No doors, it seemed, were barred to Death.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
If I had been askedto guess at what Coppertomb’s home would look like, I could not have guessed it would look like this. The vault, odd as it might be, was in keeping with the rest of his home. We passed in silence up a long, drafty, stone staircase made entirely of hard stone lines and copper edges. Ever-dancing lamps burned in bronze cages, giving off the feeling that something alive was inside each one and suffering.
Margaretta began to cry somewhere midway up the steps and I heard Corinnian trying to comfort her with kind shushes as the heads they carried mocked them.
“You’re not made for the Wittenhame, softlings.”
“We most certainly are not,” Corinnian agreed with a scold in her tone. “No one should be made for this terrible world.”
“Your leader is. Her who married your husband last. She has a skeletal hand, a head for bargains, and a will of iron,” the head replied loftily and I marveled that it would describe me in such glowing terms when I was no Wittenbrand.
“Yes, she’s awful. Just like her horrific husband,” one of the other brides said and there was something hot in her voice that I could not identify. “I’d like to know how she tripped him into her bed. None of my tricks worked on him.” Ohhhh. That’s who she was. The one with the scandalous journal. “But she might get us out of here and besides Ki’e’iren already poisoned her, so she won’t be around for long.”
“She’s going to just die when she hears what you’re saying,” Grosbeak said, trying to twist on his chain so he could look back at them. “Aren’t you Izolda? Just die. How ever will you live under the criticism of such fine specimens of womanhood?”
“I suppose I won’t,” I said dryly. “One of my sister brides has made sure of that.”
“Well, you can hardly expect me to fault her for taking proper advantage of a situation,” he agreed. “I only wish Sparrow had lived to see it happen. She always appreciated a good twist.”
“Mmm,” I agreed.
We’d reached the top of the long staircase now and found ourselves in the open air in a strange depression in the earth. A long, shallow-grade spiral began at the edge of the depression and slowly looped round and around to the top. The edge of the step was hammered with copper so that the line was easy to see, and all along the wall edge of the ramp were the figures of Wittenbrand carved of stone in a never-ending line. They had tortured, twisted features, each face a different mask of pain, and they carried stone torches. Their bodies were completely identical and I had the most terrible feeling that they might come alive at any moment and attack us.
“That was his home?” I asked, confused. “But where does he sleep?”
“Perhaps on one of the shelves,” Grosbeak snickered. “Did you see one labeled ‘Coppertomb?’”
I shook my head. “How does he eat?”
“He eats the hopes and dreams of others.”
“Where does he keep his fine-pressed clothing? He always dresses to the most exacting standards. I expected libraries and luxuries.”
“And no doubt they are here — somewhere — but also knowing Coppertomb, you likely have to find the right horrible face among these five hundred and twist its ear, and then go extinguish the right torch, and then the whole depression rises a thousand spans into the air, and a palace is beneath, and we discover we only ever saw the attic, or some such,” Grosbeak said, unconcerned. “He’s hardly the type to keep his secrets where anyone can see them. There are likely a thousand mortal slaves in there keeping his copper-thread clothing pressed and clean, and the finest morsels on his plates, but he’d never reveal that to you. He’s a Wittenbrand of secrets deep as the earth.”
As we reached the bottom of the spiral of earth, Death turned and beckoned me, and then his horse stepped as though it was planning to walk up into the sky rather than up the spiral. One hoof rose, and then a second, and by the time a third flickering hoof stepped up, I realized it was — indeed — stepping into the sky and as we followed, our feet stepped up with him.
The murmurs of fear behind me made my spine stiffen as if their fear granted me courage. I would not be weak when my husband needed strength. I would not let nerves or fright from heights make me whimper or waver. I was grateful for these others for existing, for they showed me how I could be and how I must not allow myself to be.
I followed resolutely, my hand firm on my husband’s, my skeletal hand still gripping Grosbeak’s pole. And if I paid more mind to my husband’s sleepy breath upon my neck than I should, who could blame me? These moments of stolen intimacy were all I had, and though I was willing to die for him, I was not willing any longer to live without him.
“You’re sweating, Izolda,” Grosbeak said, a little flicker of excitement in his eyes. “It may well be that I shall watch you die with my own eyes.”
“You seem unnaturally excited by the prospect,” I said grimly and he was not wrong. My heart was acting strangely, fluttering in ways it should not, and the world felt too hot.
“You were privileged to be there formydeath. It is only fair that I be there for yours. I am already preparing your funeral speech.”
“How prudent,” I murmured. “You’d hate to be caught without a quip.”
We marched up into the sky and for the first time, I saw the Wittenhame spread out below and around me. It was night — I thought — though the moon hung very low and was the rich, deep color of clotting blood. What stars remained, clung to the lower edges of the dome of the sky, as if it had begun to crumble from the center and had worked its way lower and lower until soon it would reach the land. Beneath me, the trees and lakes, hills and streams, and estates all trembled slightly. Not as an earthquake might shake the ground, but as if it were breathing just as in the tale Bluebeard had told me.
It did not breathe evenly. The breath that moved it fluttered and snatched in an untidy rhythm and it took a few moments before I realized it was perfectly in time with the uneven rhythm gusting onto my neck.
I swallowed. Coincidence? Or was my husband the Bramble King and was the Bramble King also the sovereign who held the whole world within his chest?
I felt — small — beside the incomprehensible feeling of that. Small, and grateful to be small. What would it be like to bear all the world upon your chest? What would it be like to be more than a man, to have nothing to shelter you, but to be the shelter for others, to have nothing to succor you, but to be the dwindling succor for both your friends and your enemies?
