Page 15 of The Deathless One
“Sybil,” the dark woman replied, and then started down the beach. “Care to share what trouble you’ve found yourself in?”
She didn’t. Jessamine trailed along behind her until they reached a small hut by the shore. The exterior wood had gone gray with age, urchins moving along the sides and dead barnacles all over the planks. The door hung off one hinge, but Sybil didn’t seem all that concerned. She opened the door, ignoring the folded metal roof as it groaned, and gestured for Jessamine to go ahead.
Into the shadows. Into the darkness. Where she’d already gotten into more trouble than she could abide.
Gritting her teeth, she walked into the single room before her.
It was rather… cozy, she supposed. Herbs hung in neat little bundles above her head. A single cot in the corner was covered with a patchwork quilt, clearly loved and well taken care of. A small table on the side was covered with more seaweed and jars filled with what looked like sea creatures, although none that Jessamine recognized.
“Thank you again,” she said, peering through the shadows for where she was meant to clean up. She’d assumed she would find a bath, or at least a bucket of fresh rainwater. But there wasn’t much in here at all.
Sybil walked in behind her and deposited her findings on the table. “You’re welcome. Anyone touched by the Deathless One deserves favor among witches.”
It felt like the floor dropped out from beneath her. Jessamine suddenly couldn’t breathe again. She wanted to claw at her throat, but when she touched the long length of it, all she could feel was that damn scar. It was a rope around her neck that tightened with every breath.
“Sit,” Sybil said, taking her arm and forcing her down onto the cot. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Isn’t he?” she whispered. Jessamine stared up at the witch with pleading eyes, for surely this woman knew the ancient magic. “I don’t know what I made a bargain with. There was a book in my library that spoke of him, but in language that made him sound like he was dead. All the gods are dead. Aren’t they?”
“His name speaks volumes. The Deathless One. Did you really believe he was dead, too?” Sybil somehow manifested a stool—had that been hiding underneath the table?—and sat in front of her. Folded over her knees, the woman looked more like a crone than she had mere moments ago.
Fingers laced together, the witch surveyed her, watching her every twitch and move. But Sybil’s eyes always landed back on the scar around her throat.
“What?” Jessamine asked. “What is it?”
“Have you not seen it yet?”
“Where would I have found a mirror? The Water District isn’t kind to people who…” People who had nothing. People she should have protected but hadn’t even realized were alive while she luxuriated in her castle above them all.
The witch reached into her pocket and pulled out a small mirror. She pressed the button on the front, which clicked it open, then turned it toward Jessamine.
And there it was. The thick, terrible scar that was banded around her neck. Impossible, considering she’d been murdered only a few weeks ago. Yet the scar around her neck wasn’t like any other she’d ever seen. The wound was silvery, and as she stared, it seemed to writhe, moving underneath her skin as though there was something embedded within.
Gasping, she pushed the mirror away, trying to catch the breath that refused to fill her lungs. “What is that? Why does it look like that?”
“You’ve been touched.”
“Touched?” Jessamine stared at the other woman, wondering why she wasn’t panicking as well. The scar around her neckwas moving. “Touched by what?”
“By whom.” Sybil gathered Jessamine’s hands in hers and squeezed. “You know the Deathless One. You have met him, have you not? You’ve stared into those soulless eyes and have seen oblivion beyond them. He is the beginning and the end. The only god who cannot die, and he has been gone for far too long.”
The words echoed what she’d read.Fanatics,her mind whispered. She feared his followers would stop at nothing to raise him from the dead. They wished to bring him back to his full power, and if she did that… if she gave them that power…
Again, Sybil squeezed her fingers. “Would you like to see him?”
“Who?” Jessamine whispered, but she already knew the answer.
“The Deathless One. He’s been dying to see you.”
He’d been waiting for days. And he hated waiting. Lingering in the wreckage of the witches’ manor, skulking in shadows like he didn’t belong here. As if he hadn’t built the entire monolith for his own followers.
Instead, he was the god no one wanted, the unwelcome visitor forced to remain behind while he trusted an ancient witch to do his bidding. Witches congregated with each other first and foremost. If he wanted to win Jessamine’s trust, he had to give her someone else to spin the web of lies that would lead to his resurrection. Sybil was supposed to bring the other to his home. She would walk into this manor with the gravesinger and convince the woman to raise him from the dead. It was a simple plan.
But he didn’t trust witches. Perhaps it had been too long since he’d had to trust anyone. The longer he remained alone in his dark realm, the more the silence was a stark reminder that they could not be trusted.
Even now, he stood in the very bowels of the manor, staring at a flat altar ten feet long that had seen more of his blood in the past millennia than any other place. He couldn’t move his gaze from the blackened and stained stone, memories flashing through his mind. Too many to count. All those times when he had died in pain, alone, and no one had cared.
Not even the witch who had claimed her bond with him was different from all the others. The witch who, all those years ago, had given him hope that someone might lovehimfor the first time in all his ancient years. The witch who, after everything, had promised so much.
