Page 81 of The Endless One

“Let me take you somewhere special, and I want to put that magic to the test. You’re a life goddess, right? Let’s see just how far it can go.”

She supposed that was the logical thing to do. After all, they had announced their existence to the one god who would hunt them down. Although, her threat should have Ajax questioning if he really wanted to fight them.

“We can’t take that long,” she replied. “The coven will be waiting for us, and I want to make sure that Ajax can’t hurt them while we’re gone.”

Elric rolled his eyes. “Always worrying about the coven. They’ll be fine if we’re not there for an afternoon.”

“We just told the god who has been hunting all of us that we’re alive,” she reminded him, her tone dry.

“You worry too much.” But she could see a shadow of doubt crossing his features as her words settled underneath his skin. “We’ll be as quick as we possibly can. Magic like what you have isn’t necessarily learned, but I don’t want you razing all of Orenda to the ground accidentally because you were mad at Ajax.”

“I think that would be a very appropriate response to what he’s done,” she muttered.

But she also knew Elric was right. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she made that mistake. There were innocent people in that country. People who were just going about their lives, not knowing how to stop a tyrant god from overtaking the entire realm, and fearful that he would cause them pain if they did anything to anger him. They were still wrong. Inaction carried the same weight as a wrong action.

Still, she refused to become Ajax. She would not trade them one tyrant for another simply because she believed she was more in the right.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But we must be quick about it. We can’t leave them right after we’ve returned.”

“Yes, yes. You are always so concerned about everyone but yourself,” he muttered before wrapping his arm around her waist. “Come here, nightmare. You and your sense of morality are going to be the death of me.”

“You can’t die.”

Just like that, the pantheon melted. Like someone had poured water over a painting, it all dripped away until there was nothing left but darkness surrounding them. Slowly, sensations returned. She could feel a cobblestone street beneath her feet. Then there was the smell of the sea and the unwashed streets of her home, a scent that always made her feel like she was finally safe.

He’d brought her into the middle of Inverholm, right on the streets that had always meant so much to her, even though now they were blood splattered and empty.

“Why are we here, Elric?” she asked, although she had a sneaking suspicion she already knew why.

“You’re a goddess of life. I have a theory that I need answered before we continue.” He moved away from her, his hands tucked behind his back like a professor readying himself to lecture a student for hours on end. “Your magic should already be building inside of you. Sure, there haven’t been a lot of sacrifices just yet, but we’ll get the coven to do that before we go anywhere else.”

“They should have already been doing it. Sybil is usually ahead of us,” Jessamine muttered.

“They’ve been focused on me first. I am, after all, the god they worship.” Elric’s grin was positively feral. “I’m sure they’ll get to you—eventually.”

Shaking her head, she tried not to let her competitive nature overtake her. The coven were her sisters. Should they not have sacrificed to her first? Or perhaps that was still the part of her who considered herself a queen, and knowing that she was no longer, that was going to sting for a little while yet.

Clearing her throat, she took the high road. “Well, that must be nice for you.”

“We share magic now, nightmare. You can take it however you want.”

“I don’t want to go back to your shadow realm right now.” She wanted to stand in these streets a while longer and burn the image of her kingdom into her mind forever.

The streets were, admittedly, destroyed. In the time that everyone had turned from human to infected, they had taken much of what she had once loved and upended it. Even around them now, the walls were marked with blood and gore that had aged so much the liquid almost looked black as it flaked off the gray walls. A cart nearby had been upended, spilling the contents of now-rotten apples onto the cobblestones. The air was permeated with the scent of a city that could have been, but now was only the faint whisper of itself.

It felt like the entire kingdom was holding its breath, waiting for her to do something about the tragedy that had occurred here, and she wanted to fix it all.

Elric heaved a great sigh before saying, “You don’t have to go back to that realm. A part of you knows where to gather your magic and how to pull it into your being. Subconsciously. There is no traveling there for us. You can pull it out of the well without ever needing to move your subconscious away from this moment.”

“You always seemed to go back.”

“I like going back. I keep my magic in a well that no one else knows about. That is entirely because I have excess magic. Being in that realm restores me. The magic you gave me? The life magic that lives inside of you? I didn’t need to drink any of your energy if I didn’t want to. If you need a burst of power, sure, you can do that. But you can also pull from it without having to go anywhere.” He reached for her, pressing his hand above her chest. “Breathe it in here.”

So she did what he said, and somehow, she could feel it. His magic that was so familiar to her, it was still there. And then she could see it. Shadows that clung to his skin, gently rolling like waves of a calm sea. She inhaled and watched as those shadows reached for her, turning golden as they twisted in the air and then touched her skin.

“There you go,” Elric muttered. “Now I want you to take that magic and hold it close to your chest. Then I want you to follow me.”

Well, now she was curious. What did he want her to do with this magic? Already she could feel it coiling around her wrists, traveling up her body as though it was a snake that had a life of its own. There was something humming in it as well. Perhaps a need to be used, like the magic knew what Elric wanted from it, and it was so excited to be released.