Page 59 of The Endless One

“What?” Jessamine whispered, her voice cracking. “Why?”

She supported him as his skin started to cool. Together they rotated, so he was now lying on his side with her, while both his blood and her dark magic mixed together in a strange, flurried ink. Their combined mess was nearly deep purple as he watched it drip off the altar just beyond her shoulder.

Elric lifted a shaking, bloody hand and skated his fingers along her jaw. “Because I would do anything for you. And a world without Jessamine Harmsworth is not one worth living in.”

Those tears that had been building in her gaze fell. “Did it ever occur to you, Elric, that I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you either?”

“I will find you,” he whispered. “I will wait until I find your soul again. We will be together.”

The witches around them fell silent, but then he heard Sybil’s gasp. The dark witch had seen them. Sybil’s senses had returned after the flood of magic, but instead of reveling in ecstasy, he watched as she fell against the altar with a sharply worded “No!”

It echoed, bouncing throughout the entire room as the stones caught upon her horror and everyone lunged forward to the altar. No one touched them, though. Not a single person. All the witches instead stared between Sybil and them, waiting to see what had horrified their sister so much.

“Sybil,” he murmured, his tongue already losing its ability to create shapes in words. “Of all of them, I thought you would mourn me least.”

“She made a vow,” Sybil replied, her voice shaking. “She made a vow to never sacrifice you, Deathless One.”

Of course she had. His Jessamine was ever so kind in that way, but it was unrealistic. She may have made a vow, but he would never have held her to it. His eventual sacrifice would have happened no matter what they did.

But as he made eye contact with Sybil, he realized perhaps he had missed something.

“She made the vow before the gods.”

“I’m the only god,” he replied.

Then Jessamine gasped. She pressed a dark hand to her chest, and he watched as a sudden fissure of gold cracked between her breasts. The light nearly blinded him, and he flinched away from it.

“You aren’t the only god any longer,” Jessamine replied, wincing as another crack spread. This one fractured right through the silver scar on her neck and speared up onto her cheek. “And I did make a vow. I would never harm you. Not even unwillingly.”

“No,” he muttered. “No, I have forgiven you for it. I will not stand for you being punished.”

Another crack spread, this one straight down her forehead and right between her eyes. Her gaze widened, and he watched as fear set in. “My sisters, I need you to listen to me. We use this power for good. You attack Ajax, get your revenge for your god and your gravesinger. You are the last of the witches, and you are the only ones who can save us now.”

Sybil reached for her, but then hesitated as more lines of gold spread, shattering across Jessamine’s body like pottery knocked from a shelf. “Don’t talk like that, Jessamine. We’ll figure this out. We’ll get you both back. There has to be a way.”

He wasn’t all that certain that there was, though. Jessamine gripped the side of his neck. He stared into her eyes, and the whole world fell away. For the moment, it was just the two of them. Even as cracks formed on her features and even as the rest of his lifeblood drained out, he found comfort knowing they would die together.

“I love you,” she whispered, her words seeming like a dream. “Even after everything, I wouldn’t make a single choice differently.”

“I’m glad for it.”

“Don’t you have anything you’d like to say to me?”

Elric could hear the witches beginning to argue as Sybil threw out any spell she knew. The panic in the room was nearly overwhelming, but he still managed to lean forward and press his lips to Jessamine’s. “You know I love you, nightmare. But there are a lot of things I would have done differently.”

As he died, Elric watched her entire being shatter before his eyes.

Jessamine had felt herself unraveling for days on end. The magic that was eating her from the inside out would not give up its hold so easily, and she knew that there was a limited amount of time for her here. But she hadn’t thought that it would all end so swiftly.

She could feel herself fracturing around the edges. There wasn’t anything that she could do about it, and strangely enough, it didn’t hurt. She’d expected this death to be just as painful as all the others.

There would be the sharp jab in her chest, the hitch in her breath, all the sensations that came with death, and yet… this time there was none of that. Piece by piece, she could feel each one of those sharp edges painlessly peeling away and disappearing. Memories filtered off into the distance. Emotions vanished except for the love she held tight for him. That was the last thing she was willing to give up, even as she felt it being tugged out of her hands as though another creature was telling her, It’s time to let go.

She stared into his dark, horrified eyes, and she wished she had the energy to tell him that he shouldn’t feel guilty for this. Neither of them had remembered it, or if they had, they hadn’t thought it so important that it was worthwhile to bring up.

“I made you a vow, Deathless One,” she heard herself whisper as the life faded from his eyes. “I will not break it.”

She watched his final gasp, and everything suddenly felt so hopeless. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to watch that happen and know there was nothing she could do about it.