Page 21 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)
A thrill of power echoed through her chest. Jessamine touched the sudden ache between her ribs, only to realize it wasn’t she who had the reaction. No, it was him. The Deathless One wanted to hurt Leon. He wanted to do whatever he could, even in this memory.
And she found herself more than a little intrigued. “All right,” she found herself saying. “Get rid of him.”
“Gladly.” The feral sound of a snarl echoed throughout the courtyard before the Deathless One raised a suddenly clawed hand and plunged it into Leon’s chest.
To her shock, the memory staggered at the sudden attack. Leon’s eyes bulged out of his head; he stared down at his torso before looking up at the massive outline of darkness that stood before him. A black hand, inky with blood, withdrew from his chest to hover in front of Leon’s horrified gaze.
“You reek of murder,” the Deathless One snarled. “What survived your attack will not be so easy to kill a second time.”
Cracks formed all up and down Leon’s memory, like she’d dropped a glass from a great height. With the barest touch of the Deathless One’s claw, he shattered. All that remained was the faintest gray dust on the ground.
Her mouth was open, she realized. But really, he had just turned a memory to dust.
“Could…”
“Could he feel that in the real world?” the Deathless One grumbled, wiping his hand on his leg before turning to her.
“Probably. He likely saw the image of me as well, though he’ll ignore it as a nightmare or a passing panic attack.
It was a good warning for him, though. He shouldn’t get too comfortable on that stolen throne. ”
He’d… sent a warning? For her?
Warmth bloomed in her chest. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he growled.
“For looking out for me.”
He didn’t respond to that, but she had a feeling she’d made him very uncomfortable. Something about that was so satisfying.
Pleased with herself, she turned her attention once again to her mother. The queen was perfect. But Jessamine hadn’t remembered her brow being wrinkled with concern, or the way her mother had clutched the skirts in her lap so hard that she’d crumpled them.
Had she thought this might happen? Was there some worry in her mother’s mind that maybe this hadn’t been the right choice?
Perhaps she’d realized the same thing the Deathless One had realized. They’d been fooled, and they were all about to suffer for it.
“Move the memory forward,” she whispered. “Just by a few moments.”
Jessamine stood there in the center of chaos as the gates burst open, as Leon yelled at her, as her mother sat there in the middle of all that madness and never moved a muscle. As though her memory was frozen while everything else moved.
“I’m afraid I’ll forget,” she whispered as the Deathless One paused the memories once again.
“I’m afraid that one day, I will try to remember her and I won’t know what her smile looks like.
I won’t know the sound of her laughter, or the way she used to make this little noise whenever she disapproved of my outfit.
Someday I won’t be able to recall if her gray streak was on the right or the left side of her head.
Maybe I won’t even remember the exact shade of her eyes.
Were they an icy blue? Or were they the color of the sky? ”
She felt his presence behind her, lurking just out of reach. “Well?” he asked. “What color are they?”
She stared into her mother’s eyes, feeling twin tears drip down her cheeks as she answered. “Sapphire. Like a calm lake on the clearest of days. I thought I had years to learn and remember all this. To commit every detail to memory. If only I had known there were mere seconds left.”
There was the strange sensation of a hand hovering over her shoulder before it drifted away.
“I am uncomfortable with emotion,” he grumbled before clearing his throat. “But I am sorry for your loss.”
Wiping away her tears, she nodded. “I am, too.”
Jessamine stood in the silence, feeling the ache of her heart still beating in her chest. She was supposed to be with them.
All of them. Her mother, the nobles who had died loyal to their queen.
They were all waiting for her, and instead she was here, fighting for a kingdom that might not even want her.
“You missed him,” the Deathless One said, breaking through her thoughts. “There’s your answer, nightmare.”
She blinked, then followed his pointing arm to the gates, where the infected were just making their way into her home. “Who… Benji?”
A young man with a pageboy hat and a stick in his mouth stood holding the gate open. He always had some kind of pick between his teeth, gnawing on the wood like it was his job. He was easy to miss.
“No,” she whispered, taking a step closer to the memory, even though it was hazy around the edges. “He’s just a pageboy. Mother used to send him to fetch her peach pie from the market.”
“Peach pie?” the Deathless One repeated. “That sounds terrible.”
“It’s delicious,” she corrected absentmindedly. “Why would Benji open the gates? We gave him a place to sleep, a home, food, and money. There was no reason for him to turn against us.”
“Then that sounds like what you have to find out, nightmare. Why did he betray you, and just how far was he willing to go to do so?”
“And who made him betray us?”
The memory shivered, warped, and then splintered apart like a cracked glass mirror.
She could feel herself falling long before the memories disappeared and Jessamine was weightless.
Floating between reality and her own mind.
But this time, she wasn’t so afraid as she felt her body coming alive beneath her.
She blinked once, twice, three times, and the room came back into view.
This time, she was alone. No god to crouch by her side or make her feel questionable things.
But as she sat up, wiping her eyes with the heels of her palms, she stared down at the black charcoal that came from where he’d stolen her sight. And she couldn’t help but wonder if he felt as bereft as she did.