Three Dark Crowns Page 2

  Queen Camille’s triplets were sent early because she was weak. That is what the people whisper. Katharine wonders sometimes how long she will have. How many years she will guide her people, before the Goddess sees fit to replace her. She supposes that the Arrons do not care. The Black Council rules the island in the interim, and as long as she is crowned, they will still control it.

  “Camille was like a little sister to me, I suppose,” Natalia says.

  “Does that make me your niece?”

  Natalia grips her chin.

  “Do not be so sentimental,” she says, and lets Katharine go. “For seeming so young, Camille killed her sisters with poise. She was always a very good poisoner. Her gift showed early.”

  Katharine frowns. One of her own triplets had showed an early gift as well. Mirabella. The great elemental.

  “I will kill my sisters just as easily, Natalia,” Katharine says. “I promise. Though perhaps when I am finished, they will not look like they are sleeping.”

  The north ballroom is filled to the brim with poisoners. It seems that anyone with any claim to Arron blood, and many other poisoners from Prynn besides, has made the journey to Indrid Down. Katharine studies the party from the top of the main stairs. Everything is crystal and silver and gems, right down to glistening towers of purple belladonna berries wrapped in nets of spun sugar.

  The guests are almost too refined; the women in black pearls and black diamond chokers, the men in their black silk ties. And they have too much flesh on their bones. Too much strength in their arms. They will judge her and find her lacking. They will laugh.

  As she watches, a woman with dark red hair throws her head back. For a moment her molars—as well her throat, as if her jaw has come unhinged—are visible. In Katharine’s ears polite chatter turns to wails, and the ballroom is filled with glittering monsters.

  “I cannot do this, Giselle,” she whispers, and the maid stops straightening the gown’s voluminous skirts and grasps her shoulders from behind.

  “Yes you can,” she says.

  “There are more stairs than there were before.”

  “There are not,” Giselle says, and laughs. “Queen Katharine. You will be perfect.”

  In the ballroom below, the music stops. Natalia has put up her hand.

  “You’re ready,” Giselle says, and checks the fall of the dress one more time.

  “Thank you all,” Natalia says to her guests in her deep, rolling voice, “for being with us tonight on such an important date. An important date in any year. But this year is more important than most. This year our Katharine is sixteen!” The guests applaud. “And when the spring comes, and it is the time for the Beltane Festival, it will be more than just a festival. It will be the beginning of the Year of Ascension. During Beltane, the island will see the strength of the poisoners during the Quickening Ceremony! And after Beltane is over, we will have the pleasure of watching our queen deliciously poison her sisters.”

  Natalia gestures toward the stairs.

  “This year’s festival to begin, and next year’s festival for the crown.” More applause. Laughter and shouts of agreement. They think it will be so easy. One year to poison two queens. A strong queen could do it in a month, but Katharine is not strong.

  “For tonight, however,” Natalia says, “you simply get to enjoy her company.”

  Natalia turns toward the steep, burgundy-carpeted stairs. A shining black runner has been added for the occasion. Or perhaps just to make Katharine slip.

  “This dress is heavier than it looked in my closet,” Katharine says quietly, and Giselle chuckles.

  The moment she steps out from the shadow and onto the stairs, Katharine feels every pair of eyes. Poisoners are naturally severe and exacting. They can cut with a look as easily as with a knife. The people of Fennbirn Island grow in strength with the ruling queen. Naturalists become stronger under a naturalist. Elementals stronger under an elemental. After three poisoner queens, the poisoners are strong to the last, and the Arrons most of all.

  Katharine does not know whether she ought to smile. She only knows not to tremble. Or stumble. She nearly forgets to breathe. She catches sight of Genevieve, standing behind and to the right of Natalia. Genevieve’s lilac eyes are like stones. She looks both furious and afraid, as if she is daring Katharine to make a mistake. As if she relishes the prospect of the feel of her hand across Katharine’s face.

  When Katharine’s heel lands on the floor of the ballroom, glasses raise and white teeth flash. Katharine’s heart eases out of her throat. It will be all right, at least for now.

  A servant offers a flute of champagne; she takes it and sniffs: the champagne smells a little like oak and slightly of apples. If it has been tainted, then it was not with pink mistletoe berries, as Giselle suspected. Still, she takes only a sip, barely enough to wet her lips.

  With her entrance over, the music begins again, and chatter resumes. Poisoners in their best blacks flutter up to her like crows and flutter away just as quickly. There are so many, dropping polite bows and curtsies, dropping so many names, but the only name that matters is Arron. In minutes the anxiety begins to squeeze. Her dress suddenly feels tight, and the room suddenly hot. She searches for Natalia but cannot find her.

  “Are you all right, Queen Katharine?”

  Katharine blinks at the woman in front of her. She cannot remember what she had been saying.

  “Yes,” she says. “Of course.”

  “Well, what do you think? Are your sisters’ celebrations as glorious as this?”

  “Why no!” Katharine says. “The naturalists will be roasting fish on sticks.” The poisoners laugh. “And Mirabella . . . Mirabella . . .”

  “Is splashing around barefoot in rain puddles.”

  Katharine turns. A handsome poisoner boy is smiling at her, with Natalia’s blue eyes and ice-blond hair. He holds his hand out.

  “What else do elementals enjoy doing, after all?” he asks. “My queen. Will you dance?”

  Katharine lets him lead her to the floor and pull her close. A beautiful blue-and-green Deathstalker scorpion is pinned to his right lapel. It is still slightly alive. Its legs writhe sluggishly, a grotesquely beautiful ornament. Katharine leans a bit away. Deathstalker venom is excruciating. She has been stung and healed seven times but still shows little resistance to its effects.

  “You saved me,” she says. “One more moment of fumbling for words and I would have turned to run.”

  His smile is attentive enough to make her blush. They turn around on the floor, and she studies his angular features.

  “What is your name?” she asks. “You must be an Arron. You have their look. And their hair. Unless you have dyed it for the occasion.”

  He laughs. “What? Like the servants do, you mean? Oh, Aunt Natalia and her appearances.”

  “Aunt Natalia? So you are an Arron.”

  “I am,” he says. “My name is Pietyr Renard. My mother was Paulina Renard. My father is Natalia’s brother, Christophe.” He spins her out. “You dance very well.”

  His hand slides across her back, and she tenses when he ventures too close to her shoulder, where he might feel the roughness from a past poisoning that toughened her skin.

  “It is a wonder,” she says, “given how heavy this gown is. It feels as though the straps are about to draw blood.”

  “Well, you must not allow that. They say the strongest poisoner queens have poison blood. I would hate for any of these vultures to steal you away, looking for a taste.”

  Poison blood. How disappointed they would be, then, if they tasted hers.

  “‘Vultures’?” she says. “Are not many of the people here your family?”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  Katharine laughs and stops only when her face drops too near the Deathstalker. Pietyr is tall, and taller than her by almost a head. She could easily dance looking the scorpion in the eyes.

  “You have a very nice laugh,” says Pietyr. “But this is so strange. I
expected you to be nervous.”

  “I am nervous,” she says. “The Gave—”

  “Not about the Gave. About this year. The Quickening at the Beltane Festival. The start of everything.”

  “The start of everything,” she says softly.

  Many times Natalia has told her to take things as they come. To keep from becoming overwhelmed. So far it has been easy enough. But then, Natalia makes it all sound so simple.

  “I will face it, as I have to,” Katharine says, and Pietyr chuckles.

  “So much dread in your voice. I hope you can muster a bit more enthusiasm when you meet your suitors.”

  “It will not matter. Whichever king-consort I choose, he will love me when I am queen.”

  “Would you not rather they loved you before then?” he asks. “I should think that is what anyone would wish—to be loved for themselves and not their position.”

  She is about to spout the appropriate rhetoric: being queen is not a position. Not just anyone can be queen. Only her, or one of her sisters, is so linked to the Goddess. Only they can receive the next generation of triplets. But she understands what Pietyr means. It would be sweet to be cared for despite her faults, and to be wanted for her person rather than the power she comes with.

  “And would you not rather that they all loved you,” he says, “instead of just one?”

  “Pietyr Renard,” she says. “You must have come from far away if you have not heard the whispers. Everyone on the island knows where the suitors’ favors will go. They say my sister Mirabella is beautiful as starlight. No one has ever said anything half so flattering about me.”

  “But perhaps that is all it is,” he says. “Flattery. And they also say that Mirabella is half mad. Prone to fits and rages. That she is a fanatic and a slave to the temple.”

  “And that she is strong enough to shake down a building.”

  He eyes the roof over their heads, and Katharine smiles. She had not meant Greavesdrake. Nothing in the world is strong enough to tear Greavesdrake from its foundation. Natalia would not allow it.

  “And what about your sister Arsinoe, the naturalist?” Pietyr asks casually. They both laugh. No one says anything about Arsinoe.

  Pietyr turns Katharine again around the dance floor. They have been dancing a long time. People have begun to notice.

  The song ends. Their third, or perhaps their fourth. Pietyr stops dancing and kisses the tips of the queen’s gloved fingers.

  “I hope to see you again, Queen Katharine,” he says.

  Katharine nods. She does not notice how silent the ballroom has become until he is gone, and the chatter returns, bouncing off the south wall of mirrors and echoing until it reaches the carved tiles of the ceiling.

  Natalia catches Katharine’s eye from the center of a cluster of black dresses. She ought to dance with someone else. But the long, black-clothed table is already surrounded by servants like so many ants, setting the silver trays for the feast.

  The Gave Noir. Sometimes, it is called “the black glut.” It is a ritual feast of poison, performed by poisoner queens at nearly every high festival. And so, weak gift or not, Katharine must perform it as well. She must hold the poison down past the last bite, until she is shut safely in her rooms. None of the visiting poisoners can be allowed to see what comes after. The sweat and the seizures and the blood.

  When the cellos begin, she almost runs to leave. It seems too soon. That she should have had more time.

  Every poisoner who matters is in the ballroom tonight. Every Arron from the Black Council: Lucian and Genevieve, Allegra and Antonin. Natalia. She cannot bear to disappoint Natalia.

  The guests move toward the set table. The crowd, for once, is a help, pressing close in a wave of black to push her forward.

  Natalia instructs the servants to reveal the dishes from under their silver covers. Piles of glistening berries. Hens stuffed with hemlock dressing. Candied scorpions and sweet juice steeped with oleander. A savory stew winks red and black with rosary peas. The sight of it makes Katharine’s mouth run dry. Both the snake on her wrist, and her bodice, seem to squeeze.

  “Are you hungry, Queen Katharine?” Natalia asks.

  Katharine slides a finger along Sweetheart’s warm scales. She knows what she is supposed to say. It is all scripted. Practiced.

  “I am ravenous.”

  “What would be the death of others will nourish you,” Natalia continues. “The Goddess provides. Are you pleased?”

  Katharine swallows hard.

  “The offering is adequate.”

  Tradition mandates that Natalia bow. When she does, it looks unnatural, as if she is a clay pot cracking.

  Katharine sets her hands on the table. The rest of the feast is up to her: its progression, its duration and speed. She may sit or stand as she likes. She does not need to eat it all, but the more she eats, the more impressive it is. Natalia advised her to ignore the flatware and use her hands. To let the juices run down her chin. If she were as strong a poisoner as Mirabella is an elemental, she would devour the entire feast.

  The food smells delicious. But Katharine’s stomach can no longer be fooled. It tries to twist itself shut and cramps painfully.

  “The hen,” she says. A servant sets it before her. The room is heavy, and so full of eyes, as it waits. They will shove her face into it if they have to.

  Katharine rolls her shoulders back. Seven of the nine council members stand close at the front of the crowd. The five who are Arrons, of course, as well as Lucian Marlowe and Paola Vend. The two remaining members have been dispatched as a courtesy to her sisters’ celebrations.

  There are only three priestesses in attendance, but Natalia says that priestesses do not matter. High Priestess Luca has forever been in Mirabella’s pocket, abandoning temple neutrality in favor of believing Mirabella to be the fist that will wrest power away from the Black Council. But the Black Council is what counts on the island now, and priestesses are nothing but relics and nursemaids.

  Katharine tears white meat from the plumpest part of the breast, the meat that is farthest from the toxic stuffing. She pushes it through her lips and chews. For a moment, she is afraid she will be unable to swallow. But the bite goes down, and the crowd relaxes.

  She calls for the candied scorpions next. Those are easy. Pretty, sparkling sweets in golden sugar coffins. All the venom is in the tail. Katharine eats four sets of pincers and then calls for the venison stew with rosary peas.

  She should have saved the stew for last. She cannot get around its poison. The rosary peas have seeped into everything. Every sliver of meat and drop of gravy.

  Katharine’s heart begins to pound. Somewhere in the ballroom, Genevieve is cursing her for a fool. But there is nothing to be done. She has to take a bite, and even lick her fingers. She sips the tainted juice and then cleanses her palate with cold, clear water. Her head begins to ache, and her vision changes as her pupils dilate.

  She does not have long before she sickens. Before she fails. She feels the weight of so many eyes. And the weight of their expectations. They demand that she finish. Their will is so strong that she can nearly hear it.

  The pie of wild mushrooms is next, and she eats through it quickly. Her pulse is already uneven, but she is unsure whether that is from the poison or just nerves. The speed at which she eats does a good impression of enthusiasm, and the Arrons clap. They cheer her on. They make her careless, and she swallows more mushrooms than she intends. One of the last chunks tastes like a Russula, but that should not be. They are too dangerous. Her stomach seizes. The toxin is fast and violent.

  “The berries.”

  She pops two into her mouth and cheeks them and then reaches for tainted wine. Most of it she lets leak down her neck and onto the front of her gown, but it does not matter. The Gave Noir is over. She slams both hands down onto the table.

  The poisoners roar.

  “This is but a taste,” Natalia declares. “The Gave Noir for the Quickening will be someth
ing of legend.”

  “Natalia, I need to go,” she says, and grasps Natalia’s sleeve.

  The crowd quiets. Natalia discreetly tugs loose.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I need to leave!” Katharine shouts, but it is too late.

  Her stomach lurches. It happens so fast, there is no time even to turn away. She bends at the waist and vomits the contents of the Gave down onto the tablecloth.

  “I will be all right,” she says, fighting the nausea. “I must be ill.”

  Her stomach gurgles again. But even louder are the gasps of disgust. The rustling of gowns as the poisoners back away from the mess.

  Katharine sees their scowls through eyes that are bloodshot and full of water. Her disgrace is reflected in every expression.

  “Will someone please,” Katharine says, and gasps at the pain, “take me to my rooms.”

  No one comes. Her knees strike hard against the marble floor. It is not an easy sickness. She is wet with sweat. The blood vessels have burst in her cheeks.

  “Natalia,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  Natalia says nothing. All Katharine can see are Natalia’s clenched fists, and the movement of her arms as she silently and furiously directs guests to leave the ballroom. Throughout the space, feet shuffle in a hurry to leave, to get as far from Katharine as they can. She sickens again and pulls on the tablecloth to cover herself.

  The ballroom darkens. Servants begin to clear the tables as another twisting cramp tears through her small body.

  Disgraced as she is, not even they will move to help her.

  WOLF SPRING

  Camden is stalking a mouse through the snow. A little brown mouse has found itself in the middle of a clearing, and no matter how quickly it skitters across the surface, Camden’s large paws cover more ground, even when she’s sunk up to her knees.

  Jules watches the macabre game with amusement. The mouse is terrified but determined. And Camden looms over it, as excited as if it were a deer or a large chunk of lamb instead of less than a mouthful. Camden is a mountain cat, and at three years old, has reached her full, massive size. She is a far cry from the milky-eyed cub who followed Jules home from the woods, young enough then to still have her spots, and with more fuzz than fur. Now, she is sleek and honey gold, and the only black left is on her points: ears, toes, and the tip of her tail.