Page 31 of The Deathless One
“Stop,” she said, her heart in her throat.
She knew this moment. She knew without having to hear what he was saying that Leon was asking about her witchcraft. He only asked if she was still researching black magic, but she knew that he was really asking if there were still grotesque things in her lab and if she… she…
A different memory suddenly flashed in front of this one. Leon gripped her biceps so tightly that she’d had a ring of dark bruises around it. He’d asked her about the magic then, too. He’d wanted to know the answer, and when she refused to tell him, he’d grabbed her so hard she’d cried out.
That was when she’d seen the passion in his eyes. He’d never looked at her with anything other than apathy, but in that moment, her pain had made desire burn through his core.
“Jessamine.” The voice merged with Leon’s. But that voice was more terrifying than Leon’s, wasn’t it?
There was the fear she’d felt when she had seen the desire in Leon’s eyes, but then there was another kind of fear entirely. One that crawled up from inside her very being and whispered that she stood before a predator and that she needed to run… run… run…
“Jessamine,” the voice said again, and this time she blinked to see a dark figure before her. A figure who, if she squinted hard enough, was wearing her eyes.
“What?” she croaked.
“Oh, good, I didn’t break you.” He stepped back from her, shaking his head with what was clearly disapproval. “Memories are a delicate business, nightmare. You can’t go wandering around without me.”
“I’m sorry.” Jessamine staggered away from him, trying to put some space between herself and Leon. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t waste your apologies on me. I don’t care for them.” He took one step after her, almost as though he was… worried?
“I’m—”
“Don’t, nightmare.” He looked like he wanted to touch her. His hands flexed at his sides, opening and closing before he turned from her.
“Right,” she muttered, squeezing her own hands into fists. “No more apologies.”
Jessamine gathered the tattered edges of her courage and held them close to her. Nothing could happen here. Leon couldn’t kill her again; he was frozen in memory. Standing in front of her with that stupid lock of hair flopped down on his forehead. He looked so docile. So safe.
But he was not a safe person to be around, and she hated that her kingdom was at his feet.
She hated even more the expression frozen on her face. The anxiety that pinched her mouth and the resolve that wrinkled her brow. She’d be married to this man, this monster who would soon kill her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“Why were you going to marry him, anyway?” the Deathless One asked as he wandered behind the image of Leon.
“It’s what the kingdom needed.”
“Was it? How do you know?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t. But the plague is getting out of control. All of our people are either ill or risk getting sick if they stay outside for too long. They risk their lives working, so we had to do something. We had to convince them that we were going to bring money and a solution into the kingdom.”
“From what I saw, plenty of people still wander the streets.”
The words made her mind stutter. He was right. The streets werethronged with townsfolk, even if there were sick people as well. Why had that been?
Frowning, she shook her head. “No, all the reports were that the city wasn’t functioning at all. That’s why my mother made the deal with the kingdom of Orenda in the first place.”
“And you trusted those reports?” The Deathless One leaned around Leon’s shoulder, his darkness looming tall above the other man. “Or were you just told that things were bad, and you believed them?”
Oh, she had no idea. As she might have if this was real, she looked down the aisle to where her mother sat. The queen always knew what to do. Always.
But this time, her mother wasn’t going to respond. Her mother was dead, and this image of her was so perfect that she could almost pretend for a few moments that she was still here. That she hadn’t faded away out of existence. Because nothing had happened yet. Not in this memory.
She took a step down the stairs, then froze in place. A single tear dripped down her cheek as she felt like her entire soul was ripped open. “She’d know what to do.”
“Who?” The Deathless One didn’t follow her down the stairs, but he looked where she was staring. “The queen?”
“She always made the right decision.”
