Chapter 23 Kaden
KADEN
The walls in my room were too close, making me feel trapped.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep. I tried all night, but I found no peace.
Every time I closed my eyes, my body jolted awake as if trying to keep me from slipping into Oblivion’s eternal, harrowing darkness.
I swallowed, and it felt like my saliva had turned to razor blades in my throat.
I wondered if it was just a phantom pain from where my head had been separated from my body.
If that were the worst of it, I probably could have coped, but it wasn’t.
The voices were the worst. They whispered and screamed, resonating through my skull and the aching, swirling darkness.
Soft, sullen cries ebbed and flowed, fading to almost nothing before returning.
My brain was a rocky shore, being washed away one damned wave at a time.
If only they would just stop crying. I grasped my ears, my nails biting deep, and sweat coating my skin.
I rocked back and forth on the edge of my bed, wishing the voices would just stop.
They were like thousands of biting, crawling bugs infesting my skull, scraping and chewing on bone until it bled marrow.
A tap came from the window. It was so different from the noises plaguing me that my head swiveled toward it.
My room was far too high for anything to reach, yet still, it went, obsessively tapping and knocking.
I stalked over and ripped the curtains from the rods, expecting to see another demon from my nightmares.
Small droplets of water hit the glass as rain began to fall.
I sighed. Maybe my hearing was still adjusting to being back in this world. Now, if only the crying would stop.
A knock came from behind me, and this time, I knew I was not alone. A frigid chill swept across my ankles, and when I took a breath, releasing it from my aching, empty body, a cloud of fog formed in front of my face.
I turned slowly, already knowing what to expect, yet I was stunned, nonetheless.
A dress made of the blackest night spilled to the floor, disappearing into the shadows around her feet.
Death rested a toned, slender arm on the mantle.
It again wore Dianna’s face and stood with her posture, but the eyes were cold, empty, and lifeless.
“Why do you have to wear her face?” I growled.
“Would you like a comforting truth or a lie?” Death asked.
“The truth.”
Death stared at me with those opaque, empty eyes.
“She intrigues me. She will intrigue beings far beyond here. But, above all, she is the one being that actually terrifies me. She has no idea the power she strokes with her mere fingertips, what she controls. The one being that could fix or destroy everything, depending on how we play our cards.” Death leaned back on his heels.
“Her will is indomitable, you know? I’ve never met a being like her, and I think I am starting to understand the infatuation so many have for her. ”
My skin bristled from the cold, and I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, seeking warmth. “Is that why you’re here? To talk about your sudden interest in Dianna?”
“You know, my specters tried to take your brother’s soul in that tunnel, and they could not. Even after I arrived …” Death paused. “Imagine loving someone so violently you can hold off Death itself. So, in exchange, I took something from her.”
My lip curled, already bored with this conversation, yet a part of me wished it to continue. At least it kept the voices at bay. “Took something from her? I’ve seen her. There’s nothing …” I stopped, remembering the ring Samkiel flashed at me. Only a ring. Not a … “Their mark?”
Death clicked her tongue and walked over to the bed. Lying down on her side, she wagged a single finger at me. “Close. Think harder. That mark is only there to bind what has been split. What binds mates, Kaden?”
This time, when a chill ran across my skin, it wasn’t because of the cold that followed Death but from the harshness of the truth.
“Her soul.”
Death smiled. “Correct.”
“Why?”
Death’s stare never wavered. “You will learn that no matter your choices or your belief in your free will, there must always be a balance. Stars died so that you could breathe air. Creatures crawled on their bellies so that others may have legs. It is and will always be the nature of things. It is older than time, and not even I can change it.”
“Yet you changed me,” I said. “What is my payment for being here?”
This time, when Death smiled and lightning cracked, the flash revealed his true face. It was all bone, with jagged teeth and half a skull that stretched far too wide and far too high. “I want Nismera dead.”
I scoffed before a small, sullen laugh left me. “You brought me back for that? Do it yourself. You are Death. You do not need me.”
“Oh, but I do. I need you all, actually. You see, I may be Death, but I cannot kill. I only take what passes, either naturally or unnaturally. Such is my burden.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, boo fucking hoo. An all-powerful being who can’t do his own dirty work. Send me back to Oblivion. I am not your weapon.”
Death was on the bed, picking at the sheets one minute and then before me the next. Bone-chilling hands gripped my chin, and pain shot through my body at the tightness of her frigid grasp. My skin ached as ice grew, careening toward my eye.
“You will do this because you do not grasp what is at stake or the power she wields. You need to be worried about things on a far larger scale. Do what I ask, and perhaps we can eradicate Nismera and her rot before any other beings turn their attention toward this realm, yes?”
I gripped the slender wrist, even as pain lacerated my every nerve. “You’ve got the wrong brother. Samkiel is the one you want to overthrow Nismera. Why would I turn on the only person who gave a shit about Isaiah and me?” I sneered.
Death tilted his cold, crooked head, examining me as if he were searching my soul. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you see the many lies she’s buried beneath the very stone of this prison she calls a palace.”
I blinked as Death released my face, the warmth flooding back into my body nearly as painful as the exposure to his touch. I gritted my teeth and asked, “What does that mean?”
Death smiled a cold, dead grin. “First, you need to ask Nismera about the medallion and why she needs the blood of the sons of Unir to open it. Then, ask her where she was on 47 DU.”
My eyes narrowed at the date he tossed at me, and I was about to question him further when the crying that had remained a whisper at the back of my mind grew louder. Death and I both looked at the floor.
“You also need to fix that.”
I looked up to ask what he meant, but was nearly smacked in the head by the flapping wings of a black raven. He swooped past me and flew out the window, the same one I swore I’d never opened.
The cries echoed as if amplified by some unknown force.
First, I needed to make that godsdamned crying stop.
I grabbed the robe off the chair near the door and tossed it over my shoulders, the long ends trailing behind me as I stormed from my room.
The cries grew, taunting and pushing me.
Guards came to attention, going silent mid-conversation when they saw me, but I didn’t even knock as I pushed open the doors.
A small form wrapped in blankets jumped and sat up, her disheveled, pale hair a mess on her head.
“Must you make excessive noise? Some of us are trying to sleep,” I snapped.
I inhaled deeply to continue berating her, but her scent hit me like a sword through my gut, stealing my ability to speak.
She smelled of Dianna. It was faint, but it was there beneath her skin as if she had been around her so much that not even soap or scrubbing could erase it.
That kernel of life stirred in me as if whatever tethered me to the waking world recognized and reached for it.
“S-sorry,” she said. Her voice broke on the word, and her tear-stained eyes blinked at me. The blanket she had pulled around her head slipped, and she covered the side of her face with her hand.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Why did I ask that? I didn’t care. No, I just wanted her to shut up. I did not care about this girl. I didn’t. It had to be the effect of Dianna’s fucking scent. Or, perhaps my brain was still healing, and it was messing with my logical thinking.
She shook her head, but I saw the discoloration on the side of her face, the dark purple-black stark against her naturally pink skin.
I strode over and ripped the hand from her face.
It looked as if someone had backhanded her several times.
The entire right side of her face was bruised, spreading from her jaw up to one bloodshot eye.
“A guard did this to you?”
She shook her head.
“Who?”
Her eyes met mine, fear and suspicion darkening their depths as if worried that if she told me, I would hurt her as well.
“Who?” I said, filling my tone with more ire.
Her lip trembled, and she winced as if it caused her pain. “Nismera. She wants me to make poisons. I told her I didn’t want to help her.”
“Ah,” was all I said.
I knew my sister to be cruel but never abusive, especially to children and those weaker.
Nismera did not beat. She killed swiftly and brutally.
But this? Death’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me of what he’d said about lies and half-truths.
My mind shied away from all the things I’d overheard but never questioned.
I hated that I’d allowed him even to put such thoughts in my head, but I hated more that after the realms opened, I’d started having doubts.
Perhaps Death was right, and I didn’t know her at all.
“Why aren’t you healing?” The corner of my lip curled as I asked her.
She studied me for a moment, gathering her courage before she took a breath and said, “I need my herbs.”
My jaw clenched, and I turned, stalking past the guards outside her door without a word.
They were exactly as I’d left them when I returned with a glass in hand.
The girl was still sitting on the bed but had curled into a tighter ball, the covers tight around her.
She looked so small and fragile. I offered her the glass of water, but she shook her head and scrambled away until her back hit the headboard.
“Take it,” I said, shoving it toward her.
“What’s in it?”
Smart girl.
“Blood. Mine.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you going to make me a monster like you did Cameron and Dianna?”
This girl didn’t just carry Dianna’s scent.
She had her will. Was she like a child to her?
A babe to nurture, even if she was far closer to the age of twelve or thirteen.
The healers of Jade City did not age like mortals.
None that breathed in these realms did. Would Dianna crave that now?
A family and child of her own? Was she looking to replace what I had stolen from her?
My hand flexed on the glass, and I consciously forced myself to relax my grip so I didn’t break it. “So you know of me? Did she tell you everything?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“That is why you don’t know that this isn’t enough to change, only help.”
She blinked at me, nowhere near ready to trust me.
“Take it,” I said again, only a little harsher. “Before I change my mind.”
“I don’t know if I can swallow. My mouth, teeth, and throat really hurt.”
“Drink. It will fix it.” Still, she eyed the glass warily. Very smart girl, indeed. Dianna had trained her well. “If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need to poison a glass of water. I could take your head off with the back of my hand.”
She sighed before she scooted across the bed and took the glass.
Taking a cautious sip, she glared at me suspiciously over the rim.
She winced but moved it around her mouth before swallowing.
Her tiny nose crinkled in a grimace, but she took a breath and chugged it down in a few quick gulps before placing the glass on the table beside the bed.
The bruise receded, and the swelling disappeared, chased away by the soft pink of her natural skin color.
She tentatively slid her fingers over her cheek, her eyes widening as she worked her jaw. “It worked.”
I nodded but said nothing. Spinning on my heel, I started toward the door.
“Why help me?” she called out. “You’re the bad man. You hurt Dianna and Cameron.”
My feet stopped, and a thousand and one emotions and memories ran through not just my mind but also my body.
It felt like me and not. I was what she called the bad man.
I was the villain in everyone’s story, and when I died in truth, that would be my legacy.
History would confirm it if there was a history to be told at the end of all this.
“I’d like to sleep without your constant whining,” I said and started moving again, walking out the door without looking back.