Page 8 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)
She grasped the collar of her dress, shakily unbuttoning it before she pulled the halves to the sides and revealed the skin beneath.
From her collarbone to just below her left breast was a crack in her skin, a tear as if two pieces of a stone had split apart and revealed a void beneath.
Darkness shimmered there, shadows reaching out for him.
It was the last well of her magic, held together by a spell that bound her to him.
It was so lovely to see again. Reaching out, he gently coiled one of those shadows around his finger and pulled it out of her chest. She hissed out an angry sound, watching him with no small amount of hatred in her gaze.
“There is not much left,” she grumbled. “If you take it all, there will be nothing left for me.”
“I gave it to you in the first place,” he replied, lifting the shadow so he could see the tendril reaching for his face.
Strangely, he could feel the darkness of his features splitting open like a black maw, jagged teeth salivating at the thought of devouring his old magic. “I can take it back whenever I wish.”
“You are here for a reason, Deathless One.”
“I’m certainly not here to see you.” He dropped the tendril into his open mouth, feeling it wriggle deep inside his body and join the rest of his power.
It had been so long since he’d tasted his own power flavored with the taint of witch, but instead of nectar, this magic was but ashes on his tongue.
There was no flavor in this form, no kindness without resurrection. “I am to be reborn.”
“There was a prophecy, but no one has been born with your mark. Perhaps the oracle spoke false.”
“What is your name, witch?” He stood, motioning for her to do the same.
“Sybil, sire.”
“You will find the gravesinger for me and bring her here.” He turned his attention to the statue in this room.
He knew this figure well. An altar stood before it, one upon which many witches had sacrificed to his sister.
They would cut open a chicken for her every month during their bleeds, allowing the black cock’s blood to seep onto the stone.
The hollow eyes of her statue mocked him.
She was a triple-faced goddess in her time, being maiden, mother, and crone.
Combined, she had been a deadly creature who knew how to both nurture and destroy.
She had never once flinched away from her nature, born in gruesome gore and violence.
What he wouldn’t give to see her one last time.
He touched his fingers to his forehead, then flicked them at her. “Sister. The Many-Faced Mother. Our world is worse without you in it.”
The world needed women who were willing to put aside their kind or nurturing natures. It needed women who could fight and scream and bleed until the very earth understood the burden of their pain.
He turned his attention to the witch standing beside him. She gestured to the altar, still faintly darkened. “I keep the old ways alive.”
“I can see that.”
“How am I supposed to find this woman? For all I know, she has not even been born yet.”
“She has. I saw her.” He turned his head to look up at the moss hanging from the ceiling, then ground his teeth together in anger. “You live in squalor.”
“I live.” Sybil shrugged when he looked at her. “There are so few witches left, Deathless One. If I remain here in secret, then I remain alive. That is all I wish to do.”
“You fear joining the others.” It was not a question.
She nodded, the motion nearly knocking her over. The rags hanging off her rippled with her movement. “I was not always loyal to the coven. And I was not here at your last sacrifice, so I did not absorb the magic your death provided. I was the weakest.”
He surveyed her, running his tongue over his teeth. “No, not the weakest. You were the only one brave enough to survive.”
He strode past her, toward the inner depths of his manor, where he knew there was still an altar for him.
Pausing, he pulled off some of the inky darkness that made up his body.
It was painful, but he was used to pain.
In the realm where his soul actually lingered, he could feel his flesh splitting apart as it always did when he tore himself. Like the magic ripped back at him.
But then those dark tendrils, far more than he’d taken from her, sank into the crack of her chest. They burrowed deep inside her, and for a moment, she arched into his touch, sucking in a deep breath of pain before relaxing in ease.
“There,” he murmured. “You have your payment from me, for your many years of loyalty.”
“Deathless One, I cannot—”
He reached into the cavern of her chest, silencing her immediately.
“It was not a gift,” he growled. “You will find this woman for me, this dark-haired, sunken-eyed nightmare of a person, and you will bring her here. I need her to make the sacrifice to summon me back to this realm, and then I will gift you all the power you could ever desire. If you do not do this, I will rip you apart.”
Shuddering, she reached up her hands to grasp his wrist. But his body was no longer easy to grab, and her hands groped at shadow and smoke. Instead, Sybil wheezed out a long breath of pain and nodded.
He released his hold on her magic, the only thing still keeping this ancient crone alive, but paused when he saw her hands.
They made it too easy to tell what she was, dangerously easy considering all that she would have to do for him.
So he took them in his own and slowly allowed his magic to seep into the wrinkled skin.
When he pulled away, they were smooth as black glass. Though they were still curled with centuries of arthritis and pain, they at least looked young again.
Sybil let out a breathless sound of surprise. “Sire, I cannot… You did not have to…”
He waved a hand in the air and started out of the room. “Find her, Sybil. Or you will not like what happens next.”
He heard the witch scramble to gather her things, likely her scrying bowl and all manner of creatures and blood to sacrifice.
Perhaps she would find this woman who lingered in the shadows and who had forgotten her importance.
Soon, he would remind his nightmare exactly how powerful she was.
But for now, he wandered through the remaining pieces of his old home until he found the altar at which all witches worshipped.
A stone carving of a man on a throne. His hands on the arms, his legs spread wide in confidence. He had forgotten that he was once handsome. That he had once been more than just shadows and darkness.
He did not know how long he stayed there, staring at himself, before his realm took him back into black memories.