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“The fate wishes for the old prophecy, for her to love you, but the seed has already taken root in her chest, festered and nurtured by a creature made of darkness. She is quite beautiful, Samkiel.” The Higher One raised a hand and petted her face. Dianna’s face. “But she is evil.”
I took a step forward. “No, she isn’t,” I growled.
“To you perhaps, but the verge of madness she walks is thin, and what she is willing to do for the ones she loves has no known bounds. She would slaughter your very family if they raised a hand to you. Is that love?”
“Love?”
The Higher One cocked her head and jumped from the bed.
“Have you told her that you love her yet?”
I glanced down.
“You’re afraid,” she whispered in shocked awe. Then her laughter echoed in the room, bouncing around in thousands of different voices. “For eons, your name has incited fear into the hearts of your enemies, and they have hunted for ways to make you feel the same without success. Now this,” the Higher One indicated the shell of Dianna she was wearing, “frightens you?”
I didn’t say anything, my throat going dry.
The Higher One shifts into swirling formless mist, its true form, and screams, “Tell me! You seek truths. Give me this one!”
“Yes!” I yelled to the maelstrom of smoke whipping around me.
The cloud shifted, returning to Dianna’s form.
“Yes, I am afraid. She left so easily before. Even if I say the words, what’s stopping her from leaving me again? Or what if she does not feel the same? So yes, I am afraid. I fear not monsters or realms or anything really, but that, her rejection, she terrifies me.”
“You share flesh like feverish beasts, yet wonder if she loves you?” The Higher One laughed. “Pathetic.”
“Just because I meet her physical needs does not dictate love.”
“Over a thousand years, you let no one get close, and now, even with all that ego and pride, you’re insecure.” She laughed once more. “This is better than any trade we could have made. The great protector has a weak spot in his armor.”
“Enough!” I said, losing my temper. “I did not come for ridicule. Either help me, or I am leaving.”
The Higher One shrugged. “Fine. Ask your question.”
“The giant said a creature broke through Yejedin, where Kaden and the other Kings of Yejedin resided. I need to know why and what beast.”
The Higher One walked back and forth with a knowing grin on her face.
“You still see Kaden as a King of Yejedin?”
I shook my head, confused. “No, I know he is one of my father’s generals.”
“Is he now?”
“What else could he be? Only the four kings could enter and leave their dimension.”
The Higher One held up a delicate finger. “Unless something was locked away with them. Something an old god wanted to hide. To forget.”
My gut lurched, and I swallowed the growing lump in my throat, knowing who’d broken that place open. I’d heard the whispers of the secrets but refused to consider any of the rumors.
“My father?”
That catlike grin returned as she spun back to me. “Bingo. We have a winner.”
“Why would he put his general there? Why would he protect the kings? The only reason would be to unleash chaos so they could defeat us in the war.”
“It was not the kings he wanted to protect, but what Kaden had made.”
