Delphinium, or A Necromancer's Home (TCoLaD Book 2)

Her Fate

~ (Continued) Trisday, 1st of Aprilis, 11831 ~

Pierre entered the inn at dawn. He intended to ask the nurse about Lizzy and then to go to bed until noon, but the moment he opened the door Death covered him.

A fool. He had been played the fool.

He ran to Elizabeth's room. The door was unlocked, and he rushed in. The nurse was there, slumped over in her chair in such an unnatural way that he wondered for a moment if she was dead. A noise had him turning his attention to Lizzy, who lay on a bed with covers thrown aside, tremors coursing through her body as she coughed. Blood spattered her cheeks and the front of her nightclothes. Her eyes were open, but she stared at nothing.

"Lizzy!"

He hesitated at her side, unsure whether to try to gain her attention, use his cræft, or call for aid. He touched her shoulder, and she jerked away from him.

"Elizabeth! Lizzy, darling!" No reaction.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded of Mora. When the ker appeared, form becoming visible though still a haze, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. Pulling her into this plane she became physical and stumbled into his arms, but he did not embrace her. He forced her chin up with no delicacy so their eyes met.

She became smoke.

Her presence filled the entire room and overwhelmed him. The queen of pain and suffering was before him in all of her glory. He could not breath, his very soul being torn out of him. Sinking to his knees before her he watched, eyes never leaving where she had stood, as she reformed into a terrible angel. Her wings were spread, and her somber attire of this era replaced with a red cloak. It seemed dirty as well as dyed, and the varying shades of red resembled blood. The stench confirmed it. Pierre would have been sick if he still felt any connection to his body.

Mora reached out to stroke his cheek, tracing where she had wounded him at his rejection of her. With the blood she spilled, with the magic she gave him, he had thought he exorcised her from the room. How foolish that notion was, to dare think he had tamed Death.

"I took you away to spare you," she said. "The spirits are deciding her fate, I have done nothing and do not influence them. I merely stand witness." Her breath upon his face was so cold it burned.

She looked over her shoulder to Elizabeth, who was now calming down, and smiled sadly.

"You will not be mine, I see this now... The spirits you claim to hold sway over must decide if she will be worthy to be your lady. And I will adhere to their choice."

She turned back to him as he realized what he had done.

"My Lady—"

"Adieu."

She was gone. There was an unnatural emptiness in the room. Pierre did not move for a very long time, tears staining his face.

He finally crawled over to Lizzy's bed. She lay still, save for the rise and fall of her chest, sleeping and alive. The sheets which had been soaked in sweat looked new and clean. There was no blood.

The spirits had judged her like they had him because he chose her. And they approved.

"My Lady Mora?" he spoke again. He wanted her to return, to beg forgiveness, to apologize. But there came no answer.

He kissed Lizzy's forehead, tucked the covers around her, and left the room.

***

She felt as if no illness had befallen her. Waking up early this morning Elizabeth dreaded consciousness, fearing the terrible way her body was succumbing to an illness where she had begun to cough blood, but all seemed well. No aches or pain in her throat and her head was clear. She was even quite hungry.