Page 7 of The Heartless One
“We loved you,” Sybil finally said. “We worshipped the ground you walked on. And when you were alive, we treated you with the honor you deserved.”
He looked into those tormented eyes that knew the words she said were a lie. He took one step toward Sybil, his most faithful follower, and pressed her hand to his chest, where his magic tangled through her fingers.
“Do you feel this?” he asked.
“I have always been able to feel your power.”
“And you know the wound I give you all so that I may gift you power more easily?”
Without hesitation, Sybil shifted the fabric away from the fissure that ran down her chest. The one that now writhed with dark shadows, stuffed full with power. “Always.”
He touched the ragged chasm that would never heal and breathed out a long sigh. “This is my mark. A symbol of the same wound I once bore. A centuries-old scar that will never heal, so I will never forget the pain your kind inflicted upon me so that I could become a god.”
He remembered those days. Not his life as a man, because those memories were long gone. But he remembered being made. The pain, the torment, the months of serving as a sacrifice and losing every piece of himself, all of it culminating in godly power that had consumed him. They unmade him, so that he could be reborn.
She stared up at him, eyes wide with unsaid words. She shook beneath his touch, and he had to wonder if it was with fear. But then she bit her lip and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything we did to you.”
He shook his head and dropped his hand from her chest. “It is in the past, Sybil. You were not even part of my last sacrifice.”
“I could have said something.”
“And done what?” He spat the words, harsh but with the ring of truth. “What were you going to do? You who were the weakest among them. A witch who barely even took the magic so that no one would notice her? You were nothing but a child in those days.”
“I was forty years old.”
“And I was hundreds of years old!” He turned his back to her, unable to look at her. “I could have stopped them at any point. I was the one with the power.Iwas the god.”
The silence between them was deafening. He’d berated himself over this countless times, and still the wound festered. He could have stopped them, but he didn’t. Instead, he allowed himself to hate them, letting the feeling brew more and more until it consumed him. He’d been weak backthen, a god begging for power and worship. To deny them what they asked would have weakened him. It would have left him vulnerable to his siblings.
Elric had created his own doom back then. And now, he was walking right into it again.
“What did your siblings say at the time?” Sybil’s words trembled, as though she feared what he would tell her.
She should. Their advice had not been kind. But his siblings were known to be cruel. He had been the god with the bleeding heart.
“They told me to destroy the coven and start anew. There will always be witches, and they will always need a patron. Burn the coven to the ground. Savor their screams. Take back my power and create a new coven to worship me as the god I was.”
“Perhaps this is your opportunity to do just that.”
Was it? The mere thought tangled his guts into a mess of knots.
He’d seen these women and the tattered rags of their pride. He’d watched them sell their bodies, their time, their very souls so they could live in a world where people looked down upon them for something they were born with. Helping them had never been a choice. It was just a question of how far he was willing to go.
“Why are you here?” he asked, tucking his hands behind his back and taking another step away from her. “I assume you need something for preparations?”
“I came to ask if I could stay here.”
“No.”
“Deathless One, I have helped you both before, but I do believe—”
“No.”
“Elric,” she breathed, using his true name for a rare moment. “I am afraid. This is the home of the coven, and if we leave it…”
