Chapter 92
M y body hit the ground, Samkiel landing on top of me so I could take the brunt of the fall.
The portal above us closed, blocking my view of Nismera raging at our escape.
I stood, taking Samkiel with me. It was just like Eoria when I’d rushed into a room full of monsters to save Gabby.
Only this time, it was for Samkiel. I’d almost been too late.
The memory of Nismera standing over his damaged, bloody, and beaten body with that spear held against his throat had turned my insides liquid with fear.
It had helped that they had only bothered to post a few guards.
Nismera’s arrogance had definitely worked in my favor.
I had killed and eaten them quickly, but even with the boost from feeding, I had been severely outmatched, my skin crawling from the power pulsating in the room.
But I didn’t care and didn’t hesitate. Samkiel was dying.
I’d overused my power again and summoned a portal, trying to get as far away from them as possible. I couldn’t think about Roccurem and what he had done. He had saved us. For once, someone had betrayed for me , and it meant more than I could say.
My feet skidded as I tried to keep us moving, supporting almost all of Samkiel’s weight.
It terrified me. Samkiel would never lean so heavily on me if he could help it.
My body ached from my wounds and using it as a battering ram to gain entrance to Rashearim.
Slashes remained on my shoulder and side but were slowly healing.
Samkiel grabbed his midsection with his remaining hand, grunting in pain as he turned to look at me. His eyes caught on my shoulder. “You’re hurt.”
He was worried about me? Of course, he was. His life was slipping away, and I was his only concern.
“Says the one with the gaping wound and a missing hand.”
My foot slipped on the jagged rocks, water cascading down the stone walls on either side of us, making everything slick. I struggled to support Samkiel’s body weight and run down the damned tunnel. I didn’t even know where we were. My only thought had been as far away as possible.
The world shook again, and I heard the roars of creatures I couldn’t even imagine. The realms were opening, and the entire universe was bleeding. We were so fucked. We took a step, then another, before Samkiel’s legs completely gave out.
No!
I caught him, his weight slamming me to my knees, but I refused to let him hit the ground.
We had to keep going, but when I tried to lift him, he gritted his teeth, holding back a cry of pain.
I stopped, afraid to move him, my eyes darting, searching in vain for somewhere safe.
Who was I kidding? There was nowhere that was safe now.
His hair was several shades lighter as if the power ripped from him had also taken the color. He was so bruised and mangled, the skin around his eyes and mouth burnt, his nose broken and skewed to the side. So much blood soaked his council garbs that my heart clenched—my poor baby.
Samkiel rested his head on my shoulder, and a whimper escaped me. “You’re so warm, and I am so cold.” His voice sounded as cracked as the skin around his eyes.
“Gods don’t get cold.” I heard myself say, my voice broken and jagged as if a part of me was cracking wide open. I didn’t know what to do or how to heal him. Samkiel was the healer. I was a creature of destruction. His normally golden skin had turned that damned shade of gray I’d seen in my dream.
“We do,” he took a gasping, rattling breath, “when we die.”
The sound that escaped me was primal. A cry of fear, pain, and grief that any living creature would recognize.
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Where did they get you? Let me look. Let me help.”
I shifted beneath him, holding him with one hand and searching his body with the other.
I ripped the sodden council garbs open, exposing his torso.
My breath rushed out of me on a sob. A brutal, jagged cut dissected his abdomen, deep, devastating, and still bleeding.
Dark spiderweb-like veins branched from the wound, the skin cracking and dry. Why wasn’t he healing?
I held my hand above the gash and called on my power. The edges of the wound blistered, but the bleeding continued.
Samkiel jerked and gritted his teeth so hard I saw blood. I stopped, dropping my hand and holding him closer.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Fuck. Why isn’t it working?” I pushed impatiently at my hair, tucking it behind my ears with a bloodstained hand, smearing my face with his blood. Desperately, I looked around for help, knowing there was none to be had.
“It’s okay.”
“Can you heal yourself? Use what power you have left?”
He shook his head weakly. “I don’t have any power left.”
“What does that mean?” He didn’t answer, his eyes closing. “Samkiel,” I cried, shaking him, “what does that mean?”
His chest rose and fell too slowly. “What’s left of me,” he stopped, “my father bound to the realms. My entire life force. Why I was so tired after the spell was made.”
Rage flooded me, pure and blinding. I would rip Unir to pieces if he were still alive. My nails transformed into talons. I hated them. I hated all of them. Selfish, selfish gods. How could he do that to his own son?
“You have to leave. Nismera will come for you. They all will.”
“No, I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you again, okay? I promised.”
He nodded and turned in to me, trying to get closer.
“I can feel them. The realms cracking, opening. So many. There are so many. He locked them all away.”
“Okay, well, we will face that together, too. Just tell me how to help you. Please.”
I pulled him closer, frissons of fear going through me with his every labored breath. If only I could will my own heat and life into him.
“You are my whole world.” He looked up at me, and my heart shattered.
His once vibrant gray eyes had darkened as his skin paled.
“I-I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I met you.
Being with you, I finally felt what I wanted and had searched forever for.
You woke me up and gave me reason. You made me feel like I was enough.
I never felt like the World Ender with you.
I never felt less. You are what I’ve been searching for my entire life.
You, Dianna, had my heart long before I ever touched yours. ”
“Sami.” I couldn’t hold back my tears. My chest heaved, and I tried once more to close his wound. He hissed in pain and grabbed my hand, stopping me.
“I wish I had never left when my world fell. Maybe I would have heard you. Maybe it would have been me to find you and Gabby. I would have loved you then, too.”
Love.
Love.
That word. That damned word.
My heart shattered, my soul erupting into a million pieces, and every broken piece belonged to him.
I dropped my head to his, pressing my forehead to his.
I focused, trying to pour myself into him and stop what I knew was coming.
Tears blurred my vision, scalding my cheeks as they continued to fall.
“You have horrible taste in women,” I choked out through sobs.
His body shook, and a wet gurgling sound bubbled from his lips as if he was trying to laugh even this close to death. That one movement, that one sound, and then complete stillness. Samkiel sagged against me, his hand dropping from my arm, and the world went quiet.
My nightmares were coming true. Samkiel wore the same clothes, only now I knew it was his council garbs. His face, oh gods, all the color was gone from his skin. I had lost him.
No, I couldn’t.
If I could just stop the bleeding, I could… I moved my hands, using my power to try to cauterize the wound again. Samkiel didn’t jerk this time, did not move or twitch. Pulling back, I saw the wound wasn’t bleeding anymore, but not because I had healed him. He just had nothing left in him.
I curled over him and laid my head against his chest, listening for a heartbeat, but I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my own heart. I cradled him closer, one hand beneath him, the other on his face.
“Samkiel.” I tapped his cheek. He was cold. He was too cold. Like her. “Samkiel.” Another tap. “Samkiel.” A teardrop fell, leaving a trail across his cheek as it slid away. “Sami,” I said, my voice breaking.
The world stopped shaking, every realm wide open now that he was gone.
“It will not work.”
My head whipped up, and I stared at Roccurem. His form shimmered before solidifying again. I gasped as he slid down the wall. Half his form wafted off of him in tendrils. Nismera had not missed in her rage. Roccurem smiled, half of his face nothing but a swirling dark mass. I was losing him, too.
“I wanted to repay the debt I owed Unir for protecting me. I did everything in my power to bring you and Samkiel together to avoid all of this. But I had to do it in a way Nismera and her legion would not see. A whisper on the wind to get Zekiel to that cavern. A small idea of a bond sealed in blood, prolonging the trip you and Samkiel would take to search for the book. A push, sending you to the vampires you thought were friends. A kiss from a witch. All for this. For salvation from a goddess of pure hate.”
A sob escaped me.
I looked down at Samkiel. He was limp in my arms and deathly gray, all his color stripped away, my sunshine gone. My soul cleaved in two. Pain didn’t come close to describing what I felt holding him. This was brutal agony, and I didn’t know if I would survive a loss like this again.
“I tried to speed up the progression of the mark. I tried to help. Even with the prophecy, I warned you both.”
My head snapped toward Roccurem. “Prophecy?”
Roccurem’s three unwounded, opaque eyes stared at Samkiel and me. “One falls, one rises, and the end begins. So it was foretold the second Unir bound his son. One carved from darkness is you. One carved from light is him. The world will shudder as it does now. This is how the world ends.”