The very thought was too great for me. It made my mouth dry and my brow glisten.
Or, perhaps, that was the poison working through me.
Death marched us lower, and as the ground rose to meet us, all I saw in every direction were Wittenbrand dressed for battle. I blinked, remembering the Hounds, and sure enough, there were twelve heads laid out around a throne on a dais, but though the crowd was battered and bloody, they were forming up once more into ranks and types. This time, I saw more types of Wittenbrand than ever before — winged and with hooves, with vines tangled around eyes, and thorns jutting from faces, with strange bark-like skin and hollow luminescent eyes. The very smallest rode on great creatures made of twisted moss or grasses, and the mermaids and men clung awkwardly to shambling sea-weed beasts.
“Underfolk,” Grosbeak muttered dismissively.
The underfolk — if that was truly what they were — carried little cages with strange flickering or swimming or screeching creatures. They had upon their backs great packs of bright silk or tough leather, stuffed and crammed full and tight. And hanging from belts were trinkets and tools I could not name. Strung in antlers or around necks or over shambling backs, were chains of gold and diamonds, of rubies and drilled coins, of tiny glowing butterfly wings — thousands of them — or dried hearts, or locks of hair tagged and cataloged.
This did not look like a hunt so much as … what?
This reminded me of something.
I gasped. It reminded me of the countryside of Ayyadmoore when war raged there and her citizens poured out of towns and cities and flowed out to the countryside in puddles of refugees that became streams, and streams that became rivers, until every last one who did not fight was fleeing on foot with whatever they could carry.
I looked back up at the moon … or was it the sun? I could no longer tell. And that explained it.
They were fleeing the Wittenhame. Even I could see that. But where would they go and why were so many of them bristling with weapons and armor?
Death led us down and into the midst of the loud horde and as we arrived, those around us stilled, eyes widening as they beheld Death walking in their midst and then widening again as they saw the procession behind him.
I glanced over my shoulder to see my fellow brides following with eyes set forward, faces pale and drawn, the severed heads they’d brought with them were raised like talismans. I liked to think that even the Wittenbrand would find them a terrifying marvel.
Silence swelled out from us as we slowly passed through the ranks and many of those we passed made signs of warding with their hands. How strange. To be the horror to horrors. To be the monstrosity to monstrosities.
I found I rather liked it, dying though I was. I had never hoped to be well-esteemed, but I had hoped for a little respect. I was being granted it to a degree I could not have imagined.
“I thought I caged you, little mouse,” I heard Coppertomb say, and the ground under us rolled with a growl that I also heard faintly in my ear as my husband’s breath gusted over my neck.
“Your cages have holes in them, Coppertomb,” I said calmly, locating him and then watching as he moved to pace beside us. He was on a horse. A regular, mortal horse. No big cat for him or strange shambling seaweed creature. Not even a skeletal horse from a different plane like Death’s. Coppertomb’s horse was plain and brown and smelled of the stable. A nice palfrey I would have chosen for myself were I to take a pleasure ride. She snorted at me, a big horsey snort, and my heart lurched a little with a wave of sadness. I was dying. I would not give my affections and time to a horse again. I thought of Prince, long dead now, and how I loved to feed and care for him. This mortal horse with the big earthy eyes was warm and strong as he had been, and I missed the feeling of warm mortal flesh and warm mortal dreams pale as they were.
Coppertomb laughed — a sound that was more fit for the barrow than the dance floor when it came from him. “It will matter not. This world passes away and without the key I took from you, you will pass with it.”
“And how will I meet you at your Coronation Ball if this world is passing?” I asked him coolly.
He leaned down so I could see the twist of cruelty in his mouth and smell the strange spice of him — a little too like the poison I’d been nicked with — and his black eyes narrowed.
This close to him, my breath felt like it was sucked from my body. My mortal mind could never get over the intense beauty of the Wittenbrand. Even Coppertomb, cold and lifeless as both copper and the tomb, was utterly gorgeous, his copper-tinged short curls clinging around his slightly-pointed ears, his cheeks sunken which only made his bone structure more noticeable, his rich, full lips pouty even when he wanted to be firm and his eyes glittering black gems you could lose yourself in while he laughed pitilessly and ensured you never found yourself again.
He was still wearing that single glove on his left hand. Was it only my own wishes that made me think he was disguising a missing finger?
“There is a very rich world waiting for us to pluck it like a berry,” he said in a voice smooth as wine. “And pluck it we shall. We wait only for Bluffroll’s army before we breach the gap and pour over your poor mortal cousins, seize their homes, snatch their children to serve us, their fields to feed us, their estates to house us, and their courts to entertain us. I could go to Salamoore, of course, where I am honored as a saint, but seeing you here getting so friendly with my home, makes me think I’d be happier learning the intimacies of yours. If you manage to escape this world, you might find me in the Court of Pensmoore … or Rouranmoore? I feel that place in you, too. How odd. From whatever court I choose, I shall reign over all the mortal world, and if I find any living that share your blood, I will use them as human footstools — and no, that is not figurative. Scurry, scurry, little mouse.”
And then he was back up in the saddle and wheeling his palfrey with a haunting laugh.
“You should be honored,” Grosbeak said with a tone of delight. “The Bramble King himself has chosen you as an enemy. You could rise no higher than that!”
“I rather think I could,” I mused. “I think I could be married to the Bramble King.”
“You’d have a time of it,” Grosbeak said, watching Coppertomb go. “If I had to guess I’d say he plays as cruelly in the bedroom as he does anywhere else.”
“I’m not referring to Lord Coppertomb. I speak, rather, of the true Bramble King.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Poison, they say, makes one lose all sense as it kills. I don’t know if that’s a blessing or curse for you Mad Princess.”
“You’ll have to advise me on how to navigate insanity, Grosbeak. You’ve been doing it so barely-adequately ever since I met you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, however it was meant,” he said with a toss of his head. “Lords of Viscera,” he cursed suddenly. “Are some of your fellow wives crying? How disgusting.”
