Page 22 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

FOOL FOR HER

Maybe I don’t need the sword.

That’s what I think days later, when I’ve finally gotten the man’s blood out from under my fingernails, because my shadows weren’t enough to satisfy me; I had to tear him apart with my bare hands.

Maybe Isla doesn’t need to die.

Perhaps I can be the solution. Maybe I alone am powerful enough to stop this. End it once and for all, with all this limitless power I never wanted.

That’s how I find myself at the scar with a dozen of my strongest warriors.

The air is filled with shrieks—it’s been breached again. I watch one of my men get torn in half right in front of me.

My shadows unleash, as I think of her.

Green eyes. One day, perhaps, looking at me with something other than hatred.

Green eyes ... beneath me.

Green eyes ... across an altar.

Green eyes ... in a child.

The thought nearly steals my breath, and I roar as shadows race from my fingers in waves. One after the other, the dreks in the sky turn to ash, falling around us, but I don’t stop.

I kill them all. I kill anything that can stand between her and me. Anything that can bring her harm.

I kill and kill and kill until my shadows run dry.

Because that is what I’ve always been best at. Killing .

I wonder if I can ever be good at anything else.

I wonder if I can be good to her .

And that is when a drek shreds my chest with its talons.

I roar and turn it to cinders. Turn everything to cinders.

A distraction. I was distracted , thinking of her, of us , of a future we could never have, and I let my guard down. Teeth gritted in pain, I portal back to my room, and I ’ m bleeding . I’m alone.

Darkness crawls beneath my skin, the drek poison seeping into my blood. My heart begins to slow. My breaths start to hurt.

I don’t know if my power is enough to heal this, to overcome this. When my eyes close, I might wake up, hours later, soaked in sweat, gasping. Or ... I might not wake up at all.

I always imagined dying alone. Me, bleeding out next to the scar, a thousand dreks blocking out the sun, thrusting me into an endless darkness.

But right now ... I don’t want to be alone.

I want to die looking into piercing green eyes.

I portal to her room before I can change my mind, landing roughly, my power nearly giving out.

“Hearteater,” I croak.

She’s next to me in an instant, and I can feel her concern. It’s real .

“Grim?”

“I believe you’ll be pleased,” I say, barely managing to get the words out. My blood is everywhere, staining her floor.

She doesn’t seem to care. “Will I?”

“Something got very close to killing me.”

She doesn’t feel pleased at all. No, she feels panicked, and anxious, and afraid. “Oh? That is wonderful news,” she whispers, playing along. Neither of us capable of admitting the truth.

I nod. “It is with great regret that I share it did not succeed.”

She shrugs. Her eyes slip down my considerable injuries. “Not yet, at least.”

I bark out a laugh, surprising myself. Then I groan, my chest aflame.

Her arms are around me and yes, I think I could die now, happily. She starts unbuttoning my shirt, and I wish she was doing it for any reason other than to get a better look at my wounds.

Shock .

“What is this?” she asks.

I know what she’s seeing. Dark veins and marks, the ruinous extent of my injuries. Part of the reason the dreks have been impossible to defeat.

“The elixir, Hearteater,” I say, having a thought. “The Wildling flower.”

Ever since she’s used it on me and I saw its potency, I’ve wondered if it might work on these wounds.

Her face is going blurry. The room is spinning. I can feel myself losing my grip on consciousness.

This Wildling ruler who hates me is the only thing standing between life and death.

As I succumb to darkness, I wonder which she’ll choose.

I dream of her again, just like every night.

In this dream, I take her to the winter palace. I walk her through the same halls I explored as a child.

I smother the bad memories with new ones, with better ones.

In my dreams, I wake up next to her every morning. Isla .

In my dreams, I run my lips across her pulse and feel it race for me. I bury my hands in her hair, touching each strand, and she lets me.

In my dreams, she lets me fall asleep in the crook of her shoulder. She lets me wake her up in the middle of the night, to bury myself in her.

She lets me watch her, all the time.

When she sees me staring, she doesn’t glare; she smiles . She laughs.

In my dreams, it’s just her and me and the little life we’ve created, and I am finally, thoroughly, infinitely, and wholly happy.

I don’t want to wake up.

No, my dreams were far better than reality. But when I open my eyes and see her green ones looking back, my disappointment withers away.

What a way to wake up.

She saved me.

She saved me .

She could have been rid of me.

I suppose she needs me, to find the sword. To have me as an ally in the Centennial. To save her people.

But no, the relief I feel from her when I open my eyes ... it can’t just be for her realm. I hope it’s not.

I watch her warily. I don’t know what’s a dream and what’s reality.

I don’t know if my read of her feelings is just hope. I don’t know how she could truly care for me, when no one else ever really has. When I have given her more than one reason not to.

“You healed me,” I finally say.

She didn’t just heal me ... she took my shirt off. She portaled me to my bedroom. She put sheets over me.

“It isn’t the first time,” she says hurriedly, as if embarrassed. “And ... you have healed me too.”

It’s true. We’ve healed each other.

“Thank you,” I say, and I wonder if it’s the first time I’ve ever said it. Then, I lean forward and do something tender, something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

My lips brush against her forehead. A quick kiss.

It lasts half a second, yet my lips are tingling. My skin prickles everywhere. My heart is racing.

Our feelings have bled together. I can’t parse out which ones are hers or mine.

Shock. I feel it like a light sting on my tongue.

Then, concern. Confusion.

Finally, anger.

Anger .

“What happened?” she demands. Her eyes narrow. “Are you—are you looking for the sword without me?”

Ah. She thinks the wounds are from the dragon.

“I’m not.”

Of course, she doesn’t believe me.

I give her a look. “I am the ruler of Nightshade. Do you truly believe working with you is the only opportunity I have to be wounded?”

“Yes,” she says. “Because only in the cave can you not use your powers. With them, you just do ...” She makes wild, dramatic motions in front of her.

I frown. “I do what ?”

“You know what I mean,” she says, though I absolutely do not. I’ve never made motions like that in my life. “Shadows. Death. Stuff. You know.”

Shadows. Death. Stuff . I’m so glad that’s what the woman I can’t get out of my head thinks of my powers.

I have the sharp urge to show her everything I’m capable of, if only to see if I might finally impress her.

Instead I sigh. “Well, the creatures I face often are mostly immune to shadows. Death. Stuff .”

There it is. I’ve told her yet another thing I should keep secret.

“Grim,” she says, and the way it feels to hear her say my name is indescribable.

I want her to say it again. I want her to gasp it.

I want her to think of me as much as I think of her.

“What is going on in Nightshade? What could possibly be strong enough to wound you like this? Why do you need the sword?”

All valid questions. I can see her concern. I study her, trying to find some indication her feelings are false. I find none.

“It is treason if I tell you. It is one of the greatest secrets of our realm.” No one knows how weak and vulnerable Nightshade is right now. How close to ruin.

She just looks at me, and whispers, “Everything about this is treasonous.”

She’s right.

Us, in my bed.

Me, thinking about her in my bed, almost every waking moment.

Her ... caring about me.

Me, caring back.

“I suppose you’re right,” I say. Then, after she’s asked me countless times over the last few months, after I’ve refused to answer, I finally tell her.

“Centuries ago, after the curses were spun, a scar opened up across Nightshade. Winged beasts began escaping from it. They look like dragons, but smaller, and their scales are nearly invincible. They’re called dreks, and they have already killed thousands. ”

Her concern widens. “Do people live near the scar?”

I nod. “Near the parts that are inactive. The attacks have been concentrated to one area in the last century.”

For now.

I rub a hand across my forehead. I haven’t slept well in years. The safety of my realm, and people, its future, is on my shoulders. Before I know it, the scar will rip completely, and there will be nothing I can do.

I could portal my people away, but where would we go? The only place with enough power to sustain us is Lightlark.

And it’s gone, inaccessible until the Centennial.

“Dreks used to be people, millennia ago. My ancestor Cronan cursed his warriors to become unbeatable beasts. He had the blacksmith make him a sword, imbued with his power, so his later generations could control the drek army. Also ... so they could make new ones. After his death, one of his descendants predicted the dreks would lead to the end of the world, so she cursed the sword to be unusable by a Nightshade ruler. Dreks had ravaged both Lightlark and Nightbane. After Cronan’s death, they were all banished below.

Now ... they’ve started rising up again. ”

“So ... the sword controls the dreks. That’s why you want it? To stop them?”

I nod. “My father was obsessed with finding the sword.” He was obsessed with finding anything that might give him an edge. For a moment, I remember that stone. The one that nearly killed him, at the end of his life.

I’m surprised I’m speaking about him at all, especially to a Wildling. But she’s not just a Wildling. Not anymore.

She’s patient and interested. “Why?”

“He wanted to use it to invade Lightlark. It would have been easy, with the dreks.” I don’t have that same motivation. Not that it would be possible until the Centennial, anyway. Also ... I’ll never forget how many died in the war. I’m content with our land ... if I can banish the dreks.

She asks me something that makes me pause.

“What was your mother like?”

I’m silent for a few moments, feelings long buried now slowly rising. “I wouldn’t know.”

Her brows come together. “She—died? In childbirth?”

“No. On Nightshade, rulers don’t take wives. They don’t ever even bed the same woman twice. Or, at least, they’re not supposed to.”

She looks far more horrified than I would have expected. “What? Why?”

“A precaution. Love makes our power vulnerable. It is a weakness.” I remember what my father said. Love kills kingdoms .

She’s staring at me. I search around for her feelings and find only sadness. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“I do. If I love someone, they have access to my ability. It’s a liability. My ancestors never cared to take the risk.”

“That’s why you had the line of women,” she says. “The volunteers. To make sure ... to make sure you never sleep with the same person twice.”

Exactly. “Not that I would remember them, but the palace has records. It’s a precaution. It’s been that way for generations.”

Then, she says something that shocks me, though it shouldn’t. She’s clever. She’s sharp. “You’re trying for an heir, aren’t you?”

It’s true, though since I met her, I haven’t been trying at all.

I remember sending the Covets away. I remember realizing no one would ever compare to her. The idea of being with someone else, even in the basest sense, repulses me.

She really has ruined me. The world seems dull now that I’ve seen her. Her beauty makes everything else look lesser.

I’m knocked out of my thoughts by a flash of her jealousy. Of unease. “I’m guessing ... it hasn’t worked?”

“Bearing children as a ruler can take time.” I realize now why she might feel uneasy. Having an heir would mean I couldn’t attend the Centennial. It’s one of the rules. I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my part of the deal. “No, I haven’t continued since we made our agreement.”

I don’t tell her I have no plan to fulfill our agreement at all. She’ll be dead before the Centennial, if we can find and unlock the sword. My realm will be rid of the dreks.

She’s still thinking about me having previously tried for an heir, because she says, “You think the dreks will eventually kill you. You want to ensure your realm survives.”

Precisely. “It’s my duty.”

“And if you did eventually have a child, after the Centennial, you wouldn’t want to know the mother? You wouldn’t ... allow her to help raise the child?”

I wonder why she’s so interested. I see the flash of green eyes again, from my dream, in the face of a child. An ache goes through me, as if I’ve already lost something I never had in the first place.

I feel the same way when it comes to her.

I’ll never have her.

But I grieve her loss all the same.

“No.” That isn’t our way.

There it is. The sadness. “That sounds ... very lonely.”

Does she pity me?

A wave of defensiveness crests.

“I’ve never felt lonely in my life,” I say, and it is a lie .

If I haven’t felt lonely in centuries, it’s because I haven’t allowed myself to feel anything at all. Not since I lost Laila.

Now she’s awakened my emotions again, and I’m not sure if it’s the best or worst thing that could have happened to me.

I don’t know if she’s a cure or curse.

Her voice is gentle. Quiet. “Maybe you just don’t know what it’s like to miss someone, then. Because you don’t open yourself up long enough to let them in.”

The way she says it is almost like a beckoning.

I can almost feel it in her emotions, I can almost read her mind.

Let me in , is what they both seem to say.

No , I want to reply. Everything I care about ends in ruin.

I think about Laila. How she trusted me , and I killed her.

I killed her .

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, my voice rougher than I intended. “Love is for fools, anyway. It makes people do foolish things.” I look at her very closely, as if to ensure her very soul and essence understand perfectly what I’m about to say. “I do not intend to become a fool.”

I say it as though I haven’t already become one for her.