Page 37 of The Endless One

Elric couldn’t conjure this on his own. He was a god of shadows and death, that was all. But the surrounding witches had intent, and that meant he could make this spell bigger. Better. He could do what they wanted, because they demanded it. Each one of them cried out in their hearts and souls to keep their loved ones safe.

Sleep was easier. Sleep was an endless night of wonderful dreams and quiet thoughts. Some of the witches wanted just darkness. They didn’t want their loved ones to know any time had passed at all. Others wished for pleasant dreams. Some of them wanted their loved ones to be on an adventure, even during their rest. He took all of those hopes and dreams, and he conjured them into a ball that he could throw toward the kingdom.

Once it was over Inverholm, he encouraged it to spread. Like a blanket, a shadow drifted across the kingdom and settled down upon it like a shroud. The darkness settled there, and he watched it while holding his breath.

Everyone else seemed to do so as well. Their words stopped all at once, the sudden silence heavy on all of their shoulders.

He watched the infected stop moving on the beach, fall onto their knees, and then drop onto their faces. He knew throughout the kingdom, more infected were doing the same.

The thin black shroud would remain where it was. As though the entire kingdom was a closed-off house, just waiting for someone to come in and pull the blanket off.

“Did it work?” Elissa asked, her voice quiet.

“Yes,” he replied. “They are all asleep. They will remain that way until we wish for them to wake.”

Or until another god joined them. He knew for certain the Huntress wouldn’t be able to lift this spell, but there were plenty of his other siblings who could.

Jessamine’s troubled expression met his as the other witches started for the boats on the side of the ship. There were two of them, and they were the same ones they had used to get to shore when they’d arrived in Orenda.

“Why do you look nervous?” she quietly asked.

“This should all work as long as Ajax doesn’t bring back the Enchantress.” He swallowed. “I never told you about her. The rest of us took names that were a little more ambiguous. The Crone. The Many-Faced Mother. The God King. Names that wouldn’t necessarily give away who or what we are, but… the Enchantress and her crew of wildlings would certainly make quick work of this spell. And every other spell we might create.”

“Would he bring her back before the Huntress?”

Elric shook his head. “I don’t think so. They never got along.”

“Then there is no point in worrying about that just yet.” She threaded their fingers together and tugged him toward the first boat that had splashed into the water. “Come on. We have some work to do, Deathless One.”

He couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as they made their way down the rope ladder into the boat. Because the kingdom they were approaching was well and truly dead now. It was filled with people who shouldn’t exist any longer, nothing more than mindless beasts.

But as he sat down in the boat and took hold of the oars, he knew without a doubt that they were doing the right thing. Even if it was terrifying to do so.

The boat hit the shore with a soft sound. Waves lapped against the wooden planks, and all she could think about were the bodies littering the beach. So many of them. Each had once been a person with a family, a job, a life. Now, they were all lying there, waiting for someone to pick them up and put them somewhere safe. Or at the very least, waiting for someone to save them.

She closed her eyes. Just for a moment. Just so she could stare at the blackness behind her lids and disappear for two seconds before she had to be the queen everyone expected her to be.

This was her choice.

Her decision.

Everything that she was going to see on the walk to the castle was her own doing. She could endure it. Jessamine would bear it for all the witches behind her who were likely to see loved ones lying on the ground, boils and pustules festering on their skin, with no sign of recognition or who they once were.

When she opened her eyes, she was the queen the coven expected. She channeled her mother’s energy as she placed her hand on the edge of the boat and nimbly jumped out of it. Even though her ribs screamed in pain and a headache burned behind her eyes, she stood tall and strong as she surveyed the beach.

“Come on,” she said. “We’re going to the castle. That is where we belong.”

There was a time when she wouldn’t have believed those words. But now she did. She knew that there was nowhere in this kingdom that the witches deserved to be more than the castle. She intended to start at the Water District, where everything had begun, and ignore the docks where there were countless bodies of men who had once been sailors.

But then the guilt gnawed at her. There were so many infected. So many people needed their help, and if they weren’t careful… She stopped on the sands, tilted her head back to the sun, and sighed.

Then she looked.

She really looked.

A young man lay on the ground right in front of her. His hands were stretched toward another, a woman who was about his same age. She couldn’t stop staring at his hands. Fingers so raw they were all bloodied. The woman didn’t even have fingernails. Then Jessamine saw their faces. The drool and the black pustules that covered the man’s face, and the woman’s features, which were so bruised it was hard to tell what she might have once looked like.

And yet somehow, they were still reaching for each other. As though they knew they were once important in the other’s life, even after their souls had been taken from them.