Page 86 of The Endless One

“Of course you don’t. But you won’t. We all have a future to fight for now, Elric. A cabin by the sea. A romance with an old lover. A life of luxury to return to.” She pressed her lips to his, the words shaking as she let the final desire free. Because she had never told him this. She hadn’t ever dared voice it. “A future to find as a god and goddess in a world who hasn’t met them yet.”

Something dark and needy flared in his gaze. “You and me?”

“No throne will hold me down now, Deathless One. You made me anew.” She kissed him like she meant it this time. She pressed all her hopes and fears for the future into him, and he greedily took them all. Bit by bit until finally he drew back.

His ribs were still expanding a little too fast, but then he nodded. “And so it begins.”

“No, my love. And so it ends.”

Jessamine turned and raced down the stairs before he could change his mind. Her voice rose and rang throughout the dungeon. “It is time! My coven! We go to battle!”

And just as she suspected, the whooping cry of all the witches who had spent days sacrificing was all she needed to hear to fill herself with even more confidence. This time, she would destroy anyone who stood in their way. Ajax be damned. He had made himself weak, and she would show him why that was such a bad idea.

The coven thundered up the stairs toward her, all their magic already crackling in the air. But it was Sybil who shoved her way to the front, her dark eyes wild with rage. “Where?”

“The old park. He took the whole fucking thing for his pantheon,” Jessamine snarled.

Sybil’s expression darkened. Jessamine had never seen her look quite so angry, or perhaps so deadly. “He’s here? In Inverholm?”

Every single witch seemed to still. Jessamine could see the vibration of anger that jumped from witch to witch as they realized that not only was their enemy closer than they thought, but he was in their home. The only home they had ever wanted to protect. Pride burned in her own chest at their angry curses.

Because they had every right to be angry. They had every right to feel that ancient rage of every woman who has ever had a man do what he wanted, their own feelings be damned. It was time to take all of those memories and throw them into the face of a god who had denied them for years.

“We fight to the death,” Jessamine said. “And we fight with every ounce of magic burning inside of us. We fight because we know how much work it took for us to be gentle. I release you from that endless labor now, my sisters. No more gentle. No more kind. This is about revenge.”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Elric had already spun up enough magic to summon a portal. She knew he wouldn’t put them in danger, and still her stomach churned. It was now. Now they were going to destroy… everything.

But she’d already unmade her kingdom. She’d already torn it apart, just like she had promised Elric all those months ago. Now she was going to take it back.

Jessamine stepped through the portal in the center of the park into chaos. The once-green land was now barren. What had once been lush, thriving grass was now yellow and withered, crunching beneath her feet as she stepped out of the portal and into the park. Even as she bent down and sank her fingers into the earth, she could feel the nutrients had been yanked out of the soil.

Her magic tentatively stretched into it, seeking out even a hint of something she could heal. But it was so dead. Beyond saving at this point.

She lifted her head at the sound of moans, looking beyond the immediate area and out into the wasteland. There were so many people here, all of them writhing in pain on the ground. They twisted back and forth, as though something was eating them from the inside out. And perhaps there was. Ajax needed more power, after all. These people were the remaining few Ajax hadn’t killed. If he wasn’t careful, there wouldn’t be anyone left to worship him.

Far beyond the writhing, there was a crowd of people, their arms thrusting into the air, all clamoring for attention. The pantheon was in front of them. All gleaming and golden in the light, that pantheon was a violation of a space that had once been Jessamine’s. He mocked her by building his own place of worship in the center of her city. She didn’t know what to do from here, but her magic tugged her away from the pantheon. To the right. It was insistent that she had to go that way and not wait for the rest of the coven to join her.

She could almost hear it whispering to her. It was time for them to fly on their own. They would do what was right. She didn’t need to tell them that they needed to help those people. They were prepared. Sybil was capable, and she knew how to wield the weapon of the coven with deft hands.

So she left. She walked where her magic wanted to go, pausing in front of a woman crawling toward the pantheon on her belly. Every inch of movement looked excruciating, and she clearly was still fighting to get back there.

“What are you doing?” Jessamine asked. She knelt beside the woman, placing her hand on her back and easing the pain for a brief moment.

The cloud lifted from the woman’s expression, but she was still trying to get back to the pantheon. “My sister,” the woman wheezed. “My sister is so sick. He said he would heal her.”

“Ajax cannot do that. No god can do that.” Except her, Jessamine realized. She could heal them.

“Ajax promised,” the woman whispered, still clawing her way back toward the crowd. “He said if we could survive it, if we fought our way back, he would do it. He said…”

A wave of fresh pain made the woman curl in on herself, and still, somehow, she was crawling. She was forcing her body through endless pain just to get to his side, and Jessamine realized this was the plan. He had lied to these people. He had brought them all the way from Orenda, promising them that he would fix their families, their loved ones, the horrible things that happened to them, and all of it was a lie.

All of it.

Her heart turned brittle in her chest. Jessamine glanced around at these people who were not hers, but realized that they could be. All it would take was a whispered word, and she could be their goddess.

“I can heal your sister,” she said, setting her hand on the woman’s back again. And the muscles in her back twitched, seizing for a moment before releasing.

“Please,” the woman whispered. “If I don’t get there first, someone else will take my place.”