“What’s going on?” I murmured to Grosbeak.
He turned his horrific grin toward me, his missing ear seeming to stand out in the mortal moonlight.
“Death has called on a quorum of dead Wittenbrand to vote. And you are lucky enough to have thirty dead Wittenbrand with you — the exact number needed for a vote — minus me, of course.”
“Why not you?”
“You can’t have friends vote. Conflict of interest.”
“Does that make you my friend?” I asked tiredly, but when he wouldn’t answer I asked instead, “A vote for what?”
“Can we please get on with it? I grow weary,” Vireo interrupted.
Death lifted his other hand as if in response.
“A Vote of Esteem,” Grosbeak whispered to me. “If a Quorum passes a Vote of Esteem a mortal may be elevated to the ranks of the Wittenbrand. But this never happens. The requirements are too high. You must have succeeded at an impossible task and be respected for it — oh, and you will die very painfully if you fail to achieve the esteem of the quorum.”
“Me?”
“Well, who else would they be voting on.”
I looked around at the heads. They were all winking — one eye closed. I did not know what that meant.
“I am already dying,” I said grimly. “Indeed, I am nearly dead.”
I could no longer feel anything beneath my waist and my heart was slowing, each ka-thump a little more erratic than the last.
Death lowered his arms, his hair and beard dancing in a wind I did not feel.
“Well, I suppose you’ll die as an honorary Wittenbrand,” Grosbeak said, and was thatpridein his voice? “The Quorum has spoken. You have risen in Esteem.”
“Wait …” I said as Death began to walk again and I hurried to keep up. “Esteem. Have I walked the Path of Princes?”
“It would seem so,” Grosbeak said, his voice breathless in awe. “To have achieved this, Izolda — even if you die in the next few moments — is an honor that will trail behind you beyond death.”
“How lovely,” I said dryly. “I can parade about with it when it no longer matters a single whit.”
“Don’t be crass,” the head with the coronet said in a clipped voice. “You’ve been granted an honor you do not deserve by those unhappy to give it. Take your honor and show some respect.”
I swallowed, for she was right. Was this why he collected these heads? Had he foreseen the need for this, too?
Death strode ahead, his hair flowing behind him as if it were weightless, the tiny skulls on his robe clinking. Shadowless, he floated over the mortal grass, but he did not walk up the great hillside … he walked into it. And with my heart in my throat, I followed, stepping with my eyes closed and my breath held.
“Open your eyes, Izolda,” Grosbeak whispered and when I opened them, there was only blackness for a moment and a creeping sensation like I was feeling the earth and worms and roots pressing against my skin, even though I had no feeling anymore in most of my limbs, and then I stepped through, and I was within the hill.
Or maybe I was not.
What I saw on the other side chilled me. There was no moon or sun, though I could see just fine. There was no color. And when I looked to Death, he was white and pale and the brightest thing to be seen. He flicked a hand and then my own living hand in his possession snapped its fingers, and he was gone.
I gasped, startled.
“Where did he go?” I breathed as the brides filled up the space behind me and I looked at what lay before.
“Your bargain is complete,” Grosbeak reminded me. “He brought you into the barrow — into his land where the dead are stored until the end of the age.”
I stepped lightly down the path, barely willing to take any step at all.
I had to pick my way with great care to stay on the path, for it was overrun and tangled, as were the rolling hills in every direction. What it was tangled with horrified me to such a degree that I dare not step off the path at all.
