Page 8 of The Deathless One
She tried to look around, but it was so dark she couldn’t see very far. Small green lights flickered on the walls. They were in a tunnel of some sort. A shallow channel of water cut through it, with walkways on either side. She was in the muck, covered in who knew what, along with brackish seawater. Thigh-high in muck and refuse, she could only be in one place in her kingdom. The sewers funneled into the sea, and likewise, the sea belched back into the sewers. The two people were standing on the grated walkway above her, which had already rusted through in a few places.
Jessamine reached for the metal grate but paused when the father’s hand snuck into his pocket. A weapon? Surely the man wouldn’t draw a weapon on her!
The boy gasped and made the same gesture. “The Deathless One has touched her.”
“No one has touched me,” she snarled, shakily trying to get her balance. They needed to get out of her way. She had to get back to the castle. Her people needed her, and they had no idea what Leon was planning. She had to—
No, that would be too dangerous. Leon likely had all his men already there.
Who could she trust?
None of the nobles had stood beside her mother, at least none that were still alive. The guard had likely changed over. Not that she really knew too many of the key players there, but there had to be someone left still loyal to the queen, and therefore loyal to her.
Where could she go? Nowhere was safe any longer.
Eyeing the two figures, who had already moved away from her, clearlyuncomfortable, she decided they weren’t an option. They wouldn’t help her. They thought she was infected or cursed.
“Wot?” the boy asked, and she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. “You never ’eard of the Deathless One?”
Ah, right.
“I have.” She tried not to list left or right, her body shuddering with exhaustion. “He’s not real. And if he ever was, he died with the rest of the gods.”
The two looked at each other and burst out laughing. The sound wasn’t happy, though. It was mirthless and cruel, and they didn’t stop until she glared ever harder at them.
At least the man had the manners to cough into his hand, but it was his son who made a slashing motion over his own throat. “You’ve already been touched, lady. You might not believe in ’im, but ’e sure does believe in you.”
Her hand flew to her throat, and there it was. Not a scabbed wound as she expected, but the thick rope of a scar. That wasn’t possible. How long had she been out? For that matter, how had she survived the throat cutting? The fall? The mad tumble into the sea and the funneling of her body into the sewers of her kingdom?
“A mirror,” she croaked, snapping her fingers at the man. “Surely one of you has a pocket mirror?”
“Ye’ll get me infected,” he grumbled.
“Again, do I look infected?”
“?’Ow would one be able to tell? You’re covered in muck.”
“And many other things, I’m sure.” She shook her arms out at her sides, trying once again to dislodge the mud. “I’m not infected. I’m covered in mud and somehow survived a murder attempt, and all I want is a shower and a comfortable bed.”
The older man scratched his head, and she swore she saw two bugs tumble onto his shoulder. “Well, if ye ain’t infected, I suppose we can ’elp get ye out of ’ere. It’s a long walk, though.”
At this point, she’d walk miles on end if she got to fall asleep in something that wasn’t a sewer. “I really don’t care.”
“Ye say that now, but you’ll be complainin’ in just a few. Mark my words.” He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at his boy. The child held out a hand, as though he was… expecting something?
Payment? Really?
She stared up at them in shock. “You find a woman who clearly needs your help, alone in a sewer, and you expect me to pay you?”
“Aye,” the older man said.
“Wha—” Jessamine shoved her pride down. If that was what it took, then that was what it took. She would not look at this as anything other than the gift it was. She did not know where she had landed. She had no idea how to get home, and she was alone. She would be grateful, and she would be kind. That was the only thing she could do.
If she gritted her teeth while moving mud away from the engagement ring on her finger, then it was only in frustration. She supposed it would only be a good thing for Leon to find out his ring had been peddled in a market somewhere. Let him think someone had taken it from her dead body.
“This is all I have.” She deposited it in the boy’s hand. “It’s worth a fortune. Sell it. I don’t care.”
He turned it this way and that, letting the meager green light filter through the shiny diamond. “Looks real.”
