Page 58 of The Heartless One
Of course she remembered. But Jessamine had only chased Fortuna when the other girl had stolen something from her. A favorite hairpin. A cuddly kitten who had disappeared only moments afterward. A sweet that her mother had brought from another kingdom specifically so her daughter could taste it.
Nothing good ever came from Fortuna getting her hands on something. All Jessamine knew was that if she didn’t catch up to Fortuna now, she would lose everything.
A glimpse of Fortuna appeared in the powdered crowd, a dark splotch in the sea of gemstone colors. There was the darkness of her hair whipping around a corner. And there, a door opened and closed, but Fortuna was nowhere in sight. Surely she’d slipped inside.
Jessamine shoved through the crowd and yanked the door open before launching herself through it. She didn’t think of the danger, nor did she worry about what might be waiting for her. She could already feel magic brewing in her fingertips, just like it did when Elric was touching her, but this time, it was so much more. It was born of rage—and it washers.
The interior of the room was pitch black, but she walked through it confidently. Until there was the sharp sound of a match striking, and then light bloomed in the distance. She found herself in a gallery, with portraits hung all the way down the corridor. Paintings of Fortuna’s family stared down at her with the same expression they always had—dismal disappointment. She was the ugly duckling, the one who didn’t quite fit in.
And now she was even worse than before.
Suddenly, one of the portraits moved. A woman wearing a wig taller than she was wide lifted her hand to her mouth as though shocked at the sight of Jessamine. The man in the portrait next to her sneered and liftedhis hand to his face as well, as though he’d smelled something disgusting. Then there were the murmurs.
She could hear themtalkingas though they had the ability to do so. They whispered in the darkness, turning toward each other so that Jessamine could barely hear what they were saying.
“Is that the girl?”
“Somehow she’s gotten even worse than I remembered.”
“Do you see that scar around her neck? Now what do you think gave her that?”
A man with a carefully coiled mustache looked right at her and said, “I heard she died. Serves her right for what her family did to ours.”
Lies.
All of them were lies.
Jessamine wanted to press her hands to her ears and scream at them all to stay quiet, but she had to forge forward, forcing her body to move through the hall even as those hands reached out through the paintings for her. She could feel their bony fingers grabbing at her dress, holding on to the metal rib cage and trying to drag her toward them. The sharp edges of their nails tore at the silken fabric, and still she fought.
No one would stop her. Not ancestors. Not the people she was supposed to impress. And certainly not the faint memory of those who had been part of the problem in the first place.
“Begone, spirits,” she hissed, feeling a slither of darkness coating her skin with power. She reached for the metal rib cage and dragged her finger underneath a sharp seam. A bead of blood welled on her finger, dropping onto the floor, where it sizzled as it hit. “Or I will send your souls into the darkness where I will keep it. I am the Deathless One’s gravesinger. I command the afterlife, and if I wish to torment you, I will.”
They leaned away from her, hissing out curses and spitting angry words as though that would scare her off. She reached the end of the hallway, grabbing the doorknob and wrenching it open. With one last look back toward the remnants of what once was, she plunged into the next room, knowing that there was more Fortuna would make her endure.
And she was right. The moment she crossed the threshold, a sticky substance covered her eyes, and she could see nothing but red.
Jessamine swiped at her face, her fingers slipping in something thick and wet that covered her skin. Cursing, she struggled against it, yanking and pulling what felt like handfuls of slick meat that she tossed onto the floor until she could see again. This room was coated in blood. Or at least, that was what the spell wanted her to see.
Whose magic was this? Surely not Fortuna’s. Her cousin had never been inclined toward magic, and certainly wasn’t a witch. Elric would have known if she was worshipping him, or if he’d given her magic. Perhaps it was old. A leftover horror from a time long ago.
Stringy sinews covered the floor and walls. They were red, glistening, like an open wound that she had walked into. If she looked closely, she could see those sinews pulsing. Threaded together, they moved with a heartbeat that thundered in her ear.
Her own heartbeat.
She took one step into the room and felt her feet sink into the tendons as a stabbing pain in her chest made her gasp. It was an illusion made to convince her that she was walking through her own heart. That any movement would damage something inside her chest she couldn’t fix.
Another step. Another sharp jab that had her freezing and placing a hand over her heart like she could will the organ to still. But there was nothing she could do. The spell was thorough and strong. And it had been woven into the fabric of the floor by a particularly talented witch.
But Jessamine was more than a witch. She was a gravesinger with a connection to a god, and she knew that connection was more powerful than anyone who had come before. She could use him, and more than that, she could use his knowledge.
Her voice was thin and reedy as she whispered, “I call upon the Deathless One. The god who gives us power. I do not recognize the spell I face, but you, in your infinite knowledge, will.”
Immediately she felt it, a swell of dark power that rose throughout her entire body, as though he was there by her side. She knew he hadn’t enteredthe room, still caught up in the crowd outside. But he was here with her now, even if he couldn’t touch her.
“An intricate spell indeed,” he muttered in her mind, and she could feel the pain lifting as though he had shouldered her burden. “But you are stronger than this, nightmare. You aren’t thinking with your head; you’re thinking with the pain in your chest.”
“It’s a little hard to ignore,” she hissed as she took another step forward and felt an unusual thud in her chest that made every hair on her body rise. Her heartbeat paused. Suddenly stilling, as though it wouldn’t continue, until there was another, harder thud. “How do I fix it?”
