Eighty-Eight
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Samkiel
W as death peaceful? I had often wondered during the endless aching
nights when my grief was too much and sleep would not take me.
When existing seemed too much, long before she came into my life. But if death was peaceful, then this was indeed living. My body ached, pain radiating through me, threatening to tear my body apart. My veins screamed as if my blood had become acid. Sweat coated me, and I shook violently.
My vision blurred as I tried and failed to open my eyes several times.
Was that the pain I felt? I could not tell. It was everywhere, all-consuming, and then came the voices and screams echoing through the cosmos. My father had damned the universe. He hadn’t just locked them up; he’d sealed them away with all their suffering, and I was the key to their freedom.
A howling mass of roars filled the room. I heard wings, thick and heavy, flapping above. I struggled to open my eyes again, not remembering having closed them. When I succeeded, I cried out. Everything was awash in red as if I were looking through a filter. My nose and lips hurt. Too much raw power expelled too fast had burned every part of me as it escaped.
I heard the screams of celestials far away in the city, and my concerns for myself died. I needed to move and help them, but I was just so weak.
My eyelids felt so heavy, but I blinked and forced them open. Several silhouettes moved behind Kaden. The silhouettes made my heart shatter. I could have sworn I made out the forms of The Order leaving. The Hand, my family, stepped through the open gates carrying large crates. I could have sworn I saw Cameron take one last look at me kneeling on the floor and
back to Xavier before they left. Camilla tossed a small orb of green energy toward me as Vincent dragged her struggling form through the gate.
That small green orb bounced soundlessly. The small light came to a stop against my knee, and I heard her voice whisper, “Hold on. She’s coming.”
A form appeared before me, blocking my view of the gate and the silhouettes. I blinked, my eyes still struggling to heal and adjust. A blurry version of Roccurem leaned toward me as if he cared.
“Why?” I asked. The word cracked and broken, and the only one I had spoken.
“The fates serve the one true king, I am afraid. It is a law governed by your father and his fathers before him and cannot be broken.”
I nodded with effort, hurting more than I would let them know.
“Kaden.”
Roccurem shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Then who?”
The room rocked. I looked past Roccurem to see Kaden drag the spear coated in my blood down the center of the room, splitting the very fabric of this realm in two. Creatures, large and small, rushed from the crevasse and took to the sky, roaring and screaming. My heart beat like a rabid beast in my chest, and my blood ran ice cold. I blinked again, convinced I was hallucinating. A being emerged from the fracture, followed by several larger males wearing the same armor as Kaden. Sharp, deadly war boots gripped her legs, ending high on her thighs. She wore thick, blood-slicked armor with skulls resting on her shoulders. Silver hair danced behind her in a phantom wind as she saw me and smiled. In her eyes, I saw rage so old that it had its own name. Wrath.
“Hello, World Ender,” she purred, shaking fleshy material from her sword. “I have missed you.”
I didn’t need perfect vision to know exactly who she was. Her voice erected nightmares filled with fear, death, and blood.
Nismera.
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