“It won’t be long now, Jules,” Arsinoe says. “Are you ready?”
Jules cracks her knuckles.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Katharine tightens her leather armguard. Her bow has been restrung and her quiver filled with poisoned arrows made with fancy black and white feathers. At her belt, her slim, sharp throwing knives have been edged with enough curare to fell a horse. She also has a short-bladed sword. Though she does not intend to get close enough to use it, it would make for a fine and showy finishing strike.
“Will you take the crossbow?” Natalia asks as she buttons Katharine’s black silk vest and smooths the sleeves of her shirt.
“No. I have already used it on Arsinoe. Each of my sisters deserves her own special send-off.”
Natalia holds up Katharine’s tall, light boots. Her skirt of soft black leather will just touch the tops of them, and her maid Giselle has braided her hair into a knotted bun. There will be no long tresses to pull, nothing to get into her eyes.
“You seem so calm, Natalia,” Katharine notes. “So confident.”
“I am always calm and confident.” Natalia kneels to lace the boots. When she starts to hum, Katharine narrows her eyes. Before the ball, Natalia had been terrified. Snapping at the guards and asking where Pietyr was a hundred times. Such a change, between the ball and today.
A servant enters carrying a tray of edible poisons: belladonna berries and a savory tart of jack-o-lantern mushrooms. Fresh milk laced with more of Nicolas’s white snakeroot.
“Katharine,” Natalia cautions. “Is that wise?”
“I would not go into a duel hungry.”
“Then let me send for something else.”
Katharine cuts a large slice of tart and swallows half of the milk.
“The pain is nothing,” Katharine assures her, wiping her chin. “I have endured much worse.” She pops a berry into her mouth as her stomach starts to churn, and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She is no little girl who would turn into Natalia’s skirts and weep. She is no weak queen to be thrown down the Breccia Domain. She is outfitted for battle. And after today, she will be the next Queen Crowned.
Mirabella recovers from the poison faster than anyone dared hope, and the priestesses pray thanks to the Goddess. But it is still not fast enough.
When she holds her hand out to a candle, she can light it, but she cannot make it flare. Water is a waste of time. She has not dared to test her lightning, and Luca says that she should not, that it would give the Arrons too much satisfaction to see only a rain shower form above the arena.
“I feel like I failed you,” Billy says, standing behind her. “Now I have failed you both.”
“You did not fail anyone. Not me. Certainly not Arsinoe.” The sadness in her loved ones’ eyes is hard for Mirabella to take. No one imagined that she could lose the duel before it even started. “Sooner or later, Billy, the poison always finds its target. This was not your fault.”
The priestess fastening her light dress of black wool begins to weep. Rho cuffs her on the back of the head and steps forward to finish what she started, tugging Mirabella’s bodice tight.
“Avoid her,” the red-haired priestess whispers. “Use your shield and avoid her as long as you can. Save your gift for one good shot.”
THE QUEENS’ DUEL
When the duel begins, everyone in attendance is on their feet, screaming regardless of their affiliation. None of them have ever seen a duel. The air is abuzz with excitement, even stronger than the scent of cinnamon-spiced sweets and roasted meat on sticks.
Mirabella walks to the center of the arena. Wind blows her hair off her shoulders, and she pretends that it is her wind even as fear drenches her heart like cold water. Before the ball, her greatest fear was that her will would fail when she looked into Katharine’s eyes. How foolish she had been.
She nods to the Westwoods and to Luca in the gallery. She would raise her arm, but the shining silver shield feels like it weighs more than she does.
“When I was a child, I asked to play here,” Katharine says as she and Natalia stand at the entrance to the competition ground. “But you would never let me. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Natalia replies. “But this is no game, Kat.”
Katharine taps the throwing knives at her belt and feels the sway of the sword strapped to her back. The crowd roars for Mirabella as she makes her entrance, but that is all right. It is the last time that anyone will ever cheer for her.
“Poor Mirabella,” Katharine says. “So brash and impulsive. Coming to my city to challenge me. After it is over, they will call her a fool.”
But that will not be fair. Mirabella did not know who Katharine really was. How could she? Not even Natalia knows that, and Katharine always thought that Natalia knew everything.
“Go and sit in the gallery,” Katharine says. “I would walk in alone.” Natalia’s mouth tightens, so Katharine softens her voice. “I do not want you to miss it.”
Natalia touches Katharine’s hair. Her eyes move over every inch: her face, her hands, the laces of her boots, as if she is trying to commit them to memory.
Katharine almost shrugs her off. She wants to begin. She wants the crowd to roar for her.
Natalia leaves, and Katharine waits until she sees her ice-blond head in the gallery before walking out with her arms raised.
The crowd screams. From the oldest woman in the stands to the children watching from window seats in nearby buildings, they all scream. Only the priestesses remain still and silent. But of course they would; they are priestesses.
The noise fills Katharine with pleasure, but it does not compare to the feeling she gets when she looks at Mirabella. Her pretty, regal sister is glaring at her. Yet underneath the glare is fear so thick that Katharine can almost smell it.
“That is a very fine shield,” she calls out, and the crowd quiets. “You are going to need it.”
Across the arena, Mirabella cringes as Katharine unslings her bow and nocks an arrow. She fires it and rolls to dodge any counter of lightning. But none comes. There is only the crowd’s moan when her arrow bounces off the shield. She nocks another and lets it fly, and Mirabella dives clumsily to the ground. Katharine dodges again, anticipating a counterattack. But again there is nothing.
Something is not right.
“What is this, Sister?” she shouts. “Is the great elemental afraid to fight?”
Mirabella peeks out from behind her shield.
“That would be a strange thing indeed,” she shouts back, though her voice is high and weak, “when it was I who issued the challenge!”
Suspicious, Katharine advances until she is close enough to see the sweat dotting Mirabella’s forehead and to note the rapid rise and fall of her rib cage, too labored for so early in the fight. Her eyes are the eyes of a cornered dog.
And it is plain to see that she has been poisoned.