Page 68 of The Endless One

“Ajax’s spell,” he murmured. “The Huntress wants your body, Jessamine, because every god needs a vessel. But she can’t steal it if it is not empty.”

Oh.

So that was what had happened. His spell hadn’t just been about bringing the Huntress into her body; it had been about ejecting Jessamine entirely. He hadn’t wanted the goddess to share her form like he had to suffer through with Leon. He’d wanted an empty vessel to bring his sister into.

She told herself that she was well and whole and that nothing would change that except… everything had changed. For the better. For the worse. For the unraveling of everything she had known before.

A sharp voice shouted from a distance, “Don’t you dare!”

The Huntress was coming. She’d found them. She’d hunted them down just as she was good at doing, but…

Jessamine cupped Elric’s jaw and brought him closer to her lips. “She should be terrified of me.” She pressed against his mouth. “And I will show her why.”

She was back. In a way, at least. She was in his arms; she was talking; she was here and he could finally, wonderfully, forget for a few moments that he had almost lost her.

Elric curled her a little tighter in his arms and tried to tell himself this was going to be all right. But returning her soul? It felt like he was giving her the only assurance he had that he could keep her safe. He had guarded it for so long, ensuring that death meant nothing to her, but… now it was back in her hands.

Now he had to endure the fear that at any point, she could die. And if she did die, then it was his fault for not continuing to keep her safe when he could have.

But he knew that he couldn’t keep her soul forever. Not when this was so important, and not when she had to become far more than a gravesinger could ever be.

“Do you want me to help?” he asked, even while knowing that his sister was barreling toward them.

Jessamine sighed. “Oh, I suppose so.”

Her little sarcastic quip gave him hope they would get through this. That even after all the struggles and fighting that they had done, this wouldn’t be the end of all that they had known. So he spread his hands above her and allowed his magic to pour forth. In the old days, before witches and humans could create a god, he had always heard that a new god was birthed from an old one.

It was magic he didn’t technically know, but it still somehow poured out of him in this place where gods were born. Magic flowed out of his palms, coating her body in a sticky black ooze because that was all he had. All he could give her.

But just like in his realm, the moment the magic touched her, he could feel it changing. What was dark became shimmering with thousands of colors. And as she reached up to remove the ooze from her face, he could see it peeling away to reveal a new woman beneath it.

No, not a woman.

A goddess.

Her skin was porcelain smooth, but there were still cracks and fissures through it. He could see them down her face where she had shattered, across her throat in the original wound that she’d survived, and down across her chest and arms. He had completely forgotten she was nude in his grip, but now he could see all that she had become.

She glowed with magic. Not dark like his own, but light and golden from deep in those shimmering cracks. She was beautiful and deadly all at once. Her hands curled into claws, her fingertips suddenly weapons of their own. When she gasped, he could see tiny fangs in her mouth that looked wickedly sharp and dangerous.

She had become an amalgamation of all things that men feared about witchcraft and familiars. A woman filled with magic, pain, and all the vengeance of a woman scorned. But beautiful. Oh, she was so beautiful.

He stroked his finger over her cheekbone, listening to the sounds of the Huntress approaching them at an impossible speed. “Do you want to deal with her, or do you want me to?”

She felt a wild and wicked grin spread across her face. “Allow me.”

The pulse of magic that came out of her was nothing short of shocking. He could feel it rumbling the ground they were on, and suddenly the Huntress was surrounded by sharp spikes that erupted from the gold. They were gleaming in the meager light here, obviously with the intent to harm, and yet, the Huntress merely stood there with a snarl on her features.

“This won’t stop me!” his sister screamed. “Do you really think I will ever stop hunting you?”

“I know you will,” Jessamine replied. “Because I am your equal now. If you want me to prove how much stronger I am than you with a god at my side and a coven of witches at my beck and call, then I will. But we will summon you to the living realm, Huntress, and we will make you dance for us.”

He could see the words conjuring something in Jessamine’s mind, and suddenly, there were slippers on his sister’s feet. Red-hot iron slippers that made the Huntress shriek in pain and leap into the air as though she were dancing. In doing so, she impaled herself on one of the many spikes, straight through the shoulder where she dangled, screeching in pain.

There was no more need for them to stay here, no matter how much he longed to see what his sister would do next.

He slid his hand beneath Jessamine’s neck, lifting her a little closer to him. “Envision your body. Hold it close to your mind’s eye.”

“My body was destroyed.”