Chapter 11 #2
I tried to shake it off—to fight the strange haze that made it impossible to hold on to my own thoughts.
He made a low noise in his throat. “No. Accept the confusion. How can you ever know something if you do not surrender to unknowing first?”
At first, I couldn’t—it felt too terrible, too much like … like … being laid bare, stretched wide open. Too intimate? It felt like I would be pulled right out of my skin, caught in a current I could not control. Who knew where I might be pulled to? I stopped on the edge, gripping harder than ever.
“You’re almost there,” he said, just above a whisper, eyes never leaving my face. He leaned forward and rested his gloved fingers on my cheek, guiding me to my knees before him. “Go on. Surrender to it.”
I did not want to. I had a sense that I would never recover. But instead of fighting and looking for the way to hold on, I took a deep breath and allowed it. For Rochelle. For Dacia’s future. For a life. I let go of fighting.
Immediately, a strange wave made all of stars came together as if to buoy me somewhere. Someplace. I saw a flash of red that filled me with unspeakable horror. I shuddered then, suddenly afraid, and started to draw back.
“No,” he commanded. “Stay here.”
I didn’t think I could. I heard a whimper and then realized it was from my own throat. My mind slipped below the dark surface. The stars rushed and swirled, faster, and hotter and stranger. I could let go, but what would become of me?
“I’m here,” he said soothingly. But it was not soothing at all. Worse than not knowing what would become of myself was someone bearing witness to my undoing. “Surrender to it,” he coaxed.
And I was, I had. I was falling. Deep into the core of that terrible red. I felt as if I heard a woman scream. My scream?
“Look at me,” he ordered.
I forced my eyes open and found him. Only him. In that dark with the stars rushing past.
He took my chin in his hand and with one masterful move, pulled me close. Before I knew what to expect, he dipped his beautiful, proud mouth to mine and kissed me.
I thought, somewhere in the back of my body, that now I must surely die.
For who could live after a kiss like that?
A kiss from Death himself? It was a deep, sensuous kiss.
A kiss of ownership and claiming. His mouth hot and just as endless as the dark.
The red turned thick and viscous, and we swam in blood.
Finally, he pulled away and the world split like the shards of a broken mirror—all the blood locked in the glass.
Between those shards—a void. I did not know how to feel, where to move.
There were no stars, no light, no current.
It was nothing. A void that could swallow me into its throat and I would never escape its belly.
I tipped forward. I tried to scream. The sound got caught in my throat.
“Come back, Salomé,” Lord Death said, and the sound of my name brought together the shards with a snap.
The carpets. The crackling fire. The sound of the snow hitting the window filled in the silence. The world settled back into the comfort of his quarters. I took a deep breath and sank onto the floor. “What did you …” But I couldn’t finish. My hands trembled on my lap.
“Are you acting the maiden?” he asked with amusement. “I thought you understood.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Don’t linger on it. It was only a way to help you access that power with my own.”
I nodded. Of course, of course. I rubbed my cheeks with my hands to hide both the blush and my shaking. Of course, I understood—I was a prostitute after all.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
I did not know how to answer.
“You have more. More in you,” he continued. “I felt only the surface.”
“I can keep going,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He smiled. That predator’s mouth curving upward, sending a shiver up my spine.
“Good. Surrender becomes easier, the more you do it. And I will help in ways I can. Remind me, and I will give you an herb to stop your monthly flux. That will help you shed the limitations of your sex and allow you to more easily overcome your will.”
It unsettled me to hear him talk so casually about something so intimate, but maybe because he was so direct. The moment lingered, turning awkward and strange. I dipped my head to make it less embarrassing. “How did you become Death?” I asked.
“I …” But he stopped, as if struggling for words.
I thought he would ignore the question like he did so many other times, but he began again.
“A long time ago, I was conscripted, you could say. The last time I was powerless.” But he stopped and pressed his mouth tight.
I felt the edge of his secrets in that silence, and they stood firm against me.
There was someone behind this mask of Death.
Shaped like a man, vulnerable, despite the strange shimmer of shadow warping around him.
A thousand other questions flew to the tip of my tongue—who had he been before this role?
He spoke as if he still remembered that humanity now, even in this form.
Maybe I could glimpse the man behind this strange shadow god.
“I’ll return you to your rooms,” he said abruptly, as if he’d heard my thoughts and become uncomfortable. He reached down, lifting me out of the moment where I’d gotten stuck.
I wasn’t the only one who could feel laid bare. I followed him with a lowered head and a small, secret smile.
He led me to a hallway, long and tucked deep inside the labyrinth of the house. The pain in my ribs nearly cut off my breath entirely, but this time he went slowly. I’d done what he asked, I’d gotten his reward, and now the exaltation flooded my blood with relief.
“I will not be with you always,” he said. “I must be gone long stretches to fulfill my duties. When I am gone, you will need to surrender to my home, to my rules. I will leave tasks for you to continue your training, and I expect to see progress even without me.”
“Oh,” I said rather stupidly. Foolishly, I hadn’t thought of Death outside his home, outside of me.
He stopped at the top of another long corridor, dotted with closed doors and torches flickering in a peaceful silence. “In this hallway are many rooms. I have prepared trials for you to work through while I am gone.”
I did not want to be alone in this strange house. I thought of the leering ceiling, the way things just appeared. “Lord …”
“Do not fear,” he interrupted. “Nothing will take your life. I am master over your time, especially here in my own home. But each trial will be difficult. They are for you alone. When I return, we will continue together.” He pulled a ring of keys from his cloak.
“Here are the keys to the house. You are only to use the ones that fit this hall. No other doors. Remember, you must be in your room before nightfall, and you cannot leave before sunrise. No matter what you think you hear or see.”
He stepped closer, suddenly angling the full attention of his body toward me.
The keys hung off his extended finger—a thick, iron ring.
Despite the beauty of his face and all that we had just shared only a moment ago, his expression was empty—like it had all been locked deep inside and maybe even forgotten.
But I had not forgotten. I had perceived that humanity, that vulnerability behind his mask, and though I was woefully inferior in status and skill, I squared my shoulders, looking up at him as an equal. “I will show you,” I said softly.