An escape sounded better than the alternative. So he decided to look over this Pleasure District a little more and headed down the small path to the street. Much of this place was unfamiliar to him, having changed dramatically in the 275 years since he’d last been here.
“Be safe,” she breathed, but he would have heard her amid the screams of thousands. Elric knew her voice better than any other. His heart knew her every movement, her every tone, and every tiny bit of what made her… her.
Before he left, he took one last glance at the shop. Jessamine leaned out the door, keeping it slightly closed against her back. In comparison to the other women here, she stood out like a smudge of darkness, wearing a dusty black dress with an overlarge bodice that hung off her too-thin frame. The scar around her throat was bare for all to see, not to mention the others that they couldn’t. All the marks of where she had almost died and where he simply hadn’t let her.
How did he get so lucky as to find a woman like her? When there were countless who would have taken advantage of his weaknesses, she was the one to find him.
“Gravesinger,” he said, his voice perhaps a little too loud. “I would worship at your altar if I had but a sacrifice worthy of you.”
A pretty blush burned her cheeks. “Go on with yourself, Elric. Do what you must and then come home to me.”
He sighed and disappeared into the crowd. It was easier to stay moving. No one suspected there was something odd about him when he didn’t give them a chance to stare long enough. No one even attempted to talk with him as he made his way through the throngs of people. Sure, there were a few lingering looks from both men and women, but no one thought they could interrupt him.
And so Elric got lost in the crowds. He allowed himself to take a moment as he had many times when he was last alive. Whenever the witches allowed him outside of their coven home, or if he snuck out the way that he enjoyed, he always took a moment like this. Standing in the middle of a crowd with no one knowing who he was. He breathed in deeply and listened to all the conversations happening around him.
To his left, a man was buying a new dress for his mistress. He didn’t want the woman only a few steps away to know, because she was his wife. In the back corner of the square, a little girl pointed out to her mother a window full of purebred cats. Their fluff looked so soft, and the little girl claimed she’d always wanted a kitten. But the mother sensed that there was something off about the cats, which there was. They were all spelled to look like cats, but really they were little spies who reported to the shopkeeper what people were looking to buy.
Elric turned away, listening to a group of women in the central square who had draped themselves beside a fountain. The statue in the middle was a beautiful nude woman pouring a pitcher of water into the pool below.
“Did you hear? Someone claimed the Deathless One is back,” one said. Her flaxen hair was dangerously close to dipping into the water from where she lay, looking up at the clouds.
“Is he now?” replied a woman in a dark purple gown. She sat stiffly at the edge, likely because of the boning in her corset. “Do you think he could make us witches?”
“You shouldn’t even joke about that. You know how the king feels about witchcraft.”
“All the nobles hate witchcraft, but they always have. It doesn’t meanwe can’t even talk about it.” Purple Gown reached into the water and pulled out a gleaming coin. “Do you think if I made a wish to the Deathless One that he’d grant it?”
“We don’t even know if he’s really alive!”
“What if he is?”
“Then you making a wish to him is rather binding, and you don’t want to bind yourself to a god. Who knows what he’ll ask you to do in return?”
These were the musings of people who had lost their connection to the gods. A wish like that wasn’t anything he could respond to, nor would he deign to do so. Wishes were the hopes and dreams of those who had nothing better to do. A sacrifice? Now that was a dedicated person who actually wanted his help. Not two women pretending at magic beside a pool of water.
As he turned to leave, he heard the one in the purple gown murmur something that made him pause. “If the gods are coming back, don’t you think that’s a good thing?”
“No. Not the Deathless One, at least. That right there is a villain, not a god.”
“Or maybe he’s come back to help all of us. Can you imagine? A coven of witches in this district? All the things they could do.” A long, hopeful sigh trailed at the end of her words.
He could tell she was about to say words she couldn’t take back. And some part of him whispered that this was his moment. All he had to do was encourage just one more word. So, with his power tingling at his fingers, he conjured all the shadows to him and spread them throughout the square. Her next words were amplified by magic that sparked and crackled around her. No one but a bonded witch would see his power, but ordinary mortals would yield to it nonetheless.
“I wish the Deathless One would give us proof that he’s returned.” She set the coin on her thumb and then flicked it into the fountain. It spun in the air, a glimmering silver piece that struck the water with a soft plop.
It appeared everyone had frozen, staring at the fountain with hopeful eyes or terrified gazes that feared what would come next.
He toyed with the thought of leaving them wondering. They should fear the gods, whether they were dead or not. He and his siblings had created a kingdom for them to live in and rules that should be followed, no matter what. He shouldn’t need to prove himself.
And yet… some part of him wanted them to be afraid. Talking at a fountain about him and his coven could only bring about a darkness that none of them were prepared for.
With a flick of his fingers, shadows poured toward the fountain. They would be impossible to track to him, even if someone was looking right at him. He pulled shadows from nearby pots, plants, and even people. They weren’t connected to him, but to everything else. No one was looking at him at all, because their eyes were on the fountain as if waiting for a miracle.
They had all forgotten that he was not his sister or his grandmother or any of the kindly gods.
A few people breathed a sigh of relief as nothing immediately happened in the fountain. No omniscient voice spoke to them through the stone figure and no wind swept throughout the courtyard. Some even chuckled as they all admitted they had thought, for a moment, that the gods were really returning.
“Wait!” the woman in the purple gown said, suddenly standing and almost falling as she stumbled away from the fountain. “It’s not possible!”
