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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.
Eighty-Nine
Dianna
I cursed, throwing my hands up again. I had walked this damn sidewalk, ran, sprinted, trying to get out of my own fucking head. Samkiel was back on the remains of Rashearim, possibly dying, and here I was, stuck in my own head. I screamed, and not a light in any house flickered.
Sighing, I turned back to the one place that kept pulling at me. The wooden door to the first home Gabby and I lived in slowly swung open. The creak of the hinges echoed, and I squared my shoulders.
“Fine. You want me to go into the stupid house? Then I’ll go into the stupid house.”
The wind blew the overgrown shrubs along the stone path Gabby and I had built brick by brick. The neighborhood was quiet, too quiet. I put my hands on my hips and stared at the house for a moment before starting up the path. The wooden boards of the porch groaned. I made it over the threshold and stepped inside, a chill running down my spine. The home was just how I had left it, how we had left it. A layer of dust coated the furniture, doors hung off their hinges in the abandoned kitchen, and the broken banister hung crooked along the stairs.
I took a step further inside, and the door closed behind me.
“I’m here. Now what? Are you going to take up more of my time, or can I leave and get back to my body now?”
My voice echoed in the room, but I received no response, not that I really expected one. Why was I stuck here? Was I dying?
I shook the thought from my head, focusing on our initials carved into the far wall. I walked across the room, reaching toward them but stopping an inch away. My fingers curled into a fist, and I dropped my hand. What did they even mean now? Everything had been a lie.
“You know, when we were little, you always talked about locking away the things you didn’t want to think about. I just didn’t think you meant an actual house with doors,” Gabby said.
My heart skipped a beat at that voice, my breath hitching. No, it couldn’t be. I turned, half expecting a ghost, a shimmering form, but I never thought to find her whole, unbroken, and in front of me.
She pulled at the ends of the off-white flowy dress as she swayed. “We don’t really have a form where I am now, but I remember we wore matching dresses when we went to—”
Her words ended on a grunt as I grabbed her, my arms wrapping around her so tight not even I could breathe. My head rested on her shoulder, parts of her hair tickling my nose, and her smell, gods, that smell. I had forgotten the way she smelled. The last scent I had of her was cold and empty, with death already gripping her. Her arms wrapped around me, and I squeezed tighter.
“How?” The word left my mouth on a broken sob.
