Page 72 of Nightbane
He hated her. She didn’t really understand why. Was it because she was Wildling? Was it because she had seriously injured him during their first meeting?
It didn’t matter. She had been raised to hate him too. Nightshades were villains. Theirs was the only realm that drew power from darkness. Their abilities were mysterious, intrusive, vile. They had the power to spin curses. Most people thoughthewas responsible for them.
She reminded herself that working with him meant he wouldn’t become her enemy during the Centennial. He could be the only reason she actually survived it.
“Wait,” she said. “If my guardians come in and see I’m gone—” They usually granted her privacy after training, but it wasn’t night yet. They could very well check in on her while she was away.
“I’m going to set an illusion in your room.”
Oh. She supposed he had thought of nearly everything.
So why did he need her? It didn’t make any sense.
“Great. Let’s get this over with,” she said, taking his hand.
Before the final word left her mouth, they were gone.
They landed on the edge of a cliffside made up of lustrous black rocks, crudely puzzled together. Ocean crashed hundreds of feet high, so close she could smell the sea spray. Rain instantly flattened her hair against her face in wild strands. It soaked her to the bone. She shivered immediately.
Isla heard the unforgiving sound of iron banging against iron, far above. They were on a ledge.
“Where are we?” she asked, gasping through the wind and cold. She wasn’t sure where she was expecting Grim to take her first on their search, but it wasn’t here.
“Before we look for the sword, I need to pay a little visit to its creator,” he said simply. “The blacksmith.”
From Grim’s mouth the title sounded ancient.
“We’ll have to climb the rest of the way to his forge,” Grim said before stepping in front of her, toward the next wall of dark rocks. He didn’t offer an explanation. Could he not use his abilities close by? Did he not want the blacksmith to sense him coming? With one gloved hand on the rocks, he suddenly turned as if in afterthought and said, “Don’t let the rocks cut you.”
Grim started up the wall. She reluctantly followed.
The rocks were slippery in the rain. Isla grabbed one and had to strain the muscles in her fingers just to hold on. By the time she moved a few feet, she looked up to see that Grim was already almost halfway up. Demon. He would leave her if she wasn’t quick enough.
She squinted through the rain as she fought to grasp the next rock. The next. Her shoes were made with special bark at the bottom that had a good grip, at least. She climbed higher. Higher.
While she moved her feet into their next positions, her fingers suddenly slipped, and her heart seemed lodged in her throat in the slice of a second it took to find another hold. She grabbed it desperately, without caring about the sharp corners.
Blood seeped down her hand, warm against the freezing rain. So much for not cutting herself. The rocks were sharp as knives. She risked a quick look down and swallowed. From this height, scraping against them would disembowel her before the fall would kill her.
Her gaze traveled up. And up. She was less than halfway done. There was no way she could make it, not without slipping again.
Isla closed her eyes. Her mind was running wild with fear and a thousand stressful scenarios that hadn’t happened yet, so she focused on her breathing. This was unfamiliar terrain, but she had climbed her entire life. Terra would have told her that any climb could be broken into smaller steps. She started up again, concentrating only on the path right in front of her. And breathing.
She inched up the rock face, fingers carefully dodging the sharpest points of the stones. They were each long and narrow, a thousand giant crystals crushed together to form a wall. Her hand screamed in pain, and red kept streaming, even after the rain cleaned it, again and again. She would need to use her Wildling healing elixir when she returned to her room.
Almost there.
Before she could reach for the final few rocks, strong arms pulled her up the rest of the way, careful not to drag her against the cliffside. Then she was unceremoniously discarded on the ground. Mud squelched below her. She imagined she was now caked in it.
She glared at Grim, hovering above. His dark hair was plastered down his forehead, over his eyes, down half of the bridge of his nose. Even without his armor, he looked terrifying. She thought about the rumor that he had killed thousands with his blade, and the fact that this might have been their last sight. A towering shadow. “You are an exceptionally slow climber,” he said. “I should have left you behind.”
He turned on his heel and continued the rest of the way.
Isla muttered words that Poppy and Terra certainly didn’t know she used as she followed him.
The banging of steel now rang through the rain, so loud, Isla winced as they got closer. Thunder rumbled above as if warring with the sound. The very ground seemed to tremble.
They climbed at a sharp incline, until finally, at the top of the hill, a structure came into view. Grim paused, his black cape whipping wildly in the wind.
