The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

      Ishbel recoiled, terrified.

      Her mother’s corpse twitched, and it whispered again.

      Ishbel, Ishbel, listen to us. You must prepare —

      Ishbel screamed, over and over, her hands pressed against her ears, her eyes screwed shut, her body rolled into a tight ball in a corner of the room.

      Then the corpses of two of her aunts, which lay a few feet from her mother’s, also twitched and whispered.

       Ishbel, Ishbel, listen to us, our darling. Prepare, prepare, for soon the Lord of Elcho Falling shall walk again.

      A vision accompanied the horrifying whispers.

       A man, clothed in black, standing in the snow, his back to her.

       Darkness writhed about his shoulders.

       He sensed her presence, and turned his head a little, glancing at her from over his shoulder.

       Bleakness and despair, and desolation so extreme it was murderous, overwhelmed Ishbel’s entire world.

      The despair that engulfed her annihilated everything Ishbel had felt until now.

      The loss of her family, and her entrapment with their corpses, was as nothing to what this man dragged at his heels.

       Prepare, Ishbel, prepare for the coming of the Lord of Elcho Falling.

      After her mother, and her two aunts, every other corpse in the house twitched in the same mad, cold, macabre dance of death, and whispered until the words echoed about the house.

       Prepare, Ishbel, our darling, for the Lord of Elcho Falling shall walk again.

      The twitching corpses and the constant whispering drove Ishbel to the brink of insanity. She didn’t want to live. She had gone mad, here in this cold house of death, watching everyone she had ever loved putrefy before her eyes.

      Listening to their never-ending whispers.

       Prepare, our darling … for the Lord of Elcho Falling.

      She tried to starve herself, but one day she had weakened, sobbing, stuffing her mouth with mouldy pastries from the kitchen.

      Then she found a knife, and drew it across her wrists, but was too weak to carve deeply, and too cowardly to bear the pain, so the blood just seeped from the thin cuts and Ishbel had not died.

      Finally, frantic, crazy, Ishbel had stuffed her ears full of wadding and crept close enough to rub the foul effluent from the cadavers of her parents over her body and face. Then she licked the foulness from her fingers, just to be sure. It made her retch and sob and then scream in horror, but she did it, because surely, surely,this way the plague would manage to take a grip in her body and kill her as mercifully fast as it had killed everyone else in her life.

      But all that had happened was that the scars on her wrists became infected, and wept a purulent discharge, and throbbed unbearably.

      Ishbel survived.

      Whenever she slept, she dreamed of the Lord of Elcho Falling, turning his head ever so slightly so that he could look at her over his shoulder, and engulfing her in sorrow and pain.

      She grew thin, her joints aching with the cold and with malnutrition, but she survived.

      Outside the crowds waited.

      Every so often Ishbel called out to them, letting them know she still existed within, because, no matter how greatly Ishbel wanted to die, she did not want to do so within an inferno.

      On this day, huddled in the atrium of the house, Ishbel began to dream about death. She looked at the great staircase that wound its way to the upper floors of the house, and she wondered why she’d never before thought that all she needed to do was to climb to the top, then throw herself down.

      Very slowly, because she was now extremely weak, Ishbel crawled on her hands and knees towards the staircase. She was frail, and she would need to take it slowly to get to the top, but get there she would.

      Ishbel felt overwhelmed with a great determination. Her death was but an hour away, at the most.

      But it took her much longer than an hour to climb the stairs. Ishbel was seriously weak, and she could only crawl up the staircase a few steps at a time before she needed to rest, collapsing and gasping, on the dusty wooden treads.

      By late afternoon she was almost there. Every muscle trembled, aching so greatly that Ishbel wept with the pain.

      But she was almost there …

      Then, as she was within three steps of the top, she heard the front door open.

      A faint sound, for the door was far below her, but she heard it open.

      Ishbel did not know what to do. She lay on the stairs, trembling, weeping, listening to slow steps ascend the staircase, and wondered if the crowd had sent someone in to murder her.

      She was taking far too long to die.

      Ishbel closed her eyes, and buried her face in her arms.

      “Ishbel?”

      A man’s voice, very kind. Ishbel thought she must be dreaming.

      “Ishbel.”

      Slowly, and crying out softly with the ache of it, Ishbel turned over, opening her eyes.

      A man wrapped in a crimson cloak over a similarly-coloured robe stood a few steps down, smiling at her. He was a young man, good-looking, with brown hair that flopped over his forehead, and a long, fine nose.

      “Ishbel?” The man held out a hand. “My name is Aziel. Would you like to come live with me?”

      She stared at him, unable to comprehend his presence.

      Aziel’s smile became gentler, if that were possible. “I have been travelling for weeks to reach you, Ishbel. The Great Serpent himself sent me. He appeared to me in a dream and said that I must hurry to bring you home. He loves you, sweetheart, and so shall I.”

      “Are you the Lord of Elcho Falling?” Ishbel whispered, even though she knew he could not be, for he did not drag loss and sorrow at his heels, and there was no darkness clinging to his shoulders.

      Aziel frowned briefly, then he shook his head. “My name is Aziel, Ishbel. And I am lord of nothing, only a poor servant of the Great Serpent. Will you come with me?”

      “To where?” Ishbel could barely grasp the thought of escape, now.

      “To my home,” Aziel said, “and it will be yours. Serpent’s Nest.”

      “I do not know of it.”

      “Then you shall. Please come with me, Ishbel. Don’t die. You are too precious to die.”

      “I don’t need to die?”

      Aziel laughed. “Ishbel, you have no idea how greatly we all want you to live, and to live with us. Will you come? Will you?”

      Ishbel swallowed, barely able to get the words out. “Are there whispers in your house?”

      “Whispers?”

      “Do the dead speak in your house?”

      Aziel frowned again. “The dying do, from time to time, when they confess to us the Great Serpent’s wishes, but once dead they are mute.”

      “Good.”

      “Ishbel, come with me, please. Forget about what has happened here. Forget — everything.”

      “Yes,” said Ishbel, and stretched out a trembling hand. I will forget, she thought. I will forget everything.

      She did not once wonder why this man should have been able so easily to wander through the vindictive