Chapter 27
Curled up like a cat on the cushioned bench beneath her bedroom window, Elysia stared pensively at the sealed jar of herbs. She gave the jar a little shake. After all these months, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to finally sink her feet into the river bank of her dreamland. To walk along its edge and follow death’s song. Again, she wondered where the song would take her.
As usual, rain dripped down the window, smearing her vision of the outside world. Lost in her thoughts, she let her forehead press against the chilled glass, staring out into the gray nothing. Rousing herself, Elysia pulled the black and gold embossed book from Mari back onto her lap. She’d been trying for over an hour to immerse herself in its text, to no avail. Filled with stories and commentary on all the undead gods her people had once known, the book was dense enough that she found herself stalling.
She’d already read all the stories about the god of the dead, but now with her tincture brewing, anxiety drove her to believe there just might be a key she hadn’t found yet within the text. Flipping to death’s pages, she began to skim, hoping to glean something new and useful for making a deal with death himself.
Her fingers traced the charcoal sketch of a man standing with his arms behind his back in a scraggy field littered with skulls and bits of bone. She frowned at the image. I really hope that’s symbolic… It was nothing like what she had seen in her dreams, but then again, she hadn’t seen much at all. Maybe there really was an old decaying field of bones and dust.
Over the weeks, the potion had grown darker and murkier, still all purples and browns. During this time, she kept waiting for fear to seize her. Wherever this realm existed, it was death. The person in charge of such a place could not possibly be someone you’d want to run into on a dark night without your wits and a good knife in your hand. Not just death, deals. As if his ability to rule over death was too simple, too boring . He’d had to take up a second hobby: manipulating mortals into desperate deals. She supposed all gods accepted or declined petitions, some of them had simply become more active in the process.
The terror never came.
It made her wonder if some fundamental part of her had been broken by the vigilance required of her as a cursed individual being blackmailed by her own blood. Or maybe it was a latent effect of watching innumerous executions, knowing it could and should have been her. In spite of her dark thoughts, Elysia lounged on her bed comfortably, sifting through the pieces of herself as if they were cut from someone else.
She imagined that a normal person would feel a sense of revulsion at the idea of visiting the land of the dead while still very much alive. Maybe there was something irrevocably wrong with her. Either way, there wasn’t much she could do about it.
A flurry of feet sounded on the stairs, causing her to turn her head. Gage was gone, and this wasn’t a house that received visitors. Elysia rolled smoothly off the bed, landing in a crouch, dagger in hand, waiting for whoever was about to break through the door.