Chapter 9 Dianna
DIANNA
I sighed and blew out a breath, glancing up at the stalactites threatening me from above. My eyes adjusted as I looked around an unfamiliar dark cavern. “Great. New creepy prophecy dreams. Just what I wanted after being fu—”
I turned, jerking back a step as I came face to face with the gaping jaws of some beast. It took me a moment, and I nearly smashed it to pieces before I realized it was not alive.
It was made of stone and carved into the wall.
More twisted Ig’Morruthen carvings lined the walls, wings flaring wide and high, their tails curving behind them.
I ran my hand over the swirls of the clouds etched into the walls, filling the spaces between the flying beasts.
I could nearly see the motion of their bodies, but there was no sense of aggression, anger, or fear.
This was not a scene of war or battle but one of peace and home, as if they existed in a land just for them.
I dropped my hand from the stone wall and spun, tossing my arms wide.
“Can we get this over with? What weird, creepy thing do you have to tell me now?” My voice bounced off the walls and back, but there was no answer.
“I was really enjoying your absence, just so we’re clear.
I’d love to go back to my normal dreams now. ”
Still, there was no answer. I knew where I was, though. It seemed that the orange-eyed man had once again returned to my dreams. Only this time, I saw more than just the shadows he cloaked himself in and his throne made of bones.
“Fine,” I said into the silence, and with a deep sigh, I headed deeper into the darkness.
It was a labyrinth, twisting, curving rows of jagged stone and steep edges.
I was pretty sure that if I threw myself off one of these cliffs, I’d jolt myself awake, but another part of me wanted to know what he had to say.
The rocky path finally ended, opening into an expansive cavern.
I knew this place. Bones lay on the ground, some cracked and broken by sharp-toothed beasts.
Serpent-like monsters were carved deep into the cracked and crumbling walls.
I swallowed, my eyes skirting past the decaying throne to land on the raised dais in the middle of the room.
That was new. It was carved from the cavern, rising from the floor in a solid piece of stone to form a crude pedestal.
The chalice on top seemed to glow, although there was no light in the room.
The metal stem was thick and intricately carved, flaring into a ragged base.
Metal wrapped the bowl in a careless filigree, molten red emanating through the incomplete pattern.
Taking a deep breath, I scanned the shadows and approached the dais. I stepped onto the raised stone and pushed onto my tiptoes to look inside the chalice. Gold liquid swirled inside, red specks sparking against the sides of the cup.
My nose scrunched in disgust. “Ew.”
I stepped back off the dais and froze. My hackles rose in response to the encompassing power behind me.
I spun with claws out, but he caught my wrist, his massive hand making my bones groan.
I blinked, thinking I’d been right before.
A myriad of spikes grew from his head. The smaller ones started just above his ears and covered his skull, looking almost like thick scales growing amid the dark strands of his hair.
Four longer, thicker horns flowed in elegant arcs from the back of his head, reminding me of the bony protrusions I had seen on many Ig’Morruthen forms.
He was huge and loomed above me, possessing a striking, almost painful masculine beauty.
His dark eyes were both eerie and compelling, the pupil blending into the iris until the black met a bright ring of orange.
His features were even, with a strong jaw and straight nose.
He snarled down at me, displaying teeth as sharp as the jagged pieces jutting from his pauldrons and bristling on his gauntlets.
His armor fit his body as if it were a part of him, absorbing all the light until it looked as if it were made of darkness.
“Ew?” He arched a single brow and dropped my hand. “Countless warriors, kings, queens, and beasts have braved this cavern in search of the gift that chalice holds. All have died, their bones riddling the ground in proof of their failure. You reach the prize, take one look, and say … ew?”
I frowned. “Sorry, ancient glowing liquid is not my thing. I bet it tastes like crap.”
His head tilted as if he couldn’t figure me out. Or maybe I was the first who didn’t give a shit about him, his creepy cavern, or the cup of magic blood behind me.
“You are … strange,” he said.
“I’ve been called worse,” I said with a careless shrug. “But since you’ve hijacked my dreams and we’re getting to know each other, what should I call you? You never gave me your name.”
Irritation flashed in his eerie, demonic eyes, and I realized he had expected me to know.
“Gathrriel.”
It felt like all the air was sucked from the room. “No fucking way.” I shook my head. “I expected this battleworn warrior, not whatever the fuck you are.”
“I am you. You are I.”
My lip curled. “Last I checked, my horns stayed on the inside or …” I waved my hand in dismissal. “That’s not important. So you’re saying you’re an Ig’Morruthen? Like me?”
“Not one. The first.”
My breath left my body. “But the stories …”
It didn’t make any sense, none of it. I replayed the story Logan had told me, but I knew there had been no mention of Gathrriel being an Ig’Morruthen.
In the myth that was Gathrriel and Vvive, he was just a great warrior.
It made so much more sense now. I held his gaze as it all fell into place, and I saw the moment he also understood.
“They truly have changed everything, yes? They rewrote history to satisfy their narrative. Tell me, what else have they changed? What do they say of Vvive’s demise? What falsehoods have they told of her fate?”
I shook my head, refusing to answer. Anything I said had the potential to propel him into the waking world, where he would burn until nothing was left. Vvive had split her soul for him. She was his amata. I wouldn’t have understood before Samkiel, but I now knew that there was no end to his wrath.
“I feel you.” He said it calmly. “Feel for you. When you wake, when you walk, when you breathe.”
My lips curled into a sassy grin. “Sorry, but I’m happily married.”
His nostrils flared. Apparently, my humor offended the ancient, original monster. Good.
“I think that’s why our attachment runs so deeply,” He said, ignoring my response.
“You were manipulated, lied to, and then used for your power, just as I was. Kaden has my blood, Isaiah, as well, but they never tapped into it, not like you. We’re connected, you and I. We share the same rage. The same pain.”
Gathrriel moved so fast that I could barely track him, much less react.
He had been standing in front of me, and then he was behind me.
He wrapped one arm across my chest, the fingers of his other hand gripping my chin, holding my head still.
I hissed and tried to pull away, but he held me firm.
A shimmer formed on the cavern wall, and I went still as images began to flash across the stone.
They scrolled by quickly, but I knew them all too well.
I saw Gabby’s death. I heard my scream echo in the cavern, and I remembered how blood had filled my mouth as the force of it ripping from my lungs had torn my throat.
The scenes of destruction followed, and as much as I thought I had healed, my soul ached with the same ragged agony.
He had reached into my memories and yanked out one of the most painful.
“This was the first time I felt you beyond the veil. Your pain echoed mine.”
There was a flash of bright white, and the images shifted to that of a dark, damp tunnel, my mind registering every detail vividly. I heard the beast in my voice as I commanded Death. I saw my devastation when I realized the price that we would both pay.
“I felt it again when you begged Death for life in that crumbling tunnel. You woke me up, and then when you ripped at the very fabric of time and set us free.”
The images faded, darkness consuming the cavern once more. I growled and yanked my face out of his hold. Pushing him off me, I spun to face him, satisfied to see him take a step back.
“How dare you?” I seethed. He had no right to the memories he’d forced down my throat, and I wanted to rip him to pieces for making me relive even a moment of them. “Why show me this?” I demanded. “Why this room? Why are you willing to share all this now? What is the point of all of this?”
Gathrriel stepped back, allowing me the space to walk away from him. I took it. Even in the dream world, I could feel the eternal rage wafting from him, and it was overwhelming.
“I need you.”
My lip turned up in disgust. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to be any part of you.”
“Too late for that.”
His hand lifted, and another shimmering image appeared on the wall.
No, not an image, but another one of my memories.
I flinched and my heart thudded as I watched Kaden feed me back in that ruined temple on Onuna.
My gaze locked on Gabby curled up on the dirty floor, ravaged by disease.
She looked so small. I would have done anything to save her.
“This day, when you took more than you should to save another, your fate was bound and sealed to mine. Beings have fought and killed for my blood. A god stole it, shared it, and then you did the same. My blood is just pure, undiluted power capable of creation.”
He stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the images flashing over the stone. My head reared back to meet his eyes, the beast looming over me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he reached out, gently caressing a strand of my hair away from my face, “that you are my shell, my conduit for what I need to finish.”
I slapped him away, careful to avoid the spikes on his gauntlet. “I am no one’s anything.”
That was a lie. I was Samkiel’s, but that was not the point right now.
“Do not be insulted. All of this was by your design.”
I shook my head in defiance. “My design?”
His eyes flashed with tolerant amusement as if I were a na?ve child, unaware I had offered him the world. “Yes, you cheated death. You created a tear in the veil between the living and the dead, giving me a chance to slip through.” His nostrils flared. “Although I was not the only one, it seems.”
Cold sweat slicked across my skin. Me. I did this when I begged and saved Samkiel. Resurrection not only had a cost, but it also had consequences. That’s why Unir was here too, why he could touch me.
“How did you do it?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Bring yourself back?”
I hid my confusion, keeping my expression neutral. Gathrriel thought I’d cheated death for myself, not for Samkiel. He must have misinterpreted what he saw in my memories. If the creepy spiked man did not know the truth, then Samkiel was probably safer that he didn’t, and I would keep it that way.
“What can I say? Lucky, I guess.” I shrugged.
“Perhaps,” Gathrriel said, his gaze speculative as he studied me. He took a step forward, and I took one back, his eyes tracking my every movement. “Every day you waste, my enemies grow stronger. I cannot wait any longer.” His eyes burned, raging orange flames rolling over them.
“Haven’t you been dead for a while now?” I asked. “Your enemies are probably already dead, too. But even if they’re not, it’s not my problem.”
“There is something near you,” he said, ignoring me. His eyes were fixated on me as if he were trying to solve the puzzle that was me. “It’s something that blocks me from you when you slumber, but it appears whatever it may be is not there now. That will make it easier to slip inside you.”
My lips quirked. “We need to work on your phrasing.” I knew I shouldn’t bait him, but I was terrified of where he was going with this, and that was my go-to.
He only blinked at me and clasped his thick, spiked, armored arms behind his back. “I need to borrow your body to finish what I started. It’s the closest thing to my own in terms of power and strength.”
“Flattering, but I’m going to say no.”
“Don’t fret. It won’t hurt you. You carry so much of me inside you already. It will be like a second skin.”
I needed to stall. Stall and find my way out of this damned nightmare before he did exactly what he wanted and took me.
“Sorry, no hard feelings, but my body is my own. Well, also Sam—”
Gathrriel was suddenly right in front of me again, with no more calculated words or measured steps.
His hand whipped out at lightning speed, grabbing my throat.
All I could see were his eyes, burning a deep swirling orange tinged with red flecks.
The Ig’Morruthen inside me did not fight or thrash as if she knew that he was the creator of us all as well as I did. She could not help me in this fight.
Fear hit me like a hammer to steel, resonating through each cell of my body.
I struggled and fought but to no avail. My hands struck at any part of him I could reach, but it meant nothing.
I hadn’t felt this helpless since the deserts of Eoria.
Was this what a fly felt like, caught in an immovable web, to know you were about to be taken and not have the power or strength to save yourself?
“Be still.”
And I was. A switch flipped, and my limbs went limp, dangling at my sides as he held me by my throat.
Why did I listen? Why didn’t I fight? What was happening?
His smile sent a shiver down my spine as he set me back on my feet and took a step back.
Horror filled me as his body wavered, armor melting to blackened mist. The horns along his head and shoulders curled next, quickly followed by the rest of his body.
The sentient smoke beast made of horns and wings raced around the cavern once before crashing into my eyes, nose, and mouth.
Heat scorched my flesh, my body convulsing as I was taken over.