Chapter 27
Elric loved her when she was bloodthirsty.
He loved her when she walked away from him with her head held high with anger, her nose so far in the air he didn’t know how she saw where she was going.
His heart beat only for her when she was brave, when she was kind, and when she regarded the world as hers to take.
He just loved her, a confession he repeated over and over in his head.
Elric followed her through the streets, making sure that no one even looked at her twice, no matter how many times she bumped into someone or shoved them. There were a lot of things going through his nightmare’s head. And she had every right to be frustrated with him right now.
He had taken something very dear to her.
Not that he would ever understand the depth of losing such a thing.
He wasn’t human anymore. He didn’t have a soul to take or steal.
But then his mind got tangled up with the thought of her on a throne, and he remembered how she had conjured her own in that realm in between and turned his dark world into one of bright colors, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about what came after that.
The taste of her. The little sounds she made when she threw her head back in rapture. She captivated him with every tiny movement when she was in the throes of passion.
Maybe that would get her out of this funk.
He took a few steps closer to her, and then immediately dropped back again as she glared at him over her shoulder with a gaze that said if he even touched her, she would cut him to ribbons with those sharp claws of hers.
There was pain and retribution in those eyes.
Perhaps not, then.
If she wanted him to follow her, then he would.
They made it all the way back to their home at the end of Rose Street, with a wind that howled through the broken windows in the front and the suggestion of a figure standing in one of the second-floor rooms. This haunted home was so perfect for them, and yet, she didn’t even pause as she stomped inside.
Sybil had already thrown open the door, clearly waiting for them to return. Her brows furrowed at Jessamine’s angry expression.
“Did it not go well?”
“Could not have gone worse,” Jessamine spat before she took the tempest of her emotions down the hall toward her bedroom. The slamming sound of her door echoed.
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was a trap,” he explained. “Fortuna infected every single person at the party. Apparently, they’re using the souls of the infected for a much larger spell.”
Sybil blinked up at him. “Ah. So it really couldn’t have gone worse.”
“She found out I stole her soul when she first made a deal with me, and that I still have it in the other realm.”
“Oh.” The word was long and drawn out. “I stand corrected. It could get much, much worse.”
“Women are complicated.”
“I think you know exactly what you did and why she’s angry, but allow me to remind you just in case.
You stole her soul without letting her know, and apparently you then just…
kept it? A soul is a deeply personal thing.
It’s our connection to the land of the living and our ticket to the land of the dead.
It’s what makes us who we are.” Sybil’s hand clenched on the door.
“I should slam this in your face and tell you to sleep on the street for the night.”
“We both know I’d just walk in anyway.”
“We do.”
And still, her hand clenched harder around the door before she stepped out of his way.
Even he could see the disappointment in her expression.
Her forehead wrinkled with the knowledge that he had taken something so dear from someone Sybil valued, and he knew she had a right to be angry with him, too.
He knew that there was so much wrong with what he had done, but he’d done it already.
Elric might be a god, but even he couldn’t go back in time and stop his former self.
But there were plenty of people losing their souls in this kingdom, and if someone was stealing the souls of the infected, that was a much larger problem than he or Jessamine had imagined. Souls were costly to claim, and only used for world-altering spells.
“I’m going to fix this,” he said as he walked by her. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to fix it.”
“You can try.”
Unfortunately, Sybil proved to be right.
Every time he tried to speak with Jessamine, every time he tried to make things better, she brushed him off.
She had no interested in talking to him.
For an entire week, he tried his best to convince her to at least give him a chance to talk, but she denied him every time.
And he was going mad with it.
Elric used the time to plan. He would not be defeated by the revelation that he had her soul. It didn’t mean he’d done something wrong. He’d kept her safe by keeping her soul.
Look at what would have happened if he hadn’t! Leon and his cronies of religious fanatics would have stolen her soul for some spell that they still did not understand. She would have been lost to them all. Even his magic had its limitations.
But she didn’t see it like that. Jessamine just kept closing the door in his face, ignoring that he was in the room, and only responding when someone else talked.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stalked into their room, the door banging against the wall and shaking the entire space as he stood there, chest heaving with anger.
She was already dressed for the evening in a long black wrap tied at her delicate waist. She was still rail thin, a skeletal creature, and yet he had never seen anything more beautiful.
He was starved just for the sight of her.
Starved for an ounce of her attention and for the barest hint that she wouldn’t be like this forever.
That he hadn’t lost her. That this was fixable. Because all he wanted was to fix it.
She sighed and turned her back to him.
“How long will you punish me?” he asked. “How long do you expect me to endure this?”
Still no response.
Panic set in. His heart thundered in his chest, an uncomfortable feeling that somehow made his anxiety even worse. He couldn’t live like this. Not with her denying him even the sight of her gaze. He had to know that she was all right. That they were going to be all right.
And he didn’t know why he cared if these mortals were okay. He had tried. He continued to try, and nothing had helped.
Elric sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at his hands. “If I show you the greatest secret of the gods, will you forgive me?”
He had always known her curiosity was the one thing he could play off of. She would not be able to deny herself the knowing of what he was going to give her. Surely she would talk to him now.
But she only turned her head just slightly in his direction and asked, “How?”
“It is a memory. Much like the ones you have walked through with me before.”
“I thought your memories were jumbled and hard to find.”
“They were.” Elric closed his hands into fists. “But they are returning, the longer we are together. If you wish to walk through them, to see what my family was like and who I was before the death of all the gods, I am willing to share those memories with you.”
Jessamine turned to look at him. The dark wrap twisted around her body, graceful and so pretty it made him want to trace those lines with his fingers. “This will not make me forgive you.”
He hoped that it would, though. Instead of telling her that, he breathed out into his hands. A black smoke exhaled from his lungs, the memory dripping from his lips almost like ink. It gathered in his palms, thick with all the emotions that were there.
Holding his cupped hands out to her, he waited until she walked a bit closer. “This one you will have to drink,” he said. “But I warn you, the memories of gods are often cruel.” Memories he would rather have forgotten.
She did not reply. Instead, she leaned down and sipped from the memory. The black ink stained her lips, and he tumbled into the past with her.
Elric closed his eyes, preparing himself for what he was about to see. He breathed in calm, exhaled fear, and when he next opened them, he was in the most holy place this realm had ever seen.
Years and years ago, the greatest temple had actually been their home.
It was more opulent than anyone had a right to live in.
They stood in the great hall, where his brothers and sisters had chosen to make this place look even more otherworldly.
The floor was molten gold, but they had encrusted it with every gemstone known to man.
Rubies, emeralds, pearls, all glistened underneath their feet.
Great swaths of crimson silk hung from the ceiling in billowing waves that shivered with every breath of the gods.
The room was lined on all sides with thrones, each tailored to the god or goddess who sat on it.
He looked to his right, where the Crone herself sat. The old woman was wrinkled and wizened, her visage a choice he’d never fully understood. Her throne was made out of twisted, aged oak, specks of moss clinging to the knots of the wood. And at her feet, three priestesses lounged in sheer dresses.
Next to her sat the Many-Faced Mother. Her throne was austere and minimal, a gold throne similar to what a human king would have sat in.
Her dark hair was pulled back from her face, so tight that it made her appear even younger than she was.
Sometimes she was young, sometimes old, sometimes matronly, but she always wore the same severe expression.
An expression that could not compete with the royal-blue pleated fabric that covered her form.
To his left, his sister’s throne. The Huntress had made it entirely out of antlers from every mythical beast she murdered. She lounged upon it, barely dressed in a leather skirt, with one long leg hooked through an antler that made up one of the arms.