“Where do you think you are running to?” she whispers, and then fires her shot. The bolt catches Arsinoe squarely in the back. She falls with a small gasp, a sound Katharine will relish for many nights afterward. Katharine shouts her victory, then whirls Half Moon around in a circle. She could have sworn that she heard another scream come from somewhere in the trees.
Bree claps her hands over Mirabella’s mouth, stopping her screams. Mirabella jerks and struggles, but Elizabeth is there as well, and together they wrestle her to the ground.
Arsinoe fell. Katharine shot her in the back, and she fell. It is over.
Hot tears slide down Mirabella’s cheeks as she watches Katharine dismount. From where they lie hidden in the ferns, Arsinoe’s body is nothing but a limp pile of black clothes.
Katharine kicks Arsinoe in the ribs, turning her over, and Arsinoe yelps like a dog.
“What will kill you first,” Katharine wonders, “my poison or my crossbow bolt?” She cocks her head. “No last words? No last retort?” She bends to listen. Then she laughs.
“Let me go,” Mirabella whispers furiously.
“No, Mira,” Bree whispers back. “Please. It is over. The bolt was poisoned. Let it be over.”
“No,” Mirabella says, but Bree is right. Whatever she could have done for Arsinoe, she did not do it in time.
Katharine twirls Arsinoe’s red-streaked mask around her finger.
“What a monster that bear made of you,” Katharine says, studying Arsinoe’s exposed scarred face. “You should be glad that we killed it.”
Arsinoe coughs. Her breathing is ragged and wet.
“And what a monster they have made of you, little Katharine. Scars or no scars.”
What happens next happens so quickly that Mirabella almost does not see. Juillenne Milone bursts out from the trees behind Katharine.
“Get away from her!” she screams, and Katharine flies backward and lands with a grunt. Jules’s hand is out as though to push, but she was too far away to have touched her. Mirabella watches, unblinking, as Jules races to Arsinoe’s side, and when Katharine regains her footing, Jules does it again, knocking Katharine back through the air with an unseen force, to roll where she lands.
“Arsinoe, put your arm around my neck. Help me, Arsinoe, hurry!”
Jules calls Katharine’s horse and makes it kneel and heaves herself and Arsinoe into the saddle. They gallop away with Juillenne’s mountain cat loping behind on three legs, and all Katharine can do is scream and pound her fists against the ground.
Mirabella, Elizabeth, and Bree duck low as Katharine’s hunting party catches up to her.
“Queen Katharine! Are you hurt?”
“No.” Katharine stands up and brushes dirt and grass from her skirt. “I got her. I got Arsinoe. But that naturalist stole the body.” She stalks forward and jumps nimbly into the saddle behind a boy with ice-blond hair. One of the Arrons. “Ride, Pietyr! I will not lose my sister’s corpse!” She kicks the horse and it takes off, and the rest of the poisoners follow.
“What was that?” Bree asks after the hoofbeats fade. “Though I have never seen it, I would swear that was the war gift.”
“But how?” Elizabeth asks. “Jules Milone is a naturalist.”
“I do not know.” Mirabella begins to sob. “And I do not care.” She leans against her friends and they wrap her in their arms. They are safe. She is safe. She should be grateful, but she cannot be when Arsinoe is dead.
WOLF SPRING
Joseph lost track of Jules and Camden almost the moment that the mountain cat caught Braddock’s scent. They were far too fast for him, and though he tried to catch up, there was no chance. So he backtracked through the forest toward the orchard, where at least he will not have to worry alone.
He exits the wood and joins the silent, gathered crowd, slipping through people until he finds Billy beside the Milones and Matthew.
“Someone comes!”
“Is it Arsinoe?” Billy asks, neck stretched.
“It’s so soon,” Cait says quietly. “Too soon.”
And she is right. The queen who emerges from the trees is not Arsinoe but Mirabella.
“Mira,” Billy says. “Is she all right? Is Katharine dead?”
Joseph looks into Mirabella’s eyes and goes cold all over.
“I am sorry,” Mirabella says. “But Queen Katharine shot her in the back.”
The gathered people barely react. No raucous celebration by the poisoners. No relief from the elementals. They will save their prayers and toasts for later when they are alone. As for the naturalists, they are an iron lot to begin with and have braced themselves for this news since Arsinoe was born.
“No. No!” Billy elbows his way toward Mirabella, who is being held up by Bree Westwood and one of the priestesses. She looks at Billy regretfully. She cannot even meet Joseph’s eyes.
“Mira, you’re lying!” Billy shouts. “I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it until I see her!”
Matthew reaches for Billy’s arm, but he twists loose. Joseph takes him by the shoulders, and Billy grabs him back, shaking so hard that they almost fall.
“What’s the matter with them? Why aren’t they doing anything?” He turns to the Milones and screams into their grim, silent faces. “What’s wrong with you? Go in there and find her!”
“Easy, Billy,” Joseph says into his ear. “It might not be true. It can’t be. Jules and Camden had her scent.”
Joseph’s heart thuds at his own words. If Jules and Camden were killed, he will lose his mind.
“I’m going in there,” Billy says, and pulls free.
“Billy.” Mirabella holds up her hands. “You will not find her. She is gone.”
“She’s not gone!”
“No. I mean that her . . .” Her eyes shift to Joseph. “Jules tried to save her. And afterward . . . she took Arsinoe away.”
Joseph’s eyes fill. Madrigal grasps her stomach and falls to her knees.
I am sorry, Mirabella mouths.
“I know,” Joseph whispers. “I know.”
The crowd straightens at the sounds of hoofbeats and rustling leaves. The Arrons step to the fore with their ever loyal Black Council. So far, they have wisely kept to the edges, but their queen is returning. And a queen returning in victory is to be honored, regardless of where that victory took place.
Margaret Beaulin rides out of the trees first. She slows her horse and trots directly to Natalia Arron, so close that Natalia must move her head to the side to avoid the horse’s tired blowing.
“It is done.”
“They could still be wrong,” Billy says, and Joseph keeps an arm across his foster brother’s chest as Natalia questions every rider, even the gold-haired suitor. And then Queen Katharine emerges, riding tandem behind the Arron boy.
“She took my horse,” Katharine fumes. “She stole Half Moon!”
“Who?” Cait Milone demands. “Arsinoe?”
Katharine looks positively furious, but when she sees who is asking, her face calms, and she lowers her eyes respectfully.
“Queen Arsinoe, my sister, is dead, Mistress Milone. I shot her with a poisoned bolt from my crossbow. The ‘she’ who I speak of is your granddaughter, Juillenne. She stole my horse and fled with the body.”
“If that is so,” Cait says, her voice strained, “then she acted out of grief and will soon return to her senses.”