If it were called by any other name, I could turn and walk away. The croaked question shatters the absolute silence, causing me to leap back. Is simply gone, like the passing of the wind. Trepidation and despair sweep through me, as if the world itself has just been torn in two.Īnd then the pressure stops. The pressure in my own chest grows, stretching against my ribs, seeping into the very marrow of my bones. I am getting ready to do just that when the heartbeat stops.

Return to the sumptuous, brightly lit rooms of the castle proper. Nameless dread that cannot be explained by the presence of death thrums through me. That is when I finally understand the nature of this pit.Ī dungeon designed specifically for those who do not even warrant the mercy of a clean death. I never feel the heartbeats of others unless they are near death. Until the next heartbeat reverberates through me, one long, deep ba-bump. The darkness that oozes up through the metal grate is as thick and solid as a coiled snake.Īt first, I think it a hatch to the river that runs nearby. I follow the deep ba-bump through the narrow, twisting corridors of the dungeons, stopping when a gaping black hole appears at my feet. It is that same panicked beating that has brought me to the lowest levels of the castle today-a heartbeat as close and intimate as if it is coming from my own chest. “His heart,” I whispered into her lowered ear as I rubbed my small chest. It wasn’t until I was four years old and clutched at her hand as she headed up the stairs with her night’s customer that my parentage was confirmed. The women thought me a miracle, moved that one had been visited upon them just as if they were the Magdalena herself.Īll except my mother, who knew precisely whom she had invited into her bed nine months earlier. I drew a deep breath of my own after that, followed by a lusty cry. Solange blew again, her old breath somehow shoving away the cold hands of my father as he reached for me. She bent down to place her wrinkled lips on mine, and blew.Īccording to my mother, my chin quivered, a fist curled.

But old whores are as wise as old cats, and Solange did not give up. I did not cry or whimper or even draw breath. Hushed whispers and murmurs of sympathy followed the horrified silence my arrival caused, until Solange, the oldest among them, grabbed me from my mother’s slippery hands and swatted my backside.

I emerged covered in slime and blood, my face-indeed, my entire body-as blue as a wild hyacinth. Would an ordinary woman invite Death to her bed on a dare? My mother, too, was a whore, although perhaps not so very common. I was born in the upstairs room of an ancient roadside tavern, a group of common whores acting as midwives.

Courting darkness by robin lafevers