“She who was once called Sparrow, now Lady and Ruler of the lands of Riverbarrow and honored by the title of Arrow.”
“She will have to pay her tribute to me,” Coppertomb said, hand drifting to the sword hanging from his waist.
“There will be no need for that,” Bluebeard said, waving a hand. “She has already repaid her king tenfold.”
“And yet I see no largess in my coffers,” Coppertomb said, snapping a finger as a pair of winged Wittenbrand scurried to stand his throne back on its feet.
Though he was diminished in his mortal garb — and so were the rest of the Wittenbrand, I was conscious, suddenly, that we were surrounded. His court closed in slowly. They were armed — with any mortal weapons that weren’t iron, but armed all the same. And there were thousands of them.
With the music abruptly ended, and the swirling bubbles and petals falling to the ground, with the eating and laughing paused, they seemed quite threatening. I looked around as subtly as I could as my husband led me closer still to his shadowed rival.
The Wittenbrand had been eating and drinking. And as was common for them at these events, there were some bearing bloody wounds and others with red-tinged blades. Some ran naked through the crowd laughing or growling. Some rode mortal beasts — tigers and boars who tore at any in their path, horses, of course, but also the grand fable elephantas of the jungle lands and the dusky camels of the deserts. And they bore on their persons trophies from the many lands the animals represented. Crown Jewels. Scepters. Prized pieces of armor and coronets.
I was looking, I realized, at a raiding party. But not a raiding party as I was used to in the mortal world, a raiding party that hadravagedthe mortal world and rallied here with their slaves and plunder to spend a night in evil and debauchery.
And while I was not surprised at all to see that they were doing exactly as I expected Wittenbrand to do I was very surprised to find one notable person missing.
“Where is Grosbeak?” I asked aloud.
Coppertomb shot me an irritated look as he shifted, trying to move out of Bluebeard’s shadow without being caught at it. My husband shifted with him, keeping the shadow in place, but the movement shed light on the figure standing to the left of Coppertomb’s throne.
A centaur with a rotting yellow face and lank hair regarded me balefully.
“You ask, ‘Where is Grosbeak?’ but where were you when I was forced to wander the lands of Death bereft and alone?” he said, and for a moment I thought he hissed at me, but it turned out it was only a giant black mamba creeping down Coppertomb’s statue and spooling around the base of it who was hissing, and when it thrust its head forward, Coppertomb placed a hand possessively on its head.
“I have many pets, mortal woman. Grosbeak is only one of them,” Coppertomb said “And I fear you are too late. You were to come to my Coronation Ball.”
“As I have,” I interrupted. “And my dead is raised.”
“Not by your power,” Coppertomb said, smiling now as if he had won.
“He is not buried beneath the ground.”
“But he was, wasn’t he?” Coppertomb said smoothly. “And what was my ruling? That you, bride of the dead, would give yourself to me at the Coronation Ball.”
“I cannot give you what I no longer possess.”
“You were to be my bride.”
“I am already married to another.”
He laughed then. “At one time, such an objection might have stymied me, but I have now a worthy advisor. Your own friend and confidante. Is it not so, Grosbeak?”
And his gaze flicked to my old friend and mine turned to horror as I realized that Grosbeak was sweating so much that his face seemed to be malforming like hot wax.
“Feeling the effects of a geas, horrible revenant?” Bluebeard asked quietly, his fingers steepled under his chin as if he were considering something.
“I feel them,” Grosbeak said and I swallowed because I remembered the geas Bluebeard had put on him — that if he betrayed me, he would feel the effects of his betrayal in his own flesh. Was that what was happening now? But how, then, had he betrayed me?
And then I saw her step from the shadow. Ki'e'iren. Her eyes were narrowed and she smiled cruelly when they met mine. I felt my blood run cold as ice.
“I have found one who has a prior claim,” Copeprtomb said, and his smile slowly grew as around us the silent Wittenbrand began to murmur in delight, and then — like an avalanche, a murmur grew to a chuckle and it turned to the kind of wicked laughter that takes its delight from cruel turnabout.
“But she was returned to her time,” I said, feeling suddenly lightheaded. This woman had tried to kill me once — had, in fact, succeeded — and that was when she could benefit from my survival. How much more likely was she to try to kill me now?
“And offered a chance a second time to wed a bright Wittenbrand and live the life of grandeur promised her,” Coppertomb said smoothly, and his smile was growing by the moment. He reached up and adjusted his crown with a look of triumph in his eyes. “Will you deny, Arrow, that she is your wife?”
“That’s no longer my name,” Bluebeard said slowly, but his expression was considering and he tapped his steepled fingers to his chin as if in thought.
