Her fingers curled even harder around the brush. “Then you shouldn’t have taken my soul and then lied about it, you stubborn moron!”
“You want to fight? Is that what you want? Fine, then. We can do that, too.”
He only had a second to see her exasperated expression as he approached her before he slapped a hand on her shoulder and dragged her consciousness into his realm of darkness. Neither of them had been back here since he’d acquired a physical body, and it hadn’t changed.
The shadows reached for them, inky hands grabbing on to their ankles until he kicked them away. And like always, he could feel his emotions leach away from him. This place wasn’t where he could feel anything important. Gods could not feel like humans, or they would make poor choices. Gods were not allowed the luxury of making decisions with their hearts.
She wrenched away from his hand on her shoulder, already spitting mad. “You can’t keep doing whatever you want, Elric! I did not want to come here!”
“You needed to come here.”
“I am so tired of you telling me what I should or should not do. I am not your puppet!”
“I never said you were.”
“And yet here we are, in the realm I did not want to go to because you decided we need to have a conversation I do not want to have!” Jessamine ran her fingers through her hair, tearing at the dark strands he so adored.
“Everything I do, I do for you.”
“No, you don’t, Elric. I cannot tell you how many times you have done something for yourself and pretended that it was for me. Where is my soul? Is it here? You said it was in this realm, so if you brought me here, then surely you are going to give backwhat is mine.”
He couldn’t, though. Especially now that he knew Leon Bishop was stealing people’s souls to use for some dark spell. He couldn’t risk her.
But if this was what had stuck in her head, then fine. He waved a hand, and the shattered pieces of her soul appeared beside him. They were a small, neat stack with the mirror memories facing up. And with a thunderous voice, he shouted back, “You want to see it? Then fine, Jessamine, here it is. What else do you want me to tell you? Do you need me to admit that I looked through every single one of your memories?”
“You bastard.”
Elric picked up the one on the top and turned the small palm-sized piece to face her. “Do you need to hear me tell you that in my darkest moments, in the moments when I was the most alone, that I looked at my favorites? That I stared down at the images of your tiny face as Callum taught you it was safe to love dogs again? That I rode with you on horseback as you barreled through your teen years like a storm cloud on the horizon? Do you wish me to tell you how many times I looked at Leon Bishop’s face? How many times I wanted to bury my fist in his chest so that you would not suffer the pain he caused you ever again?”
Her expression twisted, though he thought this time it was discomfort rather than anger. “No, I don’t want you to tell me any of that! They aren’t your memories.”
“Because I have no such memories,” he shouted. “Because I was createdas a god, manipulated by magic, and then given to witches for their pleasure and their pleasure alone. But with your soul here, I wasn’t so alone anymore. I wasn’t stuck with my guilt or my regret. Instead, when I was forced to return here without your guiding light, I could still seek solace in the silver moonbeams of your memories. I could still be with you, even when I was not.”
Something in him felt like it had cracked open. He couldn’t stop saying the words, even though they laid him bare in front of her.
“I couldn’t be with you, because I wasn’t gifted a body. Do you know how hard it is to see other people living their lives and knowing that you will never experience that? Do you know how hard it is to see someone likeyou, someone I so deeply wanted and desired, and to know that I could not touch you?”
He brought the shard to her, handing it over even as he grabbed the back of her neck with the other. Her fingers curled around it, the shards slicing through her flesh, and vivid red stained his black-and-white world. She stared up at him with those big, dark eyes that saw far too much, and he could feel himself breaking.
Elric’s voice lowered into almost a whisper. “It was torture knowing you were so close and yet so far. I drowned in your memories so that I did not have to suffer as mine started to return, my nightmare. You were a balm for my wounded soul, and I will not apologize for that.”
“You should apologize for taking it without my permission. You should apologize for not telling me that you even had it.” But her words were a little softer, her lips less pressed together in a white line. “I cannot just forgive you every time you make some grave mistake, Elric. You are a god, I know that. I know there are things that I will never understand. But I need to know I can trust you.”
“Why could you not?”
“Because youtook my soul!” she shouted. Her words echoed in the dark place around them, like tens of voices were repeating her words. The other gravesingers, furious at him for what he had done.
“I took your soul as payment for your life,” he whispered, his thumb pressing down a little too hard on her neck.
He could lie. He could tell her that she had given it to him and just didn’t remember. He could tell her a hundred other lies that would last throughout her lifetime, however long he wanted her to live.
Instead, Elric sank to his knees before her. He kept his eyes on hers, knowing that she watched his every single movement. And while on his knees, he conjured a wicked blade.
It manifested in his hand, black metal glinting in the dim light. The handle fit his grasp perfectly, and it was not a pretty thing. Such a beast required no adornments. Plain, but efficient and wickedly sharp.
“Take it,” he said, holding it by the blade.
Jessamine wrapped her long fingers around the hilt.
