Page 5 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

PEACE

Today I was finally moved from the prisons into the castle.

I’d have preferred to stay in the cell.

In the cell, no one dared touch my things .

An attendant scurries out of my room the moment I walk inside, and she had the nerve to make my bed.

No one touches my bed but me.

I don’t like people in my space.

In Nightshade, my father kept a close circle. Only a handful of trusted attendants were allowed in the castle’s private quarters.

Here ... people are everywhere. These royals don’t even make their own food. They don’t even sharpen their own blades.

No wonder that ridiculous King Egan didn’t dare step foot on the battlefield. He probably has someone hold his own sword for him.

Weak bastard.

His brother, on the other hand ... Oro. Second son. Prince.

His brother visited my cell so often, I started to wonder if he was just as lonely as I was, even with that crop of irritating friends.

I could feel his emotions, his hatred of me matching my hatred of him. But then, after a few months, after a deadly adventure, both of our hatreds subsided into something that resembles ... friendship.

I frown, even thinking the word. But it’s the truth.

My enemy has become my only friend.

What a sad existence this is.

I stop portaling home in the night.

I tell my father I’m scheming, looking for a way to get the island, but it is a lie.

This is supposed to be imprisonment, but it’s the freest I’ve been in a long while. The people here hate me, but some don’t mind my company.

I have women, from time to time, and never see them again.

The pain never subsides, but slowly, I’m able to live around it.

Little by little, I open myself up. Oro and I duel.

We talk. I spend time on Wild Isle. There are glimmers of something resembling happiness.

Peace. A life without bloodshed. Nearly two decades pass like this, and then a Wildling comes to my room, seeking me out.

She demands a flower on the remnants of Night Isle. Fine. It’s something to do.

I find it for her, and give it to her, and have her, and it’s fine . Nothing memorable, or enough to feel much of anything at all.

I don’t stay. I never stay.

I’m asleep in my own bed hours later when I hear it.

One scream.

Another.

Then, the world is screaming.

The pain rushes to the surface. It’s just like the day my father learned of my flair. The day that changed everything. The day that still haunts my every dream. Somehow, I know it’s the same.

I know if I leave my room, I’ll find everyone dead.

I leave anyway, and I’m right.

From the castle windows I watch Skylings fall from the sky.

I watch Sunlings catch aflame. I watch Wildlings rip hearts out with their teeth.

I run through the halls, over Starlings who blanket them in silver.

Dead. Everyone is dead . Just like my siblings.

Memories blind me, merging with the present.

It’s a curse. I sense it everywhere.

By who? What happened?

I turn the corner and almost crash into someone kneeling on the floor.

Oro. My friend. My only friend.

Cold relief fills me, seeing him alive.

He’s clutching his brother’s guardian, a Starling. She’s dead. Next to her lies her daughter, Ara. The girl we saved together, years ago. I feel his crushing sorrow. His crater-deep anguish. It’s enough to fill the entire castle.

Then, his fiery rage, as he looks at me.

He looks like he wants to kill me.

I blink. He hasn’t looked at me that way for years. Just yesterday, we were sitting side by side on a cliff, planning a more hopeful future for both our realms.

Now ... now, where there was once trust and friendship, I just feel pure and utter hatred. He thinks I did this. He thinks I’m responsible for all these deaths.

Could it be my father? It’s a Nightshade curse ... could my father somehow have sent someone else? Did he grow tired of my increasingly infrequent visits, and drawn-out strategies?

It wasn’t me. But his mind is made up.

It’s not just our people that die today. Our friendship dies too. Forever.

And a jagged piece of myself, of trust and hope and a sliver of happiness, dies with it.

I run in the opposite direction, closing myself off, building walls, burying any emotion that I let slip in the last two decades. A mistake. Always a mistake . I go back to my room, and I do the thing I’ve been avoiding for years.

I go back to my father.

He is barely more than flesh and bone. His chainmail hangs off him as he hauls himself to his feet, with trembling effort.

He’s just as surprised by the curse as I am. I expect him to be elated. Everyone is dying. It’s our chance to overtake the island.

Instead, he says, “It’s time, then.”

I blink, thinking I must have misheard him. His voice is hardly a croak. “Time for what?”

He only staggers down the center of the room, toward me. “While you were gone, I killed the prophet,” he says lightly. “He wouldn’t tell me the future. But the fool wrote an entire book of predictions. I tortured one of his followers until he gave me a prophecy.”

His head tilts. His eyes are filled with searing determination.

“Cronan’s power will rise again. Our line will rule them all. Nightshade will regain everything we’ve lost ...”

He’s speaking to me. He’s looking at me not with disappointment, but, for once, pride .

“The stone,” he says, his eyes filled with anticipation. “It will be yours . You will claim it.”

The diamond. Infinite.

My emotions are muted now, but I feel a whisper of unease. I’ve already seen so much death, already killed so many for my father. Today, so many died on Lightlark. How much more death can this world handle?

He continues. “It will all come to pass ... with a great sacrifice. With me laying down my life for yours. It is time .”

No. Never in a thousand years would I think my father would sacrifice himself . But all he cares about is the continuation of the line. He wants to see this world conquered, even if it requires his death.

I don’t share that same sense of duty. I don’t share that dream of conquering anything.

On Lightlark, when I was free to do what I wished ... when I wasn’t ordered to kill countless people ... I was finally approaching something close to happy.

All that is gone now.

I search the air for any tinge of emotion. Any heart from my heartless father. Sadness. Fear. Regret.

I feel absolutely nothing.

“You can’t be serious,” I say. “You would die? For this?”

He looks at me. “Do you think I fear death?” He shakes his head. “This is greater than me. Greater than you . This is fate. This is all of us playing our role so that our line never ends. So that it rules them all.”

He takes a step closer to me.

“The prophecy had one other part. Do you know what caused all of this? These deaths today? These curses? Love .” He says the word like it disgusts him.

“Do you know what the biggest threat to our line is? Not creatures. Not other realms. Love . That is the warning Cronan gave from the very beginning, and the one the prophecy promised. Love kills kingdoms.”

He takes me by the collar, with surprising strength, given his state. “You will bring us to greatness. You will ensure the prophecy is true. Kill your heart, Grimshaw. Kill your feelings. Do not be a fool.”

Then, he hands me his crown.

It feels poisonous to the touch. As if something in my marrow already knows this is a mistake.

“By the end of the day, I will be dead, and it will be your time,” my father says. “It is time for Cronan’s power to rise.”

I portal him to Lightlark. I know it’s the last time I’ll ever seen him.

And nothing will ever be the same again.