“So cold,” Katharine moans.
“You do not need them. Hold on.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I won’t.”
He opens his eyes as she lets go of his hand.
“Katharine?”
Every bit of exposed skin is gray and mottled black: the dead queens risen to the surface. He pushes himself up onto his elbows as she licks clean the wound in her hand and kicks the stones aside, clacking them together like marbles. Perhaps he did not know enough of low magic. Perhaps it was foolish for him to try. Or perhaps it would not have worked, even if Madrigal had done it herself.
“I had to,” he whispers as the dead queens stalk toward him wearing Katharine’s body like a costume. “I had to, for her.”
“You had to,” they say, and lift him to his feet. He looks into her eyes, searching, and what he sees makes him want to scream. But it dies in his throat as they press their lips to his, flooding him with black and cold, filling him up with them until his blood has nowhere else to run except straight from his ears and eyes.
THE SEAWATCH MOUNTAINS
On the side of a road that curves eastward through the mountains, Mirabella raises her arm and flags down a passing coach.
“Have you room for another passenger?” she asks. “I have coin enough.” She holds it out in a small purse, and the driver weighs it in her hand before nodding.
“You a naturalist?” she asks, gesturing to Mirabella’s hood.
Mirabella smiles and tucks the woodpecker deeper into her collar.
“No. I am only borrowing him.”
“Aye. Get on in, then. We’re going all the way to the capital, if that suits you.”
“That suits me fine,” she says, and opens the door. “For I am expected there.”
To be concluded . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
And here we are, at the end of book three. Just one more now, and that bittersweet feeling is creeping in. Right away I want to thank the readers of this series along with the team at HarperTeen for giving me the chance to write the last chapter of the queens’ story (even though I may come to regret knowing what happens to them!). Without you, Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katharine’s tale would have ended at the close of One Dark Throne, their destinies settled but futures unknown. Now, for better or worse, I’ll get to know. So thank you, thank you for the opportunity.
An even larger thanks than usual this time to my editor, Alexandra Cooper. The editing was amazing (duh, it always is!) but I am particularly grateful for your dedication to this series, and this book. Thank you for going above and beyond.
Thanks to my ever-incredible agent, Adriann Ranta-Zurhellen, who never fails to be awesome and who never steers me wrong. Please never leave me. I will need a support group. Also thank you to the entire team at Foundry Media with a hearty wave to Richie Kern!
Thank you to Olivia Russo, publicity wunderkind, and the fastest responder to emails I ever did see. Thank you also to the whole publicity team at BookSparks: Crystal Patriarche and Liane Worthington and Savannah Harrelson. You guys are just plain rad and wonderful.
Thank you to the marketing and art teams at HarperCollins: the awesome Audrey Diestelkamp, Bess Braswell (once again, sorry for putting that arrow into that character with your name, Bess), Aurora Parlagreco, John Dismukes, and Virginia Allyn. These books are gorgeous and the art and marketing that goes into them . . . WOW.
Alyssa Miele, thanks for doing a little bit of everything! Thank you to Jon Howard, for the support and the final touches. Thank you to Robin Roy for meticulous copyediting.
Thank you to Allison Devereux and Kirsten Wolf at the Mackenzie Wolf Agency.
And thanks as always to my parents, who buy copies for all the relatives, and my brother, who put a Three Dark Crowns sticker on his guitar. Thanks to Susan Murray, who is solidly Team Camden.
And to Dylan Zoerb, for luck.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo credit Shawn H. Nichols Photography
KENDARE BLAKE is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series. She holds an MA in creative writing from Middlesex University in northern London. She is also the author of Anna Dressed in Blood, a Cybils Awards finalist; Girl of Nightmares; Antigoddess; Mortal Gods; and Ungodly. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages, have been featured on multiple best-of-year lists, and have received many regional and librarian awards. Kendare lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington. Visit her online at www.kendareblake.com.
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BOOKS BY KENDARE BLAKE
Three Dark Crowns
One Dark Throne
Two Dark Reigns
Queens of Fennbirn
The Young Queens
The Oracle Queen
Anna Dressed in Blood
Girl of Nightmares
Antigoddess
Mortal Gods
Ungodly
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COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
TWO DARK REIGNS. Text copyright © 2018 by Kendare Blake. Map of Fennbirn by Virginia Allyn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
Cover art by JOHN DISMUKES
Cover design by AURORA PARLAGRECO
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946018
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-268616-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-268614-5 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-287043-8 (special edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-287228-9 (int. ed.)
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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