Three Dark Crowns (3 page)

“There will be nothing too surprising in the
Gave Noir
,” Natalia says. “Nothing that you have not seen before. But just the same, do not eat too much. Use your tricks. Do as we practiced.”

“It would be a good omen,” Katharine says softly, “if my gift were to come tonight. On my birthday. Like Queen Hadly's did.”

“You have been lingering in the library histories again.” Natalia sprays a bit of jasmine perfume onto Katharine's neck and then touches the braids piled onto the back of her head. Natalia's ice-blond hair is fashioned in a similar style, perhaps as a show of solidarity. “Queen Hadly was not a poisoner. She had the war gift. It is different.”

Katharine nods as she is turned left and right, less a person than a mannequin, rough clay upon which Natalia can work her poison craft.

“You are a little skinny,” Natalia says. “Camille was never skinny. She was almost plump. She looked forward to the
Gave Noir
as a child to a festival feast.”

Katharine's ears prick at the mention of Queen Camille. Despite being raised as Camille's foster sister, Natalia almost never talks about the previous queen. Katharine's mother, though Katharine does not think of her that way. Temple doctrine decrees that queens have no mother or father. They are daughters of the Goddess only. Besides, Queen Camille departed the island with her king-consort as soon as she recovered from giving birth, as all queens do. The Goddess sent the new queens, and the old queen's reign was ended.

Still, Katharine enjoys hearing stories about those who came before. The only story about Camille that Natalia tells is the story of how Camille took her crown. How she poisoned her sisters so slyly and quietly that it took them days to die. How when it was over they looked so peaceful that had it not been for the froth on their lips, you would have thought they had died in their sleep.

Natalia saw those peaceful, poisoned faces for herself. If Katharine is successful, she will see two more.

“You are like Camille, though, in other ways,” Natalia says, and sighs. “She loved those dusty books in the library too. And she always seemed so young. She
was
so young. She only ruled
for sixteen years after she was crowned. The Goddess sent her triplets early.”

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.