Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(58)

“Is something troubling you, Lady Daphne?”

Daphne turns, and together she and Arsinoe narrow their eyes. Duke Branden has made his way into the hall after them.

“Not at all, my lord. I am only taking a little air. Please, return to the queen and your meal.”

“She will wait.” He smiles lopsidedly. Such a handsome man. Even Arsinoe’s intense dislike of him cannot completely override it. “Why do you never wear dresses?” He advances a step, then another. “You are a lovely enough thing.”

“On Fennbirn one can be lovely without the aid of a dress.”

Arsinoe notices the shuffle in his stride. He has had too much wine.

He’s drunk far too often. Even Illiann cannot be blind to that. And nor is Daphne. Arsinoe feels alarm spike through her as the duke moves closer, pushing her further into the shadowy corridor.

“But you,” he says, “were raised in the civilized world. And so you should behave as a proper woman.”

“Proper?” Daphne asks.

“Were you one of my sisters, I would have you whipped. Were you one of my serfs, I would have you burned.”

“Then it’s a good thing I am neither.”

Arsinoe’s pulse quickens as she watches the duke edge ever closer. Get out of here, Daphne! But she does not, and in two fast movements, Branden has them pinned against the wall.

For a moment, Daphne is so shocked that she freezes, and inside her, Arsinoe does the same. The feeling of Branden’s hands roaming beneath Daphne’s tunic is so wrong and disgusting that it nearly causes Arsinoe to wake.

“Do not touch me!”

“Why? It is no great secret what you have underneath. You have shown it to all, dressed as a man.”

“I thought you were pious,” Daphne objects. “And courteous to women.”

“Courtesy does not extend to whores.”

Kill him! Kick him! Inside Daphne’s mind, Arsinoe tries to move her limbs. To bring her knee up hard in the place where it would pain him most. But she cannot make Daphne’s body fight any more than she can stop the tears that blur their vision.

“Daphne? Are you all right?”

Branden moves away at the sound of Richard’s voice.

“I heard a bit of a scuffle.”

Branden glares between Richard and Daphne and back again before he laughs. He leaves the hall as quickly as he arrived. When he walks past Richard, he shoves the thin young man into the wall.

“Centrans,” he mutters. “Whores and weaklings.”

In the dream, Daphne and Richard move to comfort each other, but Arsinoe balks.

NO.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

Anger at Branden fuels her frustration with the dream. She twists and thrashes, screams so hard she must be screaming for real; her attempt to break the dream will probably be thwarted not by the shadow of Queen Illiann but by Mrs. Chatworth and Jane shrieking in panic after she wakes the house.

For a moment, her thrashing does not work. Until she jerks her arm and Daphne’s arm jerks right along with it.

That is all it takes. The dream goes dark.

“Hello?” She can hear herself breathing. She looks down in the dark and sees that she is herself again, Arsinoe, right down to the scarred face and borrowed trousers.

This is a dream of a different sort. But equally as vivid; she inhales and smells the familiar, damp scent of Fennbirn earth.

“Did I break the dream?” she wonders aloud. “Why didn’t I wake? Can I wake?”

Something in the shadows slides coolly past her shoulder, and she pedals backward, not caring that she cannot see the terrain. She knows that touch even though she has never felt it. The shadow of the Blue Queen.

Light breaks through, and Arsinoe blinks. They are on the island. In the clearing, beside the bent-over tree.

“Did you choose this place? Or did I?”

The shadow of Queen Illiann stands before her, motionless. Then it puts a hand to its throat. Points a thin finger, as it did that day next to Joseph’s grave. As it has every time she has seen it.

“Go to where you can speak. I know. But we are on the island now”—she stomps her foot against the dirt—“so spit it out.”

It repeats the motion, more and more agitated until it is shaking so hard that the crown of silver and blue shifts atop its head. It drags dark fingers across where its mouth would be.

“Stop doing that!” Arsinoe shouts. “Just tell me what you want! Why am I dreaming through Daphne’s eyes? Why won’t you speak to my sister?” She sticks out her arm and bares the crescent scar. “She worked the same low magic as me. So why isn’t she dreaming?”

But no matter what she asks, the Blue Queen says nothing. Only continues the frustrating pantomime: throat, mouth, point.

“Go to the island. But why do you want us to go there? What am I supposed to see?”

The shadow stops. Then it points again, very slowly.

Arsinoe turns. Above the trees of the Wolf Spring meadow is the summit of Mount Horn, the great mountain of Fennbirn that looks down upon Innisfuil Valley and houses the Black Cottage at its base.

“You can’t really see that from here,” Arsinoe says. “And I should know.”

The shadow claws at its mouth.

“You mean the mountain?”

The shadow relaxes, and Arsinoe exhales. “You want me to go to Mount Horn? And what will I find there?”