I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him my most mulish look. There were limits. And this was where I’d set mine. Even if I felt a little sick to my stomach.
He was like the shadows when he slid across the floor to me, taking my shoulders in his hands and leaning in to whisper in my ear. I shuddered at the intimacy. This man was violence and desperation, intensity and focus. I did not like being the center of that focus.
“The book must go on the pedestal. Fail me in this and I will be sorely grieved.”
He expected to slowly kill me and for me to spend that time ... writing about it? Was that what this was?
He was insane. That was becoming obvious.
And his strange beauty as he hovered beside me glaring – all that coiled muscle waiting to spring, all those lean, hard lines – well, that did nothing to dull the danger and fury in his every look.
“Put the book in your private chambers, fire of my eyes. The chambers my key opens. And do it quickly for we are already late and there will be a penalty.”
He drew back enough for me to see the threat in his eyes.
I swallowed, took out the key, and opened the door while he still held my shoulders in his grasp. The moment it was open, he released me, and I stumbled inside, trying not to cry with my frustration. These moods of his, harsh and fierce one moment and gentle the next, were impossible.
I set the book on the empty stand, the one nearest the door. My eyes clouded with unshed tears. I was furious. At him. At this situation. At everything. And fury made you do stupid things. I couldn’t afford stupid things right now.
I took long breaths and dulled my fury, dashing the tears from my eyes. And that’s when I saw a tiny roll of paper tucked into the ledge of the stand for my book. There, in the tiniest letters possible, someone had written, “open me.”
I unrolled the tiny paper. Someone had written a note in tidy, round script:
All is not as it seems.
You’ll be fine if you listen to him and stay out of the way.
It’s not that bad.
M
I glanced at the stand next to mine where the brass plaque bore the name “Margaretta.” She was dressed in soft gold with round, pink cheeks, long blonde hair to her waist, and a figure that would have looked good in any dress – but especially this one which made her round curves elegant and princess-like. She was almost shockingly like her niece, Princess Chasida. The family resemblance ran strong in their female line.
And she’d been kind enough to leave me a note. I felt a warmth at that. I wondered if it could possibly be true. Could this really not be so bad after all? Or was Margaretta just such a sweet girl that even being married to a monster hadn’t shaken her?
I tucked her note into my book, my heart suddenly uncertain. It was easy enough to listen and stay out of the way. Perhaps I should follow her advice – at least until I knew more.
I looked around me furtively and snuck over to the first girl – the one on the other side of the horseshoe-shaped configuration. Her clothing was of a fashion I didn’t recognize and the cloth was rough, the weaving not so fine as mine. I thought that perhaps this was Bluebeard’s first wife.
Like the others, she was almost shockingly pretty, with delicate skin, a sea of freckles, and very long, straight hair the exact color of a fox. Foxes were embroidered all over her rough dress and a fox fur stole hung from her shoulders.
I opened her book and flipped quickly through the pages. There was nothing in it except for a small paragraph on the first page. Not even her name.
The paragraph was a riddle. It read:
I am sudden death to calm.
My roar breaks the hush.
My song the mind’s somnolence.
What a strange thing to choose to write in your book. Nothing personal. No message to her family, just this strange little rhyme. Something about it tickled my memory. Hadn’t I heard it before?
Shaking my head, I left the room and the strange women who had preceded me behind.
Chapter Eighteen
I stepped out of the room and the door shut behind me. Before it had closed, Bluebeard crossed to me, lightning-fast and I didn’t even have time to flinch before he flicked his wrist, and something cut my cheek just below my eye.
I gasped, barely biting back a cry, and my hand rose to touch the wound. He caught my hand in his, his chest heaving with emotion and his gaze latching on to mine so that I couldn’t look away from those icy grey eyes if I wanted to.
“It’s my mark,” he said, turning his head ever so slightly and tilting his chin upward so I could see how the blood had dried into a very long tear-streak on his cheek. “Would you refuse it thus? You are my wife. You will wear it with pride.”
I swallowed and nodded. After all, it didn’t hurt too badly. A wife bore troubles for her husband and bore his name. Bearing his mark was no great thing.
He nodded sharply as if he approved of me and then spun toward the door of his home. He moved as he always did – with a kind of barely suppressed energy, as if he would have liked to run the width of Pensmoore and was only just holding himself back.
The sun was still not quite up when Bluebeard flung open the door to his home.
“In less than an hour,” he proclaimed to me, “the sun will rise and with it will dawn my silence. So, think on this, wife. I want you near me until we return to this home of mine. The world of the Wittenhame is a dangerous place and I dare not let you be stolen from my grasp.”
I gave him a wry look. After all, he only wanted me near to protect his investment. I was his well of power. It was like leaving the house with a bag of gold. You’d be a fool not to keep it near.
“Ah, here is my band,” he said, snatching my free hand to escort me down the steps of the house.
The house stayed relatively still as we made our descent. I tried to keep Grosbeak steady on the end of the lantern pole so that he didn’t swing into the railing.
“I think I might be ill,” Grosbeak groaned.
“You’ll get used to it,” I said firmly. “Keep your eyes on the horizon. It helps with motion sickness.”
“Where did you learn that?” he moaned.
“My father took me on a ship in the sea once. It was a mortifying experience.”
We reached the bottom of the steps, but Bluebeard did not let go of my hand as he inspected the double row of ten men on either side of the path. They stood in crisp blue uniforms that looked rather like Bluebeard’s but with arrows sewn up the arms in gold stitching and one across the breast with a whorl of scrollwork around it.
Vireo stood at their head, looking as if he’d hurried into his uniform, and Sparrow was on the other side of the rows, her head held high.
“Ibis?” Bluebeard inquired.
“Given to his family for rites.”
Bluebeard nodded sharply.
“All accounted for?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. There was a dangerous tone to his voice.
“For now,” Vireo replied, looking back and forth between me and Grosbeak. “What are you doing with the traitor?”
“My wife has made him her pet.”
Vireo’s eyebrows shot up and Grosbeak protested, “Here now!” but Bluebeard continued.
“We’ll make our formal entrance. We need to hurry.”
Vireo leaned in, concern etching his features. Across from him, Sparrow leaned in, too, an identical concern on her face.
“You bring her with you?” Vireo whispered. “Her who is mortal and key to our success?”
“I do,” Bluebeard said, his lip curling.
“You’ve not done so before, Arrow,” Sparrow said respectfully, but there was anxiety behind her eyes. “Far be it from us to question you on this, but would it not be better to bind her to her rooms as you did with the others? You could post us as guards. I would volunteer.”
“Speak to my riddle, Sparrow,” Bluebeard said with a dangerous smirk. “Who has a bed but does not sleep? Who has a heart tha
t does not beat?”
“The dead,” she said, her eyebrows raising into a wry expression.
“And anyone who questions me on this,” he said, pulling back and raising his voice. “We move with speed. Fall in.”
And hurry we did.
I had expected Bluebeard to let go of my hand, but he kept a tight grip on it, and though I knew he would one day kill me and that he only kept me close because I was worth so much to him, I couldn’t help but take a little comfort from the warmth of his grip as he led me through this strange world of his.
It was a puzzle that he had decided to keep me close. Sparrow’s suggestion was very practical. If I was the magical equivalent to a well-stocked larder, didn’t it make sense to keep me far from danger and guarded? And yet he’d reacted to that as if she had struck his face.
I shook my head and tried to take in the details around me. My brain kept trying to pretend that I was doing it so I could report on this world to my king. The rest of me knew that was a pleasant lie. My king could not cross into this world. He could not walk through the land of dreams or cross through the barrier of madness. I was too far gone to ever see another mortal again. I needed to adjust my thinking. I was weak and vulnerable as a hare in the snare. My only protection, a madman and murderer. But he did seem to want to protect me, and that was not without value.
And if I were to win his favor and extend my life, I would also have to pay attention.
The Grouse House, as I couldn’t help but think of it, had taken us to the base of a strange cluster of blue and pink-tinged white fungus that rose so high in front of us that they dwarfed the palace of Pensmoore.
Icicles thicker than my waist hung in solid waterfalls from one level to the next and pooled onto the ground, shining dangerously in the moonlight. The edges of these falls were clouded and frosty but the center portions were pure and transparent, and I found my eyes following the intricate pattern they formed as they rippled down the cluster of fungi.
To my horror, I realized that I really could see into the ice, and in its depths hands reached toward me and faces thrust forward with eyes and mouths gaping as if people had been frozen within the depths of the ice as they tried to claw their way free. And what people they were – for some had wings and some had claws, and some had the feet of hinds and goats.
I froze for a moment as the horror of their presence sank in. They were real people – I knew this somehow – not illusions. And they were trapped forever in the ice.
Bluebeard pulled me along after him, closer and closer to their last resting place. I did not want to go toward that ice.
But there was no way to avoid it. For it was to the fungi that we were hurrying as we made our way around the icy falls. Sounds of loud partying and celebration trickled down from the various levels and a wild dance spilled out around the base of the fungi as people whirled in the moonlight to the sound of fiddles and drums and tin whistles.
My feet were starting to grow lighter and my steps quicker as we drew near, as if my feet, too, wanted to join the dance despite my brain screaming at them that it was a terrible idea.
The moment the dancers caught sight of us, they froze, and then a cry went up.
“The Arrow! The arrow flies!” The tune changed, and a singer began to chant in a silken song, her words otherworldly and beautiful as they spread over the people. Each ear it touched seemed to warm to the tune and the people joined in with the song.
Fly with the Arrow,
Dance with the Sword,
Give Your Heart to the Barrow,
Die with your Lord
Bluebeard nodded to them as they sang and then some left the singers and the dancers and crowded around us so that his band escorting us had to make a path for Bluebeard and me to walk in. I could hardly hear the singing for all the cries of, “Arrow! Arrow!”
And if ever you be broken,
And gasp on the ground,
Hold up your fine token,
And join with the sound
Bluebeard turned to me with shining eyes, biting his lip as if he was planning something, and then he spun me around quickly as if we were dancing, too, and dipped me low. At the bottom of the dip, he seemed to pounce, like a cat on a songbird and he stole a kiss from my lips right there in front of the crowd.
My heart leapt in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The pain in the tears on my back was agonizing but it mixed with the sweetness of his kiss in a way that made my head spin. He tasted like the sweet mint he’d eaten and his eyes were dancing when he pulled away and drew me back to my feet. I was still gasping when he made a throwing motion over the crowd on either side and people leapt to catch tiny blue sparks as they flew out.
To my shock, each person who caught one seemed to change.
Sing for your Sovereign,
Bow to your Dream,
Make Haste for the Fallen,
Rise in Esteem
One man with the feet of a faun leaned heavily on a cane, but when he caught the spark in his hand, he dropped the cane and leapt six feet into the air. Another woman, hacking and coughing to nearly double, caught a spark, and her brown-bark face cleared and her moss green eyes relaxed.
And if ever you be broken
And gasp on the ground,
The word may be spoken,
And salvation found!
We were almost to a door carved into ice and steps working their way through that doorway when Bluebeard held up his hands.
“No more today, my friends. I am spent.”
And then he led me through the door and the sound of song and merriment began to fade as we climbed the steps. I paused on a stair and looked a question at him, and he scratched under his collar irritably.
“Five days,” he said after a heartbeat. “Their healing cost five of your days.”
I felt my face freeze as stone-cold as the ones pressing toward the surface of the ice behind him. They looked like they were trying to come through the wall to seize him and drag him into the ice with them. I felt the exact same way. But it was hard to begrudge others their health – even knowing that they were spending my days to get it.
I simply shook my head. It was only five days. But he’d spent them like candy, while he had wanted to save one to avoid healing me. Were these people so much more precious than I was?
A servant in a strange livery of leaves and brown swaths of fabric, with a crown of dried oak leaves around his tousled blond head, and strings of acorns across his chest, rushed up to us and made a hasty bow. His cat’s eyes were wide, and his pupils narrow.
“My Lord and Prince, mighty Arrow,” he said, his big eyes growing even larger as he spoke. His ears formed tight points at the end. His lips were very full for a man. “Please make haste.”
He led us up the steps in the ice. After a moment, we reached a landing and an open door leading to a shelf of the fungus where the dancing continued, but here it was slow and sweet and couples swayed in each others’ arms as tiny little multi-colored lights flitted around them.
Bluebeard guided me past the door. “We must make haste. We have but minutes until the dawn.”
“Please,” the servant begged from two steps above us. He swayed a little as if he wanted to sprint up the steps and was only holding himself back for our sakes. Tension filled his voice. “Please, the rest are seated.”
They certainly started their days early if they were already partying before the sun came up, or maybe we were so very late that they’d been partying since yesterday and this was simply overflowing into today.
Along the stairway, portraits were hung. I paused slightly at the first one. A fair lady with hair like the servant’s, and a crown of golden oak leaves. Her skin glowed like it held a candle inside, and her eyes – while blue – seemed almost to glow gold as well. She had a superior smile on her face that made me think of Princess Chasida. I did not like that smug look in her eyes. Those were eyes that would gut another woman and sell her meat at
the market.
“That’s Lady Tanglecott,” Grosbeak informed me.
“She looks like she eats other women for a tea snack,” I said precisely, and he snickered, to the horror of the servant two steps above us. The servant gasped and looked toward Bluebeard.
I chanced a glance at my husband, but his expression was carefully neutral.
The next landing showed me a feast so mouth-wateringly opulent that I couldn’t prevent my belly from rumbling over the whole roasted pig and the scent of toasted nuts and berry pie.
“As I said, wife,” Bluebeard growled as if I had spoken rather than my belly. “We have but minutes to spare.”
I nodded and hurried on with him.
“There will be food up above,” the servant said, a little breathless. He kept running a few steps up and then running back down to be sure we were following him, and then running up again. My father had a dog like that once.
We passed a series of other portraits like the first, all cruel-looking Wittenhame. Each one more other-worldly and inhuman-looking than the next.
I stumbled when we came to Bluebeard’s portrait.
“Lord Riverbarrow,” Grosbeak explained derisively. “Him who is called The Arrow. A prince among the Wittenhame.”
I paused this time even though my husband’s hand pulled at me. Because he looked so eerie in this portrait – so pale and so blue and so very inhuman that I felt choked at the reminder that I had married someone who was not of my world at all. On his cheek was a single red tear. Just like the one I bore.
“Hurry, wife,” Bluebeard murmured, and to my eye, his pale skin looked blue among the ice and glowing fungi.
Something glinted in Grosbeak’s eye and then he spoke.
“You call her ‘wife,’” Grosbeak laughed, “but do you know what she calls you?” It felt to me like an act he was putting on. His voice sounded just a shade too high and his emotion just a tinge too desperate.
“What?” Bluebeard growled as he led me past two more landings.
The servant hopped from foot to foot as if he badly needed a quiet moment in the back house.
Fly with the Arrow: A Bluebeard Inspired Fantasy (Bluebeard's Secret Book 1) Page 13