Page 44 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

Elric didn’t know what to do with her after that. He couldn’t stand that she’d seen his memories. They were his burden to bear. He had chosen to be that person, after all, and even though the memories plagued him, he had still allowed those witches to do all that they had done.

He was grateful the magic in this place hadn’t shown her even worse. All the witches who had bedded him, used him for years until they decided their affections had finally run their course. The ones who had played with his emotions, and he had fallen for it.

Jessamine didn’t deserve to see those memories. She was too innocent, too kind. She would think less of him, and he was terrified of what that would mean.

Trailing his fingers over the thin line around his neck, he tried to forget how she had flinched in his arms as they reached that memory. It was the first wound. The most heart-wrenching and painful.

He’d thought himself in love with only one witch. She had proven her devotion to him time and time again, a worshipper who had never failed to be at his side, no matter what he asked of her. She had romanced him. Seduced him. Turned a young god into a plaything of her own.

And then she had brought him to an ancient cavern, under the guise of showing him her latest sacrifice. The witches had bound him with the magic he had given them. They laid him out on an altar, and she brought a knife down to his throat.

What a horrible connection he’d made with Jessamine.

Already her opinion mattered too much, and it meant that no matter what he did, in her eyes he would always and forever be the man who was broken.

Because he was. He had been. Shattered and unmade by so many people that their touch would forever linger.

Staining his skin as his touch stained hers.

He passed his hand over her eyes and then pushed her soul back toward the land of the living. He had time before she reanimated. Her soul had a long journey to traverse.

It gave him time. Time to pull himself back together in the darkness after she had broken him into a million pieces. Time to heal the wounds of the memories that were right under the surface and had become raw again.

There was a problem with being the Deathless One. Even until the bitter end, he remained aware. So he felt every sawing motion as she worked her way through his neck, all the way to the bones at the back, and he remembered the sound of them snapping.

He didn’t remember his head hitting the floor, but considering the way Jessamine had flinched, some part of his subconscious did. She’d seen all of that. She’d seen his weakness for her kind.

None of these thoughts were helpful. He had to get out of this realm and make sure she was safe. And strangely, with the knowledge that she had seen his memories, he could pull out of the grip of this realm a little more easily. Every time he grew closer to her, he became more real.

Elric tried not to look too much into it. He manifested himself back to that awful alley where he’d found her broken and bleeding. Her clothes were pushed askew, apparently from someone rummaging through her pockets for whatever she might have on her dead body.

That certainly would be a problem. She had little in her pockets, but clearly they’d gone through her bag as well. Peeking inside, he let out a relieved breath as he noted they’d stolen the brass bowls but not the black book.

Elric leaned down and ran his fingers through her hair. In death, she seemed even more beautiful to him. The dark shadows of her lashes dusted her pale cheeks, which were nearly blue in the autumnal cold. She looked so peaceful, and he was about to ruin that the moment she came back.

“Come on, nightmare,” he said quietly. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

It wasn’t like he could bring her back to the inn. Though he grew more solid the longer he touched her, he didn’t think anyone other than Sybil and Jessamine could see him. But she needed somewhere safe to reanimate, and he wasn’t going to let her wake up in the dirt. Not this time.

So he hauled her over his shoulder and wandered through the streets.

He told himself not to think about the fact that if anyone looked out their window, they would see a dead body hovering in midair.

Instead, he tried to believe for a moment that he’d been resurrected.

Truly summoned to breathe new life into this world.

Although he had no intention of breathing life anywhere once he was here.

He still wanted to see the world burn. His forgiveness, his kindness, his years of service, all of that had resulted in nothing.

Witches and everyone else deserved to know what it felt like to be alone for hundreds of years.

Perhaps Jessamine could sense that need inside of him, and that was why she hesitated.

But couldn’t she see? She needed to punish the world as well.

He paused beside a graveyard framed by the aging buildings. “I’m going to keep you,” he murmured. “You and I, nightmare, we’re going to destroy this world together.”

Striding through the short, crumbling headstones, he found one of the older sections.

The stones were more like altars here, flat sarcophagi laid out among each other.

Rich mingled with poor, though it was easy to tell who was who.

The wealthy had carvings of themselves laid in repose over their gravesites, while the poor had only blank slabs over their graves, though still raised so people would know where they were buried.

Others would eventually be buried on top of them, slowly sinking the stone coffins into the ground.

He wanted her on an altar, so he chose a blank sarcophagus and laid her there. Gently, ever so gently.

Her body was still slightly warm. Still pliant as he let her rest against the cold stone. He should have laid out her cloak so that she wouldn’t wake up chilled.

But as he sat beside her head, gently brushing those waves of dark hair away from her face, he knew that this was the right place for her. A dead woman, rising back to life for the second time in a graveyard.

It was… perfection.

Anxiety twisted in his gut. He should leave. Everything in him screamed to flee what she had discovered. She would look at him as someone who was lesser because of the witches who had come before her. He couldn’t stand being that man in her eyes.

He didn’t want his heart to be broken again. With this one, the pain would be exquisite, and he wasn’t certain he would survive. But instead of running, instead of hiding in that realm that always punished him, he waited for her.

Elric sat beside her body until he saw the glimmering mass of her soul in the corner of his eye.

He turned his head, watching as the ephemeral being glided toward him.

Her hair floated around her head as though she were underwater.

Glimmering silver strands twisted around her body like she was made of moonlight.

Her skin glittered like diamonds and she wore a simple white gown, as all souls wore on their way to the other realm.

This soul didn’t walk toward death, however. She walked toward him, glowing as a light in the darkness as she approached her body and sank into it.

By all the gods, she was beautiful. A haunted, holy creature glimpsed only by the blessed few.

Every bit of her was graceful as she sank into her old flesh as though she’d never had a difficult day in her life. All of that had faded away with her death. Her soul had a soft smile on its face as she looked down at herself.

He was the one taking that peace away. The calmness, the beauty of death, all of it was ruined the moment she took flesh.

With that connection between soul and body came the beauty of her rage.

A tempest of purpose and desire for blood that bloomed throughout her entire being because she was not done here. Not yet.

A sharp inhale, then a cough as she cleared her lungs of all the fluid that had built up in them. Her heart stuttered, hating to beat again, but here it was. She was alive, and he had brought her back. A brutal death, and coming back from it was even worse.

She rolled onto her side, facing him, not away, and that had to mean something. Didn’t it? She wasn’t disgusted by him. She didn’t shrink away from his touch even as he hovered his hand over her shoulder. But he couldn’t touch her. Not without knowing if she remembered what she had seen.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she pushed herself upright. All that dark hair had fallen in front of her eyes, and she looked very much like the wild creature he’d found in the beginning. Roughened by death, but still here. Still fighting.

That dark gaze met his through the strands of her hair. “I meant what I said.” Her words were raspy and raw. “Even in this realm, Elric. I mean it.”

She continued their conversation like nothing had happened. Like she wasn’t waking up in a graveyard with a dead god who had stolen so much from her.

His heart squeezed, his soul screamed that he was obviously weak and why would she ever look at him any other way? She shouldn’t see him as a person. She was a witch, and that meant she couldn’t promise him that she wouldn’t have use for his power someday.

He didn’t want it to be like that. Elric wanted her to see this as something more than a business transaction.

But no witch ever had, even the one he had loved.

The Deathless God was a deity, but he was made for them.

For witches like her to use in their hour of need.

And she was in need. How could she not see this?

The best he could hope for was that she would raise him from his own grave and then allow him to have a few days, maybe a few weeks, before she killed him like all the others had. Like she was supposed to do.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice featherlight. “You don’t deserve what they did to you.”