Eighty-Six
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Dianna
K aden disappeared down that damned hall with my father. I struggled
and screamed as Cameron grabbed my wrist, locking an obsidian cuff
around it. I twisted and writhed, my back scraping against the cold stone slab. Vincent gripped my ankle so tight I knew it would bruise. My other foot shot out, kicking him in the chest. He locked the cuff in place, the blow not even phasing him.
“Don’t do this!” I screamed. “I don’t care about me, but what about Samkiel? He helped you, all of you.”
Cameron said nothing, but pain flashed in Vincent’s eyes, pain and regret he tried to mask. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, yes, you do. We all do. Please. Kaden wants to kill him. If he dies, the world goes with it. Vincent, Cameron, please. Just think.”
Cameron hesitated, his hands on the cuff around my wrist. The struggle in him was clear, but then his eyes flicked to Xavier. He stood frozen in the corner, his eyes glazed and staring at nothing. There was no sign of the loving, playful man. Cameron bowed his head. “I won’t choose Samkiel over Xavi. I can’t. I’m sorry, Dianna.”
And there it was—the absolute, soul-shattering truth.
“Since when do you care about the world?” Vincent hissed, finally locking my ankle to the stone slab. “You were on a mission to destroy it, and now you care?”
I snapped my teeth at Vincent, wishing I could rip his throat out. “You better hope I don’t get out of this. I will kill you both if he dies.”
Vincent tightened the strap on my ankle painfully tight, and Cameron looked away. I growled and rested my head against the stone, frantically
cycling through my options. There had to be a way out of this. I had to get to Samkiel.
I took a deep breath and looked around the room. No, not a room, but a cave. Furniture littered the cavern, torches illuminating the rough-hewn walls in weak, flickering yellow light. Shock hit me again, and I swallowed hard. I recognized this place. It was part of one of the underground systems on the map. I had been in here before, but this cave was new. The stone slab they’d tied me to was the largest, but there were smaller ones around it.
Against the walls were stacks of boxes and crates, half opened and discarded.
Out in the darkened hallway, heavy footsteps echoed against the stone. I strained to see into the shadows. The wretched, sick, twisted laugh of the Irvikuva seeped from the darkness, and goosebumps rose on my arms and legs. Wings rustled, their massive forms bursting into the cavern, bending through the air. They landed above us, their talons scraping and gripping the stone ceiling. Many pairs of red eyes suddenly appeared, staring balefully down at us, and I realized we had never been alone. The light from the torches didn’t reach those heights, and for the first time, I realized that what I had thought were jagged stone formations were actually the Irvikuva.
They hung like large bats, hungry and waiting for their master’s command.
I lay on my back, methodically testing and pulling at my restraints as the footsteps drew closer. Kaden entered first, followed by Azrael, a ghastly, haunted look filling his eyes. My skin crawled when I saw the curved, malachite-gray spear and that damned book in Azrael’s hands.
“You like it?” Kaden asked me, pointing to the jagged spear.
“It took a lot of iron to make it. Iron was one element needed to bind it.
It’s a fantastic conductor of heat and electricity, exactly what your precious Samkiel is made of. I mean, it’s not complete yet, but when it is, we will have a god-killing weapon.”
My heart pounded, my body breaking out in a cold sweat. There it was, everything I had feared. Kaden had made a weapon, and I had zero power
to take it from him.
My breath hitched. “How?”
“Which part?”
Azrael didn’t move, didn’t flinch, as my eyes bored into him.
“Oh, that.” Kaden waved a hand, glancing from father to daughter and back. He took the book from Azrael and walked toward me. “Azrael had a
dream, as most do. A premonition of a daughter who would change everything. Victoria never believed him, and they weren’t trying, but you know celestials and their high sex drives.”
Kaden stopped, a frown marring his features and drawing his brows together. He leaned in close above me, his arms folded around the book.
“Sorry, is this weird for you since it’s your dad and all?” He shrugged before going on. “Anyway, Victoria learned she was pregnant, and your dear old dad freaked. You see, there was a prophecy of Samkiel’s equal being born on the crest of a waning moon. The Order knew about it, but they kept it from Unir. Azrael worked for the true king and couldn’t let anyone find out about his sweet baby girl. You’d have been slaughtered. So, being the loving parents they were, they sent their sweet child all the way to Onuna. Azrael landed so fast and hard out of fear that he laid waste to the surrounding environment. Did you never wonder why Eoria was the only desert on Onuna?”
I gulped, my heart racing and my body trembling at his words.
“Crazy, right? Think about it. Why have you never felt whole here among the mortals? Why have you never been sick? Why do you dream of stars and faraway worlds? You don’t belong here. You never did.”
Tears threatened to blur my vision. I looked at Azrael, tears filling my eyes and blurring his image, but I could still see that his features matched mine, and our hair was the same color and texture. My mind flashed to the stone carving of Victoria in the tomb and how I’d felt drawn to it.
I shook my head and sneered, “He is not my family. I had a mom, a dad,” a single tear slid down my cheek, “and a sister.”
Kaden shrugged. “Not your real family, although I will admit he picked a good family. A little taste of godly magic, and Gabby even resembled you.
He needed somewhere to hide you, and Gabby and your pseudo-family gave you something to love. Azrael hid you for over twenty years before he and Victoria had another child. Ava, you remember her, right?”
Images of her decaying corpse flashed through my mind. My eyes closed as I tried to push down the bile and everything I had learned.
“Azrael did well, though. Not even Unir or the other gods knew about you or what you carried in your blood. It’s your destiny to kill Samkiel.
There had to be a loophole for Kryella’s spell to work. It is always necessary to maintain a cosmic balance. If Samkiel had true immortality, then there had to be a way to break the spell. His blood closed the realms,
and the blood of his mate will open them. You know, it’s funny. Azrael thought he was saving you by hiding you here, but the fates lied, tricked even him. They work for the true king too. They convinced Unir that Samkiel’s mate was dead. It was perfect. Unir bound the spell to something he believed didn’t exist, ensuring his precious boy stayed alive.” Kaden paused, sliding his fingers along the curve of my cheek. I jerked away, his touch making my skin crawl. “Yet here you are.”
My mind flashed back to the festival and the first time I asked Samkiel about amatas.
“So, basically, your other half?” I asked.
“In simple terms, I suppose, but it is much more than that. It’s deeper. It is a connection that words cannot fully convey.”
“Does everyone have one? Do you have one?”
“No. Despite your stories and legends, the universe is not that kind.”
Samkiel’s words raged in my head, and he was right. The universe was not that kind because it had separated us. Even Roccurem’s words made sense now. I was an abomination because I shouldn’t exist. My mind raced, the pieces falling into place. “The book. That’s why you wanted me to find it. You said we would know, that we would feel it, but it was me?”
He smiled and bit his bottom lip. “Of course. It’s always been you.
Azrael’s daughter could find the book because it’s made from his magic.
Blood, Dianna, it is always about blood. It’s the driving life force of every being in this realm or the next. It’s why the others find me so terrifying. I could read every sin, every thought, with just a taste. The same taste you have. We’re damned, Dianna. We always have been because we’re too powerful, too unhinged, and uncontrollable. That’s what the old gods preached and why they decided that eradication was the only way to ensure their survival.” Kaden looked at the celestials. “Didn’t work in their favor, though, did it? As soon as we knew the truth of you, I was sent to Onuna to
take you.”
“You sent the plague?”
He clicked his teeth. “No, how powerful do you think I am? I mean, the plague was a nice touch. Kill a bunch of mortals so we could find you easier. Then, of course, dear old Drake did what he did best, and here we are.”
My breaths were coming too fast, too hard, and my chest ached. My entire life had been a lie. Here I’d been cursing and hating the celestials,
hating Samkiel, thinking they had taken my family and life from me when it was the monster in front of me all along.
I couldn’t stop the tears this time, and I tried, again and again, to break my own wrists to get out. Kaden watched me, completely unfazed. His knuckles brushed my cheek, wiping away the angry tears I’d spilled.
“You’re a monster,” I sneered, rage seething in me.
“You think me a monster, but you have no idea what I did for you and what rules I broke. I had to wait a thousand years because you got under my skin—a thousand years with you. I thought I could use Ava instead of you at first. Then I could keep you. I’d convince them you were mine, not his.
But even with her celestial blood, it wasn’t enough. She was weak and damaged, so I fed her to Tobias. I halted plans for you, searched for that damned book, hoping there was another way that I could keep you.”
His fingers slid idly across my jaw, and I struggled to get out of his grip.
His eyes told me everything he said was true, though I knew Kaden, and he didn’t lie.
“I love you. I do. In my own twisted way. I tried to push you away for centuries, but I can’t get you out of my head, my flesh, my soul as damaged and dark as it is. You can look at me with hate and loathing, but I love you, Dianna. I always have.”
Bile hit my gut, and I cringed away from him. I shook my head, my voice barely above a whisper. “We were never in love, Kaden. You don’t treat someone you love how we treated each other. That’s not love.”
“Oh, but what you feel for him is love? You’ve known him for minutes compared to what we had.”
“What Samkiel and I have is different. It’s messy and painful at times, but it’s real. He would never hurt me, no matter what I said or did. He would never hurt the people I love or use them against me. Samkiel’s kind, he’s good, and he cares. He cares about me and accepts every part of me— the good, the bad, and the ugly. He has seen it all and stayed. You broke me completely, Kaden. Every chance you got, you broke me. Samkiel healed me.” I didn’t cower beneath his angry stare. “That’s. Love.”
He recoiled back as if I had stabbed him square in the heart, and maybe I had. Behind those damned eyes, I saw every bit of his anger and frustration. The room shook, and I knew it wasn’t from another doorway he was opening but pure, unadulterated rage. I didn’t care. Not one bit, but I should’ve.
“I convinced them to let me keep you.”
“What?” I gasped. “You killed Gabby, Kaden, and if you kill Samkiel, do you really think I would ever forgive you? You might as well kill me, too, because if you don’t, I won’t stop until you are dead.”
He pushed off the stone slab and tossed the book to the side, sending it skittering across the floor. “You’ll forgive me. You’ll get over it. I’ll wait centuries if I have to, but you will be mine. What are a few thousand years between lovers, right?”
“You are insane,” I choked out, fighting against those damn restraints.
“Love,” he sighed, “it makes you crazy.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he knew nothing of love, but pain stole the words from me. Sharp spikes pierced my arms, legs, and back, agony slithering across every nerve, tearing a scream from my throat. I lay there, unable to move, feeling my blood pour from my body, hot, thick, and filled with my repressed power.
The room shook, rubble falling to the ground as the stone above me split, forming a fissure in the world. It gaped, and past the jagged edges, I saw unfamiliar stars, an open purple sky, and a glimpse of a red moon, whole and bright.
“Every thousand years, the equinox crests on the anniversary of the fall.
Samkiel changed the universe itself when he slammed the realms closed.
Now his death will open them all. No more boundaries, no more limits. No
more guardians.”
No guardians, no protectors. No peace.
The words ricocheted within my skull.
The room trembled, and the ground shifted, steam hissing from the jagged cracks forming in the stone. The room glowed orange, heat filling the cavern. Two Irvikuva moved above me as Kaden lifted his hand. A smaller rectangular altar rose from the floor. Azrael stepped forward and fit the spear into the stone slab, and I soon realized it was the same mold used to make it.
Vincent and Cameron didn’t move from their spots, watching Azrael.
The two Irvikuva moved around me, lifting two circular bowls. My vision blurred, my body tired and weak, and I realized what was in those bowls.
Blood. My blood.
The Irvikuva stretched on their clawed toes, pouring my blood into the mold with the spear. Darkness crept in around the edges of my vision, and I
slipped in and out of unconsciousness. A hum vibrated the air, jerking me awake. I forced my eyes open to see Kaden lift the spear.
No longer coated in rustic metal, it shone with an iridescent glow.
Runes glowed along the shaft, and sharp curved blades sprouted from both ends.
“It’s beautiful. I hope it’s painful as I rip him to pieces with it.”
“When I get out of this, I will kill you,” I groaned, pulling against my restraints hard enough to tear the skin beneath the cuffs.
“No, because when you wake up, I will be all you have left in this wretched world.”
Kaden looked up at the blood-red moon above. With a flick of the dark bracelet on his wrist, horned armor, thick, spiked, and reminiscent of his wyvern form, took hold of his body. Red eyes glared at me from the depths of his helmet. The Irvikuva started to howl and yip, their screeches and hoots echoing through the cavern.
Realization clicked, and my stomach sank. I was wrong, so wrong about him.
“Azrael, keep your daughter here until we return for you both. She is forbidden to leave,” Kaden commanded.
Azrael merely nodded. He was a soldier obeying orders, not a father.
My head rolled weakly toward Kaden. “I know who you are,” I whispered.
His clawed, gloved hand swept the hair from my face. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He held his hand out, a curling flame portal bursting into existence.
Xavier jumped in first, followed by Cameron. Kaden took a few steps and swung those crimson eyes back to me. “Let chaos reign,” he said and disappeared, the words breaking my heart.
I knew what was about to happen, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
My body ached, and I didn’t even have the strength to cry. I tried to move, to break free, but only managed to push the spikes deeper into me, shredding me. Dry sobs shuddered through me. I couldn’t save Gabby. I couldn’t save Samkiel. I couldn’t save anyone. Kaden had left, but his words remained, sinking into my skull, bones, heart, and soul.
Consciousness faded, and the world went dark.
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