do you think I will think you evil?”

“No!”

“Then why?”

“To protect them!” She squeezes his hands. “As they have protected me. They are a part of me now, Pietyr. And what they give is worth the cost of what they take.”

“Even the life of a young boy?”

Katharine closes her eyes. She sees that young man’s face. She sees it in her dreams. But she tries not to think of him while she is awake. The dead queens seem to like it, and that feels so very wrong.

“That will never happen again,” she says. “Never.”

“How can you be sure? Can you calm them? Can you keep them from putting you in such danger?”

“You calm them.” She turns and pulls his mouth to hers. “As you calm me.”

The day of the Reaping Moon Festival, Katharine is to be dressed by Sara and Bree Westwood. No fewer than six servants enter alongside them, bringing dozens of gowns and several boxes of gloves, several cases of jewels, before bowing and departing to give them privacy. Dressing the queen, particularly for one of the high festivals, is a great honor, though one would not know it by the sour looks on Bree’s and Sara’s faces.

“Mistresses Westwood.”

“My queen.” Sara Westwood curtsies deep, her eyes on the floor. “We thank the queen for extending this invitation.”

Katharine looks with compassion on the stiffness in the woman’s back, and the gray of her hair. It did not used to be so gray. Even as recently as the Queens’ Duel, Sara’s hair was a bright, vibrant brown.

“I would not think to extend it to anyone else in Rolanth.”

They have brought the one-handed priestess, Elizabeth, with them, as usual, and the girl busies herself straightening dresses and whispering to Bree. At one point, Bree laughs, and Elizabeth prods her jovially with the stump of her wrist. They are good friends, even without Mirabella to bind them together.

“I—” Katharine clears her throat softly. “I would wear my own gloves.” She holds her arms up. She has already put a pair on, above her dark linen chemise.

“As you like, my queen.” Sara nods curtly and shuts each of the glove cases. “Though the ones we have brought are more fashionable.”

“I am rather particular about them.”

“Is that why you are standing there in nothing but gloves and your undergarments?” Bree asks. “Or is it because you do not want us to look upon your scars?” She steps close with a pair made of pretty black lace. “Everyone knows that your hands were ruined escaping your fate at the Quickening Ceremony. Take the gloves.” She slaps them into Katharine’s palm.

Slowly, and feeling their eyes on her every moment, Katharine strips the fabric down her arm. Deep furrows in the skin from poisons being cut in by knife show like inverted veins. Shining pink circles mark the places where old blisters ruptured. And her hands. Her hands are a ruin of rough and patched-together skin, torn and altered from her crawl out of the Breccia Domain.

The lace will not hide that.

“Try these, Queen Katharine.” Elizabeth smiles warmly. “They are even lovelier.” More lace, but this time stitched over thin black fabric. With a gentle touch, the priestess helps her into them, stretching them carefully as if it might still cause Katharine pain.

Bree, who has been watching with a soft expression, hardens when Katharine looks at her.

“It’s good.” She nods and selects a gown: black silk, fitted through the hip.

“She will need a dense cloak for the evening,” says Sara. “But the low loose skirt will flare nicely in the winds.”

“What about this one, then?” Bree holds another in front of Katharine. “A similar cut but thicker material and lined.”

“So many choices,” Katharine whispers.

“Yes, well. Some queens are harder to dress than others,” Bree whispers back.

“Are you . . . angry with me, Bree?”

Across the room, Sara and Elizabeth continue sorting through shoes and jewels. Perhaps they truly cannot hear.

“What? You thought I would be sympathetic? Or even a friend? After one moment of civil conversation by a window.” She snorts. “I thought . . . perhaps. Perhaps you were just a lonely girl, and I should give you a chance. But then I remember that not an hour afterward I watched you put a knife into the throat of one of your own people.” She moves away roughly.

“I was . . . not myself,” Katharine says, keeping her voice low. “I was afraid.”

“I saw your face. The way you looked. You were not afraid of anything.”

“I regret it. I would take it back. I truly would, but I cannot say that—”

“My queen,” says Sara Westwood, and Katharine turns to find a long strand of fat black pearls in her face. “These perhaps. I heard once that you favored them.”

“Yes, thank you,” she says, and hears the door open and slam shut behind Bree’s rapid exit.

Bree is not in the carriage when it arrives to take Katharine to the festival. Only Sara Westwood and the priestess Elizabeth will accompany her and Pietyr to the grounds of Moorgate Park in the center of the city, but Katharine makes no comment. It is a fast ride along the river. Perhaps too fast, as twice the horses shy and nearly fall.