Chapter 37
Elric had once dreamt of this. It was the last time Ajax had told him he was worthless and that he would never become a terrifying god like the rest of his family.
He’d been on his knees in that damn pantheon, staring at the floor while the rest of his so-called family laughed at him.
They’d all agreed with Ajax. Elric was a waste of space, a god who never should have been, and no matter how hard he worked or what he did, he would never be good enough.
Ajax had bent down in front of him, used his spear to tilt Elric’s face up, and told him a line that would forever be burned into Elric’s memory.
And now, he got the immense satisfaction of kneeling in front of his brother, using Ajax’s own spear to tilt his head up, and repeating the message.
“If you weren’t so pathetic, I would kill you quickly. But I think you need to learn your lesson in pain before I grant you death.”
Using the tip of the spear, he flicked the helmet off Ajax’s head. It went careening off into the distance, where a small group of humans waited. They all lunged for it, grabbing the gold and rushing off. Likely they would try to make money off it, or perhaps they should melt it down.
Regardless, they had gotten a piece of their golden god, and he could only hope that satisfied them.
“You will never be good enough,” Ajax hissed. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, you have repeated yourself ad nauseam for centuries now, dear brother. I do believe I have heard you loud and clear at this point.”
Elric slowly stood, leaning on the spear like it was a cane, as he looked down at his brother’s body, all webbed to the ground with glimmering gold strands.
It was impressive to see how Jessamine had caught him.
And of all the people to do so, it was somehow even more satisfying to know it had been done by her.
“Did you believe she was going to be your queen?” Elric asked, curious now that he didn’t have to worry about Ajax getting out. “My woman?”
“I wanted to offer her a better partner, one who could actually give her what she desired most.”
“So you knew she was mine from the beginning?”
“Of course I knew she was yours,” Ajax spat. “Why do you think I had any interest in a dead princess? I saw just how much you were willing to do to get her back, and I fucking knew I could hurt you with it. Just like all the others.”
Another memory bloomed in his mind. He’d forgotten in the early days how Ajax was so quick to go after whatever Elric wanted.
But his brother had. Every woman, every man, anyone who had shown Elric more than an ounce of interest that was outside of the coven, they would suddenly become a concubine of Ajax’s.
Sometimes it would happen so fast that Elric wouldn’t even realize they had wanted him until much later, when someone pointed it out.
Those people had always wanted a piece of Elric, to love him more than he was currently loved. But that all changed once the favor of the God King was pinioned upon them. They’d ended up leaving, just like everyone always did.
Until now.
Until her.
“How did it feel? Knowing she would never choose you over me?” Elric asked, needing to know the answer just as suddenly as he needed his brother dead. “I want to know.”
“I don’t care what your little whore wants. As soon as I get out of this, I’m going to—”
Elric didn’t let him finish his sentence.
He lifted the spear and drove it into Ajax’s belly.
His brother let out a little wheeze as the skin parted and the metal sank deep into the stone beneath him.
There was nothing but the strange sound of his pained wheezes as Ajax looked at the wound in surprise.
“You cut me,” Ajax stammered.
“I know. And no one has managed to do that before.” Elric nudged the end of the spear impaled through his brother, watching as it bounced. “Such a shame that you never experienced the pain you inflict until this moment. Why don’t you tell me how you feel about that as well?”
“You know damn well it hurts. Now release me, brother. You have shown me your strength, and I will take you into my pantheon. We will rule this kingdom together.”
“I don’t think I’m going to do that, Ajax. I’m going to take your throne, and I’m going to do with it what you should have done all those years ago. I will be the god they deserve, and you? You will fade into memory and myth. And I will rule with my coven in your stead.”
Ajax bared his teeth as blood bubbled up his throat, coating the pearly whites that Leon Bishop had likely taken great pride in. There wasn’t much time until his brother’s form died.
Elric summoned another athame, watching as a group of shadows approached him.
Witches. All of his coven as they circled around the man who had taken so much from them.
Slowly, Elric removed his brother’s breastplate, baring the chest beneath it.
It was an exaggerated version of what Leon Bishop had wished he would look like, but it was time to bleed the disease from that body.
He handed the blade first to Agnes. “You have lost more than anyone else in this coven. Make the first cut, my sister. In your grandson’s name.”
Her grin was full of heartbreak and justice.
Agnes stepped up to the God King, who had destroyed so much of her life, and without hesitation, she drew the blade down his pectoral muscle.
The bright red line welled with crimson that dripped down his sides.
And as they watched, his brother became smaller.
“I sow into you my loss,” Agnes snarled. “I place in this wound all the ache of losing my grandson, the only family I have left. The only person who stayed by my side, no matter what mistakes I made. You took him from me, and now I give all of that anguish to you.”
It wasn’t much of a difference at first. But then Agnes passed the knife to Elissa.
The young woman left another shaking, jagged welt.
“For my love. For the woman who showed me what it was like to fly. I know that you will never experience a love like that, but you have prevented me from being by her side. You have hurt my friends. The people who…” Elissa’s words grew choked.
Agnes put her arms around her and took the knife as Elissa finished the spell. “I weave into you the bitter pain of realizing that I surrounded myself willingly with people who would never love me. And when I finally found friends who would, you took them away from me.”
And then a newer witch took the knife, another, and another. Line after line, they carved into Ajax’s body and placed into each of those wounds every bit of their pain. Their heartache. Their betrayal.
He watched with his heart in his throat as each of these women healed themselves. They wove into their spells all the pain that their bodies had been carrying for far too long. And now, they were allowed to get rid of it. They were allowed to place the blame on the person who deserved it most.
Something in Elric healed as well. Because while he loved this coven, and every coven that had come before it, this one was different. This one looked at him as the god who would save them.
Finally, the knife made it to Sybil. Her wrinkled, shaking hand gripped the hilt with a surety that surprised him. He had expected her to hesitate more than any of them, because that was who she was. She had lost so much, and few of those losses were at the hands of the god lying on the ground.
But she knelt in front of his brother and carved the longest line. She placed the tip of the blade at his collarbone and brought it all the way down to the spear at his belly and then circled that dripping wound. She continued to his hip as Ajax hissed and arched in pain.
“I sow into you my greatest regret.” She dropped the knife by his head and stood.
“You made me question my own god. The god I have served for centuries. You made me think, for even a moment, that maybe he should be sacrificed again. Maybe it was better if I followed the old ways. And I will never forgive you for that.”
Their eyes met. He hadn’t realized Sybil had even considered it, but looking back, he could understand why. She had been given so much responsibility, so much weight on her shoulders. Of course she had thought about it. She would have been mad not to.
As he walked over and picked up the knife, he placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “But you didn’t, Sybil.”
“I thought it,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “I should never have even thought it.”
Again he squeezed her arm, because he wasn’t going to let her believe for even a second that was something he couldn’t forgive. It was natural. It had been the way of things for so long, and now, she couldn’t blame herself for wondering if something terrible had to be done.
He crouched beside his brother’s head, staring down into Ajax’s golden gaze, which was filled with so much hate. “Now I’m going to kill you, brother.”
“You cannot kill me,” Ajax hissed. “You don’t have the power to do that.”
“I do, actually. Now that my Jessamine is a goddess. Now that my coven is entirely together and stronger than any coven to ever exist, I very much do.” He took a deep breath and filled the athame with what remained of Jessamine’s magic.
There was still more of it, still a well of endless magic in that realm they had created together.
More than enough to kill the most renowned of their kind.
He drove the athame into Ajax’s chest, illuminating the spirit within him that was the god. And it was so small. Smaller than he’d thought. The tiniest of worms that had wriggled its way into Leon’s body and completely taken over.
“No,” Ajax said, now squirming underneath that sharp web that cut into his flesh over and over again. “You can’t do this. We will rule together. I will—I will let you rule, Elric. I will do what you say. You can become the God King.”
“I don’t want to be the God King,” Elric replied. “I want justice, and to heal the wounds you left on me for centuries. I will no longer wear the marks of your disappointment, brother. For this time, it is you who has disappointed me. There will be no pantheon of gods. Never again.”
He plunged his hand into Ajax’s body, yanking out the tiny, shriveled form of a god and tossing it into his realm, where it was bound, chained, and sunk into the deepest of waters that would never be illuminated again.
He banished his brother to an eternity of darkness, where perhaps he would be able to atone for all his sins.
And that left… Leon.
The moment Elric returned to his physical form, he looked down into the gray features of the young man who had wanted to be king.
The man who had done all of this with the intent to be the best of anyone.
More of a man, a better king, whatever his reasoning for it had been, now it was all for naught.
Leon coughed, and a bubble of blood covered his mouth for a moment before it burst and splattered all over his features. “So it’s over, then?”
“What was your plan with all this? At the end?” Elric tilted his head to the side, like a curious raven watching a beetle try to flee. “Did you really believe you could control a god?”
“He promised me so much,” Leon murmured. “The world. He said that we would rule with each other, and that I would… that I would be a king no one would ever forget.”
“And what did we learn?”
“To never trust the gods.”
Leon’s eyes were already fluttering closed. Eyes drifting into that other realm, facing the darkness where his soul would wander. But no, Elric wasn’t done with him. Not yet.
He leaned down and murmured in his ear, making sure that Leon would hear him even as his soul started to peel away from his body.
“It’s not over for you, Leon. You don’t get to escape into death.
I’m sending you to her. To the woman you murdered on your wedding day, and she is going to make sure that you get every piece of what you deserve, you worthless tiny man. ”
Then he drew the blade across Leon’s neck, just like the man had done to Jessamine.
But Elric kept him in this realm a little while longer.
Letting him feel the pain that came with such a mortal wound, letting him know that if Elric wanted, he could keep him here indefinitely.
Feeling his body rot as all the blood poured out of the wound that only Elric could allow to kill him.
Finally, though, he let the man go. There was more to do here, for all of them.
He stood slowly, feeling the bones in his back and hips creaking as he surveyed the carnage that remained.
There wasn’t much left. At least, not that he could work with.
The people who remained were all from Orenda.
They had all been suffering for quite some time.
They needed healing. They needed peace. But they were not going to find any of that here, not when the witches of Inverholm had to piece their kingdom back together.
“Elric?” Sybil asked as she stood with him.
He knew the question in her voice. What were they going to do now? Jessamine was gone. They had all seen her fade in his arms, surely. Now they were without their goddess, and they didn’t know the next steps to take.
He took a deep, steadying breath and prepared himself to be a god yet again. “Now that Ajax’s curse has been broken with his death, the souls of the people of Inverholm should be returning. We will need to go into every home where we trapped them and start to heal their bodies.”
“How are we going to do that?” Sybil asked. “We don’t have a healer.”
“We do.” Even if she was far away for a while longer.
“You have a goddess to pray to, Sybil. A goddess of life itself. While she is in her realm, she can heal whatever you want from her. We are not hurting her body or her mortal form. That no longer exists. Pray to her. Sacrifice to her. And we will heal this kingdom one person at a time.”
“That could take months.”
The words caused a shudder to run through him, but he nodded. “Yes. It could.”
If it took months for him to see her again, then that was what it would take. But she would burn through body after body here if they expected her to heal everyone. So for now, it was safer for Jessamine to remain in that other realm and heal from afar. As a life goddess should.