Three Dark Crowns (24 page)

“I
t is so black,” Katharine says.

“Yes,” says Pietyr. “But you ought to know what black is, being a queen.”

His voice comes from a distance behind her. He refused to go so close to the edge. But the moment Katharine saw the Breccia Domain, she dropped onto her belly and slithered up to it like a snake.

The Breccia Domain is the deep chasm in the ground that they call “the heart of the island.” It is a sacred place. They say it has no bottom, and seeing it, Katharine cannot describe its darkness. It is so black that it is almost blue.

Pietyr sneaked her out as soon as Natalia and Genevieve were distracted by the Hunt. They slipped quietly into the deep southern Innisfuil woods, where hunting is forbidden, until the trees opened up on the stark gray rocks and the dark fissure in the island, like the wound from a jagged blade.

“Come out here with me,” she says.

“No thank you.”

She laughs and hangs her head over the edge. Pietyr cannot feel what she feels as a queen. This place is for her kind.

She takes another deep, deep breath.

The Breccia Domain feels. The Breccia Domain
is
, in that way that so many other sacred places on Fennbirn are, but the Domain is where all those other places connect. It is the source. Had Katharine been raised in the temples like Mirabella, she might have better words for the hum in the air and how it makes the back of her neck prickle.

The cold, dense air of it rushes into her blood and makes her so giddy that she laughs.

“Kat, come away from it now,” Pietyr says.

“Must we go so soon? I like it here.”

“I do not understand why. It is a morbid place in the middle of nowhere.”

She rests her head on her hand and continues to look down into the fissure. Pietyr is right. She should not like it so well. In generations past, the Domain is where they would throw the bodies of the queens who did not survive their Ascension Years. Genevieve says that at the bottom of the hole, they lie in piles. Shattered.

But now Katharine does not think so. The Breccia Domain is so vast and deep. Those queens cannot be broken at the bottom. They must all still be falling.

“Katharine, we cannot stay here all night. We must return before the Hunt is over.”

She takes one last, long look into the blackness and sighs.
Then she stands and brushes dust off her gown. They had better go back. She will need rest before tomorrow.

Tomorrow, they will prepare for the Disembarking at sunset, when she and Mirabella will see their suitors for the first time, as well as each other. She wonders whether the pretty elemental will be surprised to see her weak poisoner sister looking so healthy.

“What a waste,” Katharine says. “Kissing that mainland boy, Billy Chatworth. Only to have him run off with Arsinoe.”

“What do you mean kissing him?” Pietyr asks. “You kissed him?”

“Of course I did,” she says. “Why do you think I left the drawing room? So that you would not have to watch.”

“That is kind, but soon I will not be able to avoid it,” he says. “You will have to pretend that I am not there, Kat. You will have to pretend that I do not exist.”

“Yes, but I will only be pretending. And none of them will touch me here at Beltane. I will not be alone with them until after the Quickening.”

Pietyr looks away, and Katharine walks to him and kisses him quickly. She will steal many more kisses from him tonight, and tomorrow night, hidden away from Genevieve's disapproving eye.

“We will not be parted,” she whispers against his lips. “Even though we will always have to hide.”

“I know, Kat,” he says, and wraps his arms around her. She rests her head against his chest.

It will be hard but not impossible. They have gotten very good at hiding.

W
hen the Hunt began, Jules was so close to Joseph that they were almost touching, standing near the front of the naturalist horde as the drums counted down. The High Priestess sounded the horn, and they ran with the rest, the only sounds in their ears the cries of other hunters, and the crushing of grass beneath their feet.

They stayed together for a while, running, as the naturalists' gifts drew game willingly into the trees. Then she looked to her right, and he was not there.

She searched for him every place she could think of. She even took up one of the torches to search the ground, in case he had fallen. But she did not find him, and now the woods are quiet.

“Joseph?” she calls. The other naturalists and those few with the war gift have left her far behind. For a time, she heard their victory cries, but now there is not even that. The poisoners with
their tainted blades and arrows have taken the high hunting ground in the hills below the cliffs, and the fast, light-footed elementals will have flooded the northern woods behind their precious queen's tent.

“Joseph!” she calls again, and waits.

He will be all right. He is fit and an able hunter. It is easy to lose track of a companion in such a trampling crowd; perhaps they were foolish to try to stay together in the first place.

Jules holds her torch out and peers into the dark. The night air chills her skin now that she is no longer running. After a moment, she sets off in the opposite direction of the pack. She has come this far already. There is no reason she should not find some game.

Mirabella sits before a cold plate of fruit and cheese. She stands quickly when something thumps outside her tent. Moments later, Bree and Elizabeth drag her unconscious guards inside.

“What is this?” she asks.

Bree looks very pretty in a black belted tunic with silver edging and high, soft boots. She and Elizabeth both wear cloaks of dark gray wool. Hunting cloaks.

Mirabella studies the unconscious priestesses. At least, she thinks that they are unconscious. They are both so still.

“What have you done?” Mirabella asks.

“We have not killed them,” Bree says in a tone that suggests she would not care if they had. “They are only drugged.
A poisoner's trick, I know, but what good is being in a meadow full of poisoners if you cannot get even a simple sleeping water?”

Elizabeth holds out a folded gray cloak for Mirabella.

“We will be discovered,” Mirabella says. She looks down at Elizabeth's side, where her hand should be. “We cannot risk it.”

“Do not use me as an excuse,” the priestess says. “I may be of the temple, but they will not control me.” Beneath her hood, her olive cheeks are flushed with excitement.

“You will make a very bad priestess someday,” Bree says, and laughs wickedly. “Why do you even stay? You could come and live with us. You do not belong with their lot.”

Elizabeth thrusts the cloak into Mirabella's arms.

“It is not so bad, being a pariah,” she says. “And just because the priestesses have turned on me does not mean that the Goddess has. Now come. We do not need to be gone long. Only long enough to see the naturalists. The real hunters, with feathers braided into their hair and bones around their necks.”

“And their bare chests,” says Bree.

“We can put these two back at their posts when we return,” Elizabeth says. “Perhaps they will wake and be too ashamed to admit they fell asleep.”

There is a dagger and slingshot tucked into Bree's belt, and a crossbow slung over Elizabeth's shoulder. Not for game but for protection. Mirabella's eyes dart to her friend's missing hand. She will need help, to reload.

“All right,” she says, and slides into the cloak. “But quickly.”

Jules hears the bear before she sees the den dug into the side of the hill. She moves her torch so the light falls across the entrance, and he looks back at her with bright, firelit eyes.

He is a great brown. She was not seeking him. She was on the path of a stag and would have caught up with her quarry over the next rise.

The bear does not want trouble. He has most likely retreated back into his winter den in order to avoid the hunters.

Jules draws her knife. It is long and sharp and can go through a bear's hide. But the bear will still kill her if he decides to fight.

The bear looks at the knife and sniffs. Part of her wants him to come. She is surprised by that, by the heat of her anger and the weight of her despair.

“If you are looking for the queen,” she says, “you came too late.”

It is not necessary to see the elementals or the poisoners to know that the naturalists will have the largest cache of meat. So many hunters flood the trees, and there are so many shouts of victory. Most who Mirabella sees have game tied to their belts: rabbits or nice fat pheasants. No one who attends the naturalist feast will be eating field-raised goat; that is certain.

She and Elizabeth and Bree have run far with the hunters. Perhaps farther than they meant to. But the parties move so fast. It is nearly impossible to keep from being caught up in their current.

“The naturalist gift grows strong,” Mirabella says, thinking of Juillenne Milone and her mountain cat.

“I have heard whispers,” says Elizabeth, “of a girl with a cougar for a familiar.”

“They are not only whispers,” says Mirabella. “I have seen her. In the forest that day, with my sister.”

“With your sister?” Bree asks. She sounds alarmed. But in the dim light of the moon, she is only a shadowed shape.

“What?” Mirabella asks. “What is the matter?”

“Did you not wonder if the naturalists had grown clever as well as strong? That perhaps they had hidden Arsinoe's strength all this time and that cougar is truly hers?”

“I do not think so,” Mirabella says.

“And besides,” adds Elizabeth. “Mountain cat or no, Arsinoe is gone.”

Mirabella nods. They ought to be heading back to the encampment. The poisoned priestesses will soon wake. But before she can say so, another hunting party comes upon them and sweeps them up into their run.

“Jules!”

It is only a harsh whisper, scarcely able to be heard above the cries of the hunters and Bree's and Elizabeth's laughter.

“Jules!”

Mirabella slows and then stops. Bree and Elizabeth run on without her.

“Joseph?”

He is alone, holding a low-burning torch. There are black
marks on his face and on his shoulder. But it is him.

When he sees her, he freezes.

“Queen Mirabella,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“I do not know,” she says. “I probably should not be.”

He hesitates a moment and then takes her by the hand and pulls her behind a broad tree trunk where they will not be seen.

Neither knows what to say. They grip each other's hands tightly. Joseph's jawline is smeared with blood, just visible in the light of the dying torch.

“You are injured,” Mirabella says.

“It's just a scratch,” he says. “I tripped over a log when the Hunt began. Lost my party.”

Lost Juillenne, is what he means. Mirabella smiles slightly. “It seems you are injured often. Perhaps you should not be allowed out alone.”

Joseph chuckles. “I suppose I shouldn't. Since I've been back here, I have become a bit . . . prone to accidents.”

She touches the trace of blood on his chin. It is nothing serious. It only adds to his wildness, when coupled with the black stripes on his face and down his bare shoulder. She wonders who painted them, and imagines Jules's fingers sliding over Joseph's skin.

“I knew you would be here,” she says. “Even after Arsinoe's escape. I knew. I hoped.”

“I didn't think I would see you,” he says. “You are supposed to be hidden away.”

Hidden away. Kept prisoner, under heavy guard. But she
and Bree have been thwarting the temple's attempts to lock her up since they were children. It is a wonder the priestesses have not given up by now, or gotten better.

Mirabella slips her hand up Joseph's chest to curl around the base of his shoulder. He is warm from running and his pulse jumps at her touch. She presses closer until their lips are almost touching.

“You do not know me like you know Jules,” Mirabella says. “But do you want me just the same? Did it matter, what happened that night, in the storm?”

Joseph breathes hard. He looks at her from beneath a lowered brow. He does not have much resistance left. He did not have much to begin with.

She slides her other arm around his neck, and he kisses her hard, pressing her into the tree.

“It mattered,” he says against her. “But God, I wish it hadn't.”