Page 34 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

GILDED

The day I kill a man is the first time my father looks proud of me.

His golden gauntlet falls heavily onto my shoulder, fingers curling around my arm to turn me around, toward his small council.

The hard lines of his face soften slightly as he smiles.

“Gilding, can you imagine? Behold the strength of our line. And not even in the heir.”

He’s put the attendant I accidentally gilded on full display, in front of his council’s meeting chamber. A proud symbol of the crown’s strength.

Later, my mother finds me retching in my room. Her hand is warm on my back.

“It was an accident,” she says. “We all make mistakes.”

Maybe, but mine—this one—cost a man his life. His name was Albert. He had a family. A daughter my age. Pearl. We’ve played together.

And now.... now his gold-coated corpse is being viewed by the king’s closest circle. My monstrous action is being celebrated .

The next day, my father asks me to do it again, to perform for his council, but I can’t. I can’t do anything . I don’t want to. My shame and regret have extinguished the abilities that have always come so easily to me. Now, I couldn’t summon a flame if I tried.

He stops talking to me again. I’ve gone from being a wonder to an embarrassment.

Before I could even talk, my mother found me in my crib, the room on fire. As she’s always told it, I just stared at her through the flames.

My mother was shocked. My abilities weren’t supposed to be so advanced, for a second son.

She didn’t breathe a word of this to my father. In the middle of the night, she rushed me to her friend, a Wildling she shares a garden with. That friend, in turn, led us to a tall man named Elk.

I don’t remember any of it, just what Elk told me later.

How he trained me, as a baby. How he had to feed me honey to soothe my tantrums, lest I burn down the entire Mainland.

How he taught me to breathe through my anger.

How he taught me to keep this great power buried.

My mother brought me to him in secret, until she was confident that I had learned control. Then, the training stopped.

My mother told me not to tell my father about the strength of my abilities, and over time, I figured out why, but sometimes ... I wished I could. Maybe if he knew ... maybe it would make him look at me like I mattered.

Now that power has vanished. And my mother has started to worry.

She’s waiting in my room when I return from dinner. She’s made tea. She motions at the chair across from her.

“Sit with me, would you?”

I pause. “Is something wrong?” We always have tea in the dining room. Never this late.

“Of course not,” she says.

Bitterness. A lie I can taste like over-steeped tea, thanks to my flair. The one she doesn’t know about.

I take a hesitant step forward. Sit. She pours me tea. Stirs in the honey. We take a few sips, before she says, “Your power.”

“What about it?”

“It’s gone.”

We all know that. Me, most of all. I stare into my cup. “I’m glad. I don’t want it.”

The look of the man, gasping for his last breath as his skin hardened into gold, is seared into my mind.

I squeeze my eyes against the memory.

Her warm hand finds mine. “ Oro . You were born with great ability. We kept it in check, but if it’s buried too long ... I fear it will overtake you.”

She must see that I don’t care about the prospect of it overtaking me. Let it. It’s what I deserve, after what I did.

She tries a different approach. “If your abilities rise up at the wrong moment, it could lead to horrible destruction, and not just for one man.”

I meet her eyes. She’s telling the truth.

“What do I do?”

She stirs the spoon around and around her teacup. “I spoke to your father.” Her mouth tightens. “We’re sending you away to training early.”

A fortnight later I’m walking to Sun Isle, to formally begin my Sunling instruction. All royal heirs inherit the four Lightlark abilities—Sunling, Moonling, Starling, and Skyling—and are sent on rotations to each isle, until they master each power.

For a while, I feared my father wouldn’t let me go on the rotations. Egan himself hasn’t even finished his.

Now ... I’m being sent a year in advance.

Before the gilding, I’d have been excited. I’ve always wanted to leave the castle. I’ve wanted to do just about anything beyond its walls.

But I don’t want to ever use my abilities again. Now ... I’ll be forced to.

The walk seems to last an eternity, but finally we reach the bridge. If it can even be called that. It’s just ancient wood and rope, barely tied together and swinging wildly over a thrashing ocean hundreds of feet below.

My mother turns, momentarily blocking my view of the bridge, and her eyes are glassy.

I’ve never seen her cry, not ever. My father might think he is the strongest in the royal family; he might think his loud words and cruel orders make him so, but he’s wrong.

My mother, with her straight spine, her kind encouragement, and her firm conviction—she is strongest. She cares about the people on this island .

.. while my father has set his sights on uncharted lands and chances at gaining even more power.

More. Always more. Nothing is ever good enough.

Egan is more like my mother. He will be a great king.

“My darling son,” she says. Not second son.

She has never treated me differently than Egan.

She has never loved me less. “My sun ,” she repeats, though with the emphasis that tells me she’s calling me the name she gave me when I was little.

Her sun, shining brightly . She always smiles when she says it.

Right now, though, she looks afraid. She takes both my hands, quickly. They are warm in mine, familiar.

“I love you, Oro,” she says. “Always.” Something stings my palm, and then I see it.

She’s slipped something into my hand. The same thing she used to leave on my pillow every night when I was younger, to ward off nightmares.

The flowers she’s grown with her Wildling friend for decades. Roses with golden petals.

“You were born with fire in your heart,” she says. “It’s still there. Find it. Find your fire.”

She turns to leave, and I’m alone.

With a steadying breath, I study the bridge. It’s swinging even more wildly now, as if it knows it’s a test. My first step at being brave. At being strong.

I take a step toward it, then hesitate.

I’ll be blown off, surely. I’ll fall through the gaps.

A gust of wind has me stumbling to the side, and I hear one of the guards behind me laugh. “Foolish boy,” he says under his breath.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.

But, I decide, it will be the last.

I swallow and step onto the bridge. The second I do, my entire body lurches to the side, the structure swinging, and my hand scrapes as I fight to hold on to the rope.

My mother’s voice is in my head.

Find your fire .

Father thinks I’m weak. He thinks I’m worthless.

He’s wrong.

I take another step and trip, hurtling forward. I land on my knees, gasping as I gaze through the gaps in the planks. Rocks like knives reach toward me, hundreds of feet down.

Get up, I tell myself. Get up .

Legs shaking, I rise to my feet.

My knees nearly buckle as the bridge swings again. Salt burns my nostrils and throat; water sprays through the gaps in the planks, waves somehow reaching this high.

I slip and barely catch myself, palms raw from the rope.

I’m not supposed to, but I whirl around to face my mother. She’s already walking back toward the Mainland, her golden hair whipping wildly behind her. Her ornate dress drags across the light green grass.

Just when I think it’s easy for her to leave me, that I’ve already been forgotten, her fingers curl into a fist, as if she knew I would turn around. As if she knew I would watch her for a sign.

Just like that, the wild bridge doesn’t seem so dangerous anymore. My heart steadies me. I turn, facing Sun Isle once more.

The first time I tried to summon a flame, my mother curled my fingers into a fist and shook her head. She said, “Your fire isn’t found in the palm of your hand.” She poked at my heart. “It’s found here.”

Find your fire .

I can do this. I can make Mother proud. I can convince my father to look at me with something other than disappointment. I can survive this. I grip my mother’s rose in my palm. Make a fist around it.

I take another step. Then another.

And, just as with all hard things, this one is conquered in continuous, small steps.

When I reach the other side of the bridge I fall forward, hurling myself onto steady ground before a gust of wind can sweep me off the side of the cliff.

I did it. I made it across. I smile into the grass.

I hear a heavy sigh above me and look up to see a tall redhead casually leaning against one of the bridge’s pillars, as if the four-hundred-foot drop behind us doesn’t scare her in the slightest.

Of course not. I’ve never seen her remotely afraid of anything.

Her brow is raised. “Really? You had to turn back?”

“Shut up, Enya.”

Her laughter sounds like a song. “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me, Oro!” Then she offers her hand and helps haul me to my feet.

Before she can be accused of being too soft-hearted, she musses my hair in the way she knows I hate.

Enya had a growth spurt a few months ago.

Now we’re the same height, and she can’t go a few hours without reminding me of it.

“Good. I’m glad Sunling is corrupting you from the very first day.

You could use a little corruption, don’t you think? You’re too kind. Too honest.”

Of course I am. And she’s the only one who knows why. It’s my flair, rare for a second child.

I know when people are lying.

Lies taste bitter and rough, like sand on my tongue.

Truths are sweet like honey.

Lies hurt. It’s hard not to be honest when I can feel, constantly, the poison of all the lies around me. I decided years ago to try and always be honest.

If my father knew, he might value me. I almost told him once. But that same day, I watched him burn a man right where he stood, down to a pile of ash.

In that moment, I decided I wouldn’t ever tell him. I was too afraid of what he might use it for.

And I also understood why my mother asked me all those years ago to keep the strength of my abilities a secret.

The gilded man flashes through my memories again. I wince. Enya squeezes my shoulder, as if she can feel my guilt.

Enya is my best friend—and the daughter of a high-ranking noble, who happens to also be my mother’s closest friend from childhood.

She would never tell a soul my secrets. We have a private code.

When someone is lying, I raise my chin slightly.

I bow it in an almost imperceptible nod when someone is telling the truth.

She tries to guess herself, sometimes. I’ve always told her some people are good liars. Some people believe their lies, which makes them hard to decipher.

Enya thinks my flair is incredible. A gift.

More often than not, I feel it’s a curse. Like when I ask questions I don’t want the answers to.

“Ready?” she asks, pulling me toward the golden castle. The only good thing about starting training early is that we’re in the same year now.

“No,” I say truthfully, because my own lies feel bitter on my tongue.