“I was once.”
“Can one become something other than a god?”
He pondered the question, knowing that she deserved an answer in death at the very least. “I became a god, so I suppose there is a way for me to unbecome one as well.”
“Do you know how to do that?”
Elric shook his head. “No, little one. I do not know how to shed the chains of godhood any more than you could escape the web of mortality.”
“Oh.” Her eyes turned glassy, and he watched their vivid blue be overtaken by cloudy gray, as if there was nothing left for her to see but a shadow of the world she clung to. “Do you want to become something else?”
“Once upon a time, I would have said yes. I had days when I wanted to be human more than anything else in this world. I wanted to live as you do. I wanted to see the world as you did. Feel pain, suffer, love, andendure.” He reached out for her, dragging her body across the floor so she could lean her head against his side. “But now I would not give it up for anything. This power is what keeps the people I care about alive.”
“Could you keep me alive?” She’d tilted her head against his shoulder, but he knew she couldn’t see him anymore. “I would do anything if you kept me alive.”
He could. He could gift her life and keep her as a pet. There was a time in his life when he would have. But when he looked at this woman all he could see was Jessamine, and how lacking she was in comparison to his queen.
So instead of casting any spell, he merely stroked his hand through the woman’s hair and held her face against his shoulder. “No, my dear. I’m so sorry to say that I cannot keep you alive.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Both.”
“All right,” she sighed, and he could hear the rattle even further. It was deeper in her chest now, more prevalent than before. “What god are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who are you? Who do I say led me to death when I am in the other realm?”
He smiled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The Deathless One is with you, child. My shadows will guide you through the next realm toward a happier place.”
And then she died. So easily. There was no battle, like Jessamine, who always fought tooth and nail against losing her life. This woman was here, and in a blink, she wasn’t. Until her body suddenly inhaled again. She gasped, but it wasn’t her in there. He didn’t feel her soul at all. Not in the realm where he had promised her guidance, and certainly not in this room.
Elric stood with her, watching as the girl rose to her feet. Her hands were claws at her side, her body twisted in a strange manner that wasn’t human at all. Her head cocked to the side, her mouth working as black ooze started leaking from her lips.
She made a horrible grinding sound and then shuffled forward. Therewere only a few people left alive in the room, he observed, all slowly turning into these shambling creatures.
Not a single one of them had a soul. And not a single one of them had passed through the in-between realm where he was supposed to feel them.
“Jessamine,” he growled, before turning and taking the stairs two at a time. He would find his gravesinger, and then they would discover what Leon Bishop was really doing.
Because the king was no longer here.
Blood hovered before her eyes, dripping from the wound on her face and floating back into the room she had vacated. How? She had no idea. Jessamine watched in both shock and awe as the blood drifted in tiny droplets, dancing in front of her eyes before levitating into the next room. It hovered there in the air, joined by other particles of her blood until they created a circle in the room.
“There,” Fortuna said, striding past her and into the room beyond. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Her mind was screaming, shouting that she had to move. That if she didn’t, something terrible was going to happen. But Jessamine was frozen. Stunned to silence. Shock turning every muscle in her body to stone. Fortuna shouldn’t have any power, not like this. She wasn’t a witch. She wasn’t connected to any god or goddess, because they were all dead. And yet, this blood magic felt familiar.
Not because it had the same taste or sensation of Elric’s magic, but because it wasmagic. There was a crackling energy in the air that Jessamine was unused to. This energy filled the room with electricity, not shadows. This wasn’t death magic, but it was equally dangerous.
“How?” she finally croaked.
“What? This magic? How am I casting a spell and somehow affecting you?” Fortuna chuckled, shaking her head as she meandered around the circle of blood and started fiddling with something in the back of the room. “Did you really believe you were the only person with a connection to a god?”
“The gods are dead, Fortuna.”
“Yes, they are. But there are still ways to use them. After all, Leon is a very smart man, and he comes from a very connected line of people who know the difference between fable and truth.” She lifted a small chalice in the air, exhaling smoke from her nostrils as she approached the circle of blood. “Fablesays that the gods are dead.Fablebelieves that we needed them to be alive for magic in the first place. The belief was always that you would get power if you sacrificed to a god. But what power would you get if you sacrificed a god himself?”
