Page 15 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

Her dreams were twisted, warped, and wrong as she wandered through a black landscape full of nothing. Just ink. All she could see were writhing figures, creatures of muck and mire.

“Jessamine,” they called out, reaching for her with hands whose fingers ended in clawed tips. “Jessamine, come to us.”

“No,” she whispered as she shied away from them. But her skirts stuck in the mud. She was sinking deeper into it. “Leave me alone.”

“Jessamine, you cannot trust him.”

Who? Who was she not supposed to trust? She was asleep, wasn’t she? She vaguely remembered falling onto another one of those piles that Sybil had given her, and it wasn’t comfortable, but at least she could sleep.

She missed her bed at home. She missed her castle, where there was always sound.

Maids moving through the halls as they finished up their last rounds of the night.

Guards passing by on patrol. Soft voices of people meandering past her doorway.

There was always someone or something that she could hear.

But in this manor full of shadows and villainous gods, she was alone in the silence. Except for the darkness pursuing her. Voices that whispered they could help her, hands that trailed along her sides, leaving inky smears in their wake.

They wanted her to listen, but she did not know how to interpret their words.

“Jessamine!” they called out again, growing angry with her. “Listen to us.”

“No!” she shouted as she finally yanked one of her legs out of the mud. It clung to her, so sticky and thick that it was almost impossible to move. “I don’t want to listen to you.”

A wall of darkness suddenly drew up in front of her, converging into the figure of a woman who towered over her. The open maw of her mouth shone with a white light, but everything else was black as night.

“Gravesinger,” the woman said, freezing Jessamine in place. “You will hear what we have to say.”

“I am not a gravesinger.” But she trembled as she said the words. “You have the wrong person.”

“A gravesinger follows in the path of those who came before her. A gravesinger finds a patron and bends them to her will.” The darkness bent a little closer, and drops of ink fell from the woman’s dripping hair onto Jessamine’s cheeks.

“You will control him. You are the last of our kind. You will rip him apart, and when it is time, you will take from him as all of us have before. We are waiting for your power, sister.”

Take from him? What she was going to take from him? She didn’t want anything to do with the Deathless One; it would be foolish to tie herself to him even more. Hadn’t Sybil warned her?

“Jessamine.” The voice filtered through the dream, through the darkness. She could smell smoke in the air, and it seemed that the other creatures who lingered in front of her did not want her to smell that.

Hands reached up out of the darkness, black hands dripping in ink that gripped her face and forced her to look at the woman in front of her.

“Take from him,” the creature made of oil said again, her voice deepening with meaning. “Destroy him. And you will become all that you have ever desired.”

She didn’t understand what they wanted from her!

She wasn’t a gravesinger or a witch. She could only follow the spell books, and even then, look at how that went!

That moment was proof, laid out before them.

The Deathless One had done what he wanted with her, even though that should have been impossible.

Either that spell book had lied or she wasn’t a witch at all.

She wasn’t what they all thought she was. Maybe her mother had been. Maybe there was someone else out there who looked like her, some urchin who should have been a princess.

More smoke poured into her senses, making her eyes and nose burn. She couldn’t even think because it was so hot. She thought maybe she was burning somewhere else. Why could she smell this? Why was everything hurting?

“Remember,” the ink said before it started to disappear. A blinding white light suddenly erupted from the woman’s mouth and then radiated out of all the other feminine images, blasting away the darkness and leaving only brightness behind.

The smoke became overwhelming, and Jessamine suddenly lurched upright. Coughing, she cupped a hand around her mouth and tried very hard not to vomit. What was that smell? Where was she?

“Oh, good.” Sybil’s voice broke through her coughing, but only for a few moments before she went into another fit again. “You’re back.”

“Back?” she croaked out through coughs.

“You were gone for a little while. It’s a good thing I walked by and noticed your spirit was missing. Otherwise you might not have returned at all.”

The room was filled with smoke. Sybil crouched next to her, the coiled locks of her hair falling in front of her face.

Those dark eyes saw straight into her soul and the fear that still lingered there.

With a nod, Sybil stood and made her way to the window of Jessamine’s room.

She opened it wide, even though some of the glass panes were already shattered.

She left behind a tangle of herbs and a smoking bundle of dried greenery that Jessamine couldn’t identify.

“What were you doing to me?” Jessamine asked, her voice sounding like it came from another person.

“That is eucalyptus and juniper, both hard to come by and very expensive. You’re welcome.” Sybil tsked. “Don’t encourage the ancestors if you don’t want them to speak with you! It’s like you know nothing about witchcraft.”

“I didn’t encourage anyone or anything. They were talking to me about… gravesingers, and I don’t… I’m not one of them.”

Sybil chuckled as though Jessamine had made a joke until she looked back at Jessamine and froze. “You really believe that, don’t you? That you aren’t a gravesinger?”

“I know that witches show themselves early in life. Nothing unexpected has ever happened around me. I have never levitated a candle. I have never spoken with animals or created a spell through cooking.” Jessamine’s hands shook as she curled them in her lap, trying her best to control the fear that suddenly made her heart race and sweat trail down her temples.

“I know about witches. I have researched your kind my entire life, and I have prayed that I would find the answer to my kingdom’s sickness in your books, but I am not one of you. ”

Perhaps it was the loss in her voice that had Sybil’s shoulders curving in on themselves. Jessamine liked to think maybe there was some ounce of pity in the witch, who had so far been nothing but a hard-edged fanatic disappointed in what she had found on the beach.

Sighing, Sybil settled on the pile of rags with her. “Not all witches are the same.”

“That’s not what the books say.”

“I’m not listening to anything from books written about our kind. Witches have been here for centuries, longer than anyone who has read or written books. Trust me, any book worth its salt was burned by your ancestors years ago. Or even longer before that.”

At least that settled some of her churning stomach. Sybil was right. No one would leave books like that lying around. No one wanted the witches to become powerful again.

“No one talks about what happened to you all,” she murmured. “Just that it was necessary for the good of the kingdom and that it happened right after all the gods died. Do you know the truth of it?”

“Ach, it’s a sad story. You just woke up from talking with the ancestors and you want to know that? You’re going to go right back into a nightmare.”

She didn’t want to think about those ink-covered creatures who had begged her to steal from a god. She didn’t want to even consider that they really had been in her mind, so yes, she wanted the distraction.

“Please?” she asked. “I have read so much about witches and witchcraft, and I know your people could help the kingdom if you wanted to. And I don’t believe you caused the plague, no matter what my ancestors claimed.

I suppose that’s always been something that has confused me.

Why won’t any of you help the kingdom now with this plague? ”

Sybil took a deep breath. Her dark eyes searched Jessamine’s, and there was a moment of recognition there. A moment where the witch saw straight through her and into what she had seen in that dream.

Or maybe it wasn’t a dream, and that terrified Jessamine more than a nightmare ever could.

Sybil grunted. “Fine. You know the gods died?”

“On a spring day, according to the legends.”

“They didn’t want to die, according to legend.

The gods used to be like us. Just people.

But eventually they discovered that our worship turned them into something more, and they were so powerful compared to mere mortals, if we were foolhardy enough to give them that power.

It was a family of them, or perhaps people who just called themselves family.

The Warrior Son. The Heartless Maiden. The Deathless One.

The God King. The names go on and on, for creatures more powerful than our minds could ever dream of.

“They eventually gained their own followings. The Heartless Maiden and her huntresses. The Warrior Son and his band of reckless soldiers, who prayed for strength and turned berserker. The Deathless One and his witches.” Sybil tapped a finger to her chin, her brows furrowing.

“There was also the Wizened Crone. Priestesses worshipped her. Glorified witches, but they always held themselves to a higher standard. All the gods gave power in return for sacrifice. It was a loop, you see. We sacrificed to them, they grew stronger, and they shared an increment of that power with us.”

Jessamine snorted at the sarcasm in Sybil’s tone. “You speak of them like you were there.”

“I was.”

She blinked at the witch for a few moments, her jaw dropping open in shock. “What do you mean, you were?”