Chapter 1 #2
Whispered words glided through his mind as the witch called out to him for help.
“God of the dead, the Deathless One himself, I ask you to cast pity upon a poor worshipper who has long forgotten the old ways. I beg for your forgiveness in my lack of worship for too many years. I have nearly lost the dearest person to me, and I pray that you might fight on my behalf to tear away the darkness that follows her. I beg of you to fight death so that I might have more time with her.”
“She wishes for me to stop someone from dying,” he muttered. “A simple request. I will ignore it.”
“Ignore it?” Jessamine’s hand tightened on his arm. “Elric, this is the first time someone has worshipped you in centuries!”
“Sybil worships me.”
Speaking of the witch, he could already see her sprinting toward them from the house. She had her tattered skirts up above her knees as she ran, her hair nearly tumbling out of the knot at the top of her head.
He watched Sybil struggle to get to their side, remaining seated even when Jessamine stood. His gravesinger cast an unimpressed glance in his direction.
“You’re going to make her run all the way out here?” Jessamine asked.
“Yes.”
“We could meet her at least halfway.”
“She is the one who chose to run to my side, Jessamine.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to sit there like an ass,” she hissed. “Clearly something is wrong.”
He reached out and wrapped a hand around her ankle, pinning her in place when she might have started toward the other woman. “Jessamine, I am a god. I do not rush to anyone’s side but yours. Ease your tone, gravesinger.”
Soon enough, Jessamine would need to come to terms with what it meant to be paired with a god. Their power put them above others, simply because of what they could do. A single word from her, and he would raze the entire world to nothing but brimstone and ash. She was no longer a normal woman.
But then again, she never had been. He wondered how her mother had taught her that being a princess was not the same as being a woman. Perhaps he would need to seek out that particular memory within her soul and learn how to handle this wild woman.
Sybil finally reached them, panting, her eyes wild as she stared at him. “Did you feel it?” she asked, sounding frantic. “Tell me you felt it as well.”
“I felt it.”
Jessamine looked between the two of them. “You can both feel it when someone is making a sacrifice?”
“It’s more than that,” he replied, leaning back on his palms and tilting his head to the sun.
“A witch sacrificing to me makes ripples throughout the entire coven. She dedicates her magic to me, and therefore the sisterhood, when she does so. Which means not only can I feel it, but so can the rest of the coven. In this case, Sybil.”
“Another witch is sacrificing to you, Deathless One,” Sybil interrupted.
He could hear the reverence with which she said the words.
But they only made him feel an icy tendril of fear, the ghost that walked with him through every step of his life.
Witches always wanted to build their family.
They wanted more women and more witches and a larger coven.
They wanted a bigger house and more power, magic that streamed through them all until they had more than they could use in a lifetime.
They wanted all of that and more. Because witches always wanted.
They devoured the world, and even then, it wasn’t enough. Power was addictive, but so was the knowledge that they could protect themselves. He’d always known where their desire came from, just as he knew he was the only one who could satiate it.
Soon enough, they would pick apart his bones and suck them clean for one last drop of magic.
“Elric?” Jessamine said, and he was drawn back into the present. The two women stared at him as though he was supposed to answer a question he hadn’t heard them ask.
Pushing aside the anxiety, he focused on them instead of the churning memories inside of him. “What did you say?”
“Are we going to help her?” Sybil asked, presumably again.
He stared at his gravesinger, knowing what her answer would be. Jessamine had been through so much, but there was still a girl inside of her who wanted a family. She desperately needed connection, and he’d be lying if he said that didn’t sting.
For him, she was enough. He could end the world now and spend the rest of his immortal life with just her, and that would be a life he was pleased with.
But his Jessamine needed more than just that. So he was bound to provide it.
Sighing, he stood and savored the ache of his knees and the bite of a small pebble digging into the back of his thigh. Life wasn’t all about pleasure, and he would forever savor the slight sting of pain while he could still feel it.
The silhouette of their manor mocked him, an empty tomb that once had been filled with laughing witches and spells that had affected the entire kingdom.
Now only the ghosts of those women wandered through those halls.
His only solace was that those women were tethered to the muck and the mire of the same realm where they had imprisoned him.
“Come,” he said gruffly as he started toward the manor. “I will not speak of this where just anyone can hear our words.”
He could feel the looping of chains around his shoulders, digging into his flesh as the woman finished her sacrifice and the cow’s blood spilled in a field far from here.
He was bound to witches. Elric had spent centuries serving them, feeding upon their sacrifices so they could gorge themselves on his magic.
It felt like he was taking another step toward that same dangerous future.
Living in the same cycle he’d never been able to break.