“You are likely wondering what those men wanted,” he whispered in my ear. “I shall salve your curiosity. They want you.”
A chill shivered through me. But how could that be? Who in the world would want me?
“When you opened that door – against my warning, I might add – you unlocked my access to your days and now I may spend them as I please. Each one opens for me new powers and skills I cannot access otherwise. I had but a bare brush of them before, but now they are my possessions, every one. Your kind have stories about the Wittenbrand and the great feats we may accomplish – but magic, my glorious wife, has a price, and the price is paid by the wielder. He pays with his life. He pays in the length and breadth of the days allotted to him. But a married man is one with his wife. And as one, I can pay with your days. With the allotment of your life’s breath and the span of your soul’s time on this garlanded globe.”
And that explained why he had sixteen wives. Sixteen seemed awfully excessive, even for him.
I glanced back at his sharp, pale eyes. They had a fey look to them but even with his blue beard, he didn’t look much older than thirty years. And if he was only thirty years old – or perhaps even thirty-one – and assuming he’d begun wedding wives as early as fifteen or sixteen and that there were no overlaps between his marriages, then he had spent the life of a woman for every year he was an adult. My heart seized inside me. Did I only have a year left to live? Did I have less? Perhaps he drained a wife entirely and then bided his time for a year before he was finally driven to take another. He did not seem like a man much given to self-control.
My brow wrinkled. But hadn’t he spoken to the man last night of having been there a generation ago? And had he not stolen Margaretta, who would be aged by now had she lived? Perhaps he was far older than he appeared and more frugal than I guessed.
“The Brotherhood of Stolen Sisters wishes to spare you this.”
My heart leapt, startled from fear by this sudden burst of hope. If they came for me again, perhaps I ought to lend them aid. Perhaps if I did, I could go home and leave this strange husband and his terrifying plans for my future. Surely, my king could not fault me for wanting to live the year out. He would not punish my family if Bluebeard was dead and unable to come for me.
And all Bluebeard’s threats about razing my lands and slaying my people would die with him.
Something soft was flung around my neck. Bluebeard buttoned it in place, the very tips of his fingers brushing my throat in a way that made me shiver – and not from the cold. It was a fur collar, I realized, thick enough to be a scarf. It must have come from his own bags.
He whispered again in my ear, his words tickling my heart in a way I didn’t find at all comfortable.
“You tantalizing creature. You mad folly. You unravel my careful plans and bring care into my unraveling. And yet, I must use you as I have used the rest of my wives – even having given my vow and all that such portends.”
I pulled forward, away from his words, but he only leaned with me so there was no gap at all between the warmth of his body and my back. No gap at all between his gusting breath and my frozen ear. No gap at all between the squeeze of his thighs and my seat on the elk. Something tightened in my belly.
“I have decided to offer you something I offered none of my other brides – just as I offered you a marriage vow when I did not offer them the same.”
I screamed “no” in my head, but he could not hear my fierce denial. And he could not see the tears that might have been fear or might have been rage that froze on my cheeks as quickly as they fell.
“I offer you an alliance. Work with me, wife. Do not be merely something I use up and put away in that closet you found. Be someone who weaves this dangerous gilded web with me. A true partner in the spending of your days and the rending of your years.” He paused and I felt a light tug on my braid. I frowned, turning, and realized he was fiddling with the end of it again. “You’re a wise woman, wife. I can see that about you. Likely, you’re thinking about whether it is shrewd to betray me to my enemies. I assure you that it is not. Your best hope of deliverance is in the arms of the very man you loathe. Think on it. I do not need the answer immediately, but I will need it before we next enter the lands of mortals.”
Though he was my enemy, his dearest desires in conflict with my own, his offer gave me pause. Had I not wished that someone would see me as an equal, that I could be more than a bride married to a disinterested husband? That in marriage, I could do more than simply sacrifice myself for nothing? And here he was making me an offer of just that. How perverse that it would be him to offer me such a gem when it was also him who wanted to ruin everything else that I loved.
Something made a growling sound in the heavy mist surrounding us and I looked toward it, startled out of my own brooding. A dark shape was moving precisely beside us, neither ahead nor behind – so close that I felt I could reach out and touch it. It rumbled again with the promise of dismembering us in due time.
“Mist Lions,” Bluebeard whispered. “They rise again, and all such monsters will rise the longer we linger. We must join the Wittenbrand at the Turning of Ages, the Game of Crowns, and we must join them soon or time itself will begin to unravel.”
Well, that sounded like a bad thing. He was just full of pleasant news today.
“I must play the game. For if I do not, this world will be ravaged by those who do. And who knows what evil they may unleash or what chaos may come to rule the mortal realm? And I must take a day from you, wife,” he said, flicking my ear sharply.
My hand sprang to my ear, clasping it against the sting. I almost cried out an objection, barely catching myself in time. Instead, I turned, letting all my fury fill my face so he could see how I felt about being randomly mistreated.
His eyes were dancing when I turned, his smile mischievous, like a boy caught stealing sticky buns. My lips were parted in a snarl, but to my shock, the moment I was fully turned around, he leaned in and caught my lips with his own for a sudden, shocking kiss.
I had never been kissed on the lips before. My mother kissed me often on the cheek or forehead, her kisses maternal and safe. My brothers or father had, upon occasion, given me the rare minimal kiss on the cheek, as if to get it over with as quickly as possible so that no one might think they actually felt affection of any kind toward me.
But this was my first ever kiss on my lips and it was far, far sweeter than it had any right to be. Especially since it was coming from a man who had not only murdered fifteen wives but was dead set on murdering me.
Delicious warmth mocked the frigid night and tantalizing softness dazed me. It was as if he was shaping my lips into a clay pot with all the firm delicacy of a potter caressing the clay. I melted against him despite all my good judgment, my common sense lost in the momentousness of the act.
He drew back, and for the barest second his nose nuzzled against mine, and his forehead gently touched against mine, as if in apology for what he’d stolen this time.
And then he was leaning back from me again. I faced forward as fast as I could.
That was a very, very bad idea. Kissing did not stop with kissing. My mother had been clear about that. Kissing, she claimed, nearly always started an avalanche like the wrong note sung in the mountains and it ended – if it ever ended at all – with fat babies and lines of inheritance.
My face was hot at that thought.
“I always try to give as much as I take,” Bluebeard said lightly and I wondered if those other girls had blushed as hot as I was blushing at his kiss. I wondered what they’d given him after that. And if he really had given back just as much in return.
But I could hardly be jealous of a string of dead women, right? After all, I had known that Leonid had been happily married before me and the fact had not left me envious but had made me feel secure in the fact that he was capable of some measure of care for a wife. So why should I feel cheated that Bluebeard had been married before? That he had likely
kissed all those women – and more – before, while I had only ever had this one stolen kiss? Perhaps it was merely the imbalance. Perhaps if I kissed the rest of the Wittenbrand he’d brought with him, it might even the balance. But the thought did not help at all and I felt certain that the action wouldn’t either.
I bit my lip in irritation. I was being impractical. But so was he. Sixteen wives was far too excessive! And taking kisses from any of them just seemed like an excess too far.
I would be judicious about this. I would not be jealous and I would not remember the feeling of his lips on mine. I would, instead, set my excellent mind to the puzzle of how I should betray him to the Brotherhood of Stolen Sisters, thus making both my King and my family safe while securing some length of future for myself. I let out a long breath and let out all my jealousy and foolishness with it.
I was nearly at ease again when I heard Grosbeak’s gravelly voice, and all semblance of composure fled as I covered my mouth to hold back a shriek.
Chapter Fifteen
“If you think giving me a voice will make me your ally, Arrow, you can think again.”
I gasped and craned my neck backward. The voice really was coming from Grosbeak’s head. Little gold sparks were popping one by one out of the top of his head like corn popping in a kettle over a fire. They fell to either side of the elk’s blue flank, falling into the mist and disappearing.
“I think it will, enemy of mine,” Bluebeard said contentedly. “You will soon find that being a head with no body is a boring existence – unless someone finds a way to make it interesting for you.”
“I’ll chew up your boots and spit them out in a thousand pieces,” the head said in an ominous voice. “I’ll bite your toes off and laugh as you stumble in your own blood. I’ll scream your location to the heavens until vengeance rains on you like the fires of heaven!”
To punctuate his claim, he began to shriek – terrible, soul-shivering screams that struck to my very core. I tried to plug my ears, turning my head away to look ahead again, but it made no difference. Bluebeard ended his screams with a dull thunk – but not soon enough. The shadowy lion closed in, leaping for us.
It did not look like the fawn-colored lions I was used to in the rocky mountain clefts. This creature was a silvery-white with jagged black stripes across its fur and a double pair of white feathered wings. It leapt for us, its wings giving it extra lift.
This time, Grosbeak’s scream was pure terror.
Bluebeard hunched forward, whipping the reins and the elk leapt ahead. He leaned around me, low so he was hanging almost off the saddle to the right. His sword slid from the scabbard with ease – the sword I’d given him for our wedding – and then he was whirling it in his right hand like a pinwheel.
A lion from that side leapt, wings extended, and he sliced it onto ribbons without slowing at all. Its keening scream faded behind us.
A second lion leapt, teeth and claws gleaming for the brief instant it became solid instead of ephemeral. Bluebeard’s sword severed its head cleanly from its lion body, and a tiny, giddy part of me wondered if we would keep that, too. Perhaps we’d tie them all behind the saddle to add growls and purrs to Grosbeak’s screams.
And then pain filled my world and I screamed, too.
I tried to look behind me, but I was caught in place, agony ripping down my back.
Bluebeard cursed loudly and then shifted behind me. His blade whipped around my body like my hair on a windy day. Something screamed – a high-pitched animal squeal – and then all was silent except my agonized breath huffing into the night.
I clutched the saddle, eyes gritted shut. I needed to breathe. I needed just a breath. Each attempt was agony.
Slivers of ice and fire shot up and down my back turning my bowels to jelly and my head to a fizzling mass of chaos.
"Blood of gods and mortals,” Bluebeard breathed, and I thought that maybe he was pulling the edges of my cloak aside, but I couldn’t tell. All my senses were directed at the searing, endless pain in my back.
“You’re clever with the blade, I’ll give you that,” Grosbeak said grumpily. “But you always let things come to a head. Why didn’t you kill the lions before they attacked? You could, with all that power just waiting to be used.”
“Everything deserves to act before it is judged,” Bluebeard said distractedly. There was a note of concern in his voice. “Can you hold on, you stern creature?”
“Of course, I can’t. I have no arms.” Grosbeak’s voice was still bitter.
“I’m speaking to my wife, adversary,” Bluebeard said but I barely had the wherewithal to nod my head. It was taking all my strength just to hold myself up in the saddle.
“We’ll have to go straight to the Wittenhame, I suppose,” Bluebeard said reluctantly.
“And then everyone will know you’ve made me your creature for no reason but your own pleasure!” Grosbeak crowed. “And they’ll know you had to cave and take a short cut!”
“And they’ll not lift a finger for you, fool,” Bluebeard growled before whistling sharply twice. On either side of us, his men closed in, riding their own elk. Sparrow’s elk had claw marks on its hind flanks. Vireo was still flicking blood from his blade.
“Mist Lions,” he declared. “If they are waking then there are worse things yet.”
But he seemed resigned to it and so did Sparrow, their eyes hard and focused into the mist.
“No,” Bluebeard said, sounding a little guilty. “We’ll use the key.”
Vireo’s mouth dropped open and he shut it hard, his eyes widening so suddenly that I thought he might have bit his tongue.
“You’ve shown us the fruits of rebellion,” Sparrow said with a nod to Grosbeak’s head, “but even with that trophy I am gravely tempted not to follow.”
Bluebeard shrugged. “Suit yourself. My wife needs aid. The lion tore her back.”
Sparrow leaned in a little, and I felt cold on my back as if Bluebeard were exposing the flesh to the cold. Sparrow looked green when she pulled back.
“Scars and sires,” she cursed. “And with the horns of the Hunt still in my ears.”
“We must ride the dangerous paths to reap the gift of speed,” Bluebeard said grimly. “Do not die before your time, my practical wife. It would be far too dramatic an end for you.”
I gritted my teeth. I’d never want him to know that I absolutely agreed with him.
“What’s he planning to do?” the gravelly voice of Grosbeak asked from behind me. “Please, fellow Wittenbrand, assure me that our great Arrow does not plan to dole out madness.”
The others were silent. Which should make me worried, but all I could think of was the pain.
“Just watch the rear,” Bluebeard muttered. “Call out if you see more lions.”
“And if I see horrors beyond the pits of hell? What shall I call out then?” Grosbeak spat back at him.
“Don’t worry,” my husband told him, “I don’t plan to ride past any mirrors, so you won’t need to report your ugly visage to me.”
Sparrow snickered but then she turned sober. “Maybe you should brace the girl.”
The elk shuddered as his feet hit the ground and Bluebeard leapt from his back to a fallen tree just peeking out of the mist where we had temporarily landed. I clutched the pommel of the saddle, feeling sweat break out all over me despite the way my breath still left a spectral plume in the moonlight.
He reached around his neck to pull out the little silver key and looked right at me.
“Every Lord of the Wittenhame has a key like this one. We usually prefer the long ride through the lands of dreams that connect the mortal world with the Wittenhame. It is faster than any human road and contains only limited nightmares.”
That must be this fog we kept riding through. Even injured, I could work that much out.
“Just turn the key already,” Grosbeak moaned. “No one wants the lecture.”
“I do,” I said between gritted teeth. “And I have all my limb
s, so I win.”
A startled laugh escaped my husband’s lips and he smirked as he finished his explanation. “I told you there’s a price to all magic. This magic can take us directly and immediately to the courts of the Wittenhame. But we each pay a price for its use.”
“And the price is insanity, yada yada,” Grosbeak said from behind me. “I swear, you cut my patience off with my head.”
“The price is a piece of your sanity,” Bluebeard said gravely. “Fortunately, you seem to be the most sane person I’ve ever met. You have plenty of sanity to spare.”
“Have the rest of you used the key a lot?” I asked Vireo.
He snickered. “Are you asking if your dear husband is insane? Because the answer should be obvious – a thousand times, yes. Now, quit stalling like a girl about to make her first kill and let the Arrow use the key to the kingdom, yeah?”
I swallowed and tried to nod. Instead, it was just a flinch. Little white stars danced over my vision. Again. I was nearly killed a lot when I was with Bluebeard. And he hadn’t even tried to kill me himself yet.
Bluebeard gave me one last, grave look and laid his hand briefly on the back of my neck. “Courage now, you solemn creature.”
Then he lifted the key – and just like when I had opened the door to his wives’ chambers, he turned the key in the air and a door opened before us.
It was like someone had cut a neat door with a curved top out of the air itself, only on one side it was entirely different from the other. On our side, it was the foggy land – the dream world? – and on the other, I saw the glimmer of lights and heard the sound of tinkling laughter. But the door rippled like a troubled lake, as if there was a thick window set into it.
Fly with the Arrow: A Bluebeard Inspired Fantasy (Bluebeard's Secret Book 1) Page 10