Sixty-Six Dianna

My feet hit the ground as Samkiel lowered me from his shoulder. I stepped away from him without saying anything. The swirling portal closed behind us, and I looked around. We were in what looked like an abandoned city. Halfdestroyed buildings and crumbling infrastructure rose from the center, and a large, cathedral-style structure glared at us from a few miles up.

Samkiel stepped past me, staring at the skyline and the ground as if listening for something. The cobblestone road was fractured, parts of stone standing up in jagged patterns as if something beneath it had moved so fast it busted the infrastructure below.

“What are we doing here? What is this place?”

Samkiel stopped and glared down a narrow street, but I only saw more abandoned and destroyed buildings. “An old place where we once gathered for ceremonies. It was at the center of the Netherworld. Great kings and queens would travel from all over. It doesn’t look like much now after Nismera’s rule, but it once was beautiful.”

I looked out over the dark, empty city but couldn’t see it, not with how worn down it was. “Oh? Did you come to a lot of ceremonies here?”

Samkiel stopped and motioned for me to be quiet. I rolled my eyes but didn’t speak. He continued down the road, and I followed him with a sigh.

“Are we not going to talk about anything?” I asked, my tone irritated.

He spun toward me, placing his finger to his lips.

I threw up my arms. “There isn’t anything here. I didn’t even hear a heartbeat besides ours.”

“Dianna,” he hissed, crouching to peek around a corner before tossing me a glance. “Hush.”

My lips formed a thin line, and I shook my head. I crossed my arms and stood behind him, tapping my foot. He rose to his full height before dipping through a low doorway. I followed him into the small half-collapsed building, not needing to duck. A small web hit me in the face, and I spun, ripping at it as I grew more frustrated. My hands scratched at each other as I tossed the slick material to the ground.

Samkiel’s eyes blazed into mine. “Dianna. Shush.”

Fire lit my hands, the blaze hot enough to burn steel as I glared at him. “I swear to gods, Samkiel, if you shush me one more time . . .”

His eyes widened a fraction, and his gaze focused behind me. I heard the chattering and spun, every hair on my body standing on end. A mummified body was attached to the wall, wrapped in white webbing. A beast of many legs and protected by a dark shell looked at me with all twelve of its eyes. It opened its mouth to scream, its orange and black spotted wings fanning out. A whoosh flew past me, and a silver ablaze dagger hit it square in the head. Its wings went slack and its body limp, skewered to the wall by its head.

The flames died in my hands, and the room grew dark once more. “Okay, something tells me this city isn’t abandoned but overrun with giant flesh-eating bugs, and now we have to kill them all. Great. Did I ever tell you how much I hate bugs?”

The creature’s body twitched, and I shivered. My stomach turned, and it wasn’t just because of the giant bug embedded in the wall. I was still hurt. He brought me here for this? After everything? We didn’t even talk about what happened. He just assumed we would jump into our next mission, and I couldn’t. I threw my arms up in frustration.

“Samkiel, I can’t do this. I can’t just act like nothing happened between us. You left and—”

I turned and froze, every muscle in my body seizing. It wasn’t in fear of the hundreds of flying bugs that probably infested this city, but because Samkiel, World Ender, Destruction Incarnate, and the legendary God King throughout all twelve realms, was kneeling before me. His hand was raised, and he held a shimmering silver ring that held a rhombus-cut, clear jewel. The band gleamed in the low light, and the main stone and the four smaller gems surrounding it sparkled like starlight. Power wafted from it, pure blinding power that I could nearly taste.

“W-what?” The word left my mouth in a whisper as I glanced between him and the ring. My body flushed with heat, and my heart pounded. I took a step back.

“I wanted to do this differently, but I am afraid that creature signaled more to come. There is no perfect place to do this. No place would be perfect enough for you, but anywhere you are is perfect for me.”

My brain stopped completely, unable to comprehend what was happening. The ground shook beneath us, or maybe it was me, my entire world tilting.

“This is how it is done on Onuna, yes? They get down on one knee and confess their undying love.” Worry creased his brow. “Am I doing this wrong?”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Every form of language emptied from my brain at the sight of Samkiel kneeling before me, holding that ring out. My heart thudded in my chest, and my throat went dry.

“What is this? What’s happening?” I managed to gasp.

“Well, I believe this is the part where I ask.” His smile was so soft and so sweet. It broke my heart. “Dianna, will you—”

“No.”

Samkiel’s brows furrowed, and he stood. I backed away from the ring he held like he was offering me poison. “No?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say some pretty words that I would believe, but I could not let him say them. There was too much between us, too much still not talked about, reasonings, answers, and questions. Even more than the fight, there was the fact that I hurt everyone I loved. I’d hurt him, and I refused to do it again.

“Why would you ask me this?”

He flinched as if I’d slapped him. “Because I love you.”

Love.He said that word so effortlessly as if the last few days hadn’t happened. He loved me. I’d known that since the tunnel, yet hearing it now only twisted my gut. He loved me, and I was the worst thing for him.

“How?” My voice was nothing but a whisper.

“How can I love you?” His face drew tight.

“Yes. After everything I’ve done, everything I put you through? Especially recently?”

Samkiel looked at me in utter disbelief as if I had said the stupidest thing in the world. The ground shook once more, a rumbling I felt more than heard.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I shook my head. “I lied to you.”

Samkiel nodded. “I know.”

“I hurt you.” My voice cracked. “Like I hurt her.”

My chest split wide open, and I wondered if he could see the dark, damaged heart beneath. The one that was still bruised and bloody no matter how many words or soft smiles he tossed my way. No matter how hard he tried to fix me, I was still a broken, violent thing. I’d realized as we fought that I was never going to change. I had spent eons surviving alone, being brutal in a brutal world. He required a pure, safe love, and all I could offer was a vengeful inferno of it. Nothing soft or delicate, my love cut, but I refused to make him bleed for me any longer. That was not a healthy love. Even I knew that.

“Dianna.”

“No.” I was firm, and I meant it. I took a step back, my boots echoing on the rotten, wooden floorboards, waving my hand toward that damn ring he held on his palm. “Samkiel, I will not stick you with a horrible life as I did her. I will not hurt you as I did her. I refuse.”

Heat flared in his gaze as he took a step forward, sunlight casting a glow across his face from where it spilled in through the missing half of the building. He was sunlight, pure and radiant, but as he stepped closer to me, he drew further into the darkness. I was that darkness. It couldn’t have represented what I was trying to keep from happening better.

“I have told you a thousand times before that there is no horrible life with you, only without.” His voice was strong and unwavering. Samkiel was a warrior, first and foremost, and this was a fight I knew he would not back down from. “Yes, we fought. People who love each other deeply do that. Yes, you hurt me by lying to me, but I know where that comes from.”

“Stop.” I raised my hands. “Stop making excuses for me. We both know the truth. I am not good for you. We are no good together. My entire existence, ours, is to kill one another.”

“I know what you’re doing, and I hate it.” He stepped forward, and I took another back, maintaining the space between us because I had to. I needed to. He watched it, caught the movement, and his eyes burned hotter than any flame I could summon. “Don’t do that. Don’t you dare shut me out again, not like on Rashearim, not now, not ever.”

“Says the one who shut me out three days ago. You sent me away because you needed time.”

“Yes, because you hurt me.” His voice raised a fraction. “You hurt me, Dianna. I needed time to think, not because I planned on leaving you. I needed time to process and make this for you,” Samkiel said, holding out the ring again.

“Well, I don’t want it.” I spun from him and stormed out of the crumbling building, away from our crumbling future.

“You’re being a coward!” he shouted after me.

My feet stopped abruptly, and I turned back to him. “What?”

“You heard me. You’re a coward. You are afraid of this, and what it means, so you’re doing what you always do. Shutting down, protecting yourself because you think I’ll hurt you. You’re running because this scares you.” He stomped out of the ruined building, the dirt kicking up around his feet. “And you don’t get to run away when you get scared. You don’t get to abandon me when it’s tough, Dianna. Never again.”

My heart hammered in my chest, every word he said breaking down the mountain of steel doors I used to protect the most vulnerable parts of me. He just slammed them all wide open.

“That’s not what I’m doing.” And I was a liar, a godsdamn liar, but Samkiel saw right through all my bullshit with pinpoint precision. “Listen, you were right to send me away, okay? There’s too much between us. We—”

He reached me then and grabbed my arm, dissolving the space I had made between us in an instant. “You promised not to do this. When we were on that damn balcony, you promised that you’d stay no matter what. You promised you’d never abandon me again.”

I pulled away from him, tears in both our eyes. “You ask too much of me, and I don’t know if I can give it.”

Samkiel didn’t back down. “So removing your actual soul is alright, but this? Marriage? Is it too much for you?”

I said nothing, but my breathing turned ragged. The necklace I’d given him on that night shone in the sunlight. He was right. He was always right, but this . . . It was just another proof of his devotion, and I was so fucking afraid. Monsters did not scare me, the dark didn’t send a chill down my spine, and gods, even bugs were not as terrifying as this. Samkiel offering me his whole godsdamn heart terrified me because I knew I’d eventually fuck up again. I’d break him, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

“This.” He held the ring between us, its diamonds shimmering in the setting sun. “This is no matter what.”

“I’ll hurt you.” My voice came out as small and damned as I felt.

“Then hurt me.” Samkiel’s eyes softened, and he stepped closer, his body almost flush with mine. “But don’t leave me.”

The world shook beneath my feet. A rumble so deep it made me stumble. Samkiel caught me, and we turned toward the half-fallen building as a horde of flying creatures erupted from it.

“What is that?”

“A hive,” Samkiel whispered, “and they just woke up.”

The ground split, and we stumbled apart. Fissures tore across the ground, spreading in our direction. Even here, even now, we were being torn apart. The universe was trying to right itself and restore balance. Then there was me, doing the only thing I knew how to do. Leave.

His eyes met mine, and the world shuddered again. The sky darkened, a thick cloud of those creatures blocking out the dying light. I watched in horror as the ground beneath his feet cracked and yawned open, swallowing him whole. And the universe, the hateful, cruel bitch, laughed.