Page 89 of Secrets and Starlight
“You’ve returned,” Gloom said, her voice still carrying an ancient weight.
Once again, the detachment of this place weighed on me. I became not-quite-Zayne, a mortal soul forced to find its place in the Divine Realm, and there was no questioning the power tugging at the threads of my being.
The black diamond. Gloom’s divine artifact. As the ruby ring was to Ninti, the black diamond was to Gloom.
And it was mine.
“Brother,” another entity said. I felt my sister’s presence, and I rose from darkness and into fog.
Gloom’s mists surrounded us, my twin sitting upon the Shadow Throne, connected to our homeland and grounded in a way I wasn’t. At this very moment, she maintained the meditation she’d endured for the last month.
Her spirit was in even worse condition than I expected, withering away in her attempt to keep Gloom from expanding.I wish it surprised me more, how well she could hide her pain with what little strength remained.
Now I could end this—I could save her.
Nobody could manipulate Gloom.
Except me.
“We’ve gathered the shards,” I told her.
I turned about, trying to take in Gloom, the deity surrounding me, but I was unsure where to look. Despite the unification of the diamond, the deity remained fractioned and distant. Regardless, I opened my mouth to speak.
Gloom answered in a giant gust, seizing my intentions before I had time to voice them. With a rush, the fog darkened and took to the wind. We left the Isle of Shadow behind.
I was forced away from Eleanor before I could say goodbye.
But it was done.
At long last, Gloom drifted away from my homeland, freeing it from stagnation. The isle could live again.
But there was no time to celebrate. Racing like the wind, I was whisked away with the stagnant mists, taken northward and away from my home.
“You have the diamond now,” Gloom observed, her tone a depressed monotone. “It has been so long since I was shattered. I forgot how it felt to be whole.”
Her words shook around me, and the divine mists grew deeper and thicker, surrounding me. Becoming me. I began to loose track of who I was.
“So long, so long…” she repeated.
I have to go.
But where? There was nothing but the darkness that swallowed me. I called out, but my voice was consumed by Gloom’s mists.
“So long,” she repeated.
The last of me reached for the deity’s help.
And the fog consumed me before she took note.
Chapter thirty-two
Black Diamond
Ayla
The tether told me nothing. There was only a dark fog where Zayne was supposed to be. He wouldn’t leave me like this, not without warning, not on purpose…
“By Teyr,” I cursed.
