Fifty-Eight Dianna
Rubble, sharp and jagged, hit my shoulder and face as we landed in a nearby house. A woman and her child screamed as I pushed the debris from my body and stood up. She held her baby to her chest as she wailed. I heard the rubble shift behind me, and the woman’s eyes went wide with terror.
“Run,” I said, pointing toward the back door. “Now would be nice.”
She wasted no time, springing to her feet and running out the door with her baby clutched close.
Goosebumps ran rampant along my skin as I heard the murrak slinking behind me. I turned to face it and looked up . . . and up. It towered over me, dirt, wood, and stone falling from its exoskeleton. Its pincers opened and closed as it glared down at me. The creature’s large, crystalline body whipped toward me, wrapping around me, binding my arms, and immobilizing me completely. I grunted, struggling against the strangling grip. The creature’s assortment of legs dug into the ground. It opened its twin pincers, and a scream made of death burst across my face. Tendrils of white light emerged from its mouth, slithering disgustingly against me, looking for something to latch on to. My body tensed in anticipation, except . . . I felt nothing. There was no pain, no stretching as it tried to consume my soul.
It stopped and closed its jaws, rearing its massive head back in surprise. The antennae atop its skull flicked as if trying to get a read on me, its black-as-night eyes widening.
“Void,” it said in a gasping voice before it dropped me.
I landed in a crouch, confusion furrowing my brow as the murrak backed up. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it looked at me as if I was the terrifying one. “What?”
A bolt of silver flashed before my eyes, and the creature’s blood sprayed, covering my face. The head of the murrak dropped to the ground, and its body followed. I stood, watching the disgusting legs twitch, that word repeating over and over again in my head. Every damned beast here had seen me and said the same thing.
Void.
Hollow.
Empty.
The way the oracle had laughed echoed in my head.
“Do you think you can touch death, girl, and it not take something from you?”
Samkiel gently gripped my elbow and turned me to him. His eyes blazed with worry as he looked me over. I was frozen solid, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and not from that damned bug, but because I had finally figured it out.
“. . .anna?” His voice brought the world back to me, my ears ringing. “Dianna, look at me. Are you hurt? How do you feel?” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “Do you feel—”
“The cost of resurrection,” I said, my voice cracking.
His brows furrowed. “What?”
“You said.” I swallowed the thick lump in my throat. “They all said.”
It explained why my hunger was never satisfied, why nothing eased the gaping hole in my chest, why I struggled to feel for anyone except him.
“Dianna, what are you talking about?”
“You died,” I blurted out.
He looked at me like I had slapped him, but I continued.
“In that tunnel, you died.” My heart hammered, and my breathing turned ragged. “You don’t remember it. I think because it happened so fast, but you died, and I held you, and I hated everything. So I begged and pleaded for a way, and Reggie gave me one. I made a promise in that tunnel, in that damn cold tunnel, that if they didn’t return you to me, I’d rip the universe to atoms. I meant it. Our mark formed, burned on my finger, and then disappeared. You breathed and—and—and . . .”
I was shaking. Everything that had happened over the last few months came tumbling out. I had been so fucking stupid never to question it, to think I got out free with no consequences. The words just kept coming, spilling out of me, and I could not stop them.
“Resurrection has a cost, and this is mine. Every single Otherworld creature has said it to me, but I didn’t get it, didn’t understand. It,” I pointed to the corpse of the murrak, “said it too. Void.”
“Your soul. The cost of saving me was your soul,” Samkiel said, and I flinched. His jaw clenched, and his hands fisted. The pure, blistering anger in his eyes nearly obscured the soul-deep sorrow.