Page 22 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

The God of the Dead

ELOISE

T he second I’m free of that room, I launch myself into the hall, anxious to escape Adril’s presence. I thought Nevina was bad. Her father is a monster. The farther I get away from him, the more my skin warms, and the blood begins flowing to my fingers again.

“The cemetery,” Tempest says as she grazes past me.

Odette heads in the opposite direction, toward the front stairs. I don’t see Eudora anywhere, but I can’t believe she’d linger in that room for another second.

I breathe deep when I reach the front lawn, allowing the moon’s light to seep into my skin.

I have half a mind to seek out Damien in the stables and tell him exactly what happened.

But first, I want to hear what Tempest has to say.

I move quickly toward the cemetery. Out of respect, I’ve never entered the boundary before while walking the grounds.

This time, I cross inside, searching for the ladies of Stygarde.

The graveyard takes up the area on the opposite side of the castle to the garden, but far enough back that it butts up against the forest. Instead of headstones, life-size statues of the dead stand guard over the graves, and unlike Earth’s rolling meadows, this graveyard is planted with flowering trees, climbing vines, and blooming shrubs.

I follow the path, finding Tempest beside a statue of Thanesia.

I recognize the goddess from her picture in the book I read last night—the three dogs at her feet, the leather armor, the bow and quiver.

But had I not seen that picture, I could have guessed who she was.

An altar before her throne is so stained with layers of blood it looks black, and her stone eyes are trained on it, forever watching for the next sacrifice.

It’s both gruesome and fascinating. This is no benevolent goddess in a toga who hears prayers and occasionally answers them.

This is a goddess who has seen war. Who has ushered souls into the afterlife.

Who favors warriors. Whose wrath I would never wish to inspire.

As I approach Tempest, Odette emerges from between two trees, and Eudora sifts into the graveyard in her shadow state, taking form next to me.

Tempest raises her arms and looks up at the statue of Thanesia.

“Goddess of night and dark, I call on you to cast a dome of protection over me and my sisters, that we may, this hour, serve you to your utmost honor and glory.”

I take a step forward in surprise as an unexpected wind circles behind me. The air nudges me closer to the statue. Under the watchful light of the moon, all of us crowd together, the scent of past blood sacrifices burning in my nose.

“What are we going to do?” Eudora asks. The skin of her face and neck are blotchy and stand out over the sharp edges of her collarbones. But the red around her eyes is the brightest. She’s been crying. And all I can think is she can’t afford to lose the salt in those tears.

Tempest pulls her into her arms. “We aren’t going to give up, and we aren’t going to give in.”

“How many villages haven’t sworn fealty to New Stygarde?” I ask.

They all look at me as if I’m stupid. “None of the west villages have sworn fealty or paid the tax,” Eudora says. “We will not give up our children.”

Odette balks as if the words sting. “None of us wanted to give up our people, Eudora, but the Borderlands had no choice. With our location so near Willowgulch, we would all have perished without the accord.”

Eudora raises a hand. “I wasn’t judging you or your people, Odette. You did what you had to do, and you made the hardest decision of all.”

“Of course she didn’t mean it like that,” Tempest says. “We know it’s different for you in Zephrine.”

“What’s different?” I ask.

Tempest frowns so deeply her lips pull back from her teeth.

“We held out for years, you understand. We control the coastline and the port after all. Until that pointy-eared harlot threatened to allow the elves to take control of our entire region and all our shipping channels. We didn’t have the muscle to stop her.

Not when she had control of what remained of the umbrae. ”

I chew my lip. The umbrae were the elite warriors who acted as Stygarde’s army. Damien was once the leader of the umbrae. “So, you had to…” The very thought of having to devise some method of choosing a child to hand over makes bile rise in my throat.

“I am the Lady of Aendor, Eloise. I gave my own son—” Her voice breaks, and I feel a hot tear carve its way down my cheek.

“My adult son. At the time, Nevina allowed children of any age. Joyna understood what he was doing for our region and volunteered. He sacrificed himself so that we could remain in control, feed our citizens. We decided together that we couldn’t put the burden on our people. ”

Tempest’s gaze flits to Odette’s, and I see something pass between them, a level of defiance I never noticed before.

“We did the same. Adults. Soldiers. Children, but not children,” Odette adds. “The man you saw me talking to last week, that was my nephew Gregoris.”

Eudora buries her face in her hands. “Because the west chose to resist, Nevina changed the terms. We must supply a true child. A baby.”

“Joyna knows we will one day come for him,” Tempest adds. “Someday we will raise an army big enough to bring down this kingdom, and I will free every shade they took from us.”

“I visit Gregoris regularly. He gives me information about the royals, and I reassure him that we will get him out eventually. He’s old enough to understand.”

They’re planning an uprising. They want to take back their kingdom. I’ve known since Bolvet that the people of Stygarde were not happy with Nevina and Brahm, but I had no idea that they’d seriously considered a violent rebellion.

Eudora waves a hand. “Nothing but dreams and fantasies. Ones that could get us all killed if overheard by the wrong ears.” She cuts an incriminating gaze in my direction.

“Hey, I would never?—”

“If Eloise weren’t on our side, she wouldn’t have chanced antagonizing King Entrydal like she did today. Honestly, girl, I feared for you,” Tempest admits.

“I’ve never been any good at putting myself first.”

Eudora raises both hands toward Thanesia’s statue.

“The fact is, we don’t have the men to rise up against them, and the ones we do have are starving and in no way strong enough to fight such a battle.

So, can we focus on the problem in front of us?

If the villagers of the west are not able to celebrate the Harvest Festival, we can’t make our sacrifices.

If we can’t make our sacrifices, we will lose the protection of the goddess.

She is currently our only means of survival. ”

I don’t mean to, but a sound comes out of my throat. It isn’t quite a laugh, but it isn’t respectful either. Closer to a scoff than anything. Three faces turn to me with varying degrees of confusion and disapproval.

“It’s just that…” I shift awkwardly from foot to foot. “I mean, where I come from, gods don’t readily get involved in people’s lives. I mean, she’s never actually, like, manifested and given you food, has she?”

Now their eyes narrow, Eudora’s brows peaking in a look of abject disappointment. “She’s not a believer.”

“I didn’t say that!” I insist. They each look at me with tipped heads and pursed lips.

“I’m a vampire, okay? I’m not even from this world.

I didn’t know Thanesia existed until a few weeks ago.

I’m not trying to be a skeptic. I just think that if you’ve survived this long, it has more to do with your personal abilities, your grit, than being blessed by this goddess.

And certainly, if she’s watching what’s been going on here, she’d be sympathetic to you missing one Harvest Festival. ”

The wind picks up again, and lightning cracks across the sky the moment the words are out of my mouth. I have to admit, the coincidence shakes me. Tempest looks upward in alarm. “Careful, Eloise,” she whispers. “That was uncomfortably close to blasphemy.”

I stare into the night sky. That was a coincidence, wasn’t it?

“I… I… I’m not an atheist or anything. Don’t get me wrong.

” Hell, I’ve literally been to the underworld and spoken with spirits.

But I can’t reveal that to these women. They won’t understand.

Especially since I’ve lost my magic. “I just… Could you tell me more about how she helps you in the west?”

Eudora takes a deep breath, gazes lovingly into Thanesia’s face, and places her hand lightly on the goddess’s oversized sandaled foot.

Her eyes glint with unshed tears as she says, “We’ve been close to death many times in Zephrine.

Every person in every village has looked through the veil into the Darklands.

But we pray. And she responds. We’ve had stags wander into our village.

Grain has grown in the middle of the street.

We’ve existed on nothing but spiral cactus for weeks.

We’ve survived for decades cut off from the capital.

I wouldn’t dream of missing the festival. She deserves all our praise.”

The way Eudora looks at Thanesia is heartbreaking. It’s a look of complete faith, complete trust. Emotion swells in my throat, and I swallow around the lump. What Nevina is doing is evil. I won’t let her win.

“What if we move the festival out of the castle?” I ask.

“Nevina will never go for that?—”

I cut her off with a shake of my head. “No. We still throw the one we’ve planned.

Those of us who can attend still go to the one sponsored by Nevina.

But we don’t stay. Instead, after we’ve shown our faces an acceptable length of time, we go to the real festival, one we hold deep within the forest. Maybe somewhere on the outskirts of the black lake.

It will have to be simple, but it will be genuine.

All shades can attend. Nevina and Brahm will never know. ”

Tempest and Odette exchange glances.

“There are practical considerations. It will be difficult to create a second altar and a second sacrifice,” Odette says.

“I’m sure we could find a second set of musicians,” Eudora says hopefully.

“The one in the courtyard is early, and Nevina did say the sacrifice shouldn’t go to waste. Perhaps shades from the north could offer to take it off her hands,” Tempest offers.

“But what about Thanesia herself? We’ve spent weeks constructing an effigy of her out of fruit, flowers, and red wheat. The festival is in seven days. We’ll never be able to recreate it in time,” Odette says.

I look at the statue and then back at the castle. Not too far. “Has Nevina seen the effigy?”

Tempest sniffs. “No. She barely looked at any of my illustrations.”

I walk to the side of the statue and lift.

It’s incredibly heavy, but I’m able to shift it a quarter inch before my strength gives out.

“What if we used this one in the courtyard? A few trusted men could move it inside. Odette, could your florist create a string of flowers and harvest wheat that we could drape over her?”

She grins. “I can do better than that. A flower-and-wheat-embellished net should be easy enough. They’ll never know where she came from.”

“Nevina wouldn’t know anyway. Only Brahm has ever seen this statue,” Tempest says through her teeth.

“But we can disguise it?” Eudora asks hopefully.

Everyone nods.

She reaches out, takes my hand, and squeezes. “It will work. I know it will. We just have to spread the word. Only to those we trust. New Stygarde can never know what we’ve done.”

Tempest glances back at the castle. “We should depart, before Eloise’s absence draws suspicion.”

I want to say that Nevina doesn’t care where I am or what I’m doing, but the truth is that after last night and today, maybe she does. Maybe she cares more than a little. Maybe she has someone watching to make sure I don’t return to Bolvet.

I nod once, and the three of them poof into shadow like drops of ink dissolved in water.

They’re gone in a matter of heartbeats, Tempest last, leaving behind the faint smell of fresh rain.

I turn back to the goddess and stare up into her face, not with the reverence that Eudora did, but with a new respect for what she means to the people of Stygarde.

What if I left an offering? Just a thank-you for watching over the ladies of Stygarde and what we plan to do over the following days. Yes. An offering. I reach for a nearby bush and pluck a perfect purple rose.

“Ow!” A thorn pricks my finger. I all but throw the flower onto the altar along with several drops of my blood, and then I stick my finger in my mouth to stem the flow. Damn it. Damien warned me about the thorns.

I can still taste my own blood when the cemetery darkens, and a man strides toward me. A newsprint man, all black and white with silver eyes. A ghost like I haven’t seen since I lost access to my ancestors. Excitement trills through me. Is this a relative? Am I getting my powers back?

But as he moves closer, I realize I know this man, and he is not my relation.

He’s Damien’s. It’s his father. He’s speaking to me, but as with every time I saw spirits before Phantom, I can’t make out what he’s saying.

But then he lifts his chin and draws a finger across his throat.

A silver gash appears there. What is he trying to tell me?

Did someone slit his throat? Oh my god, his ghost is not thin.

He’s not wasting away. His ghost looks healthy, aside from the gash.

He holds his hands toward me, mouthing something too fast for me to interpret.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them again. Then he draws his finger across his throat once more. This time, he mouths only two words, and I have no problem reading his lips. “Tell Damien.”

The night crashes down between us like a slamming door, and he’s gone, leaving behind the faintest whiff of apples. That was Damien’s father, and I think he just told me he was murdered! Shaking hard, I gather myself to do what I must do.

The last thing I notice before I leave the graveyard is that the rose and my blood are gone.