Page 8 of A Waltz with Lord Death
The baron leaped to his feet. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“Disease is spreading. Stop the disease!”
When the baron raced out of the room, she followed at his heels, looking once over her shoulder to find Death watching her curiously. A shiver ran through her, and her throat constricted as if his shadow hounds clamped their jaws around her neck.
As she followed the baron to the fields, she momentarily questioned her own sanity. The concept of death was real, but was Lord Death?
Several men trailed behind as if sensing something was wrong, and when they reached the southeast side of the barley field, Meira stopped short, her eyes wide as she found herself staring at black, shriveled, and gnarled barley shoots. She wasn’t insane. Death was real. And he had done this.
Deep shouts echoed around her as men leaped into action. They chopped down the diseased barley and separated them from the healthy crops.
“We have to harvest everything!” a farmer shouted. “The barley is ripe enough.”
Despite not knowing much about farming, Meira rolled up her sleeves, determination in her expression. “Allow me to help. What can I do?”
Exhaustion wore her thin throughout the day, the sun beating down on her until it blessedly dipped beneath the mountains, bathing the land in dusk. The last of the healthy harvested barley was loaded into the back of a wagon, the golden stems glistening beneath the orange and purple twilight overhead.
Only when one of the men smacked the horse’s rump to pull the wagon forward did everyone release a collective sigh of relief. They’d been able to save most of the crop. The people would not starve.
Meira wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with her sleeve and wandered to the edge of the small lake on the edge of town. The glassy surface reflected the beautiful hues above, like a serene painting after an intense storm. Crickets chirped in the tall grass. Fish created ripples in the water as they ventured to the surface to catch dinner.
“I find you intriguing, Lady Meira,” someone said beside her.
She cried out and leaped away from Lord Death, her eyes searching for something on the ground to use as a weapon but finding none. “You!” She pointed a finger at him, balking at the shadows wisping up his legs and caressing his hands as if they were canine tongues in search of meat in their master’s fingers. “I told you to stay away.”
He cocked his head to the side and studied her curiously. “You are afraid of me. Why?”
Against her will, her chin trembled with fear. “I don’t want to die.”
“Death can be a mercy,” he murmured, almost to himself, but then his eyes flashed a color deeper than black, two spheres of glittering onyx. “You fought against my attempt to kill. I am pleased.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, her stance ready to run at a moment’s notice. “Why?”
“It’s what Lord Life would have done, and yet, you are only human.”
Lord Life.
He’d mentioned the subject before.
“A-a-are…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to meet Death’s gaze. In her fortune telling years, she had never met a man so terrifying or powerful. But she wanted to put up a brave front. “Are you here to take me to the otherworld?”
“Are you sick?”
“Well…no.”
“Are you dying?”
“Not that I can tell…”
He flashed her a devastatingly handsome grin, and her heart swayed like a tree in a gentle breeze. “Then I can’t understand why my presence makes you so uncomfortable.”
A small piece of her relaxed, but the rest of her remained on edge. She doubted anyone could feel completely comfortable in his presence. She eyed the shadow hounds moving closer to her. The ground they walked on shriveled up and died.
When she took a fearful step backward, Death called the creatures back and ordered them to wait a little way away from them. Raw power wafted off him like a gust of wind blowing pollen from a flower.
A very dark, very sinister flower.
“I would still like to talk.” He held her gaze steady. “If you will give me your time.”
