Page 3 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

BOTTOMLESS

FIVE YEARS LATER

For years, I don’t use my flair. I pretend it doesn’t exist. But, as we inch closer to the Gauntlet, I start to wonder.

I start to wonder about the edges of the world. About all the stars can see.

Late one night, when everyone is asleep, I reach for that power.

Take hold of it.

I end up in the gardens. It takes hours to go back to my room. I try farther the next night. To the snowy hills just beyond the palace.

Then, to the markets.

I can’t stop. I don’t want to. Every night, I portal. I see an entire world outside my room. Outside the palace. Outside training.

And it is glorious.

There is one store in particular that I visit all the time. A licorice store. The candy stains my tongue deep violet.

Laila notices.

“What is that?” she asks.

“I stole it from the kitchens,” I lie.

She takes one. Chews it. Frowns. “That’s disgusting.”

“Good. More for me.” For months I explore, learning and testing the limits of this power, this gift. Even as my inevitable death gets closer and closer, I’ve never felt freer.

The Gauntlet is in three days. All my siblings are training.

They are getting ready to fight to the death.

Some have resorted to trying to poison others in advance of the Gauntlet, so Guardian Sorsa, my newest guardian and one who has shown me unusual kindness, tells me not to drink the morning tea.

Day by day, I watch my siblings’ bodies being carried out of the castle and buried.

Deceit is celebrated. Any means to the inevitable end. The survival of the most powerful.

Laila visits me that night. She flies through the hole in my room, and lands on her feet.

“I have to ask you something,” she says. I test the air for her emotions and feel none. She is perfectly calm as she says, “How do you want me to do it? Do you have a preference?”

For once, I feel a shudder of sadness at my impending death. Death feels worse now that there is something to live for. “Through the heart,” I say.

She nods. “Good.”

Then, she does something unexpected. She hugs me.

She buries her head against my shoulder. Only then, do I feel a single rush of emotion. One of the first times I’ve felt anything resembling sentimentality from her. “I’m going to miss you,” she says. “I’ve—I’ve enjoyed all our adventures.”

She looks up at me, and her eyes are watery. She’s crying.

“I’ve enjoyed all our adventures too,” I say, meaning it, even though most have ended with punishment.

She’s the only one of my siblings that never cast me out for not being able to use my abilities.

She’s the only person who has ever invited me to leave this room.

Without her, I would never have seen those stars.

I would never have yearned for a world beyond these walls.

And though I’ll die without seeing most of the wonders of this world, I have seen some, and that is enough.

“You’re going to make a great ruler one day,” I tell her, meaning that too.

She smiles, a single tear escaping and sliding down her dimpled cheek. “I know. I just wish you would be around to see it.”

Laila leaves, and I’m left alone, watching melted snow slide down my room’s icy window.

It’s one of my last nights alive, and I want to see beyond these lands. I want to see more .

I want to see the other island.

It’s forbidden. No one is allowed to leave Nightshade, and no one is allowed to come in. It is treasonous.

But I have nothing to lose.

There aren’t any maps of our world in this castle, but I’ve found abandoned libraries.

While the others were honing their abilities for the massacre, I’ve searched, collecting pieces, until finally, I know the way.

I know the distance. There have been benefits to being unremarkable, unworthy of much notice.

One last time, I tell myself. One last time to leave this room and explore everything outside of it. I portal farther than I ever have before.

I portal to Lightlark.

This land is not ash-covered. It is green. Its beaches are not ground-up rock, they are smooth and golden. It’s beautiful, like the stars roped in the sky.

These are our enemies.

It is treason to be here.

But I stay. I stay all night, exploring forests that have fruits I’ve never seen before, portaling to lands that are silver, and blue, and gold, and the deepest green.

By the time I return, my power is so spent, I end up in the winter palace gardens. I barely have enough ability to make it to my room.

I fall into a sleep as deep and peaceful as a waveless sea.

The next morning, I awake to the sound of screaming.

Then, silence.

Laila .

My door is locked, but I portal out of my room. I run through the halls.

That’s when I start to see them.

My siblings, strewn across the floor, their bodies mangled. Stacked. Bloodied. I have to step over them.

Laila . My abilities spread, covering the castle, searching for the unique shade of her emotions, panic bleeding through my chest.

Finally, I sense her. She’s alive. I can feel her confusion—

I turn hall, after hall, and then I see him.

My father, standing in the middle of all his dead children.

Holding Laila by the neck.

Her fear grips my bones. I’ve never felt her fear before. She’s never once been afraid.

“Tell me, Grimshaw,” my father says. He slowly turns to face me, taking her with him. “Tell me where you were last night. Tell me your secret to my face.” His black eyes are like two bottomless pools.

“I—” My mind goes briefly blank as his grip tightens on Laila.

Dread sinks through me. Someone must have seen me appear in the gardens.

My father must have tested his theory by locking me in my room.

Somehow, I manage to keep my voice steady as I tell him what he already knows.

“I can portal. I left the castle,” I say. “Now let her go.”

My father’s eyes narrow at the command, and that one look might have sent fear right to my heart, if it wasn’t already there. Not fear of him. Fear for her . “If your flair was any other than Cronan’s, I would slit your throat.”

I reach for my power. I try to portal her away, out of danger, but it doesn’t work. My emotions are too unstable, too unfettered. I’ve never portaled anyone but myself before.

He’s still holding her by the neck. “Kill her,” my father orders.

My voice does not yield, even though disobeying him is treasonous. “No.”

He tilts his head. “Let’s see if she would show you the same mercy.” With a push, he shoves her in front of me.

Laila .

I reach for her, to shield her, to take her away, somehow.

But she doesn’t reach back.

Her eyes sharpen. And, just as my arms are about to grasp her—she disappears.

No. She doesn’t disappear, she turns . With half a breath, she’s a bat. I think she might fly away, leave this place, but then I feel it.

A cold surge of determination. Ruthless, targeted focus as she hurtles right toward me, fangs aimed at my neck.

I should have known. Laila has spoken for years about killing me. We’re the last two heirs standing, and she has wanted this for her entire life.

What did I think would happen? I’ve felt her emotions. She cares for me as much as she can care for anyone ... but she cares about power more. Just like Father.

I drop my hands. I do not portal away or reach for my sword. My father’s disappointment smothers me with the heaviness of tar, but I don’t care. I don’t fight back. I would never fight her.

Her bladelike teeth meet my jugular—and something happens. The deep-rooted mine of power within me awakens.

Shadows explode from my skin, sharp as knives.

They all stab through her at once, and I watch those catlike eyes widen. She’s thrown back by the force of my shadows. By the time she hits the floor, she’s herself again.

And her body is in mangled ribbons. No . What have I done? I lunge toward her and am hit by a tidal wave of pain and panic that has me sinking to the floor. I crawl to her, and cradle her body, her blood streaming everywhere.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to stop the bleeding. Trying to keep her awake. “I don’t—I don’t know what happened, I—”

Her eyes.

They are filled with betrayal. With shock. With bone-withering sadness.

Then, nothing.

She’s dead.

I roar, clutching her body. No. This can’t be real. There has to be—there has to be a way for this to be undone.

I’ve read some of the ancient books. I know something exists ... a dangerous way to share power. To save a life. To transfer it. But it requires care on both sides.

I know better than anyone that Laila never truly cared for me at all. I try. Still, I try. I try to give her my own life, my own powers, to make up for the fact that I killed her .

But she grows colder in my arms. Her eyes remain open and blank. Her shade, her aura, is gone.

Gone .

Pain. True pain.

Shadows burst forth, destroying everything in their path, ripping open even the floors. They tear through the castle, a raging storm of darkness. My siblings’ bodies become ash before me. Laila’s body falls into the crevice, and I bellow.

Only my father and I remain.

For minutes, I just stand there, panting. Looking at what I have done. What have I done?

Then, Father walks over to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. It’s the first time he’s ever touched me. It’s the first time he’s truly acknowledged me.

“Pain is power” is all he says. He leaves, and my body finally gives. I sink to what’s left of the floor.

She’s dead because of me.

They all are.

This—this hurts too much. It will hurt forever.

My pain is infinite.

And from that day on, so is my power.

Sorsa finds me on the floor, covered in ash, trembling, hours later. That burst of power has left me hollow and cold. She slowly lifts me up and wipes my face. She gets me new clothing.

She leads me to the kitchens.

I’m shaking. I can’t stop.

There is a slight clanking as she moves around, but I barely hear it. I barely register her at all until she’s in front of me again, trying to hand me something. A mug.

At first, my shadows lash out, sharpened into talons, but she just leaves the cup in front of me. I hear the soft whisper of the door closing.

I’m about to shatter this mug into a thousand shards, but then the smell reaches me. Sweet. It’s sweet .

That fact alone makes me hate it, but I’m cold and empty inside, so I take it, against my better judgment.

I drink.

Chocolate. It’s chocolate .

I take another tentative sip.

The pain doesn’t stop. Not at all. But it helps, just a little. It keeps me conscious. It keeps me tethered here, when all I want is to leave this world and my father behind.

The drink becomes my only balm against pain I funnel into power. I hate my father, but he’s the only person I have left, so that hatred turns into wanting to please him. Wanting all this to be worth it. Convincing myself that it had a purpose.

Because if it didn’t ... they died for nothing. She died for nothing. The pain of loss becomes too much, so I fold my emotions away. I harden my heart.

I become what Laila wanted for herself.

I become my father’s greatest weapon.