Two Dark Reigns Read online

  “A band of warriors aided them, or that’s the way I heard it,” says a woman in the back. “Are you one of them?”

  “I am,” Emilia replies.

  “Then you would fetch a fancy price delivered to the capital tied and trussed.”

  “I would. And after we are through, you are welcome to try.”

  The woman squints her eye. She has no weapons that Jules can see. But she does have a table full of friends.

  As Mathilde recounts Katharine’s crimes, most in the room seem curious. They nod when she calls her the Undead Queen, and a few pound their fists on their tables over the murdered boy. But others keep their lips tight. There are loyalists here, to be sure, and if whispers of Emilia’s uprising have not reached Katharine by now, they will after tonight.

  “We’ve heard the songs,” a young man calls from the crowd. “We’ve heard the tales from other bards in yellow cloaks. A rebellion, they said. Led by a new queen. But there is no new queen. Unless you’ve plucked the elemental from the bottom of the sea and brought her back to life!”

  “Then we would have two Undeads for the price of one!” the woman from the rear calls, and people start to laugh.

  “Another poisoner on the throne,” Emilia shouts, and the crowd falls quiet. “Is that what you want?”

  Jules tenses along with everyone else. Eyes dart to Emilia’s knives, but no one draws their own. A man with a black cat on his shoulder sits at a table with a boy sharing bread with a sparrow, but past that, Jules sees no evidence of gifts. Perhaps a few elementals, as the wind outside has stilled to nothing.

  “Is that what you would have, for another generation?” Emilia narrows her eyes. “Another corrupt council, surrounded by death? Who will poison us until our blood runs from our mouths, and cuts the heads from children? The triplet queens have been abandoned by the Goddess.”

  “But someone with a legion curse has not?” the young man asks. “That’s the queen you speak of, isn’t it? The Legion Queen.”

  “That is the one we speak of,” says Mathilde.

  “A mad queen on the throne?”

  “She is not mad.”

  “She is not real!” The woman in the rear says, and her table laughs.

  “She is real,” Mathilde says, her voice carrying into the farthest corners. “And she is different. The Legion Queen is no queen of the blood. But she is blessed just the same. Gifted so strongly by the Goddess, so as to be Her champion—our champion—who will vanquish the last of the fading queens and beside us will forge a brighter tomorrow.”

  It is like Emilia said. Mathilde’s words land in the crowd’s ears and make them itch with the flicker of possibility. All Jules can do is sit awkwardly as they stare, knowing what they must be thinking, that this small girl cannot be this fabled soldier. It takes all her restraint not to open her mouth and agree with them.

  “This little thing?” The woman in the rear of the inn stands and gestures with her mug to Jules, splashing what little ale is left in it across the top of her table. “This little, vagrant wretch is supposed to be our champion?”

  Her friends laugh. But this time, only her friends, and Emilia sheds her cloak and jumps deftly onto a nearby table.

  “I have had near enough of you,” Emilia growls.

  “Emilia,” Jules whispers.

  “The Legion Queen will fight for the people. Even loudmouthed cowards.”

  The woman scowls. “You’ll find no cowards here.” She waits until Emilia lowers the tip of her knife and then stands and throws a hidden hatchet she had stuck into the wood of her bench.

  Emilia ducks and pushes it off course. It clatters to the ground behind her, harmless, but the warrior lifts her knife to throw. And Jules knows that she will never miss.

  “Emilia, don’t!” The knife flies, straight for the villager’s heart. Jules lurches across the table, hand flung out. She calls to the knife with her gift, fighting against Emilia’s good, solid throw. At the last moment, it veers off-course so hard that it winds up stuck fast in the ceiling.

  Every face turns to Jules.

  “Call her,” Mathilde whispers. “Call her now.”

  Too stunned to disobey, Jules reaches out for Camden, and every eye darts to the stairs as the cougar bursts through the door. She bounds down the steps and leaps over the rail, landing on tables and upending cups and plates, her snarl ferocious until she reaches Jules and stands before her to roar.

  “This is the Legion Queen,” Mathilde says to the frozen crowd. “The strongest naturalist in ten generations. The strongest warrior in two hundred years. She is the one who will fight for all the gifts. She is the one who will change everything.”

  THE MAINLAND

  The fortune-telling shop that Arsinoe finds has a brass bell over the door. A loud brass bell, and she grimaces as soon as she walks inside. But it seems that the shop is empty. No one there to see her. No one to stare. She reaches up and quiets the bell, and smiles as she thinks of Luke, whose bell back home is not so jarring.

  Quietly, she unfurls the cloth sack she brought and begins roaming through shelves. It is easy to find three fat white candles, and into the sack they go, knocking together gently.

  “You are not from here.”

  Arsinoe spins and finds herself face-to-face with the shopkeeper, a woman in beads and silks, and dark, curling hair.

  “No, madam. I’ve had to travel over half the city to find a shop like yours.”

  The shopkeeper laughs.

  “That’s not what I meant. How can I help you today?” Without warning, she tugs the cloth sack open and peers inside. Her mouth crooks down. “White candles. A less interesting purchase than I’d hoped.”

  “I also need herbs. And oil.”

  “You didn’t need to cross the city for those.”

  “I suppose I could’ve swiped the herbs from the kitchen,” says Arsinoe. “But then my hosts would have complained when their meat was bland. I know you have the herbs here; I can smell them.”

  The woman leads her toward the back, where there are racks and racks of dried herbs and mushrooms, kept in jars or bound in bundles with butcher’s string. Arsinoe selects which herb she needs, something that will give off plenty of smoke when burned. Something that will lend its aroma but not so strongly as to be distracting. Her hand hovers over a bundle of sage, then she changes her mind and frowns.

  Low magic is the only link to the island that the Goddess can hear on the mainland. So Madrigal said. But it would need help to be heard so far away. Here there is no bent-over tree, no sacred valley to whisper her curses into. The oil and the herbs, the flames of the candles would lend her focus, raise her voice over the waves of the sea, all the way back to Fennbirn, perhaps even into the past, to the time of the Blue Queen.

  “Have you tried burning amber or resins . . . ?” The shopkeeper reaches up onto a shelf. She hands Arsinoe a chunk that looks like Grandma Cait’s nut brittle but smells like an evergreen. “It will burn longer. Give you more time.” She laughs again at Arsinoe’s suspicious face. “So surprised to find a fortune-teller in a fortune-telling shop. Yes. I know what you’re up to.”

  She drops more resin into Arsinoe’s sack and gestures for her to follow behind a curtain to a smaller room filled with crystals and clear orbs for seers.

  “How does a shop like this exist here?” Arsinoe asks.

  “It doesn’t. Not in the fine parts of town. But as long as we stay buried in the slums, and as long as we provide harmless diversions for the ladies—fortune-telling and séances—they don’t run us out.” She unlocks a cabinet and reaches inside.

  “Are you . . . from here?”

  “I am. But my grandmother . . . wasn’t.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Arsinoe asks warily.

  The woman peers at her.

  “I know you are reaching out for answers. And I know that you don’t fear the price.” The last bit she said staring through Arsinoe’s sleeves, as if she could trace the scars fr
om the low magic cuts. “Here. The last of what you will need.” She walks to Arsinoe and slides a bottle into her hand: Pretty blue frosted glass stoppered with a cork.

  Arsinoe stares at it as she follows her back to the register. “How much is this?”

  “How much do you have?”

  She reaches into her trouser pockets, fishes out her handful of coins, and lays them on the counter.

  “It is that much,” the shopkeeper says, and sweeps them away.

  “It can’t be. Just the bottle must be worth more.”

  “Take it,” the woman says. “And take care. Your journey begins. I do not see where it ends. Only that it does.”

  Only that it does. The woman’s words echo through Arsinoe’s head all the way back through the city until she reaches the cemetery and Joseph’s grave, where she has arranged to meet Mirabella. The words could mean anything. Or they could be just the mumblings of a fake fortune-teller.

  “Did you get everything?”

  Arsinoe jumps when Mirabella steps out from behind one of the trees near the path.

  “What are you doing, creeping around? You’re as bad as Camden on padded feet.” She runs her hand through her growing hair; soon it will be time to cut it again and further horrify Billy’s mother. “Why were you hiding?”

  “I was not hiding. I was sitting in the shade.”

  “Where’s Billy?”

  “He left me at the gate. So as not to interfere.”

  Arsinoe cranes her neck. The grounds are deserted, as usual. She kneels beside Joseph’s grave and begins to unload the contents of her sack.

  “I cannot believe I agreed to this.” Mirabella lowers herself onto the grass to help. She takes up the blue bottle and holds it to the light. “We should have come after dark.”

  “The fire would have caused even more attention then.” Arsinoe sets the three candles in a triangle atop the grass where Joseph lies. But perhaps that is too close. She needs the aid of his island blood, but she does not want to disturb him.

  “He would disapprove, you know.”

  “I know. And then he’d help us anyway.”

  The words catch in her throat, and she and Mirabella look sadly at the grave marker. It is so fresh, so bright among the other, older gravestones on the hill. It is still hard to believe that he is gone.

  Together, she and Mirabella lay the other items from the sack on the grass: the pieces of resin, the oil, and finally, Arsinoe’s sharp little dagger. Arsinoe uncorks the oil and sniffs. The scent is sweet and herbal. She shakes some onto the ground, then dabs a bit onto her forehead and chest. She does the same to Mirabella, who crinkles her nose.

  “Would it be possible to do a banishing spell? Could we use these same things to send the Blue Queen away and get rid of your dreams?”

  “Maybe,” Arsinoe replies. “But somehow, I don’t think it would work.” She pauses and looks at her sister a bit guiltily. “I think I’ve come to like her. Daphne, I mean.”

  Mirabella dabs at the oil in the bottle and rubs it between her fingers. “What did she show you last night? When you struggled?”

  “She showed me her hatred of Duke Branden of Salkades.”

  “The handsome suitor? And why does she hate him? Because he is ruining her Henry’s chances?”

  “No,” Arsinoe says darkly. “Because he is wicked.”

  “Well.” Mirabella adjusts her legs to sit in a more comfortable position. “You do not have to worry too much. History tells us that Henry Redville becomes Illiann’s king-consort. And that Salkades becomes the leader of the losing battle against the island.”

  “I didn’t know about Salkades.” Arsinoe shoves her lightly. “Don’t spoil it for me.”

  The preparations complete, she rubs her hands together and gestures to the candles.

  “Can you use your gift to light these?”

  “All three?” Mirabella squints doubtfully.

  “What about just the resin?”

  Mirabella focuses until sweat beads on her temples. It is difficult to watch, when Arsinoe has seen her summon a ball of flame straight into her open palm. With a wish. With a thought. But just when Arsinoe thinks Mirabella will give up, the resin lights and starts to smoke. Mirabella exhales and laughs, and the candles ignite in a rush. Around them, the wind stills. The birds and insects quiet.

  “Is this a good sign?” Mirabella asks.

  “Any sign is a good sign.” Arsinoe takes up the dagger and cuts a small crescent into the curve of her arm. The sting is familiar, but it does not feel the same as it did beneath the bent-over tree. There is a flatness to it. The pain is thin and bitter as a dirty coin in her mouth. “Give me your arm.” She cuts Mirabella a crescent to match. The first scar upon her flawless skin.

  “What should I do?” Mirabella asks as their blood drips before the candles and sinks into the earth where Joseph lies.

  “Reach out to the island with your mind. Let it find you—” Arsinoe starts, and then the shadow of the tree changes.

  It grows darker. It grows deeper. It grows legs.

  The shadow of the Blue Queen slinks toward them as if made of smoke, if smoke could bend the grass and stamp it down into footprints. When she climbs atop Joseph’s headstone and perches there like a hideous crow, Mirabella jerks, perhaps to run away or perhaps to knock her off, but Arsinoe holds her fast.

  “What do you want?” Mirabella asks.

  The Blue Queen stretches out her arm. She points a finger toward the sea. Toward the island.

  “The island.” Arsinoe stares deep into the void of the ancient queen’s face. “We understand. But what do you want? Why am I dreaming as Daphne? What are you trying to tell me, Queen Illiann?”

  The Blue Queen makes a sound. A shriek. The groan of a dead jaw yawning open. The sound grows until it becomes a wind, and Arsinoe ducks over the lit candles. But they remain lit. Flickering, as Mirabella uses her gift to push back.

  “We are like you,” Mirabella says. “We are of your line. Tell us what you want from us. Or leave us in peace!”

  The screaming wind slows, and the Blue Queen puts her hands to her throat. Her head twists back and forth.

  “She can’t speak,” says Arsinoe. “She’s trying.”

  “Go.” It is a croak. One word. Then again. “Go.” She claws at her mouth. Points again to Fennbirn. “Go.”

  “We cannot go back.” Mirabella gets to her feet. “We escaped. We are never going back.” She binds the cut on her arm with a strip of cloth and ties it off with her teeth. Grabs her sister and staunches her blood as well. Without the boost of fresh queensblood, the shadow pales. It slackens. It points one last time and then disappears, taking the wind with it.

  “Why did you stop her?” Arsinoe asks as the sounds of birds and insects return to the cemetery. “She was getting stronger.”

  “Maybe that is why I stopped her.”

  “But she had more to tell us. I know she did.”

  “Arsinoe.” Mirabella snuffs out the candles and stomps the last of the smoking resin. She stuffs everything back into the sack and twists it closed. “Do you not think that what she wants is for us to go back and be killed? That we were not supposed to get away?”

  “But the dreams—”

  “The dreams are bait! They are a trap.” Mirabella puts a hand on Arsinoe’s shoulder as she looks out toward the bay. “And even if they are not, it is not worth the risk.”

  THE REAPING MOON

  ROLANTH

  “It was a mistake to come here,” Pietyr says as the carriage approaches the elemental city of Rolanth. “We should have stayed in Indrid Down.”

  “And celebrate the Reaping Moon Festival in the midst of a chanting mob?” Genevieve arches her brow.

  “You think there will not be chanting mobs in Rolanth? The entire island has heard about”—he glances apologetically at Katharine—“what happened to that boy.”

  “That assassin, you mean. The one whom the queen made an example of.”
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  The queen and her court are to stay at the finest hotel in Rolanth. The High Priestess herself made the arrangements, in conjunction with Sara Westwood. Katharine drops open the carriage window and takes a deep breath of the crisp northern air. So many white buildings, built into the hills. Limestone and marble, facing the sea, stark against the black basalt cliffs that run up the northeastern coast, that place that they call Shannon’s Blackway. Rolanth is brighter than Indrid Down, with the clear water of the river rushing through the center, and the many green spaces of parks and gardens. Hard to believe that anything could go wrong in such a beautiful place.

  She has brought nearly her whole Black Council to ensure it, except for Cousin Lucian, Rho Murtra, and Paola Vend. Some had to stay behind, so it would not appear that they are fleeing. Though that is precisely what they are doing.

  When the carriage stops, Genevieve leaps out to see that all has been prepared. Pietyr takes Katharine’s hand to escort her into the hotel.

  Their room takes up the entirety of the uppermost floor, a lovely space with ivory walls and blue velvet on the bed. Katharine removes her traveling hood and throws it onto an oval table. Then she swings the windows open and leans out.

  “Stay away from the windows, Kat.”

  Pietyr closes it up and tugs her back to the center of the room.

  “How long will you remain angry with me, Pietyr? For what happened to that boy?”

  “I am not angry with you.” He unbuttons his jacket and slings it onto a chair. “I am protective. Though I do wonder why you are not angrier with yourself.”

  “I was. I am.”

  “Are you? We must brand that poor boy a traitor and not even allow him to be burned, just so we can say that the queen was in the right?”

  “I was in the right. He attacked me,” Katharine says, but her voice lacks conviction. The boy had been no real threat. She could have disarmed him. Instead, she put a knife up through his throat. “Natalia would say it is more important for a queen to be feared than to be loved.”