Chapter 36
Something was wrong. Elric couldn’t explain the sensation, only that his stomach twisted and his blood boiled.
The sacrifices to him were public and very hard to forget.
The amount of blood that coated the town square had shocked even him.
But he was bloated now, flush with power even as he stood with his coven to provide the protection they so desperately needed.
It wouldn’t be smart to stay here much longer. There were more men with muskets. More regular citizens who had emerged from their homes with swords and knives and pickaxes, anything they could fight with. His time was running out.
Even Agnes had looked over her shoulder at him, deep hollows under her eyes. Casting spells like this wasn’t easy on anyone’s body, even worse for those who were unused to it. Jessamine needed to hurry.
But then Hugo shifted at the edge of the shield Elric had summoned, and the entire crowd turned to look down a street that was cast in dark shadows.
He could feel her there. His Jessamine. His nightmare walked toward him, shuffling her feet as though she had aged a hundred years in the time since he’d seen her.
And something loosened in his chest. He hadn’t been afraid she would die, not really.
But there was always the fear that he would miss her in the realm beyond.
That she would slip through his fingers and move through death when he wasn’t ready for her to do so.
He hated the thought of her in that darkness alone, or worse, banished to wander the realms without a soul for the rest of her life.
Because he couldn’t help himself, because she deserved to be honored, he allowed his shadows to part above her.
There was no sunlight streaming in through the hole he made above her head.
Time had passed faster than he’d thought.
Instead, moonlight illuminated his gravesinger, who straightened the moment she realized people could see her.
Sybil released her hold on Jessamine’s waist, allowing her to walk on her own.
Elric watched with pride as the princess pieced herself back together.
Like armor, she forced her spine pin straight, clenched her hands at her sides, then released them in graceful, delicate lines.
Only then, ever so slowly, did Jessamine pull back her hood.
The moonlight played over her pale features, highlighting the stunning beauty of her dark hair and the sharp peaks of her cheekbones. But it was the wound at her throat that glowed with power. A silver scar sealed by magic, a scar that marked her as someone they all knew.
One person in the crowd whispered her name with the reverence she deserved. “Lady Jessamine?”
Then another. “Is that the princess?”
“Surely not. She died!”
“There were rumors, though. Rumors that she was back.”
And then they all looked at him. Some of them were piecing it together. He could see the moment they realized Princess Jessamine Harmsworth had found herself a god.
She walked up to him with her shoulders held straight and strong.
Not an inch of her looked like she had just been in battle, but there was a shadow in her eyes and a weight on her shoulders that hadn’t been there before.
It turned his stomach to see her like this.
To know that there was something desperately wrong. Worse than ever before.
And still, she kept her eyes on him. She didn’t even look at the crowd with torches and weapons who could so easily attack her. Because she didn’t have to.
Her history preceded her. They all knew who she was, and they had loved her when she was alive. Yet some of them now feared her, because they knew she was dead.
“A ghost?” someone whispered to his left.
“No, surely she wouldn’t wander her kingdom as one of the undead, unless…”
A young woman watched him through the shadow shield he had created. Not Jessamine, but him. He could feel the hollow in her, just waiting to be filled with magic like all trueborn witches were.
Then the woman’s lips quirked in a half smile. “The Deathless One returned when someone prayed to him, saying this kingdom was broken. Perhaps he is here to fix things.”
“Fix things? The Deathless One destroys everything and anything in his path!” a man shouted, holding his gun over his head. “There are witches in our town square! Are we all going to stand by and allow that to happen?”
But then the crowd quieted because Jessamine had reached them.
She walked through the beating heart of the crowd, the danger that had threatened her coven.
Moonlight followed her, and she looked more ethereal and otherworldly than she ever had before.
Even Elric’s breath caught in his throat as he watched her gliding through her subjects.
And then she reached for the man who had spoken. His face paled, his hand clenching around the gun still held above his head. But she didn’t want to hurt him. Elric could feel it as though she had whispered reassurance to everyone who held their breath.
Instead, she just cupped his jaw. Shadows crawled out from her hands, sinking into his skin, and suddenly, she spoke in that soft voice that had captivated him from the very first moment he’d met her.
“I am not here to hurt anyone,” she breathed. “I am here to take back what was stolen from me.”
The man gulped. “Stolen?”
She released him, her fingers lingering on his face until the very last moment, and the man leaned into her touch like he wanted those cold fingers against his cheeks for just a few moments more.
Jessamine turned to the crowd, her eyes meeting each and every one of them.
“My life was taken from me. My throat was slit on the day of my wedding, and my mother was killed before me. I made the choice to put myself in that danger—for you. I would have married a man who left bruises on my body, believing that he could protect this kingdom. I would have sacrificed anything to keep you all safe. It was what he promised me.”
The last words were almost shouted, guttural and aching with her pain. He could feel it. Everyone in the square could feel it.
“I put my faith in a man who murdered me. I put my kingdom in the hands of a monster who would rip out your beating hearts to place himself on a higher pedestal. With one hand, he releases the infected into our realm, while with the other he reaches down to help you, but only to lord his offer over you all. His offer of help is a reminder that he believes you are beneath him.”
Elric let the shield around his witches drop, and his coven’s spell fell silent, but its echo remained.
It was the haunting cry of women who had years of pain deep within their bodies.
They had been betrayed, too. The shield turned to ash, leaving a black ring burned into the very stones of the town square alongside the runes etched by delicate hands.
The young woman who had smiled at him stepped into the circle he had created, joining the women who had so much raw magic and yet were shunned and feared. Then another woman did the same. A third.
Jessamine raised her voice higher. “I am Lady Jessamine Harmsworth, rightful heir to the throne of Inverholm. My death was only the beginning. As my soul fled my body, I heard a voice in the darkness, and it promised vengeance. It promised me that I could reclaim my kingdom if I was willing to fight for it, and I tell you now, I have never stopped fighting for any of you. You are my people. This is the soil upon which my mother’s blood was spilled, both in bringing me life and in her own death.
This is the land I will fight for until my last breath and beyond. ”
The crowd fell silent, entranced by the words of their princess. Elric watched as Jessamine spun her words in a web around them. “I make no false promises, nor do I exaggerate. I tell you now, in the spirit of honesty, that I am dead.”
A few people recoiled as she said the last words, but Elric could feel in his bones that she had made the right choice. Jessamine was no longer the queen they knew. She was not the princess who had won their hearts.
She was the walking dead. A nightmare who would give them everything if they begged for mercy at her feet.
Then she turned, stepping into the dark circle to stand among the women who had risked their lives for her. She trailed her fingers along their linked arms until Agnes and Elissa broke apart so she could stand in the center of their circle.
“Two hundred years ago, we feared witches… but witches have always borne the brunt of this kingdom’s fear. I am here to tell you that witches have returned. And my coven is the one that is going to save you.” Her jaw ticked, teeth grinding as she stared everyone down.
Elric had never been more proud. Even as the crowd began to shout accusations, Jessamine stood strong in the growing circle of women who looked up at her like a goddess.
“Witches caused all this!”
“Witchcraft is evil!”
“We won’t stand by your kind here!”
She took it all. Allowed their angry and heated words to flow over her. All that darkness, that real, true evil, poured over her and slid off like she didn’t even hear it.
Elric walked behind her, his wings spreading wide, providing her with all the reassurance she might need. And as he laid a hand on her shoulder, everyone stilled. They watched the god among them with fearful eyes and a mistrust that came from ancient times.
“My coven is all that stands between you and the end of all things,” he said, using his magic so his words boomed throughout the town square.
“Your princess, my gravesinger, summoned me from the dead, and all who stand in my way will bend a knee. I am your god, the only god who lives. And I will make this world quake in fear if I must.”
The ground rumbled under their feet, a small hint at what he might do to them all. Not that he could. His brothers were far more connected to the earth. But Elric could make them all believe the world was shattering.
Jessamine placed her hand on his, gaining his attention with the smallest movement. When he looked down at her, she was staring at the young woman who had smiled at him. The first to step into the circle.
He could have summoned the women closer, but it was Jessamine who spoke. And he used his power to amplify what she had to say, because all in this crowd needed to listen.
“It is my greatest fear that women will forever pay for the fear of men,” she murmured.
“For we are haunted and vicious beasts they could never understand. They will never know the amount of abuse it takes to be so soft. They will never understand that to tame a wild creature, she must first be broken, and it takes us years to find that wildness again. We are divine victims and wrathful fury, and both forms are worthy of worship. There is a goddess in all of us, and she cries out to be seen.”
The young woman grinned again, this time with a feral smile that reflected all those years where she should have been more powerful.
She walked over to Agnes, and the witches beside her lifted their arms, tucking the newcomer in among them.
Then another woman did the same. More and more women made their way forward from the crowd, until there were dozens of women all seated in a circle around Jessamine and the Deathless One.
Women who had been forgotten by so many people.
And women who had found their sisters at last.
Elric breathed out a long sigh before touching the closest one with the tip of his shadow wing. She wore a rapturous expression he had seen many times before, one he knew was dangerous and yet called to something deep inside him at the same time.
It was an expression that asked him to save them. But it was also an expression that whispered she would do whatever it took to keep the power he gave her, and to grow even stronger.
He had created, yet again, a coven with teeth and claws. And there would forever be the fear deep in his chest that he could not protect himself from their hunger.
At the sound of the crowd’s growing fury, he decided that it was time to leave.
With a nod to Alexander and Hugo, who both disappeared into the teeming mass of angry people, he spread his dark wings wide and bent to cover the witches around him.
He held them close to his heart with a whispered promise in the air.
The Deathless One would keep them safe. He had centuries ago, and he would do so again. They were his. His women, his witches, his coven. There was no one in this world who would do more for them, or protect them better than he did, no matter the cost to himself.
With a quiet spell, the words guttural and deep, he whisked them away.
As the shadows fell from the sky and the moon and stars reappeared, all that remained was a dark circle where the witches had been.
They had disappeared into the night, leaving anger and madness in their wake as they reappeared in the home he had built for them.
A haunted house of nightmares and spirits who lived in the attic.
But it was their home. It was magic, deep in the floorboards, and they could feel it.
He untangled himself from them, panic already setting in. He did not know these women or what they were capable of. He just knew they would want pieces of who he was and what he could give them. Power and magic and control, which they had never had in their lives.
But then a hand touched his chest, a familiar, warm palm with long fingers that stroked his skin. Calm tendrils spread from her touch, as she was the only woman who had ever been able to tame him.
“Thank you,” Jessamine whispered, but her words felt like a shout. “Thank you for saving us all.”
He didn’t know how to speak. He couldn’t. Because everyone was looking at him now, all of them with those eyes that were so needy and hopeful. He inclined his head toward all of them, a slight nod in the hopes that they wouldn’t ask for more.
Jessamine turned to them all. “We have rooms here, and you may join us. I don’t know if there’s enough for all of you, but tomorrow night we will welcome you into the coven. If you change your mind, that’s all right, too. We’re not going to make any of you stay.”
They all walked away, talking among themselves. The excited chatter of witches was something he had forgotten, but… there was deep pleasure in hearing the excitement around magic again. Spells and curses and ingredients that were needed to do both. All of it was wondrous to hear.
But then his stomach twisted as Jessamine’s dark, haunted eyes turned toward him. “We need to talk,” she whispered. “Something terrible has happened.”