Page 1 of Ballad of Nightmares

Part One

When Ravens Fall...

CHAPTER ONE

DEATH DROWNED HIS victim beneath a lullaby of pattering rain against the diamond-paned glass.

Lightning crashed into a great oak tree outside, and in the white light, he caught a glimpse of his shadowed wings against the jagged stone wall.

Stalking him. Taunting him. Reminding him.

Fingernails stained with blood; he washed his hands of the scarlet stick in the sink at the back of the sunroom.

Sunroom.

He wondered if it was still considered such a room as the sun had not broken through the clouds of Shadowmyer in hundreds of years.

His gaze lifted out the hazy window. Cobwebs had settled in the corners of each pane over the years. Old vines crawled up the outside like arms reaching for the sky, desperate for air and life and warmth from a golden star now shadowed from existence.

The man he’d just slain had been close to expiration. Sometimes people begged for death, and he obliged when he could. Suffering, though perhaps he did enjoy it on occasion, was not for those who had accepted their end. Those were the beings he chose to gift such a reprieve to.

Deaths of this nature kept him awake at night. To watch the brightness leave the eyes of someone who had pleaded for it. He wondered what that was like. How one could be so ready for a touch that would take them from the world and into total darkness—an abyss of beginnings and no escape.

His palms sank onto the rim of the ivory sink, knuckles whitening against the porcelain, and a heavy breath evacuated his lungs as he hung his head.

It was festival day.

Death’s Day.

Hisday.

People would paint their bodies and parade into the old town just outside his cemetery and castle gates to celebrate the night Death saved them. The night Death conquered legions of obsidian and embers, and had salvaged this kingdom from the rest of the Myer and Moors.

He picked up the white cotton towel from the bench and began wiping his hands.

Peering over his shoulder, he watched as the shadows enveloped his victim’s body as fog swirled over the tile floor. Danbri Sutton had been the man’s name. He’d fallen ill to a vulgar sickness some months prior, and since diagnosis, he’d pleaded for death to take him every night.

Perhaps he’d allowed Dan to suffer a little longer than he should have.

His hands were nearly dry when the shadows receded, leaving only the blood-stained white rose petals and dying green leaves on the messy floor that had been there before he’d come to do his work.

Thunder cracked, and the glass trembled in its wake.

That was when he heard a loud purring noise from the rafters, and the noise instantly brought a smile to his lips.

“There’s my girl,” he said upon finding his black cat, Luna, rubbing on the wood from the jointed beams, her front feet not even touching. He shook his head as he reached up, and she practically fell into his arms. He held her and gave her head a scratch for a few minutes, letting her purr calm his heart back to normal.

Rolfe, his security detail and his friend, had black coffee ready for him in the kitchens.

“Morning, boss,” Rolfe mocked upon Death’s entering. But he didn’t respond as he sat Luna on the table and started picking again at the dried blood under his nails. Rolfe placed the matte black mug on the table in front of his chair. Luna gave a low warning, and Rolfe, being the deathhound shifter he was, bared his teeth in response to the taunting feline, but they didn’t press further.

“Didn’t grab the paper before the rain started,” Rolfe said after clearing his throat. He straightened and pressed one hand in his pocket before bringing his own coffee to his mouth.

“Sounds like grounds for dismissal, Roll,” Death replied, lips lifting at the corner as he washed his hands again.

“I’ll pack my things, Your Majesty,” Rolfe bantered back.

A quiet moment passed, only the noise of the running water and sloshing of his hands beneath it sounding louder than the rain on the windows.