Page 3 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

His existence was only ice and pain.

Centuries of it.

Memories flickered through his mind. Bitter iron biting through his wrists after a hundred years of being chained to a wall.

The hot sting of blades against his skin as they cut through his flesh for a single drop of ichor.

The hissing laughter of a hundred witches as they used him, destroyed him, purged their hatred of the world by ripping out his organs and masticating what was left behind.

He was inevitable. The end for all things. And still they had destroyed him, bit by ever-darkening bit.

He couldn’t remember much of the living realm.

Only that the scent of green grass had once made his mind calm.

He remembered the featherlight touch of yarrow as he ran his fingers through the fine white petals, like lace.

And he remembered the shimmering darkness of a raven as it looked into his eyes and reminded him that all the gods were dead.

All but him.

That was right. The humans called him the Deathless One. He who escaped the end of all things. The end of magic and life itself.

All the gods were dead, they claimed. But one was still alive. One who lingered in the darkness, in the shadows, waiting… waiting …

For what, he could not remember.

He drifted through this endless night, his body floating on a lake as inky dark as the starless sky, his eyes staring unseeing into the mass of nothing above his head.

Hadn’t there used to be stars? He thought he remembered the little pinpricks of light that had always captivated him.

He could have lain in a field and watched them for months if the sun hadn’t come and washed them all away.

Even then, he wouldn’t mind staring into the sun just to savor the bright spots left in his gaze.

That was right. There had been stars. And a sun. And grass that tickled the back of his head, and little grasshoppers that bounced up and down his arms.

Until someone had come with a knife, reminding him that there was only one good end for a deathless god like him.

Sacrifice.

Pain.

Darker memories threatened to swallow him up again, sinking him into the muck. Dark hands rose out of the inky liquid, pressing against his face and digging into his jaw. They tried to turn his head toward the bitter memories, the ones that turned acidic and rotten in his mind.

But he wanted just a few more moments in that field. With the sun moving across dappled leaves, and the feeling of a breeze cooling the sweat on his skin. Oh, it had been wondrous, and the world had been so kind, until witches had found him and turned it all to shit.

Baring his teeth in a snarl, he ripped at the ink. The hands tried to pull him back, to make him wallow in the memories that seared through his very soul. He would not allow them to. Not this time. Not when he was so close to remembering the softer moments they always stole from his mind.

No, he would not linger in darkness today.

Pulling his way out of the inky darkness, he got onto his hands and knees. The darkness that bound him turned sharp-edged, plunging into his back and breathing all his memories back into him.

Years of being a god. An unending life of learning and living and taking whatever he wanted. Until the witches had claimed him as their own, until he’d claimed them in return. He had raised a city for them, a realm of power and magic. All of that would have been fine if it hadn’t been for…

The ink turned into feet that stood before him. Delicate ankles that led up to shapely calves and curved thighs.

If it hadn’t been for her.

Leaning back on his heels, the Deathless One stared up at the one witch who had changed it all. The one who had seen into his heart and saw him as a person, not a god.

She leaned down, the shapeless mass of her face rolling with black sludge, the long locks of her dark hair sliding over her shoulder. Her hand cupped his jaw, trying to force him back into the dark memories.

“You wanted us to worship you,” she whispered. “And I did. Oh, Deathless One, I worshipped at your feet until you fell in love with me. And then what did you do?”

“I killed you,” he whispered.

Perhaps not in practice, but in meaning. He had turned his back on them, and the witches had done what they must to fix what was broken.

He did not remember what had been broken all those years ago. But he did remember the last time they sacrificed him. When this witch had drawn him into her arms, kissed him into oblivion, and then laid him out on an altar.

The memories made him shake. “No,” he whispered. “ You killed me .”

“I did.” The darkness leaned down and pressed icy-cold lips to his cheek. “You were supposed to stay dead, godling. We took your power, all of it. We banished you here, and you were supposed to stay dead.”

Yes, that was what had happened. The witches had taken all his power, and then he had felt them blinking out of existence.

One by one. And then had died the lovely gravesingers, more than worshippers, vital to a god like him.

A gift. An anchor to the real world, where he had never been able to create a strong tie.

Every gravesinger sacrificed themselves along with him, and thus his ability to be resurrected had died with them. He’d been trapped here ever since.

They had all blinked out, until there was no connection but the shattered remains of a coven that hardly existed.

And then they had left him alone to suffer for centuries.

Banishment was not a strong enough word.

But though this realm in between life and death was created for his punishment, it was still his.

With a surge of power, he stood. The shape of the woman he had once loved tumbled out of existence, falling back into the darkness that threatened to drown him.

He turned away from the nebulous pool, ignoring how the hands clung to his boots, and remembered that this was a place he could control. How long had he been lost this time? So stuck in the bottom of that inky pit that he had forgotten who he was?

It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t even be the last. But something had awakened him.

He wandered for a while. But walking in darkness was difficult. So he lifted his hands above his head and twisted his fingers, rotating his wrist until a faint light illuminated the endless eddies of ankle-deep dark water.

“Yes,” he murmured. “This will do.”

In the distance, he could see what had awakened him. A lump. Too small to be a god visiting his realm. There were no other gods left, he reminded himself. And none had ever come to his realm, even when they were alive.

He strode toward it, dark boots splashing the water up against his shins. He shouldn’t be so interested. It was too small to be of note, likely just another trick to pull him back into that slumber. To control him, as so many wished to. And yet, his heart told him this was important. So he went.

What he found stole the words from his tongue and the air from his lungs.

A woman lay in the water. Dark waves lapped against her cheeks and filled her hollow eyes with tiny pools of glistening ink.

Her dark hair floated around her, nearly the same color as the water that surrounded her.

A white gown hung from hollow shoulders, torn lace and bloodied fabric clinging to her otherwise pleasing form.

A single lock of dark hair lay across her neck, like the delicious parting of flesh after all the blood had drained out, and he wondered what she was doing here. Why would she end up in his realm above all the others?

Crouching beside her, he let his hands dangle off his knees as he looked her over. It wasn’t right. Something about this wriggled in the back of his brain, like worms in a jar. She shouldn’t be here. There was a realm for the dead, and she was supposed to go there. Why would she end up—

A memory hit him like a sledgehammer to the skull. And he remembered.

Oh, he remembered everything

He fell onto his knees, black water soaking through his pants.

He was in a memory, kneeling with his arms tied above his head, twisted with rope and then dipped in molten silver that burned to the bone.

He was surrounded by etchings marked on the ground and black candles already guttering. He’d been there awhile.

Footsteps clicked around him, too light to be those of a man. Then the woman rounded in front of him, all angular shadows and dark hair that made her look like a spectral figure. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she was all that remained of this memory.

“Deathless One,” she murmured, her voice cast through the centuries and dulled by time.

“There will be another who comes. The oracle has seen it. Another who can summon you back from the dead. One who can return all your stolen powers, and then it is up to you. You will either destroy this world, or rule it.”

He remembered the sadness. The ache in his chest as he knew the woman made of ink had prevented him from doing… something. Something great.

“You have betrayed me,” he found himself saying through swollen lips.

“I have to save my sisters and my coven. I have to give you up,” she replied. Her mouth split open before she started to bleed. From her eyes, her lips, her nose. Even her ears gushed red liquid.

“Witch,” he snarled.

The woman he had thought he loved, the one who was supposed to place him above all others, lifted a blade above his head. “Deathless One.”

She brought the blade down, and the memory cast him back into this moment. With this woman. This figure who lay before him with her delicate hands resting in the ink, which twisted through her fingers like an old friend holding her hand.

This was madness. A gravesinger hadn’t been born in over two hundred years, more than that if time had slipped away from him. And if she was one, she would never summon him willingly. He would be a plague upon her world and all others. Her kind had tried to kill him. Then they had trapped him.