Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake Page A

the blanket, her skin looks cold and very pale. She stares at Mirabella with wide, grateful eyes, as if Mirabella has come to save her.
    â€œYou should have told me,” Mirabella says. “You should have told me, Rho!”
    â€œWhy?” Rho asks. “Would it have made any difference?” She nods for the girl to step forward, and she slips out from under the blanket and walks ahead barefoot and shivering.
    â€œShe makes this sacrifice for you,” Rho whispers. “Do not disgrace her.”
    The young priestess kneels before Mirabella and looks up. Her eyes are clear. They have not even drugged her against the pain. She holds out her hand, and reluctantly, Mirabella takes it, and stands numb as the girl prays. When she is finished, the girl stands and walks to the cliff face.
    It is all there. Water in the barrel. Fire in the brazier. The wind and the lightning, always at her fingertips. Or she could quake the rocks and bury her. Perhaps that would be painless, at least.
    The girl who would become a sacrifice smiles at Mirabella and then closes her eyes, to make it easier. But it is not easier.
    Impatient, Rho nods to a priestess beside the brazier, and she lights a torch.
    â€œIf you do not do it, my queen, then we will. And our way will be slower than yours.”

GREAVESDRAKE MANOR

    G iselle pours warm water over the raised blisters on Queen Katharine’s skin. The shiny, fluid-filled red welts stretch in bands across her back, as well as her shoulders and upper arms. The blisters are the result of a tincture of nettles. Natalia striped Katharine with it that morning, painting it on with a soaked ball of cotton.
    â€œShe was careless,” Giselle mutters. “This will scar. Don’t move, Katharine.” She touches Katharine gently, and a tear rolls down the young queen’s cheek.
    Natalia would never have made the tincture so strong. But she was not the one who made it. That was Genevieve.
    â€œWhen she sees what it has done, how high they have raised, she will have that sister of hers whipped in the square.”
    Katharine manages to laugh a little. How she would love to see that. But she will not. Natalia will be displeased when she sees the marks. But any comeuppance Genevieve receives will be kept quiet and private.
    She breathes out as Giselle gently pours more water over her shoulders. The maid has infused the bath with chamomile, to ease some of the swelling, but even so, it will be days before Katharine can dress normally without fear of the blisters popping.
    â€œLean forward, Kat.”
    She does and begins to cry again. Through the open door of her bathroom, she can see her bedroom and dressing table, and Sweetheart’s empty cage. Her little snake was frightened when she fell during the Gave Noir. She crawled off Katharine’s wrist and disappeared. She is probably dead now, lost forever somewhere in Greavesdrake’s cold walls.
    The nettle poisoning was not a punishment. That is what Natalia said, what she assured her in a calm, even voice as she applied stripe after stripe. But Katharine knows better. There is a price for failing an Arron, and even queens must pay it.
    It could have been worse. Knowing Genevieve, she could have been injected with spider venom and forever borne scars from necrosis.
    â€œHow can she do this to you?” Giselle asks, and presses a warm cloth to the back of Katharine’s neck.
    â€œYou know why,” Katharine says. “She does it to make me strong. She does it to save my life.”
    The rooms and halls of Greavesdrake Manor are wonderfully quiet. Finally, after the many arrivals and departures of the previous days, the house is at rest, and Natalia can relax in thesolitude of her study, and the comfort of her favorite leather wingback chair. Until someone knocks.
    When her butler walks in empty-handed, her face falls.
    â€œI had hoped you were bringing me a pot of mangrove tea.”
    â€œCertainly,