Fly with the Arrow: A Bluebeard Inspired Fantasy (Bluebeard's Secret Book 1)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  My back hit the bookshelf and I hugged myself as I watched them all leaning in toward the growing conflict instead of away from it as men usually did. All but Sparrow, who rose unnoticed and made her way to stand beside me.

  “You’ve never done this before,” Vireo said, emboldened by Bluebeard’s silence. “Why bring one of them into things now? Why dress her for a hunt instead of in silks to look pretty on your arm? Why involve her in your schemes?”

  “Who do you think got us this information, Vireo,” Bluebeard said mildly.

  “You’ve stirred up a nest of wasps, mortal,” Sparrow whispered beside me, looking casual, as if she’d chosen to stand beside me entirely at random.

  “Then make her your spy. Dress her even prettier and foist her on your enemy. Don’t bring her into our councils like this.” Vireo gestured at the map and the silent men ringing it. They were watching him with intensity in their eyes, hanging on every word. “Don’t offer her your secrets. You never have before. You know that they make you vulnerable. You can’t afford to care if they live.”

  “I did not mean to cause such distress,” I whispered back to Sparrow.

  “Did you know,” she said, “that he doesn’t need to kiss you to take your days and use them as his own?”

  I felt my face grow hot. Why else would he kiss me if not for that?

  Vireo seemed like he couldn’t stop now if he wanted to. “You can’t afford to care if your wives are harmed. You can’t afford not to use them up. And yet you have given this one true marriage vows. Don’t deny it! I was there! You’ve given her a place at the table with you – not just at the events, but here where you discuss strategy. They whisper about it at every door of the Wittenhame! They roar with laughter when your back is turned. Your enemies have noticed, too. You have drawn their eyes to her. I saw how Coppertomb spoke to her last night. I saw how the Sword keeps one eye on her at all times. And worse yet – the fire suggested you tucked her into your bed last night!”

  “Is that all?” Bluebeard asked in a low, dangerous voice. I felt my mouth go dry.

  “We don’t care who you bed,” Vireo said in a low voice. “It’s none of our business – so long as it isn’t your wives.”

  I didn’t mean to gasp, but I did. When Bluebeard turned to look at me when I did, there was something unreadable in his eyes – something that looked a little like fear.

  He spun back to Vireo and in a voice so low I thought it might turn into a whisper, he began to speak, leaning over the table until his nose almost touched that of the other Wittenbrand. I could almost feel the violence crackling in the air, like lightning waiting to form.

  “What has a head and no body?” my husband growled.

  “Grosbeak,” the Sparrow said with a laugh. She didn’t seem at all worried by what was happening, and a quick look around the group told me that none of the rest of them looked particularly shaken either. They looked eager – like they were anticipating a particular treat.

  “And what might soon have a body and no head?” my husband pushed.

  “Vireo, if he doesn’t remember why they call you ‘Arrow,’” Sparrow drawled.

  Vireo stormed out of the house, slamming the door loudly. The fire whooshed in response.

  “Insulting!” it roared, flaring up.

  Sparrow shook her head. “He’s riled. That’s all. Grosbeak was a friend.”

  “I could still be one,” Grosbeak said from his perch.

  Sparrow snorted, not even looking at the head. “No one else feels like that, Arrow. An exhibition is just a game. Take who you like.” His eyes narrowed as he grinned. “Only let us win this game with you and we will be pleased.”

  There were murmurs of agreement from the others around the table, and my speeding heart began to slow. It would be fine. They would not all betray him just for me.

  Bluebeard shot me a slightly guilty, slightly embarrassed look and then gestured toward the chair Vireo had been sitting in. I settled myself into it and Sparrow settled in with me.

  “Now tell us, lady,” Sparrow said with certainty in her voice. “Were there any other notations in the book?”

  The rest of the afternoon was spent in strategy. The rest of the group seemed pleased enough as Bluebeard hammered out the details of how they would begin and what they would do to achieve it, what moves their competitors were sure to try, how they would counter. I offered what information I could about the land I’d come from and otherwise kept mostly quiet.

  Bluebeard glanced at me often, an unreadable look in his eye. More than ever, I wished we could just speak honestly together. There was so much I would ask him. Every now and then, I felt the garnet in my hidden pocket, or remembered Vireo storming away, and I wondered if he had been right. Maybe I wasn’t good for his master. Maybe I would ruin him.

  And I also wondered if what Sparrow said was true. I’d thought he was kissing me because that was how he stole my days. Was it possible that he did it only because he liked it? Was it really true that he had married me in a different way, as his men had been complaining about since it happened? And if those things were true, was it possible that I could be his ruin like his enemies hoped and his followers feared?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I’m not given much to anxiety or supposing, but even if I had been, it would not have saved me from that night. There are some boxes that once opened, do not shut again. Some jewels that, once stolen, cannot be returned.

  This time, as Bluebeard took my hand to lead me to the Spectacle, I wanted him to be able to speak to me so badly that I could almost taste it on the tip of my tongue. He looked me deep in the eyes and smiled a wicked smile full of promises he planned to break.

  I left Grosbeak behind. He could not ride with us.

  “She’ll need both hands for her mount,” Bluebeard told him. “She can’t bring you.”

  But I was worried about leaving him on a shelf in the Grouse House.

  “She could leave you in her secret room,” Bluebeard suggested, and so that’s what I did. I brought him into the little room and left his head on the pedestal meant for me.

  “You can’t just leave me here in a sepulchre,” he raged. “It’s filled with the bodies of the dead.”

  “Then you’ll fit right in,” I’d said shortly.

  And so I stepped out into the evening beside my vicious husband and joined hundreds of people running like rain from the hills into a stream toward where the Spectacle would begin.

  Rough wooden booths had been set up around the starting line and already – though the sun was only just sinking in the sky – they were lit from within. They roared to life as people served out strange drinks of every type – some that steamed and some that growled and some that turned the drinker’s nose purple. There were booths with tight-wound breads and booths with evergreen wreaths to wear around the neck. One sold candies that were swirled white and red – so bright and glossy I could hardly believe they were real. Another booth had calling birds with tails almost as long as a man was tall. Those who bought them set them on a shoulder and the birds’ tails trailed behind their owners like the train of a fancy bridal gown.

  My eyes were wide as Bluebeard led me toward the event, but I stopped him just before the sun dipped below the horizon.

  “Whatever happens next, you should know that you have my full confidence,” I said.

  If only I could be sure that was true of me, too. I was not at all confident in myself or in my own mind.

  He gave me a puzzled look but waited a heartbeat as darkness took the place of golden sun, and when there was no more trace of gold in the sky, he looked at me with dangerous eyes and said, “Speak to my riddle, portentous one. Why do you wish me luck as if you think I will need it?”

  But by the way his eyes glinted, I could tell he was joking. He had no notion of the garnet in my pocket. He had no idea that I was balanced on a knife’s edge between loyalty and betrayal.

  With a laugh, he threw a cloak around my
shoulders – deep blue and rippling like the night, trimmed in white fur around the hood and the edge, and then he drew me along with him toward the event.

  The Bramble King – the Sovereign – was buried this time in snow and lit with bonfires at his feet. He watched sleepily over a scarlet line along the ground. Along the line, the other competitors already stood, their two chosen companions accompanying them. Vireo was already waiting for us.

  He scowled when he saw our linked hands, but Bluebeard nodded to him and Vireo seemed to relax, as if he hadn’t been sure whether he would still be welcome and was mollified to find that he was. It didn’t seem very practical to keep a man so close who disagreed with you so vehemently, but Bluebeard greeted him, letting go of my hand to clasp his.

  I was waiting to see the steeds we would ride. I had experience riding horses, and I even thought I could ride the elk that Bluebeard favored. But to my surprise, Bluebeard lifted up a handful of snow and blew on it, and from his breath, three pawing stallions sprang to life. They were made entirely of snow sparkle and frost, as if he had thrown the light snow into the air and it had simply decided to choose this form on the way down. They tossed their glittering rainbow manes and shook themselves, straining forward as if it were only his will holding them back.

  “They respond to commands,” Bluebeard told me. “‘Halt’ to stop. ‘Forward’ to go, and nudges of the knees to turn them.”

  All down the line, the other competitors were blowing on their handfuls of snow, but I privately thought that none of them had steeds quite so snorting and restless as Bluebeard’s and certainly none of them were as shaggy and powerful looking. Perhaps there had been a storm in his breath but only calm summer breezes in theirs.

  “I will guard your back to the end, brother,” Vireo murmured as he mounted his steed. “Do not see my disagreement as disloyalty.”

  “I never did,” Bluebeard said with a small smile.

  He offered me a hand and I took it, meeting his gaze as he helped me into the saddle. He looked excited, barely containing his energy as he prowled from my mount to his, his eyes on everyone around him, looking for weaknesses. If I had to guess, I would say this spectacle would be fun for him.

  The horses were far higher than I was used to, and though they were held back right now, I could feel in their magic bodies a desire to run that outstripped anything else I’d felt in a mount before. It was disconcerting to be able to see through them, catching only the movement and edges of their being in the glitter of shining snow, but I was determined to prove I was not afraid. If I chose loyalty to Bluebeard, he would need to know he could rely on me, and he could not rely on a coward.

  The look he gave me from the back of his pawing stallion was one of both challenge and something that almost looked like respect. For one awful moment, I wondered if I could leave him even if I wanted to. I may never find a man who looked at me like that again. In Pensmoore, my best hope had been a man who would give me the dignity of marriage and children and – if I was very lucky – be faithful to me. Here, now, I could stay with this man who gave me devilish looks and bright magic horses and enchanted clothing and wondrous spectacles. And what if that meant my life was short and over before the winter? Was it really so bad to live thirty years in six months? Was it really a bad bargain?

  Everything in me was screaming inside me that it was a very bad bargain, but when I looked into his glittering cats’ eyes, I didn’t believe any of it.

  He whispered to his horse and it moved in close to me so that he could lean from the saddle and speak in a low whisper.

  “Izolda, your beauty draws from me a confession I would not normally make, but I bare my throat to you. I am not certain that I can save your land as you hope. There, I have confessed it.”

  I felt my eyes going wide. He’d never seemed to lack confidence before.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It is not that I think I shall lose, but rather that sometimes to win you must sacrifice everything. It is possible that I will need to destroy what you love, to let it burn and wail and die, if I am to win. I think it best that you know that before we start.”

  My mouth fell open, betrayal stark and bitter in my mouth.

  A horn blared, haunting and dramatic, and Bluebeard’s horse reared.

  He shot me a last look, torn and haunted, and then he cried, “Forward!”

  His sparkling mount it dashed across the line.

  “Forward!” I called in a hollow voice, realizing the race had begun.

  But the cold air streaming across my face could not compete with the ice solidifying my heart.

  It was all I could do to cling to my horse’s gossamer mane as he rushed forward, hot on the heels of Bluebeard’s stallion. Beside me, Vireo cursed loudly, clinging to his own steed like a lamprey on the side of a fish. Even with my hesitation, we’d been first off the line.

  We galloped up a narrow forest path between rounded boulders and groping pines, turning tightly to cling to the hill from the one direction, only to double back and cling in the other direction. The horses were wild, almost screaming as they ate the ground under their feet at a jolting, furious pace, nearly missing the turns as their hooves scrabbled over slick stone and tufts of grass.

  I kept my gaze forward and clung tightly to the horse, letting him have his head. There was no way I could hope to steer him. I could only hope that he kept following Bluebeard’s horse and was not lost in the tight turns and narrow trails.

  My heart was in my throat, my cloak swirling behind me, my knuckles white where they gripped the icicle mane.

  My husband was ahead of me. He rode with all the grace of a big cat – as if he had plucked this horse from the night sky and set it ablaze with his passion to bear him where he chose – which he had, I supposed. How many days had that cost me? Did I even care?

  I should have been terrified. My heart should have been in my throat – and it was a bit – but there was also something else stealing over me. Something I hadn’t expected. Elation.

  I had never thought I would love the danger of a night ride like this one – and yet I did. Oh, how I did. All my inhibitions fled from me and it was just me and the horse and the ride, flying down the trail like an arrow loosed from a bow. There was no difficult decision. There was no betrayal. Just a magic horse and me and the ground below and the air above, forever.

  I let out a delighted whoop and heard Vireo curse again from behind me.

  I tried to catch a glance of him over my shoulder, but I saw nothing more than a blur of rider on horse and a vague impression of someone else very hot on his heels.

  I had to turn again to catch my breath.

  We neared the top of the high hill, where snow glazed the tops of rocks and trees like an iced bun. The moon was creeping high in the sky, and though it was small during this cycle, it seemed brighter than ever, flooding the landscape with its stark white gaze.

  Bluebeard spoke to his horse and it reared, too excited to want to halt – even after racing up a hill so steep that I felt winded just thinking about it.

  He drew the bow and arrows from the hanging quiver at the side of his magical saddle and fitted an arrow to the string.

  I looked into the distance as Vireo pulled up beside me and there it was, the target. A ring of licking white fire surrounding what must be a solid target for the arrow to hit. It was far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to see the arrow strike, but Vireo pulled out a long telescope and opened it, lifting it to his eye.

  Bluebeard loosed the arrow and Vireo cried out in delight.

  “Middle ring!”

  But it wasn’t Vireo that Bluebeard looked at with a wicked gleam in his eye, it was me. He grinned, and I found myself grinning back even as my heart was ice inside me. Our eyes met and for just a heartbeat I wondered what it would be like to be married to him in the normal way – the way where joys like this could be shared. My heart ached worse than the tears in my back at the thought of it.

 
“Now, how is that for shooting, mortal wife? Have you ever seen the like?”

  I wanted to tease him, wanted to remind him that I had let him shoot an apple from my head, but I dared not.

  Vireo glanced at me. “I swear, Arrow, your wives leave tingles down my spine with their eerie silences and long looks. How you put up with it is beyond my ken.”

  Bluebeard frowned at Vireo, but he said nothing in my defense, simply calling to his horse, “Forward.”

  My face was burning with shame as the sounds of the next competitor warned me he was hot behind us. Vireo’s horse leapt forward, and my horse was a heartbeat after as irritation simmered within me.

  I could hardly be blamed for my silence when I’d been warned not to speak – ordered, even. Did he think that I didn’t want to break the silence? Did he think I liked being mute when I had so many things to say?

  But now some of the fun had been leeched out of the ride and while my horse still danced and leapt beneath me, its semi-translucent muscles bunching and lengthening with every stride, I did not revel in it as I had. I’d been given a bitter drink and told to swallow. Did he really mean that about sacrificing my family? Perhaps it had only been more drama. But could I be truly equal to the man while under this curse? While subject to his whim? I’d been fooling myself.

  We rode down a steep hill and crossed an ankle-deep stream with ice crusting the edges, turning round a great tree’s trunk and up through flowers encased in diamond frost that towered over my mortal head. And still, I was stewing.

  I wanted to speak – of course I did! I wanted to congratulate him, to provoke him, to tease him. Did they think me less because I showed restraint for his sake?

  I ground my teeth. If I could, I wouldn’t just speak, I would demand, I would riposte, I would roar.

  Roar.

  We leapt over a low fence and I barely concentrated in time to stay astride the horse as he made the jump. The moment his diamond feet hit the hard ground again, my mind was back to spinning.