Ravenloft: Baroness of Blood by Elaine Bergstrom

Author:Elaine Bergstrom [Bergstrom, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-0146-3
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2016-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Ilsabet had not slept more than a few hours since Greta’s death.

Each time she closed her eyes, her mind took her back to those few moments she had held Greta before the woman had died. The pain, the fear of death, the terror of Greta’s last moments had coursed through Ilsabet, filling her with energy as an empty goblet might be filled with wine. It seemed that in some unfathomable way she had fed on Greta’s agony.

As soon as she was able, Ilsabet had fled her own rooms and the men bending over Greta’s body. She took refuge for a time in her sister’s chambers. The tall oval mirror before which Marishka had preened in her fancy gowns now reflected Ilsabet. Yet, if Ilsabet had not known it was a mirror, she would have thought the reflection was someone else—someone delicate, pure, and incredibly beautiful.

She could not ignore the obvious any longer—something was changing her, and it was not the deaths themselves.

She knew this to be true because she’d fed at other times: sitting with Peto as Marishka died, she had feasted on his grief; in Argentine she had sat at Rilca’s bedside, not out of devotion but to take energy from the woman’s pain.

But she’d only become certain of the change in her in the days before she swore allegiance to Peto, when she had poisoned the three imprisoned outlaws. No one cared, she had told herself then. And there had been no prisoners in Nimbus castle for weeks before they came. Here was a perfect chance to test a new poison.

Ah, such delusion.

She’d chosen the poison because it would cause pain, would make them scream, would give her the excitement of standing in the black depths of the subterranean space, listening to their agony.

She wasn’t disappointed by the effect on her. As the screams began, wild excitement filled her. Its intensity gave such pleasure that she bit the palm of her hand lest she cry out and reveal her presence. As wave after wave of pain caressed her, she stood swaying on her feet. She retreated long after the cries ended and death came to her far-from-innocent victims. Then she ran as quickly as the slimy stairs would allow through the passages to her room. After, she stood in front of her mirror, laughing, then crying in awe of the beauty of her face, her hands, her hair.

The beauty had faded a bit since the night she had bowed to Peto. Now, standing in front of Marishka’s mirror, she saw that it had returned. As she looked, trying to make sense of this curious change, she saw another reflection forming in the glass. It had the familiar auburn hair, the buxom body, the magnificent eyes. Ghosts did not reflect, did they? Hadn’t she heard somewhere that they didn’t reflect?

“Who are you!” Ilsabet whispered, and turned.

Her sister was behind Ilsabet. Marishka’s tiny feet hovered above the flagstone floor, her hair floated insubstantial as a cloud over her white, thin shoulders.

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