Page 42 of A Waltz with Lord Death
“She cannot die like this! It’s not fair. She deserves so much better!” Anger glared back at him. “If you take her away, then you are the devil!”
The room fell into silence, so much that even the candle flames refused to utter a sound. Hurt spread across his face, bearing down heavy on his shoulders. After everything…after everything he had told her, she would say that to him? Did she truly believe it?
You are the devil!
Joanna’s words echoed in his mind as he stared back at Meira. He’d thought…he’d thought he finally found someone who saw the person he was beneath Death’s role, beneath Death’s power. Had he been wrong this entire time?
His heart cracked in two.
Not again. Please, no.
The pain of heartache swirled in the black depths of his eyes. His jaw clenched, and he spoke through unshed tears. “I suppose I have your answer then. Goodbye, Meira.”
Her eyes widened as she reached for him. “Death, wait. I’m sor—”
He transported away so he wouldn’t crumble to pieces in front of her. Only after he delivered Elise safely to the otherworld did he crumple against the wall near Barret’s prison of time, his arms wrapped around his legs and his head between his knees.
You are the devil!
Devil.
Devil.
Devil.
“I’m sorry, Barret,” he whispered to his unconscious friend. “I have tried my hardest. I don’t know what else to do.”
Barret said nothing, which spiraled the room further into loneliness and isolation. He had failed his friend. He had failed Betha. He had even failed himself.
****
Meira dropped to her knees the moment Death disappeared and sobbed into her hands. She regretted what she’d said to the man she loved. But she had been so angry, and she knew those words would have cut him the deepest.
“Forgive me!” she cried. “I am so sorry, Death. Please don’t go.”
But he didn’t return.
And Elise was still dead.
Her heart ripped open and bled in ways she hadn’t known it could bleed. Death had given her so many chances. But what had she done? Spurned him. Hurt him. Shamed him.
“Forgive me,” she murmured again, this time quieter as her sobs ebbed. Tears continued to flow down her cheeks as she grasped Elise’s cold, lifeless hand. It would have been a miracle if she had lived after getting crushed by a horse. And what had Death said about mercy? Deathwasa mercy. If he had allowed Elise to live, she would have lived in so much pain that her spirit wouldn’t have been able to bear the agony, yet she wouldn’t find any relief.
He had shown her friend a kindness, and how had she repaid him?
Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes snapped open as she remembered something Death had said a week ago. That hers and Elise’s death dates were only hours apart. The secrets, the shared looks with Betha. They had known her time was to come to an abrupt end.
So very unladylike of her, she swore under her breath and fled from the room. But the moment she burst into the hallway…
“There she is!” a guard called out and pointed in her direction. “Arrest her!”
Panic caused her to pivot on her heel and run in the other direction, but a couple of guards cut off her flight to safety. A guard from behind forcefully shoved her to her knees while another tied painful knots of rope around her wrists.
“I have not done anything!” Meira shrieked as they dragged her down the hallway. “Release me!”
The leader of the men dressed in armor spoke. “You are hereby arrested under the king’s orders for falsifying your station as a fortune-teller, and for treason against the king who lies in his bed, ailed by the plague. Despite your promises of safety with your wards, the plague has breached the palace.”
“What will you do with me?” Her voice shook. Her body trembled. And only when they led her into a dank prison and pushed her inside a dark and musty cell did he answer.
