I startled, heart racing. It felt as if a hot poker had been driven under my skin for just a moment, and now uncomfortable heat spread out from that spot like the fingers of a fire.
“What —?” I started to say and I turned to see Ki’e’iren holding one of those tiny pinprick daggers in one hand and a bottle in the other. I had been too distracted by Margaretta’s antics to see that she had swiped them from the shelves of Coppertomb’s home.
“Neverseed, isn’t it?” she said, sniffing the bottle. “Smells like aniseed and lemon bore a love child together.”
I swallowed. I wasn’t sure if it was panic or the poison she’d stabbed me with, but my head was suddenly swimming. Everyone froze, silent, eyes wide.
“Fool,” Grosbeak breathed.
“Doubly fool since all our fates ride with her,” Tigraine said and it was her face — suddenly dead pale that made me panic more. She straightened slowly.
I was poisoned.
“It’s a long-acting poison,” Ki’e’iren said breezily. “She gave us two days. I’m giving her the same. If she’s careful, and doesn’t overexert herself, she might even make it to three days. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Her smile was saccharine. “And she was the one who wanted to see Death. I’ve granted her wish, have I not?”
And as she gestured, I saw that she was right, for a pale figure on a pale horse was riding through the wall of Coppertomb’s vault and straight toward me.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
“Bargain with me, Death,”I said through lips made thick with fear as I walked through the open door and out of the Room of Wives into the Coppertomb’s vault.
They were arguing behind me, but I dare not let that distract me, just as I dare not let fear control me. I had asked to bargain with death. I had received my wish. Later, I could dwell on the terrible consequences of this wish.
“I really wouldn’t bargain with Death, Izolda,” Grosbeak hissed. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Other Wittenbrand might take a hand, or a few years of your life, or your free will, but Death always plays for keeps.”
I planned to play for keeps. I would be a hypocrite if I thought he wasn’t playing the same game.
“BARGAIN?” Death asked, the words sliding over his white slug-tongue. He sniffed the air as if he could smell something about me in it. And his words were strange in my mind, seeming to be both there and not there at the same time. Final, and yet ephemeral. “WITH ME THERE ARE NO BARGAINS.”
A little shiver of fear ran up my spine. Death smelled like a grave and his very nearness turned my stomach.
“Good, no bargains,” Grosbeak said hastily. “No need to catch the eye of Death.”
Terror made his voice quiver. It made my blood sing with possibility. Finally, I was talking with someone who might get me nearer to what I needed. Finally.
“Are you not of the Wittenhame then?” I asked. Sweat was beginning to form on my brow. “Do you no longer take joy in bedevilment, or set your heart on the trickery and trappings of the great ones?”
He paused and his long filmy hair swirled around him like the head of a blown dandelion. He looked around the room with pearlescent eyes and then back to me and he seemed transfixed by something over my shoulder — my husband, I thought.
“DEATH BOWS TO NO MAN.”
“No one is asking you to bow.”
He backed up a step as if threatened.
“DEATH HAS BUT ONE SOVEREIGN.”
My heart was beating in my ears. He was going to flee. I could feel it.
“No one is asking to rule you. I would only bargain with you, Lord of Death. ”
A cold wind blew from him and he swayed with it, his horrific scent tangling through the breeze. I had to clench my jaw firmly to keep from gagging.
As he swayed, he rattled a little, and I realized his long white robe was sewn all over with tiny skulls like beads, and so were the reigns of his bone horse which stamped now, pawing Coppertomb’s floor and casting its dead gaze to me as it flickered in and out of sight.
“WHAT DO YOU ASK OF ME, DYING MORTAL?”
“I would have my husband’s life back,” I said boldly. Best to ask for what I really wanted first.
