Page 7 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

He couldn’t get her future out of his head. Because her future was his future, and they were inextricably linked. She was a witch who could raise him. A witch who could finally bring him back into the land of the living, which he had missed so much.

When?

He did not know.

A gravesinger hadn’t been born in hundreds of years.

Her kind had made certain that they would not be born again, not wanting to give him the opportunity to raise himself and seek his vengeance.

Witches like her were rare, and witches of any sect had been nearly wiped out.

But before she could free him, she would have to learn.

The Deathless One had control only in his realm of darkness and sleep.

The living realm remained just out of his reach without the witches to anchor him.

But he and this girl were not anchored together.

He had no way of knowing when she would seek him out—but gravesingers always did.

They were lost without their connection to a god, and he was all that remained.

The gravesingers had sacrificed themselves many years ago, but there were still plenty of people who remembered what it was to worship a god and know the blessing of that god’s favor.

Witches remained, even some still connected to him.

Though they were in hiding, he could find them.

There were ways to see into their realm, to reach out to those who still walked the ancient path.

Conjuring a mirror in front of him, made out of inky oil that dripped onto his toes, was far easier than he had thought it would be.

The Deathless One had spent so many years in this sad place, he had forgotten his innate power.

A god did not have to wait for the witches.

His magic came from deep within his bones.

Yes, these old memories threatened to swallow him up, but they did not control him. Not entirely. Not yet.

Clutching the edges of the cold mirror in his hand, he peered into her realm.

He sought out his little nightmare. The woman who had been born for him, to whom he’d given new life to fulfill her purpose and satisfy his revenge.

But what he found disappointed him. She had not stormed back to her castle and rained havoc down upon the head of her murderer.

No, she had gone to the streets, slithering about in the shadows like a snake cringing from the slightest movement.

Why? She was powerful. Capable of anchoring him to the living realm and tying him to reality.

Soon, she would be linked to him. Surely she felt it.

She must have seen that her gaze now mirrored his, haunted and black as night.

Instead, she scuttled from shadow to shadow, hiding behind barrels with haunted wide eyes.

That… disturbed him.

He didn’t remember why until after a few days of watching her movements.

He saw her steal food from a vendor, who chased her off with a knife in his hand.

She tripped over her skirt and fell into a mud puddle, and the man had snatched the bread back with a sneer and left her there.

She lay shivering in the water, her head bleeding from where she’d hit it against the cobblestones.

She was filthy. Ragged around the edges. Clearly in need of help, and yet no one reached out to her. This was not the city he had helped his witches build.

In his time, the witches were powerful. They had been scorned like this in his early days of godhood, until he had reached out a hand to them. He’d made them powerful. Dangerous. Terrifying to all who looked upon them.

No one would dare treat a witch the way this human refuse treated her. They wouldn’t dare look at a witch with pity or refuse her entry to their home.

His little nightmare flinched again, freezing in fear before darting away to hide.

Then he saw them. Figures standing at the end of the alleyway she’d walked into.

He needed to see more. Stretching his awareness, he sent his mind down that street through the darkness on windowpanes and the inky black of puddles underneath their feet. Then he remembered.

A plague. A sickness unlike anything this realm had seen.

These people stood frozen in the streets, their arms bent awkwardly at their sides like they didn’t remember how to hold them.

Pustules burst all over their bodies, revealed through the tears in their clothing.

Slack-jawed, they remained still as if listening for their next prey.

They had but one urge: to find the next person to infect.

So, his last witches had failed. Even though they had murdered their own god, forsaking all their future power, they had not saved the kingdom that had hunted and feared them for centuries. Self-sacrifice, in the end, had earned them nothing.

The coven.

There were few alive who still worshipped the dead god they had killed and thereby condemned their world to utter madness. But he could feel them, living, breathing, practicing. All he had to do was reach out.

Casting one last glance back to his frightened, frozen deer in that alleyway, he turned his attention away from the witch who could awaken him. She would find her own path, he was confident of that. Though she was terrified and surely felt as though everyone had abandoned her, he knew the truth.

Lady Jessamine Harmsworth would soon have the most powerful patron she had ever dreamed of. And together, they would lay waste to all who stood in her way.

He let his powers stretch, reaching for any who still had a tie with him. When he followed that meager, thin thread, he was surprised to find its end in the same place his last coven had made their home.

From what he recalled, the witches lived in a luxurious manor at the edge of the sea.

He remembered beautiful rooms filled with carvings of deities from times long past. Every statue of a dead god was decorated with flowers, filling the ancient cracks and wounds of battle with beauty and life that burst into bright colors whenever they bloomed.

He’d thought it poetic in the grand home made of marble and luxurious stone.

That home no longer stood.

While the gravesinger might not yet worship him, she had given him a gift.

Flexing his power, he could feel the connection to the living realm become stronger.

More real. No longer was he tied entirely to this place of darkness.

Peeling his own shadow off and sending it into the living realm, he lingered in the shade of a tree and saw a home abandoned.

The manor had been consumed by time. One side of the building was exposed to the elements, blasted open in some battle the witches had lost without his help.

Crows wheeled overhead, vultures joining them in a haunting call that grated on his nerves.

Slipping through every dark and dim corner he could find, he moved inside.

Moss covered the broken tiles of the once-stunning marble floor.

Grass grew on the rotting windowsills, twigs and branches spilled in through shattered glass.

Chandeliers still hung cockeyed overhead in almost every room, but now they were covered in dust and cobwebs.

The drapes had long since rotted into small piles by every window.

Shards of mirror on the floor reflected the darkness that barely looked like his shape as he moved through rooms that had not seen the sun in years.

How long had it been since he last died? How long had it been since he’d tended to his coven?

One of the piles under a window moved, shifting into focus as a woman suddenly appeared before him. She stood tall and confident, although she was a mere specter of what a witch should be.

“What demon disturbs the home of a witch?” she asked, her voice raspy with disuse. “You are not welcome here, dark spirit.”

“Do not attempt to banish a god,” he snarled. The anger at her response felt unusual. He hadn’t felt emotions in such a long time. He hadn’t even realized he still could. “Whom do you serve?”

“I serve no one.”

He lunged forward, a hand made of ink and oil gripping her throat.

Oh, he could touch her. Interesting. He hadn’t touched anyone in the living realm in centuries, and without his body, without being summoned, he was so limited in his power.

In this form he could touch only one of his own witches—and this seemed a paltry one indeed.

Dragging her closer to his featureless face, he tilted his head as he growled, “There is but one god you serve, witch.”

She croaked, “All the gods are dead.”

“I am not dead.”

He released her, letting her fall to the floor, gasping to fill her weakened lungs. His black handprint remained on her neck. She served him still.

He surveyed the last of his coven, kneeling before him. She was a dark-skinned woman, her hair pinned back in neat braids. She looked… healthy. And that simply was not possible considering how long he had been gone.

“What year is it?” he asked.

“It has been two hundred and seventy-five years since the last god died,” she replied, before looking up at him with wide eyes filled with determination. “After you were last sacrificed.”

He crouched before her, looking into those dark eyes that he knew had seen so much. “Prove it.”

She knew he didn’t mean the year. She lifted her hands, poking them out of her sleeves to reveal how the centuries had twisted them.

Crumpled, curled in on themselves, wrinkled beyond belief, they looked more like the hands of a mummy than those of a living creature.

But that was not what he wanted to see. All witches paid a price for their magic.