Eight
Creation clearedhis throat. “Ahem, greetings?” The word tumbled from his mouth clumsily. This was his destined partner . . .surelyhe could do better than that? “I am Creation, and I have come for you.”
That . . . might not have been the best phrasing.
She took a step back, fear still running rampant in her eyes. Apprehension curled around her like an impenetrable cocoon that both challenged and threatened him to break.
“Come for me? Like the rest of them?” Destruction looked him over from head to toe. Perhaps she intended to intimidate him, but shivers of delight ran up Creation’s spine just from her attention on him. “Come to take me? Or kill me? Or force me to reunite?”
“None of those things.” He took another step toward her.
In the same instant, Destruction took that same step away. She knew his movements before he made them—before he even knew he would make them. He would have reveled in it, if given the chance.
But he wasn’t.
Her magic unleashed again, charging at him with all the ferocity of an untethered hound. It meant to swallow him whole, break him apart bit by bit. Yet Creation’s own magic flared to meet it. From the moment she had set out to undo him, he was rebuilding himself.
No, more than that. His magic unraveled eagerly. It did not cancel her own but hummed overtop in harmony. The barren ground between them sizzled, crackled, split along with fissures that were quickly sutured into more perfect designs.
A trail of flowers now linked the two of them, and Creation continued forward.
“Don’t come near me,” Destruction whispered. The distrust in her voice pained him, settling like a vice around his newly formed heart. But he had faith in her, that somewhere within, if he could reach it, she would feel their bond as strongly as he had been born to.
Instead of saying so, however, he merely promised, “I will not hurt you.”
“Lies. You are of the pantheon, I can sense it. You’re a puppet of the same deities that split Oblivion in half, giving me the form I am now.”
“I am not of their pantheon.” He was not of them;was that true? He had been made by them. So, surely, he should count himself among their numbers?And yet. . . “I do not want them, I do not care for them. I am only here for you.”
A crackle of power seemed to rise off her skin, marring the air around her in waves. “To be their latest weapon against me.”
“I am no weapon.” Creation’s voice was strong, willing his point across almost sternly, but beneath the bravado, something desperate bubbled to life deep within him. He simply wanted to prove himself, simply wanted her to believe his words.
“Lies!” Destruction’s voice rose, and with it, her magic to match.
Creation watched as a shockwave launched from her. The grasses blew back and singed like a wildfire—all save for what was under his feet. Creation looked around him, trying to keep a handle on his power and just steep in hers for a moment. But as soon as the extent of the destruction became known to him, his magic surged forward and the glade was lush once more.
“I am hereforyou,” Creation attempted again, almost apologetically, though he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. “Please. Please, don’t be afraid.”
She laughed then, and there had been nothing in Creation’s short existence that had ever sounded more pleasing. Though, the sound wasn’t likely intended to be so. “Afraid? Why would I ever be afraid of you?”
Optimism filled his heart, though he willed his feet not to pull him closer to her, as much as they longed to do so. “I’m glad to hear it,” he still said eagerly, ignoring that she may well be belittling him.
“How did you come to be?” Destruction asked cautiously. “I don’t remember you among the initial pantheon when I was torn asunder. And if you’re not of them . . .”
“Youwere torn asunder? Or Oblivion was?” he attempted to clarify.
Something about the question caused Destruction to bristle, even as her magic spiked with contradicting emotion. Like defensiveness, or stubbornness. “Oblivion and I, We are the same.”
“Are you?”
She scowled and then demanded, “Answer my question.”
“I was recently made,” he answered, seeing no use in subversion. “Carver made my body. Life gave me a part of her power. Light awoke me.” Destruction scoffed, rolled her eyes, and folded her arms. “This . . . doesn’t please you?”
“And why would it?” she asked. “Why would this please me?”
The answer seeming soobvious, so deeply etched into his very being that it seemed impossible for hernotto already know. Still, he tried to assemble the right words. “Because I was hand crafted only for you.”
