“I rather expect he’ll want you to do the rest of them then,” the head said, sounding bored. “Not that we care, really. Many have tried to follow the Path of Princes, but who can follow it utterly?”
I cleared my throat, trying to ignore the murmurs behind me.
“I will need you to lead me as my guide,” I told Death.
“YOU WISH TO FOLLOW WHERE DEATH HAS TROD?”
“You don’t!” Grosbeak shrieked. “You don’t. There will be no bargain with the mortal, Death. I am sworn by blood and honor to defend her and I will not fail in my charge. Stop this insanity, Mad Princess!”
“I must make this bargain,” I said firmly. “I must, if I am to succeed. So that is the bargain then? I will give willingly a piece of my flesh and follow the Path of Princes but if you betray me, then I will receive back my flesh and be restored to my life. And for your part in this, you will guide me on the Path of Princes and bring me to the gates of your kingdom and to the place where the first sovereign’s rib was snatched and if I fail to do all you have required, then you may leave me with no obligation remaining and you shall have my companions with me, for there will be no way out for any of us then.”
Grosbeak cursed quietly and the murmurs behind me were unhappy.
Death seemed to pause a very long time before he finally said, “A BARGAIN IS STRUCK.”
“What parts have you already fulfilled?” Tigraine whispered over my shoulder and I saw that behind her, the wives followed in a line, each carrying the heads of the fallen, though Margaretta looked like she might have been struck by a cruel Wittenbrand and then frozen that way, her face was so horrified. And Givanna was pale as Death himself.
“I have flown with the Arrow out of the tower of Ayyadgaard,” I said and I made it a declaration for Death to hear, too. “I have Danced with the Sword at the Petal Ball. I gave my heart to the barrow when I declared my love to my dying husband and it is to my own heart that I choose to journey, for there my Bluebeard must be. And now, with the backstab of Ki’e’rien, I am now dying with my Lord. I called for Mercy to Wittentree, when I was broken and gasping on the ground, and she gave it to me. And salvation was found in the sound of my token when the sea set my husband to war against the Sword.”
“Yes!” Grosbeak agreed. “Yes, she has!” And then he paused. “But I thought that poem was for the finding of the Bramble King.”
“It’s the Path of Princes. Of course it gives us a king,” one of the heads whispered noisily.
“But she’s not the Bramble King,” Grosbeak hissed back.
“Maybe it has more than one use,” the head whispered.
They were making me even more nervous. Or maybe it was the poison running through my blood that made me feel like my heart was rushing too quickly.
Death bowed to me, an acknowledgment of what had transpired, but I heard Tigraine whispering behind me and I had to bite my own lip to remain calm as she listed what I had yet to accomplish.
“Sing for your Sovereign,
Bow to your Dream,
Make Haste for the Fallen,
Rise in Esteem.”
“But how do you do any of that?” she asked in a whisper. I really did think she was on my side. She sounded invested and ambitious, as if it were she and not me who must accomplish this.
Death, on the other hand, was smiling, his pointed teeth forming a terrifying grimace. He was too pale. Even his lips and the rims of his eyes were white as snow. He held out his hand and brandished a dagger in the other and I knew exactly what he wanted. A pound of my flesh.
“No! Not more of her!” Grosbeak said in horror.
“Now you’re on my side?” I asked wryly.
“I have always been on my own side, but you won’t be able to carry me if he takes another hand,” Grosbeak said miserably.
“He won’t have to.” I made my voice hard as flint. “Your flesh,” I said, and I reached into my pocket, produced my living hand, and offered it to Death.
It made an independent rude gesture, but Death took it and bit it. I did not know how to feel about the blood that stained his teeth when he smiled again, or how he snapped his fingers and the hand rose up and floated near his shoulder, following him as he turned and began to ride toward the locked door.
And I heard my husband’s voice in my mind again,For as long as earth has bones and death has teeth, that long will I be husband to you.
This time, when I shivered, it was with more than just fear. There was a preciousness mixed in that shiver that I dared not deny.
“Time to march, little army,” I said over my shoulder to the other wives, and then I turned the golden key in the air, closed the empty Room of Wives, and followed Death through the now open door of Coppertomb’s home.
