The images faded and morphed back into words that dropped to the pages. Deidre studied them, pensive. Darkyn dealt with her the same way he did everything else in his life. He allowed no room for error, no alternative but for his victory. He forced her to face her reality from the moment she awoke with his name on her back. He didn't lose at battle. He didn't lose at dealmaking. He was both a strategic thinker and capable of detailed execution. No false hope, no redress, no going back. He fought and conquered.
"Death," Zamon said. He turned the page and touched it. More words leapt from the page. "The second most powerful deity and the second most restricted. His domain extends to the mortal plane. His magic comes from the souls of the dead, which are kept in the underworld. There have been nine deities to serve in this position."
She watched in dismay as images of Gabriel played. The entirety of his history with Past-Death unfolded before her, from the moment Past-Death discovered the seventeen-year-old Gabriel, the lone survivor of demon attacks led by Darkyn. Past-Death adopted Gabriel, trained him, turned him into a killing machine, her top assassin and lover.
Deidre couldn't help staring at Past-Death in the history. Seeing Gabriel was painful. Seeing her mirror image was a reminder that Deidre was created by a goddess with the sole intention of using and discarding the human she made.
Seeing them together made Deidre's chest ache. They did love each other. Deidre watched their history and their love grow then become stale, not because of what they felt, but because of the steps Past-Death began taking to ensure she never lost him. In doing so, she drove Gabriel away.
Deidre's eyes misted over. She swallowed hard. It was a tragic love story, one she knew the end to and dreaded seeing how it came to be that way. By the end of the chain of events that led to Past-Death's rebirth in Hell, Deidre was near tears, hating herself and the woman who destroyed the worlds of all three of them.
Who was Deidre to interfere in something that spanned so long and involved two people who cared so much for each other? Who was Past-Death to create a new life simply to discard it? Deidre never felt she belonged in the mortal or Immortal worlds, because she didn't. She'd been molded to exist for one reason and expected to step aside when her purpose was fulfilled.
It hurt more than glimpsing the one scene the book recorded of her interaction with Gabriel, their first night on the beach, the one that condemned her eventually to Hell.