Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3) - Kendare Blake Page 0,1

hard, messy birth. The Midwife held her up for Philomene to see, and for a moment, queens’ blood flowed between them through the connection of the cord.

“Leonine,” Philomene said, giving the little queen her name. “A naturalist.”

The Midwife repeated it aloud and took the baby away to be cleaned and placed in a bassinet, then covered in a blanket of bright green and embroidered with flowers. It was not long before the next baby came, screaming this time, and with tiny, clenched fists.

“Isadora,” the queen said, and the baby wailed and blinked her wide black eyes. “An oracle.”

“Isadora. An oracle,” the Midwife repeated. And she took her away to be wrapped in a blanket of pale gray and yellow, the colors of the seers.

The third queen born arrived in a rush of blood, as if on a wave. It was so much and so gruesome that Philomene’s mouth opened to announce a new war queen. But those were not the words that came out.

“Roxane. An elemental.”

The Midwife repeated the final name and turned away, cleaning the baby before wrapping her in blue and placing her in the last bassinet. Philomene breathed heavily in the birthing bed. She had been right. She could feel it. The birth had killed her. Strong as she was, she might survive long enough to be bound up and put into the saddle, but it would be a body that Louis sailed home with, to be entombed in his family crypt or perhaps pushed overboard into the sea. Her duty to the island was finished, and the island would have no more say in her fate.

“Midwife!” Philomene groaned as another pain tore through her.

“Yes, yes,” the Midwife replied soothingly. “It is only the afterbirth. It will pass.”

“It is not the afterbirth. It is not—”

She grimaced and bit her lip against one more push.

Another baby slipped out from the war queen’s womb. Easily and without fuss. She opened her black eyes and took an enormous breath. Another baby born. Another queen.

“A blue queen,” the Midwife murmured. “A fourth born.”

“Give her to me.”

The Midwife only stared.

“Give her to me now!”

She scooped the baby up, and Philomene snatched her from her hands.

“Illiann,” Philomene said. “An elemental.” Her exhausted, depleted face broke into a smile. Any disappointment of there being no new war queen vanished. For here was a great destiny. A blessing, for the entire island. And she, Philomene, had done it.

“Illiann,” the shocked Midwife repeated. “An elemental. The Blue Queen.”

Philomene laughed. She raised the child in her arms.

“Illiann!” she shouted. “The Blue Queen!”

The days spent waiting for someone to arrive at the Black Cottage were long. After the birth of the Blue Queen, the messengers raced back to their cities with the news. They had been at the Black Cottage, their horses saddled the moment the queen’s labor began.

A fourth born. It was such a rare occurrence that it was thought by some to be mere legend. At the Midwife’s announcement, none of the young messengers had known what to do. She had finally needed to screech at them.

“A Blue Queen!” she had shouted. “Blessed of the Goddess! All must come. All the families! And the High Priestess as well! Ride!”

Had only the triplets been born, just three families and a small party of priestesses would have come to the cottage. The Traverses for the naturalist queen. The burgeoning Westwoods for the elemental. And the Lermonts for the poor little oracle queen, to oversee her drowning. But the arrival of a Blue Queen meant that the heads of the strongest families from all the island’s gifts would come. The Vatros clan, who inhabited the capital and the war city of Bastian. And even the Arrons, the poisoners from Prynn.

Inside the cottage, beneath the dark brown beams supporting the ceiling, four bassinets sat beside the eastern wall to catch the sunlight of morning. All were quiet, except for the baby in the light gray blanket. The little oracle fussed almost constantly. Perhaps because, being an oracle, she knew what was to happen.

Poor little oracle queen. Her fate had always been sealed. Since the time of Mad Queen Elsabet, who used her prophecy gift to murder three whole families she said had plotted against her, oracle queens were immediately drowned. After wresting power away from Elsabet, the Black Council had made the decree. They would not risk such an unjust massacre again.

In the days following the birth, the Midwife burned the old queen’s bedding. It could not be cleaned, so