Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(89)

“I think if you wear it,” Pietyr says, “you will drive the naturalist to do something foolish.”

“Perhaps you are right.” She slips it into the sleeve of her cloak. “But I will bring it anyway. For luck.”

Genevieve brings Katharine’s black stallion and holds him while she mounts. He is outfitted handsomely in silver armor, his reins strung with the poisoner flags. Rho rides up beside her, and Katharine holds her horse firm as he dances in place.

“How many are here?”

“Five hundred,” Rho replies. “One hundred horsed. Another thousand are garrisoned in Prynn and ready to march should something go wrong. But I do not think we will need them.”

“Good. Where is Madrigal Milone?”

“They are bringing her up now. I’ll see to it.” Rho rides away, and Genevieve looks up from checking Katharine’s stirrups and cinch.

“If my sister were here, I would ride beside her. Since she is not, I should ride beside you. It is what she would want.”

“What she would want is for you to do what you do best. Stay. Be my eyes and my ears here. Pietyr and Antonin will look after the Arron interests in the field.”

“Pietyr and Antonin,” Genevieve mutters. “There should be an Arron woman at the head of your armies. Instead, you choose a priestess.”

“If Natalia were here, she would have chosen Margaret Beaulin. She was no fool; she knew how to put the war gift to use.”

Genevieve lifts her chin toward the other council members on horseback: Pietyr and Antonin, waiting on thick, black chargers, and Bree Westwood, on a light brown mare.

“Why her, then?”

“The priestess who sends my messages will be more comfortable if she is there.” She looks through the ranks for Elizabeth in her white-and-black robe but does not see her. Perhaps she will join them as they ride.

“But . . . Bree Westwood!”

Katharine groans.

“Perhaps I am bringing Bree Westwood in the hopes that she will die.” She presses a heel to her horse’s side to move him off. Though she is no longer poisoning Katharine to the brink of a scream, Genevieve can still put a strain on a perfectly good day.

Katharine turns her horse in a slow circle, watching his breath puff in a small cloud as they pass the waiting soldiers. Innisfuil Valley will be frozen and covered in snow. A clean, white field for her army to tromp through. In her veins, the dead queens call for blood; they show it to her in vulgar images of snow stained red. Cold mud and flesh churned into each other.

“Quiet, quiet,” she murmurs, and flexes her fists, wondering what she would find if she looked inside her gloves. Live, pale fingers? Or black, rotten ones?

She catches Pietyr’s eye and he smiles at her just as Rho returns, half dragging and half escorting their prisoner.

“Bind her hands and put her on a horse. A sweet palfrey, who will not be easily startled.”

“What of the bird?” Rho holds up a burlap sack. It beats like a heart as the crow inside flaps nervous wings. “I could put it in a cage. Leave it here. She will not die without it.”

“How can you trade me without my familiar?” Madrigal asks, and jerks out of Rho’s grasp. She is filthy from the cells, but still her loveliness shines through. Even past her resentful, miserable scowl. Katharine has always thought of naturalists as a rugged sort, suited for working with their hands and bathing every other week. But this one is not like that. This one has been pampered.

“Or maybe you don’t really mean to trade me?”

Katharine takes a deep breath.

“Keep your crow in line. If I allow her to come and she tries to fly, I will put a bolt in her chest myself. Do you understand?”

Madrigal nods. Rho reaches into the sack and pulls the crow out flapping. Once released, she dives directly for Madrigal’s arms and stays there.

“Tether them together,” Katharine orders. “Give it just enough room to hop from hand to shoulder.”

“You’ll never get my Jules,” Madrigal says after she has been put onto her horse. “If you truly hoped to, you should have kidnapped someone else. My daughter doesn’t even like me. She is not even going to show up.”





SUNPOOL




“You’ve chosen the warriors who are going with you?”

“Yes. Well, Emilia did.”

Arsinoe and Jules sit together before the hearth, watching the fire crackle and burn.

“It’s been a bit of a wonder—” Arsinoe tears into a chunk of bread and drags it through the stew broth left from her dinner. When she had shown up at Jules’s door after being ousted (or ousting herself) from the room she shared with Billy and Mirabella, Jules had immediately called for more food. “Watching Emilia these last days. She’s . . . hard not to listen to.”

“She does know how to give orders.” The corner of Jules’s mouth crooks upward. “You don’t like her.”

“I don’t trust her,” Arsinoe corrects. “But she cares about you.”

Jules bends and spoons up the last of the stew to drop onto Arsinoe’s plate.

“Sorry there’s not much. And sorry there’s no poison in it.”

“Hmph. I’m not enough of a poisoner to miss it. Though you’re right about the quantity.” The loaf of bread was small, and she could have only a plate and a half of the stew, but it is good. Rich and full of root vegetables and meat.