The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 62

A Final Meeting (Supposedly)

They are standing on the roof of Kye Merran's townhouse, the two of them—light and dark, avenger and traitor, both Divine, both enemies, opposite sides of the same coin.

Why?

They are waiting to oversee an arrival.

"You cannot make her give in," the Latora tells the Occisor, her voice, for once, gentle. Her eyes, for once, soft. But it is all deception; he knows this.

"She will not." She dares to move closer to him, dares to meet his gaze, as black as midnight. And that is when her eyes change; that is when he can see the savagery glistening in her deadly gaze. "I have already won."

Sometimes, the Occisor thinks that he would let her win the war. It would be, in a cruel, ironic way, what he wanted to begin with, right?

"You have forgotten, my love, that I can control her if I wish," he points out, his voice low and smooth, less thunderous than to the ears of mortals. "She is mine—her mind is too."

The Latora's eyes flash bright, waterfalls of silver. Is it because he called her his love? She was, once, if she remembers, which he often doubts she does. All she knows is that he killed her. She just doesn't seem to remember that he also loved her, and she loved him. But he didn't remember either for a time—for millennia.

Until he made a mistake, orchestrating the birth of one of his own in a world that wasn't. Yet.

He remembers. He remembers, and that is why he is terrified to take over the mind of Valerie Tenebris. Terrified to control her. She has already made him weak—she let herself be delusioned by love, so he remembered it. If he took her over completely, would the war even matter anymore?

Scarcely. He would remember all the nuances of feeling. He would never be able to hurt the Latora then. He would rather die than lay a hand on her in harm. Just as he would die in return for being able to touch her, just once. A skim of his fingers over her delicate cheekbones would so easily morph into his greatest desire if he remembered even a fraction more than he already did.

Love is weakness. Hate is pain. Fury is beauty.

Fate is fate. Will it be changed or erased?

"You will never conquer her mind," the Latora says, for she knows him too well. Enemies must know enemies. Lovers once knew lovers. "You are afraid. It would make you feel, and you have not felt so profoundly for a long time."

"You have not either."

She is unwavering in her disdain for him. "I never said that I have."

"Our situations are not the same," he tells her. "Your King is not like my Valerie. You know this." Her King already feels what they feel; his Valerie feels what they cannot.

How strange, how ironic. His monster feels like a human does, and her human feels like a monster does.

"I do know," the Latora says, her eyes silver flames, her voice a sword. "Which is why I am going to win this war soon, Occisor. And I will ruin you, just as you ruined me millennia ago. I will offer you mercy, then snatch it away. And then I will watch you die, fade away like you never existed at all. All your glory will be gone. It is a fair price to pay, is it not? Favorable to you, even, for you aren't human like I was. You will not know the same pain."

This angers him. He knows pain she has never experienced. The same pain Valerie holds—the pain of watching your love die, and being helpless to stop it. "I killed you to save you," he tells her, and his voice is not a sword, but a mace, hoping to crush her.

She raises her chin, steadfast. "But I never wanted to be saved."

"Then you did not love me." It's an accusation.

"You are right. In your words and actions, you turned my love into fear." It's a confession.

"I would recreate it, if I had time," she continues sharply, her rage rising. Rarely can they stay civil in such proximity to one another. "The cliff. The rocks. The ocean. I wish I could, but I am done being patient, and my vessel's compliance is not a steadfast tool to rely on."

And suddenly, the Occisor is taken aback by surmounting horror. "You see them as a mirror to what we had? Your wretched king and my Valerie? You wound me. I was never like him. I would never have—"

"Do you know why I brought Kye Merran back to life unharmed?" the Latora cuts in, vexed by his selfish insistence. "It would not have affected the deal; it was already done and the girl would have stayed dedicated to it no matter what so long as he remained alive. I could have taken—or distorted—the boy's memory, stolen his magic, gifted him with gruesome flashbacks, ruined him so completely that your Valerie wouldn't have been able to piece him back together no matter how hard she tried, so that she would have inevitably lost him. But I didn't. I figured there was no harm in letting her have something I never had; maybe I could see what it was like. And I knew it would be interesting, watching one of your kind hold the capacity to love."

"We are of the same kind," the Occisor stipulates, mildly insulted. "Little differs between us."

"But are not the same, Occisor. Why? Because I will emerge as the victor of our war, and you and the rest of your kind will cease to exist."

Her ache for vengeance, he thinks, has always been enchanting. Her fierce blame though, has never been.

"We will see," he says. "Valerie will have more than two choices—she will have three. And the third—mine—will be sparing, more merciful. Why would she choose the second? Why, when she could simply give in to me? What have I ever done to her? I live in her mind. I know her. Do not be overly confident in your convoluted methods of persuasion, my love."

"Yes, Occisor. You know her. So you know how she feels for Kye Merran. Would she put his life at risk by avoiding the deal she made with me? What do you think?"

He wishes Valerie were not so weak, for he knows that the Latora has a point. He should know better than to underestimate what it means to love someone.

But he also knows what it means to hate.

Love and hate—which force is stronger?

"We will see what she chooses," he finally says, his voice dark, as powerful as seas, vast midnight skies, oblivion. "And if you win, you may receive the honor of destroying me, and I will receive the honor of being destroyed by you."

"And if you win?" Her voice is just as compelling as his. Like stars, moons, galaxies.

"Maybe," he muses cruelly, "I would make you mine. Love and desire are two very different things. We have the capacity to feel the latter."

"I will die before I ever let you touch me again," the Latora seethes.

"Maybe I would enjoy that more," the Occisor says absentmindedly, turning away from her to stare into the darkness surrounding them. If he squints hard enough, he can still see her haunting smile, and he hates it. He hates her beauty. He hates the thought that it was he who ruined her. "Yes. I would enjoy it, feeling your argent blood seeping through my fingers, painting me silver."

Maybe that's all we exist to do, he thinks. We exist to bleed. Paint the night sky with dark and light. Forever fighting for fate.

The Divine were never supposed to be dangerous, not to anyone but themselves.

But their war has always had a way of growing. It started out intended to be an eternal impasse, but that would not do, not for them. So further power was sought for advantages to be gained.

A forgotten world with magic was discovered. An agreement between enemies was made. Then came a mistake on one side of the war, a loophole discovered on the other.

And suddenly, just like that, an inhuman girl who clutched humanity was doomed, along with everyone she would ever care for and her world as she knew it.

Doomed to destruction.