Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(25)

The woods consumed her, embracing her so fiercely that Sylas’s frustrated cries and Balwin’s hooves cut away, the only sound a soft rustling in the autumnal trees, the leaves a mix of harvest orange and midnight green.

It didn’t take long for yellowing grass to tangle around Mitra’s white stockings. The woods tugged at Signa’s skirts, at Mitra’s mane, scratching and scraping against their skin, hungry for blood. Signa tried to cover the horse as best she could, but the branches were low and savage, clawing against Mitra’s side.

In the corners of her vision came a flash of white so fleeting that she’d have missed it if she blinked. It came again seconds later, whisking away toward the right, where trees had snapped in half or been cleared away. Signa followed after what she knew was Lillian’s spirit, which led her into a clearing and to an iron gate set into a weathered stone wall. She pushed upon the gate to find that there was a lock in its center, covered by ivy and vines.

She was glad there was no one around to hear her very unladylike curse as she looked upon the garden wall, three times her height and impossible to climb even if she stood upon Mitra’s back. She pried at the lock, frustration mounting when it didn’t so much as budge.

How was she meant to find a key to a garden that had clearly been abandoned for months? It wasn’t as though she could ask Elijah for it, and Sylas probably already knew the place was sealed and had led her on this wild-goose chase for a laugh. Hands tight on the reins, Signa was about to turn back to find Sylas and give him a piece of her mind when another flash of white flickered in the corners of her vision.

Lillian was there, watching, hiding in the shadows of the iron gate. Her hair was pale as butter, and her face was covered with moss, with rotting vines woven into and out of the gaping hole where a mouth should have been. Hollow eyes watched from between the ivy leaves. Hollow eyes that looked not at Signa but behind her, to the ground.

Signa turned to the familiar sight of tiny black berries—belladonna—and understood so well that her chest felt like it was being cleaved in two.

The night she’d last eaten belladonna—the night she’d spoken to Death—she’d used his powers as her own. What if she could do it again? She’d seen him pass through walls. Seen him disappear into the shadows, and then re-form himself at his will. Was it possible that she, too, could do that?

Signa dismounted, gritting her teeth at the sight of the belladonna berries that waited at her boots. She’d not wanted to approach Death again until it was with a way to destroy him and end her blasted curse. But if she wanted Lillian to leave her alone, it seemed there was no choice.

With dread in her belly, she stooped and plucked the berries, filling her pockets and her palms.

Death loomed in the air like an approaching storm, dark and heavy. Signa felt the weight of him choking her, warning her. Even the sound of the wind was as biting as a blade when the world slowed around her, as if time was coming to a standstill.

But Death wouldn’t touch her. He never did.

Signa pressed five berries onto her tongue and waited as her blood burned and chills shot down her spine. It didn’t take long for the poison to clench her insides. For her vision to swim while illusions of the woods tunneled around her, for a power unlike any other to form within her, beckoning her to come and sample it.

Death had arrived.





TWELVE





DEATH’S PRESENCE WAS FROST THAT BURNED INTO SIGNA’S VERY bones—an icy lake she’d plunged into headfirst. But rather than allow her to come up for air, he embraced her in those frigid waters with no intention of letting go.

“Hello, Little Bird. Come to stab me again?”

His voice was a balm for the gooseflesh along her skin, and Signa’s insides twisted in annoyance at her body’s response to him. Not anger nor fear but a deep, festering curiosity she couldn’t seem to shake.

“Tell me whether I can use more of your powers,” she demanded. If he would not hesitate, then neither would she.

She lifted her chin and turned to face him. Or at least she believed she was facing him. It was difficult to know, given his form. Death was little more than the shadows of the trees. The darkness lingering in the corners where light couldn’t quite reach. He was nowhere and he was everywhere, until slowly his shadows began to contract along the ground, consuming the forest floor and bathing it in darkness until he was there. No face, no mouth, but the form of a man who loomed over her.

“Tell me, Signa,” Death began, ignoring her question, “are you afraid of me?” His shadows drew closer until his form was smaller, less imposing. “Most people fear death. They fear it all their lives, though they never see me until their final breath. There are a handful of humans out there with a keener eye, of course. Those who spend their lives trying to bridge the gap between the living and the dead, and who catch glimpses behind the veil. But when I stand before them, even they are wise enough to fear me. Yet you have called me time and time again. You have questioned me. You have even gone as far as to attempt murder.” Though they were dark words, Signa didn’t miss the hint of humor within them. It lit a blazing, angry inferno inside her.

“Am I amusing to you, sir?” She clenched her teeth as the shadows danced among the trees.

“At times.” His voice was little more than a whisper in the roaring wind, though she heard it as clear as though it came from her own thoughts. “And other times you are an endless annoyance. Always, though, you are a fascination.”