“The Plains of Myygddo,” my husband whispered in my ear, leaning around me so we could both peer up at the statue. “Recall how I required you lead the armies of mortals to fight here on these very Plains? Recall also how Coppertomb thought he had won the day before the fight occurred. He called me ‘ancient’ even among my own kind. What he never guessed was that ancient people hatch ancient plans. This statue, I had placed here over a thousand years before.”
“This statue?” I asked with a cocked brow. “This one that holds my severed hand? How could that be?”
“Some things must be, one way or another,” he murmured.
“So you … what? Crafted it out of magic?”
“Not at all,” he said and his eyes were far away as if in memory. “There was a mortal with clever hands, Halifast, I think his name was. And to him, I granted riches and power and showed him the face of Death that he might set the depiction in stone.”
“I don’t remember seeing this when I was on the edge of the Plains with Rolgrin,” I said frowning. “I would certainly have remembered.”
“Indeed,” my husband breathed, “but the Plains are vast and this image is often obscured by the rising mists and the sun baking the nearby ground and disturbing the vision of mortals.”
I nodded. “Well enough, but why place it here at all?”
“When it was complete, I set it under a geas, that if one who shared my days and wore my token led an army to this Plain, then the magic stored within would pour out and lend aid to her armies. None who fought under my standard could be so much as touched while fighting in the shadow of this statue, nor afflicted by deadly thirst, nor poisoned by draught. You may recall that my adversary was very sure of himself. He’d had the local water sources laced with poison.”
“But did anyone know there was protection here?” I asked, my brow wrinkling as I turned to him. It was so Wittenbrand to offer a way to win and be safe without ever telling anyone what it was.
“I was not there when King Rolgrin fought,” Bluebeard said, scratching his beard as if thinking. “But I know much more as Bramble King than I knew as a mortal, and I can see that battle in my mind’s eye. The fight was grim and tight. A near thing, indeed. But when your people rallied at the base of the statue, sheltered in the cool shade, they fought like lions, and were untouched by blade or arrow until their enemies lay scattered at their feet.”
“But what if I’d failed?” I asked, aghast. “Or what if I left before I brought them to the edge of the Plain? None of that was a certain thing!”
“Did I not instruct you to bring them to the Plains? Did I not bid you succeed?”
“You did,” I said. I could so easily have failed, for he had not told me of the importance. How many other things like this had been very close with me utterly blind to their importance?
“I had every confidence in your fidelity,” he said with a kiss pressed to my cheek.
“I hardly dare imagine what would have happened had I not followed your commands precisely.” I was still having trouble drawing in a full breath with this new knowledge hovering over me.
“I did not need imagine it. I know you too well, my sober monstrosity. You would not have drawn up short. Not then or ever.”
“Your confidence in me is too great,” I said grimly.
“It was not then, and is not now,” he said with a last soft kiss to my cheek. “But come now. Explanations grow dull. Let us go and act instead.”
He spun me, still in the flames of the fire, and we emerged from a new fire. This fire was set in the very middle of what was most certainly the Wittenbrand Court in Exile.
Around the fire was the grandest display I’d ever seen. Dancers by the hundred rushed around the fire and then closed in toward it, only to back slowly away with dragging steps, huge fans like the tails of birds were in each hand and they used the fans to mask their forms or accentuate their beauty, to tantalize with revealing, and then disguising, their loveliness.
Mortals had been set to play the music, their eyes dreamy and far away, as if they were drunk on wine or the seeds of the poppy. I rather thought this was a Wittenbrand trick done to them. A stealing of their wills, and perhaps even their memories.
They were not alone, other mortals served food from silver platters with glazed expressions and slow movements. I frowned at those chosen to serve. They were of every race and mode of dress known to me, but without exception, each stolen to serve was of great beauty and lithe in form. Curse the Wittenbrand and their obsession with taking everything beautiful for themselves.
“I took you, my beautiful one,” Bluebeard whispered in my ear as if he could hear my thoughts.
“Then you failed in your task, for I am not beautiful,” I whispered back.
He lifted my skeletal hand in his so that they hovered at shoulder height and he escorted me forward as if we were partners in a dance of our own.
“I see none other with so singular a hand.”
“A hand you demanded of me,” I challenged.
“But did I?” His eyes met mine, blazing with intensity. “I think rather that you chose this. For you are my match, rib for rib, hand for hand, ambition for ambition, and who better to remake the whole world than the two who wish to drink it all up whole?”
And what could I say to that? For I knew myself entirely from our time apart, and I knew I was not content with the mortal world or with mortal power. I had been willing to shipwreck my very self on the rocks of the Wittenhame if only I could seize hold of his soul once more, and I knew to my very bones that I would do it all again exactly as I had before if I were given the chance.
