Ninety-Six Samkiel

I strode toward Ennas, slinging blood from my sword before calling it back. I grabbed him by the front of his now tarnished armor and lifted him off the blood-soaked ground, his torn wing hanging limp and useless.

“Where is she?” I snapped.

“Rot in Iassulyn,” he hissed.

My eyes burned silver, the light surging forward so hot and intense it cut through his arm and severed it just below the shoulder. He screamed, spit forming on his lips at the pain.

“Where. Is. She.”

He swallowed, the pulse in the column of his neck beating visibly. “Someone intercepted her arrival. Change of plans, you know the drill.”

“Changed to where?” Ennas shook his head, staring at me defiantly even through the pain. His scream ripped through the air as I burned his other arm off. “Tell me!”

His mouth twitched as if he wished to laugh. “It is so humorous to see you concerned with another. She will know it now. All will. The great World Ender has a weakness.”

I dropped him to the ground and placed my foot on his chest, looking at the destruction surrounding us. His fleet was destroyed, the battlefield littered with the dead and dying. “There will be no one alive to tell the tale, I’m afraid. Even you.”

“My sister will look for me. I am already late checking in. She’s probably on her way now. You remember her, don’t you?” His smile was bloody and just as nasty as mine.

My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’ve fucked a lot of sisters. Can’t say she was anything special.”

Ennas jerked beneath my armored boot. “You will die for that.”

“And you’ll die if you don’t tell me where she is.” I leaned down and gripped his injured wing, grinding the broken bones together. He screamed, all the color draining from his face. “Tell me where she is. Where is the new location?”

He gritted his teeth with a cold, bitter smile. “I hope they rip her to pieces and send the parts back to you.”

“They?” My boot dug into his chest a fraction harder, and I crushed the bones between my fingers.

He writhed but managed to gasp out, “Oh, yes. Your brothers.”

A cold sweat broke out along my spine, but the familiar killing calm washed over me.

“Oh.” Ennas chuckled wetly. “So that does scare the mighty king. Kaden plans to take her back and keep her as his.”

My hand gripped his throat so hard that I felt something crunch and break within his neck. “Tell me where she is, or I’ll take your eyes next. There are no more Jade Healers to restore them, and we know how your sister feels about those who are no longer of use to her.”

He gasped and croaked, trying to speak, but I held on a moment longer before letting up. He choked, gasping for air. “They changed the meeting to Torkun. All I heard was that he had a blade made by her father. One stab and the victim becomes whatever you wish, and I’m thinking Kaden wishes for his old bitch back, which means no more memories of you.”

I didn’t know if time could actually stop. I’d never met a single being capable of it, but I imagined this was what it would feel like. Rain stood midair, and each beat of my heart seemed to take minutes. He was going to erase me? Us? All so he could convince her that she was his? Hate slammed into me with volcanic and overwhelming wrath, but the fear was even greater than that. I was terrified that I would lose her, that I had wasted my time with Ennas and not rushed to find her. If I was too late . . .

“My king,” Reggie’s voice filtered through the turbulent haze of my emotions.

The world came rushing back. Thunder roared in the sky, and I saw Roccurem’s head whip up out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t ask why he’d come back. I didn’t care, not when my entire world was about to be stripped from me.

Ennas groaned beneath me. “You won’t make it. That blade we used was supposed to kill you. If you are here and alive while your power burns in the sky, you’ll never make it in time.”

I hesitated, and it was all Ennas needed. He used his good wing as leverage, propelling himself up. His head collided with mine, and I stumbled back as he hopped to his feet. He spread his wings wide and awkwardly took to the sky. His flight was labored as he disappeared between the roiling clouds.

“My king.” My head bowed. Reggie placed a hand on my shoulder, and I heard him gasp and pull back. He looked down at his burned palm.

“Torkun is realms away. I don’t have all my power. I’ll never make it in time.” The pain returned, familiar and nauseating, the same viselike grip that held me on the remains of my homeworld. My chest felt as if it was collapsing in on itself. My Dianna is strong and brave, but she’s alone and outnumbered. One Ig’Morruthen was already an unfair fight to most of the highly trained, but two? And two of the deadliest. She needed me. “She’s too far away from me,” I said, my voice breaking.

“If I may, Your Majesty,” Roccurem said as the sky opened and rain pelted us. I turned to him, blinking against the water soaking my face. “I once told you that love has power, and the purest, truest of it can defy great odds. It is something I have witnessed before, and I will witness it again. If it gives power, take it. Harness it. This,” he pointed up, “is your power in the sky, no one else’s. To save her, simply call it home.”

“Home?” I had asked as she leaned near the bathroom sink, hope flickering to life in my chest.

She smiled then, a small half-thing that blossomed further as she shrugged, no longer trying to hide her feelings. “That’s what it feels like with you.”

The rain sizzled and popped as it hit my armor, my brow. My body burned alongside my rage, sparks of electricity dancing across my shoulders, my legs, and my arms. My head throbbed as the sky above us rumbled and then cracked wide open. Dirt turned to mud, and I heard Reggie step back.

I remembered when I was younger, remembered the exact moment puberty hit. I remembered the sky shaking as my mother ran into my room. My scream had torn my throat as my mind opened, and the secrets of the cosmos had ripped into me. She held me, tears staining my face as the first stage of ascension began.

We had stayed like that until I heard my father’s footsteps enter my room. I had peered past her shoulder, watching my father stare at the sky as I tried to process the new power filling me. He hadn’t said anything that night, but later, he spoke of how I was just like him, how a great power, far beyond our understanding, ran through our blood. He explained that I would need to harness it, control it, or I could destroy worlds. It wasn’t until later that we would realize how foretelling his words were.

It rained on Rashearim for weeks after. I remembered how others avoided me, the power rippling around and off my skin for weeks. I was such a danger then. My father increased my training and studies. When my mother passed, and my world was once more in turmoil, instead of losing control, I focused all of that dark rage and forged the Oblivion ring and sword. As soon as it rested on my finger, all of those harrowing feelings left, and now I knew why. Now I understood the look on my father’s face and my mother’s tears as she held me that night. I did not make Oblivion. I was Oblivion.

Power rippled across my knuckles in electric, purple streaks. Ennas had laughed, like so many others, about how easy it was to take her away from me. He had mocked me, telling me what Kaden planned to do, and something inside me snapped, ripped, and coiled. It had taken me this long to know the truth, to accept it, and I was going to use that knowledge to my advantage. Every last godsdamn part of it meant keeping the ones I loved safe.

It felt like fire erupted across my skin, flowed through my veins, and ignited in my soul. The world shook, and another peal of thunder rocked the air. The swirling mass of power in the sky halted and turned as if it had just been waiting. I threw a single arm up, and my power rushed forward, the silver racing so fast night turned into day. It crashed into my fingertips before spreading, surging into me in waves.

My body claimed the power, my cells soaking in the energy. I dropped my arm as my helmet slid over my face, the ground burning under my boots.

Reggie smiled at me, and it was the first real one I had seen from him in a long time. “Bring your queen home.”

I gave him a curt nod and shot into the sky, leaving the sound of thunder in my wake.