Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(60)

“Do not start that again, Pietyr. They are the only reason I am anything. Without them . . . you would have killed me.”

“I know.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I know that. But if the mist, and the Goddess behind it, is displeased, they are the only reason I can think of.”

“Why? They are also her daughters.”

“Yes. But the dead queens had their chance, Katharine. They had it, and the island chose them for extinction.”

Inside Katharine, the dead queens are silent. She can feel them there, in her blood and in her mind, clinging to her like bats to the walls of a cave. Their silence speaks to her of sadness. Old sadness and pain. Part of her would tell Pietyr to stop. To be quiet and not to hurt them anymore.

“They take care of me,” she whispers. “They care for me, and I owe them the same care.” She strokes her own skin. But for the mist to quiet, must she really let them go? “Perhaps . . . if they could be gotten out . . . if they could be laid to rest . . . that would not be cruel?”

“No.” Pietyr takes her hand and kisses it. “That would not be cruel at all.”

The next morning, Genevieve comes to escort her to the council chamber. Pietyr has already gone, down to the library to try to find a way to exorcise the dead queens from Katharine. If he does not find it there, he will try the library at Greavesdrake. And if that fails, Katharine has given him permission to discreetly go to the temple scholars. He was so eager to be off and so pleased with her for making the right choice. He called her brave. Good-hearted.

“Genevieve, what word have you received from Sunpool? When is the oracle to arrive?”

“I mean to address that in council this morning, Queen Katharine.”

They pass by the open doors of the throne room, and Katharine glances inside. There is no one there except for a smattering of queensguard. So few people come to her for governance that they are able to restrict them to certain days of the week.

“Is something odd going on?” Katharine asks. “Should I not have sent Pietyr on that errand this morning?”

“Nothing odd,” Genevieve replies. “Or if there is, it is nothing that cannot be handled without my nephew.”

Inside the Black Council chamber, everyone has already assembled. Even Bree, who has proven to be chronically late. When they see Katharine, they stand, and the mood in the room is so tense that she does not bother sitting down.

“Tell me.”

She waits, watching as the responsibility to speak passes through the room in sighs and shuffling feet. Antonin and Cousin Lucian look away. Bree pretends she has not heard. Only Rho and Luca raise their eyebrows, and finally, Luca takes a deep breath.

“There is an uprising in the north.”

“An uprising?”

“Someone claiming to be Juillenne Milone is traveling through the north country raising an army to rebel against the crown.”

The words strike Katharine cold.

“A rebellion? Fennbirn does not have rebellions.”

“Perhaps this will be the first.”

“How do you know this?”

Luca and Rho glance at each other.

“Reports first reached us in Rolanth,” says Rho. “The rebels were supposedly seen there, to the west, and there have been rumors of Jules Milone as far as the villages south of Innisfuil.”

“Jules Milone drowned with my sisters,” says Katharine, and every eye falls. They know as well as she what it will imply if the naturalist is found to be alive and well.

Beside her, Genevieve clears her throat.

“We think they are heading to Sunpool, and that is why the oracles have denied our request for a seer. They have allied with the rebellion.”

The room closes in around Katharine until it is hard to breathe.

“The legion-cursed naturalist is alive.”

“Or someone who is pretending to be her.”

“And the city of the oracles has taken her side?” Katharine scans the faces of her council. “Who else?”

“Bastian City, perhaps,” says Genevieve. “The Milone girl is calling herself the Legion Queen.”

The Legion Queen. The queen of multiple gifts, who will unite the island under one banner. If they only knew. It strikes Katharine as almost funny. The people yearn for a queen with a two-gift curse, when they already have a queen with all of them.

“So now I must fight a war for my crown and the mist as well?” She grinds her teeth. “And I suppose that the rebels are using that to their advantage. Spreading word that the attacking mist is my fault?”

“They say it rises against you,” says Luca. “They are using it as a sign.”

Katharine sinks into her chair.

“Well,” she says. “You are my Black Council. My advisers. This is the part where you are supposed to advise.”

“I say embrace it.” Rho Murtra places her knuckles upon the table. “Wage a war. Use it to quiet the unrest. Nothing calms the people more than having something to fight against.”

“You would say that,” Antonin spits. “War gifted. Always spoiling for a battle.”

“And why not, if it’s a winning battle? The queensguard army is in fine shape, despite languishing under soft poisoner leadership. It can rout a band of rebels made up of farmers and fishers.”