Page 61 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

She glares back at me, blazing green. “Well, I did have plans to sleep .” Lie. It’s bitter on my tongue. She wasn’t going to sleep. What was she going to do? Who was she going to do it with?

I must have let a sliver of emotion show, because she searches my expression and sighs. “Fine. Just let me get dressed.” She reaches for one of her dresses, draped across another chair. “If you could step outside—”

I frown down at the fabric, knowing where we are going and what we will be doing. “You can’t wear that.”

This makes her eyes boil with fury. “Are you telling me how to dress now?”

Infuriating creature. “During our excursions together, no one can know you are ruler of Wildling.”

She tenses. “Why?”

Truths are often hurtful. I tell them anyway. “Lightlark doesn’t like you.”

She scowls at me. “Excuse me?”

“Some ancient creatures on the island, the ones that still live in the deepest pockets of Lightlark, believe Wildlings abandoned them five hundred years ago. If they sense you, or hear rumors that you are near their land, they will attack. Which would only end in spilled blood and too much attention drawn to our efforts.”

“So, you want me to dress differently.”

It’s not just that. And I have more reasons for my request than I am telling her. I lean closer.

“I can’t sense your abilities, Wildling.” She steps back, her face panicked. “I can tell you’re cloaking them. I just ask that you keep doing that when we’re on the isles.”

I just ask that you stop beguiling me, if you ever started , is what I actually mean.

“You don’t want me using my powers?”

I nod. A little desperately.

She makes a fuss about it, but finally, she says, “Fine.”

“Good,” I say, looking down at her oversized clothing. “That will do.”

No, she’s definitely not using her powers on me.

Because instead of beguiling me, she is infuriating me.

She won’t stop talking. She won’t stop asking questions.

I’m beginning to question my own sanity.

To question how someone can be so captivating and irritating at the same time.

To question whether breaking the curses is worth this at all.

It is . Of course it is. But that doesn’t make spending time with her any easier.

“Are you going to ignore me?” she finally says at my back. I keep walking, because yes , that was the plan. Then, I hear her stop. Dramatics. Always so damned dramatic. I turn around to ask her if she’s going to be this irritating for the entire journey, but she’s already speaking.

“Just because you asked me to wear this ,” she says, “and asked me not to wear this”—she reaches up and does the unthinkable: She fucking flicks my crown —“doesn’t mean I’m not also a ruler of realm. You will treat me with respect, King .” She manages to make my title sound ridiculous.

No one, in centuries, has dared speak to me this way. And she ... this Wildling, who has no idea what she’s gotten herself into ...

She just flicked my crown.

I glare at her, still feeling the slight vibration of her touch, right in the center of my forehead. “We are going to the storm,” I bite out, before turning away again.

She follows in silence now, until we reach the coast, where the storm has gone still. I take a step toward the bridge across the stones, and hear her say, “No.”

I turn. What is she on about now? “No?”

She averts her gaze, and I remember her hesitance on Sky Isle. She is afraid of this bridge with all its gaps and the way it’s whipping wildly in the wind. Just as I was, centuries ago.

I hear my voice softening as I say, “It is steady. But if for some reason you did fall, I would obviously save you.”

There. I can be pleasant. I say the words, hoping it might inspire some pleasantness in her.

But all she does is sneer at me. “ Save me? Like you did the first day?”

Any softness immediately withers. Such gratitude. “ Yes, like I saved you the first day .”

Of course, she would turn even something like saving her life into a mark against me. This woman is going to make me lose my mind.

She laughs without humor. “I hit the water! And you left me in a puddle on the balcony, like discarded trash, without even bothering to wait and see if I woke up!”

My hands turn to fists. Maybe I should have let her die. I would have saved myself all this suffering. “You might have hit the water before I got to you, but you also had a head injury that you would not have woken up from if I hadn’t healed you.”

She straightens, chin rising. “You just admitted you didn’t get to me until it was practically too late, so the only way I’m crossing this bridge is if you’re tightly by my side. If I fall, you fall .”

Ridiculous woman. But we are wasting time. “Fine,” I say, taking her arm more roughly than I intended. She goes stiff as I walk us across the bridge. I’m not sure she’s even breathing.

“Quickly,” she whispers somewhere next to my arm, clutching it for dear life.

“You can open your eyes now,” I say when we’re safely across, dropping her arm as fast as possible.

She does, and I can almost feel her relief at having made it to the other side.

Then, she stops. Her lips part. I trace her gaze, noting how quickly I’ve gone from wanting to launch her from this cliff, to wanting to know what has caught her attention.

She’s staring at the storm, frozen beyond. And her expression is one of wonder, instead of fear. If she knew how many dead were trapped within it, she might not be looking at it as though it were something beautiful. She might stop being so infuriating.

I stop at the hole, the entrance to the underground. Only then does she look appropriately afraid.

“I’ll go first. Then you.”

I might as well have a sword at her throat, for the way she’s looking at me for implying she jump through the hole, ending nowhere to be seen. Good. We’ll see if she trusts me.

It won’t matter if she is the key to finding the heart, if she won’t work with me. I make to go through, and she grips my elbow. I go still. Her skin—it’s like flames.

“Will something break my fall?”

I barely get the word out. “Obviously.”

“Are you sure?”

She doesn’t trust me. Of course, she doesn’t ... but can she?

I sigh. I know her now. She’s proud. Stubborn. She doesn’t like to appear weak. So I say, “Fear of heights. Fear of falling. Fear of bridges. Should we make a list of your fears, Wildling?”

She glares at me, and that glare—I like it almost as much as her smiles. Because it is a challenge. A duel.

I watch her fear melt into conviction.

“Go ahead, King.”

I hold her gaze as I go through. The drop is quick. I pause just above the water, then land at its edge. And then I wait.

She’ll want to prove me wrong. She’ll want to prove her strength.

Or maybe ... she hates me enough to just stay up there all night. Time ticks by slowly. Minutes pass, and I’m almost convinced she’s gone back to the castle. Then I hear screaming, and she tumbles into the water.

She trusted me.

An ember of hope forms. Maybe we can work together. Maybe my people have a chance.

Not if she drowns.

I reach into the water and pull her onto the stone. “Took you long enough,” I say, conscious of how little time is left before daylight.

Perhaps I should have considered the consequence of testing her in this way , I think, when she pushes me with surprising strength for someone currently coughing water like she’s on the brink of death. She glares at me through the curtain of her hair, looking nothing short of murderous.

Her hands make fists. They pull back, and—

Is she going to try to hit me? Interesting. Just as I suspected. She doesn’t fear me. She doesn’t respect me. She sure as hell doesn’t like me.

I easily grip both of her wrists before she can reach me. It seems to anger her even more.

“This was all a test, wasn’t it?” she yells. She’s shivering. “You wanted to see if I could trust you.”

I nearly drop her hands. She’s read me immediately and accurately.

“I knew it.” She fights against my grip, but I don’t budge. Getting punched in the face won’t make a good start to an already tumultuous working situation.

If I expected her to lose the fight, it turns out I’m wrong. She spits at my feet, and—

Too far . Anger grips me like a vise. I glare at her and pull her forward by her wrists. My voice is cold. “Listen closely, Wildling. I don’t care if you like me. But if we’re going to work together, you need to trust me.”

She bares her teeth at me. “How am I supposed to trust you, if you haven’t even told me what you’re looking for?”

Another moment where she makes me lose my train of thought completely.

Because she’s right.

First, about me being untrusting. I’ve learned from an early age that everyone around me is a liar.

She’s also right that I haven’t given her a chance to trust me in turn. I drop her hands. I’m not used to working with anyone this closely, on something this important. King is a lonely title. No one—not even the other Lightlark rulers—could understand the responsibility I have.

Trust is foolish. As king, it is also dangerous. Especially because this Wildling has given all signs that she is my enemy. It’s time to find out if she is, once and for all.

“Are you going to divulge what I tell you to Grim?”

Silence.

It almost tells me what I need to know, but I need to hear her say it. I need to hear her say the word.

“No,” she finally says.

I wait for the bite of bitterness, the poison of a lie.

It never comes.

Relief and confusion set in. This means my assumptions about her have been wrong. But if she isn’t working with Grim, why is he helping her? Why did he come here in the first place? What is her plan?

I know nothing. That much has become very clear. All I know is, that in this moment, Isla Crown is not lying to me.

So, I decide tell her the truth. “I’m looking for Lightlark’s heart.”

She blinks. “Its what?”

I tell her about it. I show her the oasis we have landed in, filled with plants from across the entire island. I watch as she studies each one, then tells me what living thing the heart is most likely tied to.

She knows a lot about plants. Her knowledge is impressive. Useful.

And even when she calls me a lunatic when I suggest we have to fly out of the cave, even when her nails dig into my skin and she screams into my ear as I lift her into the air, even as she mutters threats and curses into my skin, even as I leave her to walk alone—so damned frustrated —I don’t regret for a moment asking her to work with me. Not really.

And that, perhaps, is the most dangerous realization of all.