Chapter 20
Jessamine stayed silent even as Elric carried her to her old bedroom, wrapped her in a blanket, and then sat down in front of her with expectation on his face. He must have known that her thoughts were running wild through her head. The man had always been impossibly good at reading her.
There weren’t many people in the room. Sybil had made certain that most of the coven left them alone, so it was now only those who had started off with her.
Elric, Sybil, Agnes, and Elissa. The core of their coven, even if some of them didn’t want to be here any longer. Agnes had made that very clear.
They all waited until Jessamine was ready, and she let the story drip from her tongue. As she told it, it was like she was back in that cave. Enduring all of it once more.
Jessamine was suddenly watching as the golden coils wrapped around her arms, turning her face to read the words on the walls. They weren’t spells or anything all that helpful. They were just stories. The tales of so many witches who had come before her, and all those who wanted her to know them.
But then she’d looked at a particular story, and the words had started to change. It had turned into the same word over and over again.
Help.
Help.
Help.
She reached for the word, uncertain of what to do about it.
These women had suffered, yes, but they had caused much suffering along the way as well.
She’d read about all the spells they had cast, and Jessamine now understood why so many people feared them.
The witches had been an intimidating faction who had made the entire kingdom tremble at the thought of what they would do.
Surely they had known that would be quick to cause an uprising?
The moment her finger ghosted over the word, though, she had been transported. There was the slight prick of pain throughout her body, likely as it had tensed up, but then she didn’t feel anything at all. She’d been thrust into that realm that she thought only Elric could wander through.
They’d summoned her right to them. She’d expected darkness, but the gravesingers were surrounded by the same golden light that had made up the words.
She wasn’t frightened of what these shadowy figures would do to her, because she could hear them speaking in her head.
They welcomed her. They said they had been watching her for some time, and they were grateful that there was still a gravesinger to bring magic into the world.
They told her they had fought Ajax, too, and that he was the most difficult of all the gods to vanquish, because his confidence came from truth.
He was powerful. He could hurt anyone, and in doing so, made himself more powerful.
She would need help. All the help she could get.
But they also knew that his spell had failed. When she had begged them to take his influence out of her, they had promised there was no hint of Ajax inside of her. Elric was right on that, at least. But they told her that he was wrong in other ways.
She wasn’t herself. She was changing. If they didn’t intervene, then she would continue to change until there was no way for her to go back to who she was before.
Tucking the tails of her blanket tighter around her arms, she looked up at the four people in the room helplessly. “So I told them to help. I don’t know what’s going on inside of me, or how to stop it, but I do know I don’t want to be someone else.”
Elric grabbed the chair in front of her vanity and spun it around. He sat on it backward, his hands dangling off the back as he leaned his chest against the chair. “Did they know what was happening to you or what you would become if they didn’t intervene?”
She shook her head. “They didn’t say, but I’m not sure they would have even if they could. It seemed like they wanted to keep that part a secret, or that they weren’t able to tell me.”
“Rules and more rules,” Elric snarled. “It’s like the witches never want to tell the truth. They want you to learn this for yourself, but they still want to meddle in what might come.”
Agnes snorted from where she leaned against the door. “After all these years, Deathless One, I had thought you would know better than to judge others for their actions. If we judged you for all the things you have done, do you think we ever would have brought you back?”
Elric’s spine stiffened, and he looked over his shoulder at her. “Agnes, we all know the only reason any of you wanted to bring me back was to kill me later. So please, don’t try to tell me you did it out of the kindness of your own heart.”
“And we all know exactly what the gravesingers are suggesting. Jessamine is soon to be lost to us. They know how to stop it. We should let her go back and gather all the information she can out of those who came before.”
Sybil had moved to sit on the bed to Jessamine’s right.
Her hands were pressed into the mattress beside her hips, and every muscle in her body was coiled so tightly, it looked like she was waiting to fly forward if anyone needed her to.
“They were killing her. I know they said that they weren’t, but they were.
I could see what they were doing to her body here.
Too much more of it, and she wouldn’t have had a body to go back to. ”
“Tsk.” Agnes made the sound so loud it popped in the room. “Rubbish. We all know the Deathless One can resurrect her. How many times has the girl died now? Three? And she’s still walking around with us just fine.”
Jessamine looked at Elric, wondering if he would reveal the truth to the rest of them. It was his choice. He was the one with the ability to bring her back, after all. If he wanted to admit he couldn’t do that anymore, then she wouldn’t stop him.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I cannot, actually. Ever since Ajax’s spell affected Jessamine, our connection has grown weaker and weaker. I cannot sense her anymore. I’m uncertain that if she died I could find her soul in time.”
Deafening silence was the only answer to his words. All the other witches in the room stared in horror, and Jessamine knew exactly how they were feeling.
It was a tragedy to know she could die. It was even more terrifying than all the other things they had done together. The infected were easily rounded up. The fight with a god? It had been a long shot, anyway.
But they had yet to lose one of their own. And if that person had to be Jessamine… Well, she wasn’t sure they would all continue forward without her help.
She bit her lip, then nodded. “So we get one shot at this. I don’t know if he’ll be able to bring me back, and I’m the only one who can bring him back. Isn’t that what a gravesinger is supposed to be? I’m here to make sure that we can resurrect our god whenever we need him.”
Elissa stepped closer and then reached for Jessamine’s shoulder. She squeezed it tightly. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
None of them could promise that.
Hugging herself a bit tighter, Jessamine continued her story.
“There was one more thing. They said power is the only currency Ajax respects. The stronger the coven is, the more reason he has to fear us. The last time he didn’t touch witches until the very end, because he knew that the coven was capable of biting back. ”
Once again, Agnes let out a little laugh that was as cruel as it was mirthful. “And so we are back here. The Deathless One must be sacrificed for the rest of us to remotely intimidate a god like Ajax. It is foolish to expect that we could ever spare him.”
There it was.
The one thing that Elric feared, all laid out in front of them in so few words.
Agnes had merely said what so many in the coven had thought.
Jessamine knew that. There were plenty of women here who didn’t understand why Elric was still breathing, or at least why they didn’t have a plan to end him soon.
They’d been sacrificing to him regularly.
It didn’t matter that he gave them some magic back. It wasn’t enough.
“No,” Jessamine said. “We’re not doing that.”
“You’ll just bring him back,” Agnes argued.
“It’s a temporary death. I don’t know why you’re arguing against it.
He’ll return in just a few moments, right after we kill him!
It’ll take all of five minutes for you to bring him right back to the same body he just left.
And we can do it all over again once he feels ready.
Until all of us have so much energy that Ajax would never even consider coming to this kingdom. ”
“No,” Jessamine repeated, and then completely dismissed Agnes as though she wasn’t even in the room. “Anyone else have other ideas?”
Elissa cleared her throat. “We may send you back to the other gravesingers? Surely they know another way to kill the gods. Even if it hurts you to do so, Elric can bring you back before you die.”
But all of this seemed to only anger Agnes. The older woman shoved off the door and headed over to them, stomping so loudly Jessamine swore the floor shook with her wrath. “Absolutely not. This is the path of least resistance! Why not sacrifice him?”
Through it all, Jessamine looked at Elric. He had shrunk in on himself, his gaze on the floor as though every one of Agnes’s words was a strike to his form.
That was why she was so unwilling to offer him up to the power-hungry women in her coven. Because he would if they asked. Even though every part of him feared what they would do, and all the pain he would have to suffer, Elric would still do it at their word.
And that was why she never would. She’d made a promise to him that he would never have to endure what he had before, and she intended to keep it.
“Agnes,” she said, her voice firm and hard. “I will not entertain this thought.”
“Why? We all know you’re in love with him, and that’s very noble.
But loving a god is like loving the wind.
Some days it doesn’t blow.” Agnes threw up her hands.
“How did you think this would end? Did you think you’d marry him?
That the two of you would eventually sit side by side on the throne?
You know how this ends just as well as I do, and it is not with him by your side. ”
Jessamine was shocked. The words were sharp-edged and cruel, even though she knew where they came from.
“Agnes, go home,” she said.
“To what home? The one with my undead grandson or the one that doesn’t exist anymore? You tell me where you want me to go, Jessamine Harmsworth, and I will happily run in that direction. Anywhere is better than here.” Agnes spun and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Elissa drummed her fingers on the table, the sound almost too loud. “She didn’t mean any of that, Jessamine.”
“She did.”
“No, she didn’t. Those were cruel words. None of them were meant in honesty. She just… she hasn’t been the same since Hugo. You know how worried she is about all of this. He’s the last of her line.”
“She meant every word. I understand where she’s coming from, but it is not something we’re going to even speak of. We’re not hurting him, Elissa.”
The willow-thin woman looked at her for a few more moments before nodding. “I understand. Shall I go calm her down?”
“Please.”
The door opened and closed once more, clicking shut much more quietly this time before silence stood between the remaining three of them.
Sybil stood from the bed, stretching her arms over her head. “What if there was another way?”
“I will take any way but that,” Jessamine replied.
“What if we drained you?” Sybil pointed at Jessamine. “The gravesingers already poured more magic into you, and the magic you do have is rather… odd. We could strip it from you, and spread it among all of us. You’re a funnel for Elric’s magic anyway. We could siphon it off. Bit by bit.”
“If that would work, then that’s a way.” She looked over at Elric, hope making her chest ache. “Right?”
“It’s a thought.” Elric seemed troubled by the ask. “We could… maybe make that happen.”
“I know the way to do it. You’d have to take the magic from her yourself, and then spread it to the others. I don’t think it would be comfortable, but we should at least try it. Perhaps if we do it regularly, we can drain whatever afflicts her as well.”
Jessamine could feel hope burning in her chest. It wasn’t killing him, and that much she would take. “Yes. That’s perfect. Why don’t we do that?”
She looked excitedly at Elric, only to feel her excitement drain the moment she saw his expression. His wrinkled brows and thinly pressed line of a mouth suggested he didn’t think it would work. But that surely couldn’t be the end of it all. It had to work. There had to be another way.
“I’ll do it,” he murmured. “But it will hurt.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze when he replied, “I know, nightmare. I just hate to hear that.”