Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(81)

“I will go and have them brought up.” Emilia leaves, only turning to glare once more at Arsinoe before she closes the door behind her.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Jules says.

“I can’t believe it either.” Arsinoe touches the ends of Jules’s hair, just below her chin. Shorter even than Arsinoe’s own now. “You cut your hair.” Her brow knits. “Jules, what are you doing here? Why are they calling you the Legion Queen?”

Jules goes to the window. The room they are in is sparsely furnished. Only a rug and a trunk and a table and chairs. A makeshift bed.

“Have you been through Sunpool? Seen what’s happening?”

“Yes.” Arsinoe goes to stand beside her. “Looks like someone’s raising an army. I guess that’s you?”

Jules raises her eyebrows. “Seems to be.”

Arsinoe exhales. “This has to be a long story.”

“Full of bards and prophecy and even a birth.”

“I suppose you’d better tell me all of it.”

They sit down together, and Arsinoe listens as Jules recounts what her life has been since she left them that day. The mourning and hiding and longing for home. The prophecy and her war gift. The rebellion.

“I knew you would get into trouble without me,” she says when Jules is finished, and Jules snorts. Outside the window, the sounds of the army assembling in the city are plain. “And now you’re going to war.”

“There’s no choice anymore now that she has Madrigal.”

“But are you ready? Madrigal wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself.” Arsinoe sighs. “What am I saying? Of course she would.”

“Whether she would or not, there’s Fenn to think about. He’s going to need his mother.”

“And you would fight a war for this?” Arsinoe asks.

“That’s not the only reason.” Jules stands and her bad leg drags just enough for Arsinoe to notice. The mark of the poison. “We went from town to town. Village to village. You should have seen their faces, Arsinoe. The hope. The belief, in me. They want Katharine gone and the poisoners out of power. After what she’s done and the fear of the mist, I want that, too.”

Camden rests her head on Arsinoe’s knee to be pet.

“Am I wrong?” Jules asks. “You’re a queen, as much as you’d like to deny it. Is it wrong, what we’re doing? To overthrow her?”

Arsinoe looks down at the cougar. She has always been a familiar fit for a queen. Jules has always been strong enough. An image flashes in her mind of the nightmare Daphne imparted: Jules on a battlefield and Camden’s fur red with blood. She clenches her teeth and swallows hard.

Is that why I’m here? To stop this? To help her?

“All these people are coming together because of you, Jules. So I don’t think I can tell you what to do anymore. No matter how much I would like to.” She scratches Camden between the ears. “And you’re going to rule after it’s over?”

“No. I mean, not really. They’re calling me the Legion Queen, but that’s just the start of something new. Something better, for all of us that we can decide together.” She looks at Arsinoe hopefully. “Unless . . . ?”

“No,” Arsinoe says simply. “Not me. Not Mira.”

Jules nods. “And . . . you don’t believe the prophecy?”

“The one that says you’ll be the island’s queen or the island’s doom? I don’t know, Jules. But between the two, I know which one we should try for.”

Emilia locates Mirabella and Billy and brings them to the castle, so quickly and with so much ducking into bushes that Mirabella feels like some kind of a spy.

“We would not have needed to hide in the shrubs if you had allowed me to put a sack over your head,” says Emilia, watching Mirabella pluck thorns from her sleeve.

“No one is putting sacks over our heads,” Mirabella hisses.

“Whatever you say, Queen Mirabella.”

“Where is Arsinoe? You haven’t done anything to her?” Billy asks.

“Of course not. My own queen wouldn’t allow it.”

When they return to the castle gate, Mirabella tries to look up at the tall, white tower overgrown with half-dead vines. But Emilia pushes her head down and shoves her inside the moment the gate is open.

“Where are you taking us?”

“To your sister.” The warrior prods them through the keep and to a small set of winding stairs. They go up and up and around and around until Mirabella thinks she will be sick. Finally, they reach an open door and find Arsinoe inside.

“There you are!” Arsinoe grasps Mirabella’s shoulder and then slips her fingers into Billy’s hair. “Did you find supplies?”

“Some decent clothes for mountaineering,” says Billy. “But that’s about it.”

“Good. You are reunited.” Emilia salutes them from the door. “Rest well. We will decide what to do with you later.”

“Are we prisoners here?” Mirabella asks as the key turns in the lock.

“Not really,” says Arsinoe. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen Jules, and she’s still Jules. Warriors are probably always like this.”

“What’s happening?” Billy asks. “All through the marketplaces people were talking about Jules Milone, the Legion Queen, and her rebellion.”