Page 5 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

She tumbled through the darkness, rolling through the depths of death and some in-between place for which she had no name. It was cold. Bitter cold and biting against whatever she had left to feel.

Her mother, dead. Her family, gone. Her kingdom ripped from her hands without giving her even a chance to fight for it. She wanted to fight! She wanted to destroy everyone who had dared to take it from her.

Jessamine wanted a chance. That was all she was asking for.

In that darkness, she heard a voice. The black shifted underneath her eyes, and a figure stood above her, shadowy and obscured.

She couldn’t make out anything other than the silhouette of a trim waist, wide shoulders, and shaggy hair.

A hand reached for her, thick and broad-fingered, scarred tips dancing above her face.

“And so you will have a chance,” the voice murmured, low and rumbling. “But I want to see you burn your kingdom down and rebuild it in my name.”

In her desperation, rage, and fear, she heard herself reply, “I will.”

What madness had overtaken her? She did not know what monster visited her in this dark place. Nor did she have any clue what this deal might bring. But she felt… him .

Pulling. Tugging. Not letting her go when everything inside her screamed she needed to leave, to go deeper into the darkness and rest. But he wouldn’t let her. And with one final, hard pull, suddenly she felt it all. The cold. The bitter aching. The pain.

Oh, the pain.

It felt like ages, but she slowly became aware of her body again. Of how much everything hurt. Every inch of her burned with the heat of a thousand suns, and her throat…

“Is it… alive?” someone asked, the voice heavily accented.

“Och, aye, I think it’s alive. Did you see it twitch?”

Something hard nudged her side. A shoe? No, it would be too dangerous to touch someone who might have the plague with even a shoe. They’d prodded her with a stick, most likely.

With a low moan, she rolled away from the jabbing pain that made her ribs spasm. She ached, and the last thing she needed was yet another injury to add to the thousands that prickled over her entire body.

The first voice harrumphed. “Oh, it’s alive, all right. Sorry sap prolly got dumped over the cliff after they found out she was infected. Wot a shame. Pretty body and all that.”

“I’m not—” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. Rusty and rough, like she’d been screaming for hours on end. “I’m not infected.”

“It can speak!” the second voice said, decidedly more high-pitched than the first. She didn’t think it was female, more likely that of a child. “I didn’t know the infected could speak.”

“You ’aven’t ’eard ’em before? Mumbling about, constantly making those awful moaning noises?”

“I never really stopped that long when I saw ’em.” The child, and it had to be a child, made a spitting noise.

Jessamine reared away from the two when she felt the wet wad hit the back of her head.

Her entire body cracked as she stood, or maybe it wasn’t her body, but whatever covered her.

Black mud had hardened all over her skin and clothes, like a prison of darkness that left stains in its wake.

The mud crumbled, shattering into dusty patterns as she moved.

She scraped at her eyes, ripping the pieces away until she could finally open them and cast a dark-eyed glare at the two figures.

She was right: a boy and his father, presumably. They looked enough alike, their skin leathery from too many years in the sun. Their clothes were ripped and moth-eaten, patched with different colors. The boy had a smudge of black on his cheek. The same substance that covered her, she thought.

They both jerked back at her movement, and the man dropped the stick he was holding. He made a gesture with a circle of his pointer finger and thumb, flicked the rest of his fingers upright, and held his hand to his eye to ward off evil. “I’ve never seen black eyes like that.”

She tried to look around, but it was so dark she couldn’t see very far.

Small green lights flickered on the walls.

They were in a tunnel of some sort. A shallow channel of water cut through it, with walkways on either side.

She was in the muck, covered in who knew what, along with brackish seawater.

Thigh-high in muck and refuse, she could only be in one place in her kingdom.

The sewers funneled into the sea, and likewise, the sea belched back into the sewers.

The two people were standing on the grated walkway above her, which had already rusted through in a few places.

Jessamine reached for the metal grate but paused when the father’s hand snuck into his pocket. A weapon? Surely the man wouldn’t draw a weapon on her!

The boy gasped and made the same gesture. “The Deathless One has touched her.”

“No one has touched me,” she snarled, shakily trying to get her balance. They needed to get out of her way. She had to get back to the castle. Her people needed her, and they had no idea what Leon was planning. She had to—

No, that would be too dangerous. Leon likely had all his men already there.

Who could she trust?

None of the nobles had stood beside her mother, at least none that were still alive. The guard had likely changed over. Not that she really knew too many of the key players there, but there had to be someone left still loyal to the queen, and therefore loyal to her.

Where could she go? Nowhere was safe any longer.

Eyeing the two figures, who had already moved away from her, clearly uncomfortable, she decided they weren’t an option. They wouldn’t help her. They thought she was infected or cursed.

“Wot?” the boy asked, and she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. “You never ’eard of the Deathless One?”

Ah, right.

“I have.” She tried not to list left or right, her body shuddering with exhaustion. “He’s not real. And if he ever was, he died with the rest of the gods.”

The two looked at each other and burst out laughing. The sound wasn’t happy, though. It was mirthless and cruel, and they didn’t stop until she glared ever harder at them.

At least the man had the manners to cough into his hand, but it was his son who made a slashing motion over his own throat. “You’ve already been touched, lady. You might not believe in ’im, but ’e sure does believe in you.”

Her hand flew to her throat, and there it was.

Not a scabbed wound as she expected, but the thick rope of a scar.

That wasn’t possible. How long had she been out?

For that matter, how had she survived the throat cutting?

The fall? The mad tumble into the sea and the funneling of her body into the sewers of her kingdom?

“A mirror,” she croaked, snapping her fingers at the man. “Surely one of you has a pocket mirror?”

“Ye’ll get me infected,” he grumbled.

“Again, do I look infected?”

“?’Ow would one be able to tell? You’re covered in muck.”

“And many other things, I’m sure.” She shook her arms out at her sides, trying once again to dislodge the mud. “I’m not infected. I’m covered in mud and somehow survived a murder attempt, and all I want is a shower and a comfortable bed.”

The older man scratched his head, and she swore she saw two bugs tumble onto his shoulder. “Well, if ye ain’t infected, I suppose we can ’elp get ye out of ’ere. It’s a long walk, though.”

At this point, she’d walk miles on end if she got to fall asleep in something that wasn’t a sewer. “I really don’t care.”

“Ye say that now, but you’ll be complainin’ in just a few. Mark my words.” He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at his boy. The child held out a hand, as though he was… expecting something?

Payment? Really?

She stared up at them in shock. “You find a woman who clearly needs your help, alone in a sewer, and you expect me to pay you?”

“Aye,” the older man said.

“Wha—” Jessamine shoved her pride down. If that was what it took, then that was what it took.

She would not look at this as anything other than the gift it was.

She did not know where she had landed. She had no idea how to get home, and she was alone.

She would be grateful, and she would be kind. That was the only thing she could do.

If she gritted her teeth while moving mud away from the engagement ring on her finger, then it was only in frustration. She supposed it would only be a good thing for Leon to find out his ring had been peddled in a market somewhere. Let him think someone had taken it from her dead body.

“This is all I have.” She deposited it in the boy’s hand. “It’s worth a fortune. Sell it. I don’t care.”

He turned it this way and that, letting the meager green light filter through the shiny diamond. “Looks real.”

“It is.”

He put it in his mouth and bit down hard. At his yelp, his father smacked him upside the head. “Not so ’ard.”

“Feels real, too,” the boy grumbled, rubbing his head as he slid the ring into his pocket.

His father stared at her a little too hard. A woman with a diamond ring of that size wasn’t likely to end up in the sewer system. She braced her shoulders and stared right back at him. He could look all he wanted, but he would never guess who she really was.

“Now, what are we calling ye, then?” the man asked.

Those eyes never moved from her, dancing over what was likely a very dingy gray gown, if he could see the small bits of it revealed through the mud.

Her hair had frozen in place, but she could feel sore spots on her scalp where the tiara had ripped strands out.

She looked terrible, and she knew it. That, fortunately, would work in her favor.

“Alyssa,” she muttered, reaching out her hand for their help. The name had belonged to her first governess, an elderly woman who had passed away years ago. “My name is Alyssa.”

“Anders and Pike.” The old man pointed to himself and then his son. “We’re only getting ye out, lass. That’s it.”

“That’s all I need.”