One Hundred and One Isaiah

They had talked about him. Nismera had the old records that recorded Samkiel’s rise and fall from Rashearim. I remembered being enamored with the way they painted his accomplishments. I’d even wished to be like him. He was this powerful, brave figure everyone looked up to. He was faster than any and extremely deadly with a blade, any blade. I just never thought I’d see it in real life. Mera had said he was trapped behind the realms, and he’d be long dead for them to open, yet there he stood. He’d ripped the very sky open for her, and now, all it did was pour.

Blind rage poured into his eyes, and tendrils of destructive, raw power struck at the air around him. My chest ached. Kaden had fallen so easily as if killing him were nothing. Samkiel was so fast my eyes hadn’t even registered his movements, and as my body begged to retreat, I realized what we were dealing with. We had dared to touch her, and now there was no mercy in the creature I faced.

I swallowed my fear and charged him, striking out with my sword. Samkiel dodged the blow easily, effortlessly. Too quick. I felt his hand at the back of my armor, then a sickening crunch from somewhere deep in my body. Too damn quick. I had only seen one other person move that quickly, only one, and I’d helped murder him because no one else could. Unir. Our father. There was searing pain and then nothing but darkness.

MY WRISTS AND HEAD THROBBED. I SHIFTED, TRYING TO ALLEVIATE some of the strain on my shoulders. My eyes flew open when I realized my body was pulled tight and aching everywhere. I was on my knees with my arms stretched out to my sides, thick metal cuffs wrapped painfully tight around my wrists. Shallow cuts covered my body, blood stained me, pooling around me on the floor. The color was almost black where it had dried. They had been bleeding me out for a while now, it seemed. I wondered how long I had been unconscious.

The room faded in and out. When my vision cleared, my breath stuttered in my chest. Samkiel stood framed in the doorway, and for a moment, I saw our father. The same stance, the same lean, the same posture, and above all, the same power. Curse the old gods and the dead. He had it all back. He’d ripped his power from the very sky for her.

Samkiel had always been the weak one in our story, a means to an end. He was merciful and kind, a guardian and protector, but always below us. Now, he leaned against the doorjamb with a predator’s intent, waiting patiently for the right moment to strike. He was no untried youth. This man had been tempered, tried, and driven to the edge. He was a god in the true sense of the word: terrible, beautiful, and overflowing with power. We were all wrong. She was so wrong.

He carelessly tossed a silver dagger into the air, catching it easily by the hilt. I saw the blood staining the edge of the blade and knew instinctively it was mine. I tried to move but struggled to make my body work, feeling so weak and tired.

“When I was younger, Unir constantly scolded me for not being where I should be. Instead of training or participating in the council meetings, I would be off looking for fun, adventure, and, as I got older, partners. His punishment was always to lock me in the athenaeum. I’d study for hours, sometimes days, depending on what trouble I had caused. He wanted me to be a great king, a smart one. I remember reading about a powerful race that could bend water at will, and then there were those who learned to bend blood.”

Samkiel paused, appraising me with molten silver eyes. They burned with barely contained rage, reminding me of Nismera.

“The trick with magic or power is to find the source and stop it just like a dam in a river. Stop the flow. Blood is your power, but it is also your weakness. I made a few cuts. I hope you don’t mind. They won’t seal since the blade I used is ablaze. It is what hurts you that can kill you, but Unir didn’t teach me that. She did.”

Ablaze. He had used the ablaze weapons on me and not that swirling death blade. Until he’d killed Kaden, I had never seen it, never been close to it. I’d only seen the aftermath of his destruction and learned why they called him the World Ender. Nismera had the ring. I had seen it, and I knew it didn’t rest on his hands. It shouldn’t have been possible for him to summon it, but if what he said was true, he didn’t need it for Oblivion. He was Oblivion. My heart broke as I remembered how quickly Kaden fell, becoming nothing but dark ash.

“Kaden . . .” I didn’t realize the word left my lips until he made a noise in his throat.

“Is dead.”

I lowered my head with a small sob. I wished I could weep, but nothing would come. He had practically desiccated me. Kaden was gone, and I had no doubt I would soon join him. My chest felt like it was about to cave in. I’d never see Imogen again and left unattended with the others . . . I wanted to scream.

“You cry for him?”

I raised my head and swallowed the hatred, sadness, and fear that lodged in my throat. When I met his gaze, my body involuntarily tried to shift further away from him. The look he gave me was filled with wrath and a need for vengeance. He hated Kaden for what he had done to his amata. His anger was a living, breathing thing, and I could feel it mantling in the room. I pulled at my chains, even though I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I saw now why they waited, why they distracted him for so long, why The Order needed those marks and chains to hold him. It made sense why they did not want their mating mark to form. One of him was enough, but the two of them together would be undefeatable.

I steadied myself, trying to calm my racing heart. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.

“I see Father in you, brother.” I said it like the curse it was.

He pushed off the wall and strolled into the room, still wearing his infamous battle-worn silver armor. He moved in it as if it were light as a feather.

“I’m not your brother. I am your judge and executioner.”

He stopped in front of me, and the Ig’Morruthen in me recoiled, desperate to move away from him. I forced myself to remain still. If I were to die, I wouldn’t falter or whimper like a child.

“Then execute me, because I will tell you nothing.”

He sighed and shook his head, an expression I wasn’t familiar with flashing in his silver eyes.

“Not tonight. Tonight, I wish to go upstairs and lay with the woman I love. The woman you, Kaden, and Nismera keep trying to take from me. I also need to find a way to get my family back because you all tried to take them, too. So I’ll let you wallow here for a while. Let the silence and the walls drive you mad. Then, when it’s time, I will return and ask you questions. You will refuse to answer, and I will resort to something very unkind. The cycle will repeat until I have what I wish for. But tonight, I am tired, and I wish to spend the rest of my evening with this realm’s future queen.”

My lip curled, and I turned my head away.

“I want you to know while you wallow and hate and curse my very name and existence that this, all of this, is your fault, Kaden’s fault, and Nismera’s. It never had to be this way. I was never the monster she told you I was. You should have come to me. I would have given you all a home, a family.”

Something twisted and broke inside of me. Family. It was the one thing Kaden and I had craved most of all, and we had learned a long time ago we were not made to have. Weapons of war. That was all we were. My jaw clenched, longing to violently rip him to shreds for even suggesting such a thing.

“But you chose a different path. Had you all come to me and told me what and who you were, had you helped me, this would not have happened. You would not be here, and Kaden would not be dead because despite what vile, vicious lies Nismera has planted into your brain, I am not the bad guy here. I never was. I love and protect those who seek it, and I love and protect my family with everything I have.”

His hand whipped out, grabbing my jaw and forcing me to look at him. A growl, deep and guttural, seeped from my lips. I squinted against the light burning from his eyes. The glow was too bright in this dark room, the heat of it threatening to burn me alive.

“With. Everything. I. Have. Isaiah.”

He released my chin with a shove and turned, stalking toward the door, his steps silent despite the armor. My chin burned where his rings had touched my skin, his power leaving its mark.

“I’ll tell you nothing. No matter what you do to me, what you threaten, or what you break.”

Samkiel paused in the doorway, and bright cerulean bars formed across the front of my cell, sealing me in. He stared at me for a moment and gave me a shadow of a smile, then without saying anything, he left. I think out of all that had happened, that interaction scared me the most.

I lowered my head and sighed, my arms screaming in pain. I’d find a way to get out of here, find a way to get back to—

An icy wind swept through my cell, colder than the harsh climate of Fvorin. I shivered, my skin prickling, and lifted my head. My wrists burned as I jerked back on my chains because there in the doorway stood Veruka.

“How?” I asked. Her hollow, empty eyes stared at me. “You’re dead. I killed you.”

She took a step forward, then another, passing through the bars as if she didn’t exist on this plane any longer, and she didn’t. Her head tilted at an ungodly angle, and the red, jagged line across her throat where I’d ripped it off was still spilling blood. She stopped in front of me and leaned forward.

She had no smell, no scent. She was hollow.

“What are you?”

A ghostly smile curved her lips as she reached toward me. I tried to jerk back, but Samkiel had chained me to the ceiling and floor. I had nowhere to go.

Her hand hovered over my chest, and I felt a tug as a small ball of flame emerged. She grabbed and crushed it in her fist, a cold, empty smile on her face.

I heard a crash above me and whipped my head back, looking at the ceiling. When I looked back, I was alone in my cell. I blinked a few times, my mind reeling. Of course I was alone. Why would I assume I wasn’t alone in my cell? Samkiel had left me here. I had been alone the whole time.