Page 90 of The Deathless One
“Careful, nightmare,” he murmured, keeping close to his witch. “Don’t get out of reach.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and her gaze told him she knew well to stay close. Even if she had once trusted the man beside her, she didn’t any longer.
“Everything all right, Jessa?” Callum asked, the nickname falling from his lips far too easily for comfort.
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat before changing the subject. “You always told me you grew up in the Factory District. I have to admit, I didn’t think you meant like this.”
The interior of Callum’s kingdom was not what Elric had expected. This place was immaculate. While the exteriors of the buildings had been rather dismal, this place was clean and well kept. Warm wooden walls lined the hallways, and they’d already passed through a large shared living space with multiple men and women. They also walked past a room with its door ajar, in which Elric glimpsed wall after wall of weapons. Knives, swords, rifles. All the things he might have kept if he was amassing an army.
But why would a man like this need an army?
Finally, they reached a door that Callum opened before the man gestured them through. The office was as neat and clean as the rest of the building. Again, warm wooden walls, and a red rug with faint brown staining around the edges. A massive oak desk nearly filled the room with twin chairs before it.
This was not where Callum gestured Jessamine to sit. Instead, he ushered her to join him by a fireplace to their right. Twin cushioned seats waited for them there, the backs patched a few times with fabric that didn’t quite match.
“I have been so worried about you,” Callum said, his voice low and calming. “You cannot imagine the fear I felt when I saw you fall off the edge of that cliff. I had thought before that moment I might be able to save you.”
“Did you?” Jessamine’s voice was cold and her spine too straight as she perched on the edge of her chair. “Was that before or after you watched Mother die? I was under the impression her death would hurt you worse than my own.”
At least Callum winced at her accusation. But then he sighed, and the mask slid back into place. “It was all horrible to watch, Jessa. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I barely escaped with my life after what that beast did. I’ve been searching for months for a way to get back at him. Your mother’s death deserves revenge.”
Elric walked closer to the fire, bracing a forearm against the crumbling wood above it. He stared into the flames, trying to find a thread of patience to calm himself with. “He’s lying.”
“I know you’re lying,” she said, answering both of them. “You were part of this, Callum. What I want to know is why?”
“Jessamine, after everything I have taught you, don’t you know jumping to conclusions always ends wrong?”
The older man would not give up so easily. Elric looked over his shoulder and watched as Callum shifted in his chair, bracing his ankle over a knee and looking, for all intents and purposes, calm. As though he hadn’t just been caught.
Callum never took his eyes off Jessamine, staring her down until she looked away and folded in on herself. Perhaps this was something the older man had done to her when she was a child: remaining in complete and utter silence just so she had to be the first to break.
Even worse, he hated to see the tactic working. The confident, powerfulwoman who had walked in here was slowly disappearing into the little girl who was desperately afraid of disappointing the fatherly figure she loved. It all drained out of her, as though this man was a leech.
“Don’t give in to him,” Elric snarled. “It’s easier to control you if you believe you are lesser. You are not the child you once were, Jessamine Harmsworth. Remember your value.”
Though her gaze didn’t move to him, Elric knew her next words were for the god in the room, not the man. “I trusted you once. More than any other person. Even more than Mother.”
“He does not return that trust.” Elric returned his gaze to the fire, his hands clenching on the stone mantel as if he could snap it off in his hands and hurl it at the other man. “No one deserves your trust if they cannot return it.”
As much as it hurt to say them, he meant those words—and he was forced to admit he had never returned her trust in the same way she had given it to him. Jessamine had given him her life multiple times now, and trusted that he would bring her back. What had he given her in exchange? Whispered promises that he intended to break the moment she resurrected him.
Callum sighed, steepling his fingers and pressing them against his lips. “Where is this coming from, Jessamine? You were always such a biddable young woman. You wanted what was best for this kingdom.”
“And I still do.”
He gestured up and down her body. “This is what the kingdom needs? A princess who does not know how to run a kingdom, so she turns to dark magic? This is not the way of things, Jessa. You have so much to learn. But I’m glad you have come, because I am more than happy to teach you.”
Elric snorted. “Teach you? What could he possibly teach you that you haven’t already learned?”
Jessamine, his nightmare, whispered in broken tones, “I don’t know who you are anymore, Callum.”
The words hung in the air, so light and innocent they were almost painful. He winced, turning to see the same expression on Callum’s facebefore Elric moved behind her chair and crouched at her side. “What did I say about needing anyone to justify your greatness?”
She looked at him then, just the barest flicker of her gaze turning toward his. Elric reached for her hand, squeezing it tightly in his own. “You are powerful and great and wicked. You have to believe that, nightmare. Your god demands it.”
He could see the confidence creeping back into her features. A cold chill danced down his spine, as though perhaps she was pulling magic from him. But that couldn’t be right. When she drew her power from him, he was warm. So warm, in fact, that it was like a fire burning in his chest. This was cold, like the doomed gravesinger hands pulling him back to his own realm.
“Jessa,” Callum said, slowly standing. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
