Page 65 of The Endless One

“It is not an easy role.”

“No, I don’t imagine that it is. But it is the one you were made to do.” He held out his hand, just as he had for the child version of Jessamine. “I need you to come back together, Jessamine. So that we can get out of here.”

She took a deep breath, and this time he swore there were features on her face. Nostrils that flared with anger, and righteous rage that flowed throughout her. “The child is frightened of me. She does not understand that I wish to keep her safe.”

“Then I will help. But you have to put your pieces back together, because there are more people who need you. More than just me.” His hand remained out before them, unwavering and unshaking.

“The closer we all are together, the more pieces who join as one will summon her to us. Our strength is a beacon to the one who stalks us. We are safer, far away from each other. Farther away from being hunted.” But this rage-filled form of Jessamine narrowed her eyes on him. “Unless you want to fight her.”

“Fight who?”

“The Huntress.” She said the words with so much venom it made his entire body stir with rage. “She hunts us. She wishes to destroy us so she can take our vacant body.”

So that was the ploy, then. That was what this entire thing had been leading up to. The Huntress was still here, still fighting to get back to what she believed was her right, and he… Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

With his voice low, he replied, “I will handle my sister. The Huntress is not nearly as intimidating as she would like to pretend. She’s still dead. And I promise you, Jessamine, I will keep her that way.”

The darkest part of his lover regarded him with a closed expression before finally nodding. She slid a soaking-wet hand into his and allowed him to draw her up to her feet. “I will take the child. I will keep her safe, as I always have.”

He walked with her to the tree where he had told the little girl to hide. And she was quite good at it. It took him a few minutes to find her before he realized she was already coming out to see them. Hesitantly, of course, but she stood there, brave and waiting.

Jessamine’s rage knelt and opened her arms. He watched the little girl approach this dark, shadowy creature and embrace it. For the first time, he realized this was why Jessamine had never questioned her adoration for him.

Because she had already embraced the darkest side of herself.

They melded together, child and protector, until there were features on this dark creature before him. Her horns slowly disappeared, dulling with time and innocence. It still wasn’t his Jessamine. There was plenty still off about her body and her shape, but… she was closer.

He nodded at the woman before him and said, “Now, where are the others?”

Her world was cold and aching. She wasn’t sure why, but her mind had fractured a long time ago.

It sometimes felt as though she bounced between multiple people. Minds that weren’t hers, yet were. Thoughts that had deviated from who she once was. Anger. Sadness. Hopelessness. Joy. All moments and memories that were so jumbled together, she couldn’t imagine what was right or normal or what even was supposed to be.

She told herself it wasn’t a terrible existence. After all, the real her floated among all of these thoughts and memories whenever she wished. Each version of herself had already experienced so much that she hadn’t experienced yet.

One part of her had been chased by the Huntress for hours on end. Through the moors, through the swamp, into the rolling fields of wheat beyond. She knew that was her fear, but that part of her had never been good at hiding. It had always reared its ugly head when she didn’t want someone to know she was terrified, and she should have guessed that part of herself wouldn’t stay away from the Huntress long.

It had managed to hide eventually, because the Huntress hadn’t killed it. But now that part of her had experienced so much more than Jessamine as a whole had experienced, and she wasn’t sure it could be convinced to join with the others.

Not that any of them intended to join with each other again. It was safer to be apart. Fractured. Not entirely a whole being, because if one of them died, then the others would still survive.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

When she wasn’t snooping on what the other pieces of her were experiencing, Jessamine existed in golden light. But there was nothing here. No life. No conversation. No people. It was just Jessamine, lonely and tired and exhausted.

Sometimes she wondered if this was how Elric felt all those centuries alone. Her heart hurt for him, just as much as it cried out for him to save her.

At least, it did when she remembered he existed. Sometimes her mind seemed to float through time and space. She didn’t remember who she was, or perhaps who she used to be. She only remembered the now. The golden light that bathed her mind in calm, and the quiet sensation that, for the time being, reminded her that she was safe.

Maybe she wouldn’t be safe forever. Maybe the Huntress would successfully hunt down all the pieces and parts of who Jessamine had once been, and then she would come looking for Jessamine’s core.

But that wasn’t right now. Fear had taken control over her entire being.

Until one day—or perhaps one hour; time seemed so meaningless here—she heard the faintest sound. It wasn’t quite the scrape of a claw on the ground, but it was something different from the silence she had luxuriated in for such a long time.

She sought it out. Following the strange sound until she found the smallest black smudge on the golden ground of her home.

It was a tiny blob about the size of her fist, with eight legs that propelled it forward. A spider, she remembered. But this one was larger than any spider she’d ever seen before. The bulbous body dragged on the ground, creeping toward her with obvious intent.