Creation cleared his throat. “Ahem, greetings?” The word tumbled from his mouth clumsily. This was his destined partner . . . surely he 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 here for you,” 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 . . .”

“You were 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 so obvious, so deeply etched into his very being that it seemed impossible for her not to already know. Still, he tried to assemble the right words. “Because I was hand crafted only for you.”

Despite the honesty, Destruction bristled. “Made for me?” Her voice became as sharp as a razor’s edge. “You were ‘made for me’ by people who know nothing of me—by the people you somehow claim not to be a part of. The same divine who look and see me only as something to be controlled and tamed and leashed down.”

“That’s not—”

“I will not have it!” she proclaimed. “Go back to your masters and tell them that I am not beholden to them or to Chaos. I do not wish to be joined with her or their pantheon. I am my own woman, and nothing will change that!”

Creation watched as her eyes widened and lips parted. He could nearly feel her horror at the words she allowed to escape her lips. A confession. She was her own woman . . . a woman whom he’d known only in concept but saw now, with his own eyes, in all her autonomous glory. It was a glory that he . . . he . . .

His mind froze, and his heart sputtered.

An autonomy that he only wished he possessed.

“Nothing will change that,” he repeated softly, like a vow. A soft breeze rustled the trees and grasses as if in agreement.

Destruction stared back at him, searching, as if words seemed to evade her.

“Would you prefer it if I called you Zoria, then? Instead of the name the divine refer to you as?” he asked as gently as possible.

“What did you call me?” she hissed.

“Zoria, that’s what the mortals call you, isn’t it?” It came from the same knowing he had been born with. “They don’t call us by our names—Destruction, Chaos, Creation, or—”

“Creation.” The name seemed to stick with her. “Is that you?”

Warmth bloomed across his chest at her recognition. “It is.”

“Then let me use your name to say this: Stay away from me, Creation. Now and always.”

That warmth turned to frost in his veins. “But we are—”

“We are nothing.”

“You are everything to—”

Destruction raised her hand and Creation barely had enough time to react. The moment she unleashed her power, he caught her wrist and held it tight. Her magic exploded against him, washing over him like a violent tide. He weathered it and protested with his own power. Together, the glade shifted shapes and colors, spurred on by the relentless wave of death and rebirth.

“You are everything to me,” he finally finished. Destruction’s other hand raised up and he took hers in both of his. He brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them gently. “You are what I live for.”

“You . . .” She stalled and simply met his eyes. “You don’t even know me.”

Creation was sure she meant the words as a protest. Yet, somehow, they seemed more open now, not quite an invitation but no longer an outright rejection. There was a rush of something happening between them—a sort of feedback loop where for everything she destroyed, he made . . . including their own relationship.

“Allow me to know you?”

“Why?”

“Because I—” Creation stalled. There should be an answer. It was right there, right on the tip of his tongue, right where he wanted to access it but . . . “I—”

Her face fell. “You don’t know, do you?”

He wanted to know. He wanted to know everything about her, to earn her trust and with it access to the deepest portions of her being. Yet, in the moment he needed to articulate that the most, he couldn’t find the words.

“You’re just doing what they command, after all.” She pulled away and an icy void rushed to fill the space she’d just been occupying. “You don’t feel anything. You’re nothing more than a shell. You only feel what they designed you to.”

Creation wanted to object. But silence was the only thing he was able to provide.

Destruction—Zoria, the woman who was his true companion—slowly shook her head. Pain welled in her eyes and he was now too far to wipe away the shining drops, like so many extinguished stars, from their corners. She turned and ran. He wanted to chase after her, wanted to stop her from being outside of arm’s reach ever again. But he couldn’t move. Her words cemented him in his spot.

His affections for her seemed so complete. So then why couldn’t he object to them being solely by design?

What was the true nature of his feelings?

What was the true nature of who he really was? Not just in relation to her, but to himself?