Sixty-One Roccurem

The small town was quiet, clouds gathering in the sky. I walked toward the small building, the sounds inside telling me I was in the right place. The smell of sweat and alcohol filled my nose as I walked in.

A short man shook his head and tossed a bar towel over his shoulder. “Listen, if you’re here to hit on her, one of my guys just left with his balls on fire.”

I forced the smile Dianna had taught me to wear so as not to scare others. She said that being too stoic made others uncomfortable, and they retreated into themselves in my presence. But at least now I knew I was in the right place. I said nothing, walking past him and heading to the small cut-out door.

“Your funeral, buddy,” he tossed over his shoulder, and my lips pressed into a thin line, knowing his funeral was a hundred and twelve days from now. He would die in an attempted robbery.

I found the stairs to the lower level, the stone walls and steps chipped. Punches rang out, and I heard her grunt. The space was a large open gym, hanging bags made from materials able to withstand a berserker’s rage swung from the ceiling.

Dianna’s fist shot out again, the muscles bunching across her shoulders and sweat soaking the small garment she called a top. Her foot swung out next, hitting the bag hard enough to send it swinging to the right from the force. A part of the ceiling chipped, and a whispered murmur came from the back by the wired gates. Several burly onlookers gathered there, talking amongst themselves about the dark-haired beauty who could throw a punch.

She left the first day after their squabble, not from the tavern but somewhere in between. It was as if her sadness had carved a slit in the darkness, and she let it devour her. I wondered if her grief was the epitome of darkness. Without Samkiel acting as her light, darkness was all that remained. The second day, she came back to the house looking for him. When she saw he had not returned, something cold and angry replaced the sadness.

Samkiel was all she had left in this world, even if she did not speak the words aloud. Granted, The Hand and others filled a fraction of that void, but only Gabriella and Samkiel had ever been close enough to truly know her. They were the only two who had ever been able to reach her. Gabriella had been her heart. Samkiel was her soul.

“I’ve looked for you,” I said, stopping beside her but well out of range of her rage.

Dianna punched the bag again but didn’t respond. She moved so quickly, her strikes precise and even, just like her World Ender.

“What do you want, Reggie?” she said, still hammering away.

“It’s been days.”

“I can count.” She spit the last part, and I knew the anger she felt was an echo from their fight.

“If I may, my future queen?”

Her head whipped toward me, her eyes flashing red as she caught the bag in her hands, steadying it. “Don’t call me that.”

I persisted. “If I may, it is very common that in times of great pain or feelings of betrayal, others will say things they do not mean. They often act in certain ways, but it is just a reflection of hurt. That is all.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She barely lifted her shoulders in a desultory shrug before tossing another punch. “We’re done.”

I shook my head. “It was a minor derailment, yet you assume the end so quickly.”

She scoffed. “Derailment? Did you hear us? I lied about a lot, Reggie. I kept so much from him.”

“You should have told him.”

“You don’t think I know that?” A low growl reverberated from her throat, her fists hitting not once but twice. “I do. But I didn’t, okay? I couldn’t, and I could give you and him a million fucking reasons I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter because I hurt him. Again. I lied to him. Again.”

“You had your reasons, even if I wished you would have spoken sooner to avoid this.”

“My reasons.” She huffed and landed another punch before resting her hands on the waistband of her dark pants. “I can blame it on the hundreds of years I was with someone who didn’t care about my feelings. I could blame it on how I lock everything away. But the truth is I lied because I was afraid. I was afraid if the mark left, that meant my price was him, and I guess that turned out to be true. It’s not like we’re mates now. I was just delusional.”

“I think you are wrong about that.”

She held up her hand. “Do you see a mark? No.”

“You are truly a fool if you think that man would ever stop loving you, Dianna.”

She turned away from me. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. He’s never acted that way with me, never pulled away so quickly, even with what happened on Onuna. So maybe with the mark gone, my soul gone, we don’t have that connection anymore. Maybe he sees the real me now.”

“If I may—”

Dianna spun, her foot shooting out. The bag snapped from the ceiling, small parts of brick raining down as it sailed across the room, landing in a heap. “It doesn’t matter, nor do I want to sit around wallowing in self-pity, either. He can hate me. He can leave me. I don’t care, but I will be the one to keep him alive. The world needs him, even if he doesn’t need me.”

Murmurs erupted behind us as her onlookers left, wide-eyed and whispering, but it was the short man from upstairs who yelled down, “You will have to pay for that!”

We watched him grumble and walk back upstairs. As soon as he was gone, Dianna turned back to me.

“He just needs time, my queen. He deserves that.” My head throbbed as a vision tried to press into my consciousness, but it faded quickly. I rubbed at my temples, watching her.

A single sweat-drenched brow lifted. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

I forced a smile. “Yours, but I warned you about withholding precious information.”

“You know what my new theory is?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “My new theory is we were destined to kill each other, not fall in love. So maybe it was never meant to last.”

“You cannot truly believe that. After everything.”

She spun, unwrapping the beige cloth from around her knuckles as she headed out of the room. “What I believe is that I will not let The Hand suffer just because he and I cannot work out our differences. I know I fucked up. I can’t change that, but I refuse to let them rot under her control. So he and I can work together or not, but I won’t leave them with her. After they are safe and sane, I’ll burn her and her godsdamn city to ash, and then . . .” She paused, taking a deep breath, and turned to me. “I don’t know what I’ll do then.”

She headed up the stairs back to our safe house as I rubbed my brow and sighed deeply. “You two are the most stubborn creatures I have ever encountered in this universe or the next.”