Page 23 of The Endless One

“We need a place to stay.” He looked down at her and raised a brow. “Or do you want to sit in the sand until your wounds heal? I need to wait until the other witches sacrifice more to me before I will be of any use. I can heal myself, but you will be much harder considering the taint of magic in those wounds.”

She’d paid a price to cast her spells that bent the world. Plants weren’t supposed to grow that fast, and he had sensed those bushes were also enhanced. Thorns of that size, at least, weren’t natural.

Their argument was cut short as the front door of the cottage opened and an elderly woman walked out of it. Her pale gray hair was piled on top of her head in an intricate coil. She wore a homespun dress with pink flowers hand painted all over it, and an apron that was smeared with the slightest hint of red. Like she’d been working with tomatoes.

She turned with a basket in her hands and then froze at the sight of them.

He knew what she was seeing. A dark man, his face perhaps a little hard to recognize, holding a woman who looked like a corpse in his arms. Both of them were covered in blood, looking as though they had just survived a murder. Or perhaps committed one.

Jessamine’s bright tones broke through the stunned silence. “Hello! We were hoping you might have a place where we could clean up and stay the night? We promise not to be a bother. We just got into a bit of a… scuffle?”

The woman lifted her arm and pointed to a barn just beyond the house that Elric hadn’t noticed.

“Thank you,” Jessamine said, and then elbowed him in the ribs.

Apparently, a princess and a god were expected to sleep in a barn for the night.

The last thing she wanted to do was spend an evening in a barn, but it wasn’t like they had all that much of a choice in the matter. After all, she didn’t want to hurt that poor woman who lived in the seaside cottage. She thought she was safe from all the gods that could wreck her life.

Jessamine wouldn’t be one of those people who took without giving. A barn would be fine. They’d be out of the way, and soon enough, that old lady would forget they had even visited.

Elric grumbled the entire time he carried her, but she didn’t mind. Her entire body hurt. She just wanted a quiet place to rest for a few moments until she could breathe again. It would take some time for her body to deal with all the aches that Ajax had left within her. But at the very least, she wouldn’t have to worry about what other people were thinking while she dealt with that pain.

The barn was as well cared for as the house. It was painted a pretty white, matching the exterior of the home farther away from it. There was a small fence encircling it, but she thought that hadn’t been used in a while, considering the grass within the fencing was overgrown and there weren’t any mud puddles or signs that animals had recently been inside of it.

The double doors were marked with crossed wood and, as Elric and Jessamine entered, they were greeted by the scent of fresh hay. There were only six stalls. Three on either side of them, with pretty wooden doors and little signs above each one. As they passed, she read the first one that was a brass plaque with looping metal spelling out the name MAPLE.

“There aren’t any animals in here,” she said.

“Chickens.” Elric nodded toward the back. “There are a few chickens, it seems. Although they’re all loose.”

She reached out her hand and trailed her fingers along the door of another stall that had the name LUCY above it. “I wonder what animals were in here, then. Seems like they had a lot of love if they were willing to go through so much trouble to put their names above their doors.”

“Horses. Some people get really close to the beasts. They are unnaturally gifted with intelligence, I’ll say that.” He nodded toward the last stall, which seemed to have a shorter door than the others. “That one was likely a pig, though. If you want to talk intelligence, those rival some people I’ve met.”

“Look at you and your knowledge of farm animals.” She tried to shift herself in his grip, wincing as his arm scraped along a cut that was white hot with pain.

He snorted as he looked around, trying to find a place for them to go. “I wouldn’t consider that to be a good thing, nightmare. My history has led me to this place, but barnyards are not something to be proud of.”

“I don’t see why not. Farming is essential to any kingdom. It’s the literal food that it runs on.” She quieted when he brought her to a ladder and set her legs down on the ground. Steadying her silently, he looked up the ladder and then back at her.

Ah. Right.

She tried not to wince at what he was suggesting. It would be hard to climb, but she could do it. If she could run from Ajax in the state she was in, she could climb one more ladder.

Jessamine grabbed onto the rungs and climbed. She pulled herself, step by step, until she could roll herself onto the attic floor and lie there. Her breathing was ragged and hard, but she’d done it.

The loft wasn’t all that bad. It was full of hay bales stored for the winter, with a hatch for tossing hay onto the ground below. Light beamed through the opening, and so many golden flecks of dust floated through the air it felt like she was surrounded by fairies. The straw poked her back a bit, but it was still much softer than she’d expected.

Elric followed, an amused tone in his voice as he gathered her up once more and dragged her over to a larger pile of hay. “Stay here, nightmare. I’ll see what I can find to tend to your wounds.”

She had no idea what he was going to find in a barn, but she couldn’t move anyway. She wanted to lie here, pretending she was asleep, just so she could get a few minutes of rest.

But her mind didn’t want to rest. Her mind wanted to focus on the knowledge that she was alive. Even if that meant her ears pricking at every sound of Elric moving downstairs, or the soft clucks of the chickens as they realized they were in his way. His deep voice murmured reassurances to them as he moved among the beasts.

And then he was heading back her way, the sound of his hands on the rungs and a wet sloshing that meant somewhere, he had found water.

Suddenly, her mouth was so dry it was hard to focus. She needed water. When was the last time she’d even had water? Ajax hadn’t given her much of it. He liked to keep her right on the edge of thirst, giving her only enough to keep her alive but not enough to find relief.