Nismera smiled, her lips resting against Dianna’s cheek. She clenched Dianna’s jaw, raising the golden death spear in her other hand to point it at her heart. My heart. Dianna’s eyes stayed on me, unmoving. There was a soft glow within their depths that I could not decipher.
“You didn’t finish the words.” Nismera smiled cruelly at me, her eyes darting to the table and the book behind me.
“I don’t need to,” I responded, my teeth gritting. “I know the poem of Jeremiah.”
“Hmm, do you, Brother?” Nismera said softly, her lips brushing a gentle kiss against Dianna’s cheek as she lifted her head. If I could just move, I could reach Dianna. I could hold her to me, and we could flee, but I dared not fight Nismera with Dianna in her grasp.
“Do you know the true meaning? Shall I finish them for you?”
“Don’t,” I demanded. I didn’t know what would happen if Nismera said those words, but I knew it could be nothing good. She held someone more precious to me than a throne or a crown or the air I breathed. Dianna was more precious to me than any world or realm. I would sacrifice it all for her and not think twice about it.
Her smile was so cold I swore the warm air frosted around her. “You may have returned, but you did so with a weakness, World Ender. All your enemies will know it now. They will know how to break you, and when you break, so will the world.”
“Don’t,” I said. I wasn’t denying the words that made me hate myself, but the threat she posed to what she held. My eyes fell on Dianna before they raked to Nismera. “She’s all I have.”
Her eyes were filled with cruel satisfaction. “I know.” As the last word left her lips, she thrust the spear into Dianna’s chest.
Blinding yellow light exploded from Dianna, her head tilting back as her skin burned, flakes peeling off and rising into the air until only ash was left. Dianna’s remains. An empty wail tore from my throat, and the sky cracked open. Lightning flashed like a strobe light, the thunder so loud it sounded like a bomb exploding overhead, the sky echoing my pain.
It wasn’t the building storm that darkened the room nor lightning that sprung from my fingertips. Oblivion burst from my outstretched hand, ripping from me in waves of darkness that quickly encompassed the room. It engulfed the spot where Nismera had stood, but somehow, she’d moved fast enough to elude my grasp. Only her laugh, cruel and malicious, told me she was still in the room. I did not care. I did not care as I fell to my knees and crawled to those ashes, and I did not care when tears spilled from my eyes. My fingers pressed to what was left of my love, my akrai. Nismera’s laugh was victorious as she appeared and crouched before me. She gathered Dianna’s ashes in her gauntleted hand. Her smile was a cruel, ugly thing as she blew the remains of my mate toward me.
Massive, twisting tornadoes screamed into existence outside the palace at her callous cruelty. The wind whipped hard enough to tear flesh from bone, the ceiling crumbling and falling around us. Nismera looked up, her silver hair whipping around her in waves. She smiled at the dark violence of the sky and began to speak. Somehow, I could still hear her, even over the crash of thunder.
“You, therefore, I, tool of gods, decimator of those who walk or slither.
Made of light, made of wind.
Swords so sharp our foes shall bend
For in a war between gods, no one wins.”
My body shook, but not from the raging storm and trembling palace. It was as if I were being pulled and shoved.
“… kiel.”
My head snapped back, and I stared at the roiling purple and black clouds clogging the sky. Lightning struck the ground over and over, punishing and destructive. As the world I kneeled on died.
“… iel.”
A sharp pain ricocheted across my jaw, and I sat up, cupping my face. “Ow.”
Dianna’s eyes were wide and touched with fear. She pulled back her clenched fist and slammed her hands over her ears. Her hair danced around her, whipping violently in the wind. Darkness coated our room, and I realized I had unleashed Oblivion here, not in my death dream. Tendrils of it curled like serpents around my arms, coiled and ready to face and destroy the threat. The ceiling groaned, and I saw the pieces I had already released gnawing at the edges of our room.
“Samkiel!” Dianna called over the sound of the building storm. It had been her calling to me from the beginning, pulling me back from the edge. She gathered her hair, holding it back from her face as the force of Oblivion grew. “You have to make it stop, or it will consume this room, the castle, and then the town next.”
My chest heaved. “I don’t know how!” I shouted back, and I didn’t. I had never been able to control my power when it manifested like this.
Dianna winced as a piece of the outside wall ripped away, exposing us to the growing storm. A massive swirling funnel rotated in the nearest cloud. It descended, and I knew what devastation would follow once it touched down. She clamped her hands over her ears, the roar of the wind painful. “What caused it?” she shouted.
Rather than trying to speak, I sent the details of the dream down our bond. Her eyes flashed, and I felt realization ripple between us. She had been there for the dreams I’d had back on Onuna and recognized that they were raising their ugly heads again. Only here, it was Nismera who took her from me, not Kaden.
I did not know what I expected, but her dropping her hands from her ears, gripping my face, and slanting her lips across mine was not it.
“I am here.”Her voice whispered across my subconscious.“I’m with you now and forevermore.”
The world stilled as if a massive hand had wiped away the storm. The wind ceased to howl, and my skin no longer prickled with dark ancient power. I may wield Oblivion, but it seemed Dianna controlled it. It responded readily when she was in danger, and it had since the first time she was taken from me. Now, it retreated, easing like a compliant beast beneath her touch.
Our bedroom door slammed open, and both of us turned. Cameron stood in the doorway, his sleep pants hanging low on his hips and his hair a disheveled mess.
