The tavern flickered between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. The men all stopped their conversation and glanced in the direction of the bar, eyes black as coals reflected back. Pale flesh glowed iridescent, peeling back until there was nothing but the cavernous walls appearing through the apparitions. The bartender was reduced to skin andbones, forever poised to clean the rotting wood with nothing more than a disintegrating rag.
I gazed down at the mug in front of me, the ale nothing more than grave dirt and ashes. I spat out gravel, clawing at my tongue to rid the taste of the dead. I stumbled out of my seat, vomiting up gray bile. I heaved until bile stung my throat and my eyes bleared.
“The question should not be about if you heard the tale, no,” Hilda croaked.
I slowly turned to see the rotting corpse of the woman.
Maggots slithered out of holes that riddled her decaying flesh, blood dried on two gouges upon her neck sunken in and withered with time.
“It should be how you are going tosurviveit.”
She opened her mouth, and moths burst forth from the inner darkness, fluttering in the hundreds. I screamed, scrambling backward, swatting at the insects. With my back slammed against the wall, the insects kept coming, diving in a sweeping storm, blotting out the firelight. I shoved my head between my legs, thrusting the hood of my cloak over my face to shield from the onslaught as the woman’s voice echoed in my ear.
The shrill question fluttered upon wings.Far away, the door creaked open, and the sound of footsteps inched closer to the swarm.
I hesitated to look at the owner of black studded boots covered in melting snow. Yet there was no denying who the owner of the voice was when she spoke.
“When you are done cowering, I have something to show you.”
Ayla’s empty gaze pierced the very wall I was attached to, her cheeks red from the cold. She carried a small bundle of flowers and a somber expression, lips pressed thin. As the wind, icy and unrelenting, she strode out of the dilapidated tavern without another word.
I stood, brushing off the dust. I covered my nose, suppressing the bile climbing my throat as the scent of death and decay flooded my senses. I took one last glance at the dark tavern falling apart at the seams different from the time I stepped into the place.
There was once a prince who wanted to die—the familiarity struck a chord for reasons I had yet to know.
Twenty-Two
Ayla studied me from under white eyelashes, and cold blue hardened like ice. “People are dying every day, from a mysterious cause that normal doctors or apothecaries could not identify, much less cure—they could only treat until the end came. Yet you still allow him to live.”
Ayla strolled leisurely through the streets, leading me out of the small village and into the tangling mass of trees at the border. She led us both into the unknown with me as an unwilling follower.
Ayla stopped, tossing her head back, and looked over with a heinous grin. “Unless something happened?”
I resisted the urge to bring my hand to my bandaged neck. The memory of the night before blaredlike church bells. After Silas had drunk his fill, we lay there among overturned black satin sheets. His face nuzzled against my neck in the aftermath, and he had been careful to limit the spillage of my blood and not take more than what he needed.
Or, at least, what Silas had assured.
As the euphoria died, I brushed the rough scars on his bare chest. I let lingering fingers wander and touched his maskless face. Intimate and dangerous, it was a thrilling combination of dangerous consequences—one I had embraced in the dim chamber.
All of it was a dream as Ayla stood before me, repulsed at what I had become. Perhaps I was nothing more than a plaything to Silas. Maybe I was a puppet, a silly little puppet who just wanted to live.
Ayla’s cruel gaze narrowed with suspicion, awaiting an answer—the right one—rather than the lie.
I slowly allowed the lie to form. “I am not sure Silas is entirely responsible. If anything, how he has treated me has—”
Ayla trotted down the snow-filled path, beckoning me to follow close without a word. Feet sunk into the white-laced bank, the walkway becoming buried underneath thick blankets of white. The village was a blot behind us, and the castle loomed ominously in the distance, hovering above the evergreen branches. Weathered and worn, the castle’s roof littered with large holes opened to the wintery hell. Tall spires stretched toward the sky, the crumbling stones failing to make the climb under the late afternoon sun.
The castle stood still, an abandoned home to wayward spirits.
The bells tolled the hour, ringing out among the gravestones.
Passing the wrought-iron gates of New Day Cemetery, Ayla wrapped her arm around mine, pinning me in place, and hissed, “Watch and then tell me if you still believe him.”
Ravens cawed, circling overhead, watching keenly as omens do. Six people walked out of the small church carrying a tiny wooden casket, a procession following. Silence nestled among sober faces, the pallbearers in step as soldiers to deliver the deceased into death’s hand.
Ayla and I walked, heads bowed in respect. We took our places behind the procession, following the mourners to the freshly dug grave.
The men shouldered the casket onto a pulley system, securing the corners to the ropes. A priest hobbled to the front, holding a large leather-bound book. Clothed in holy robes, he blended in with the white grim surroundings, flipping yellow pages, and began to recite prayer.
