Buondì!
Oggi vi posto un pezzetto di Three Dark Crowns, un libro con una trama davvero particolare. Lo avete letto? A me è piaciuto abbastanza e spero di avere presto tra le mani il seguito!
In the slanting, indirect light of the parlor, Natalia’s ice-blond bun appears almost silver. But she is not old. Natalia will never be old. She has far too much work and far too many responsibilities to allow it. She is the head of the Arron family of poisoners, and the strongest member of the Black Council. She is raising their new queen.
Genevieve grasps Katharine’s poisoned hand. Her thumb traces the pattern of scabs until she finds a large one and picks it until it bleeds.
“Genevieve,” Natalia cautions. “That is enough.”
“Gloves are fine, I suppose,” Genevieve says, though she still seems cross. “Gloves over the elbows will give shape to her arms.”
She releases Katharine’s hand, and it bounces against her hip. Katharine has been on the block for over an hour, and there is much day still ahead. All the way to nightfall, her party, and the Gave Noir. The poisoner’s feast. Just thinking of it makes her stomach clench, and she winces slightly.
Natalia frowns.
“You have been resting?” she asks.
“Yes, Natalia,” says Katharine.
“Nothing but water and thinned porridge?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing to eat but that for days, and it may still not be enough. The poison she will have to consume, the sheer amounts of it, may still overcome Natalia’s training. Of course, it would be nothing at all if Katharine’s poisoner gift were strong.
Standing on the block, the walls of the darkened parlor feel heavy. They press in, given weight by the sheer number of Arrons inside. They have come from all across the island for this. The queens’ sixteenth birthday. Greavesdrake usually feels like a great, silent cavern, empty save for Natalia and the servants; her siblings, Genevieve and Antonin; and Natalia’s cousins Lucian and Allegra when they are not at their houses in town. Today it is busy and decked with finery. It is packed to purpose with poisons and poisoners. If a house could smile, Greavesdrake would be grinning.
“She has to be ready,” Genevieve says. “Every corner of the island will hear about what happens tonight.”
Natalia cocks her head at her sister. The gesture manages to convey at once how sympathetic Natalia is to Genevieve’s worries and how tired she is of hearing about them.
Natalia turns to look out the window, down the hills to the capital city of Indrid Down. The twin black spires of the Volroy, the palace where the queen resides during her reign, and where the Black Council resides permanently, rises above the chimney smoke.
“Genevieve. You are too nervous.”
“Too nervous?” Genevieve asks. “We are entering the Ascension Year with a weak queen. If we lose . . . I will not go back to Prynn!”
Her sister’s voice is so shrill that Natalia chuckles. Prynn. It was once the poisoners’ city but now only the weakest reside there. The entire capital of Indrid Down is theirs now. It has been for over a hundred years.Chapter 1 – THREE DARK CROWNS di Kendare Blake
