Chapter 8
Two guards hauled her up by her arms. Her feet dragged on the ground behind her, leaving twin marks in the dirt.
This ritual site was far different from the last one.
But she couldn’t lift her head to even look around.
All she could do was let it loll between her shoulders, only moving when they jostled her hard enough.
She should be able to pick up her head. She should be able to fight back against them.
But Jessamine was so tired.
Strength required rest, and she had not had a moment’s peace in three days.
Ajax was known to be a ruthless god for a reason, and he hadn’t let up.
Not even when Leon had flickered into control a few times, his gaze turning horrified as he looked at what his god had done to the woman he might have married.
Jessamine had even seen pity in his eyes a few times before the man she knew disappeared and the yellow-eyed demon returned.
Now, they were in a clearing, it seemed.
There was nothing here but a cliff’s edge and an altar against the sea.
This would have been a far more reasonable place for Leon to try to kill her.
If only their wedding had been here, she would have guessed long before she reached his side that he was going to murder her.
Her thoughts weren’t entirely rational as the guards dragged her right up to the altar and then forced her to kneel before it.
She’d been in a situation like this before.
Callum had placed her just like this, with a knife in his hand and distorted thoughts in his mind.
It seemed that there were so many men who wanted to place her on an altar, but their version of worship was twisted and ugly.
Leon walked up beside her, his hands behind his back as he surveyed the entire situation. “This doesn’t have to be difficult, Jessamine.”
She looked up at him just to make sure it was actually Leon that she was speaking with. Thankfully, for now, it was. She joined him in looking at the altar, uncertain of what to even say.
“I’m not confident you have ever had to fight for something you wanted,” she admitted. “I think you’ve been given everything in your life, so you don’t understand where I am coming from or how hard it is for me to exist here.”
His throat worked in a swallow. “I am a man who gets what he wants.”
“You are a man who has been given everything and who has done nothing with it.” She blinked through swollen eyes, staring at the altar and wondering what they were going to do to her upon it.
“I do not know how to tell you that this is wrong. I don’t know how to convince you that what you have done is evil.
But I think you know all of that already.
I think you’re just as trapped as I am, Leon, and I think someday you’ll regret this. ”
He didn’t respond, so she looked up at him and saw his eyes had already turned golden in the light. So much for being able to convince him to help her.
Ajax grinned down at her. “It’s a very interesting speech you gave, Jessamine.
Yet again, proof that whatever is in you will fuel a goddess far better than anyone else.
But I assure you, Leon Bishop knows what he has done.
And if he ever decides that he regrets his decision, I will make sure he never sees the light of day again.
A god can kill its host and continue to use its body. He knows the deal.”
“Did he before he made the deal?”
Again, another long pause, and then Ajax laughed. “You have been in the company of gods for far too long, princess. Clearly, you understand our ways.”
Of course she did. Just like she knew, without a doubt, that Ajax was going to do something terrible to her now. And there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Magic required concentration. It required energy. Neither of which she had.
Bowing her head, she stayed kneeling where she was as Ajax lifted his arms over his head and the world started to burn.
He created a ring of fire around them, the flickering lights bleeding through her closed eyes in a red haze.
His voice turned deep and monotone, but behind her closed lids, she wasn’t here.
She imagined the people she cared about, clinging to their image as though that might distract her mind from where she actually was. Sybil with her kindness and all the wisdom she had so willingly shared. Agnes, with her strength. Elissa and her sweet smile.
And Elric.
Oh, she pictured Elric here with her. His hand intertwined with hers, even though there was no way for either of them to break through the spell Ajax cast upon her.
She couldn’t connect with any other god, but she pretended that she could.
Jessamine ignored the tightening around her throat as she tried, and instead thought of Elric kneeling on the ground next to her, his fingers intertwined with her own.
He was exhausted. Even her mind conjured that because he had been trying so hard to find her.
She knew there wasn’t an ounce of him that would give up hope that he would eventually get to her side.
Elric didn’t want to give up. He’d fight for her until his very last breath, because that was who he was.
So if he was here with her, his eyes would be smudged with shadow.
His shirt would be undone at the collar, the buttons loose, and not tucked into his waistband like normal.
His hair would be tangled around his face, knotted because she hadn’t been there to run her fingers through the locks and make sure that he looked a little less wild.
His hand was callused where it gripped hers. She knew these hands as well as she knew her own, and that… that was all she wanted. She wanted him here, with her, as he had always been at the end of things.
“Nightmare,” he murmured, his voice full of emotion. “You cannot summon me here. He will sense that there is another god.”
“I didn’t summon you, Elric.” Jessamine tried to whisper the words as Ajax’s spell swelled over their heads. “I just wanted you here with me while it all ends.”
Elric’s head jerked up as he looked around them. “He’s doing it now?”
“He wants me to take a goddess into my body so that he can rule with a queen at his side. I don’t know why he chose me, but he did.”
It was a lie. She knew why both Ajax and Leon had chosen her.
She already had experience with gods, and also she had magic of her own.
Perhaps that would help in the long and short of it.
That’s why they had given Fortuna power, after all.
But Ajax didn’t want a disfigured queen, and the opportunity for healing what she had done to Fortuna was long past.
Her Deathless God looked around them before leaning close. “Jessamine, listen to me. I can get to you. I just need you to make some space between you and him.”
What? No, she was here and stuck here. Ajax had made it seem…
“Are you really here?” she whispered.
“Only my energy, and not for long. But I can be at your side in an instant if you just make some space. I need you to do that for me, Jessamine.”
“How?”
He looked frantic as he peered around them and then started mouthing the words with Ajax.
They were in another language and sounded so dark.
So nasty that it was hard for her to focus on what they were.
This wasn’t a spellcraft that she knew, and some part of her screamed that this was the language of the gods.
Finally, Elric’s features hardened. “There is going to be a point in this spell where he kills these guards. Blood magic is required for the goddess he wants to put in you.”
“The Crone?”
“The Huntress. He always preferred her, but she never gave him the time of day. Perhaps he thinks resurrecting her will change that. The guards will die, and his attention will shift.”
Her body hurt. Every muscle in her form throbbed at the thought of trying to get away. Her eyes were so bruised and swollen that it was hard to see. How would she do any of this?
Elric must have seen the thoughts on her face, because he squeezed her fingers where she still held his, and said, “I need you to listen to me, Jessamine. Call upon all the women who have fled with broken limbs and bruised skin. I need you to feel them. Their anger. Their rage. Their fear. And then I need you to run like the survivor you are.”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between his. “And if I fail?”
“Then I fear we have lost you. This will not be kind, nor will it be quick. His spell will make you endure the worst pain imaginable until you beg the Huntress to come into your body, just to stop what he’s doing.” Elric squeezed her hand again. “Run, Jessamine.”
And then he disappeared. She wasn’t sure if that was due to Ajax’s spell or if something else happened that made him leave, but he was gone. And it was just her.
Swallowing hard, she bowed her head and listened to the monotone of the god’s voice surrounding her.
The guards behind her didn’t seem to notice that anything was happening at all.
Their eyes had been full of fanatic expectation, and she wasn’t going to warn them that something bad was going to happen.
Death called for them. Frankly, they deserved it.
She heard the swell in the magic and felt the energy that erupted from Ajax’s hands, just like Elric had said.
It sank beneath her skin, a stranger that ruptured through every blood vessel and threaded through her very soul. She could feel it. White hot and angry, a rage that wasn’t her own suddenly opening like a chasm in her head and screaming with violence.
More magic was targeted at the two guards behind her. Their throats sliced open. A spray of warm blood splashed all over her, the altar, and Ajax. He tilted his head back in reverie, as though it were a rose bath, and she knew that was her moment.
Gathering herself, she stilled her body until Ajax picked up the first guard and held his neck over the altar, bathing it in blood. The rivers of it rushed toward her, and then she just… moved.
Her body bunched, her legs jolted, and she ran. She ran as fast as she could, staggering over the ground until she finally found her footing and then bolted.
Breath sawing in and out of her lungs, she felt the texture of the grass whipping her thighs.
Ajax had wanted her in virginal white, he’d said.
The sheer dress was no barrier between her and the canes of reeds that slapped her knees and the wounds above them.
But the pain kept her going. It kept her moving forward, no matter what happened.
She only had a few moments. A few moments to be free.
The field ahead of her was wide open, but she had a few tricks up her sleeve. Forty steps. Forty massive running steps and she felt the shackles on her magic finally loosen.
Beating away panic, she heaved the words out of her lips. “Grow. Grow tall. Grow strong. Tear it from my blood and grow.”
No trees had grown here for years, so she didn’t have that advantage, but there were seeds of bushes.
And those would grow tall enough to hide her, so they stretched with the magic that dripped from her fingers.
Every drop of blood that spread around her created massive behemoths of greenery with thorns that were as long and as wide as her thumb.
They created enough of a barrier, just as she heard Ajax’s scream of rage.
“More,” she hissed as she darted into the midst of them. “Thicker.”
She had to hide from him. He would find her, but Elric said she just needed to create space. So she would create space.
The grass sliced deeper into her legs until it felt like she was running through brambles. But they were exacting their price to grow faster, to make everything happen the way it had to happen. More bushes, more hiding spots.
She staggered, falling onto her hands and knees. The greenery there twined around her arms and wrists, slicing through her skin as though they were blades. But that was good. The pain gave her more focus, and she spread her fingers into the dirt and whispered, “Hide me.”
The ground rolled like a wave beneath her hands. It continued toward the God King, rolling underneath his feet until Ajax staggered. She could just barely see him through the bushes. A tall man with confidence radiating through his body as he set everything she had encouraged to grow on fire.
“Run, Jessamine,” she whispered, crawling on her hands and knees through the dirt. “Run, so he can’t find you.”
Because if he did, she knew that would be her end. He didn’t care about her well-being or health or any of the things that he swore he did. This god was going to kill her. She needed to find the one who would save her.
Her palms ached as they scraped against stones while she fled. But she ran. She ran with every ounce of rage and fear that every woman before her had felt. She could feel their hearts pounding in her chest, and the worries they’d had.
Maybe running wasn’t the right thing to do after all. They weren’t strong enough. They’d be caught and then things would be even worse than they were before.
But then her heart thudded again, and she felt their bravery as well. The knowledge that they were done living the way they had lived before.
Because, like her, living that way was worse than death. They had to at least try to escape, and if they failed, then they failed in glory.
“Jessamine Harmsworth! The longer you run, the longer your torture lasts!” Ajax screamed as he beat through the bushes.
Let him scream. Let him rage at the world because a woman had bested him.
Heaving in one massive spasm, she shoved herself up onto her haunches and then stood.
Her spine cracked as she did so, her entire body on fire with pain.
There was something else growing in her head.
Gasping, she shoved it out of her body and left it there with him in the brambles.
Because the moment the last piece of her ripped free from the bushes, she knew she had been found.
“Elric,” she whimpered, staggering forward blindly. Because he would come.
He always came for her.