Page 91 of The Deathless One
She stood, and so did Elric. But the moment he tried to follow, he found himself… stuck.
Frowning, he looked down to see runes marked on the floor around him. Runes that hadn’t been there before, that moved sluggishly on the wooden floor. Like someone had bled around him.
“What magic is this?” he hissed. “Jessamine, turn around.”
She started to turn, but Callum banded an arm around her shoulders and yanked her farther away from him. One moment, his nightmare was within reach, and the next, she was nearly on the other side of the room. Wild-eyed, hair falling in front of her face, she stared at Elric with dawning horror.
Callum leaned down, his eyes wide as he pressed his lips to Jessamine’s ear. “I can’t hear him, but I know you can. He must be spitting mad right now to know he’s been bested. So what’s he saying, Jessa? What does a god snarl when he’s been defeated?”
“Tell him nothing,” Elric spat. “He gets nothing from me and nothing from you.”
Her cheeks burned bright red, and he knew she was about to say something stupid. “He said he’s going to kill you for this. It’s the onlywarning you get, Callum, so don’t risk your life. Don’t think you can best a god.”
“I bested the royal family, now didn’t I?” He jerked her to the side, her neck snapping painfully as he tossed her toward the door. “I can do more than you believe, Jessa. Unfortunately, that’s a hereditary problem you’re going to have to overcome. I would prefer you alive, but you’ve already died. The woman you are now is but a fleeting image of the girl you once were. If there was ever a person I thought of as a daughter, it was you. A disappointing one, to say the least, but that can be changed. You could be molded into someone I like, but this god and I need to come to an understanding.”
“What?” she cried out. The door opened sharply as one of Callum’s cronies entered the room. It clipped her on the side of the head, nearly hard enough to knock her out.
“Jessamine!” Elric called out, reaching for her, only to find his arms coming up short. There was nothing he could do. Nothing at all. All he could do was stand there and shout as the person behind the door scooped her up into their arms.
Of course she fought. His little nightmare fought with every ounce of rage in her body. He could feel her trying to draw magic from him, the desperation inside of her reaching for the god who was supposed to keep her safe.
He had failed her in this. He had promised never to fail her again. And he would kill the man in front of him for it.
Callum watched her fight with amusement on his features and a soft chuckle falling from his lips. “Would you look at that? I didn’t think the princess had it in her. Apparently, there’s a fighter underneath that prim and proper exterior.”
“Callum! You will regret this for the rest of your very short life,” she hissed, her hair a tangled mass over her features now. It gave her the look of a creature from the grave, like she’d just crawled out of the earth to tear her claws through anyone who stood in her way.
“And who is going to end my very long life? You? A dead princess who is now cut off from the source of her power? No, my dear. There are thingsI need from you, and unfortunately, that requires a rather long talk with someone other than you.”
Elric bared his teeth. “What spell did he use to trap me? Get it out of him, Jessamine.”
He could see her wild thoughts running freely in her mind. She spat out, “You don’t even know magic, Callum! Did you employ some witch to do this? That is so beneath you.”
Apparently, that wasn’t a bad tactic, because the confession came easily. “I have no witch, but you don’t have to be born a witch to use spells. All you have to do is follow instructions, especially when it comes to the gods. Look at you. Proclaiming yourself a witch in front of all my Iron Knuckles. Your mother is rolling in her grave right now.”
Elric’s mind ran wild. What spell? There were no spells to trap gods, not that he knew of. And certainly not a spell that someone without the power of witchcraft could cast. Such magic was difficult and required concentration, years of preparation. This wasn’t a man who had been brought into power just moments ago.
He had planned this.
He hadbeenplanning this for a very long time.
“My mother?” Jessamine hissed, her voice cracked and raw. “My mother is rolling in her grave, you say? What grave, Callum? I heard she was thrown into a pit with the rest of the people who died under your watch. There is no grave for my mother!”
Something in the older man cracked. A small fissure, just enough to bleed.
Elric could see it in the way he flinched, and when he pressed a hand against his heart like the words hurt. As they should.
Callum walked with so many deaths weighing on his shoulders, and he had yet to make any atonement for such things. To whom should he cry out for forgiveness? The many souls he’d killed? Or the gods who were long gone?
They would never forgive him. Those spirits would haunt him until his very last breath. Elric would make sure of it.
Quen started to close the door, pausing only when Jessamine braced her legs against the frame and shouted, “You killed me, Callum Quen! And now I will haunt you into your very grave!”
The door slammed shut, and he was forced to watch as the man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. A page that looked familiar, written in a language no one had been able to read in years. Until this man started speaking in a language that had long since died.
Cursing, Elric cast a spell of his own, hoping it wouldn’t fizzle out before Callum finished. He sent a message to his coven, to Sybil.
Their god was trapped. He summoned his witch to him, or they would both lose their power forevermore.
