Page 96 of Skyshade
She looked down at her ankle and found it wrapped around and around, in bandages already soaked with blood—but not as much as there should be. Grim was in the process of changing them.
When he saw her awake, he knelt beside her in an instant.
She strained to get up from the chaise he had dragged next to the fire.
“Creatures—”
“I saw them,” he said. “Or what was left of them.” He looked at her in question. She was good with her daggers, but even she could not shred a creature of that size the way that demon had.
“Something saved me,” she admitted.
That was when Grim held up the book. He must have found it within the maze. Isla’s reflexes made to fling it across the room, to warn Grim not to touch it.
Then, he held up the head of the faceless demon that had crept out of it.
Oh.
“It saved me,” she said, a little sad to see it dead, even though it had hunted her.
He raised a brow at her. “It tried to tear me to pieces.”
Fair.
Isla had seen the demon at work. Sometimes she forgot how powerful Grim was.
Then came questions she wasn’t prepared for. “What were you doing in the maze, Isla? What is this book?” The pages had remained blank for him, then.
She stilled, wondering how much to say. She remembered how his advisors had warned him...had called her a traitor. A snake. Even now, though, Grim didn’t look upset...no. If anything, he looked confused. Hurt.
She told part of the truth. “I thought it might help me find the portal.”
He blinked. “Did it?”
She nodded. “It did.”
It had all come together on her way out of the maze.
He looked at her expectantly.
“The portal is the coffin.”
Grim’s eyes narrowed, considering.
“It’s empty. His flair was portaling.” Bones hold more power than blood. “I think...I think his bones created it, became the portal.”
Grim bit the inside of his cheek in concentration. “The maze...it hid its power.”
She nodded.
Isla expected to feel melting relief—they had found the portal. But it didn’t even look open. She had no idea how to permanently close it, or if that was even possible, when she couldn’t use power around it.
She sighed, leaning back, and caught a glimpse of glimmering ink. The swirl on her arm that she had previously kept hidden. Her sleeves had been torn by the beasts and thorned maze. It was fully visible between the tatters.
The shadows she had kept over them would have been released in the labyrinth. She had passed out before being able to put them back.
Grim had clearly seen it, while he had healed her. Slowly, she looked up at him. He didn’t drop her gaze as he said, “What, Hearteater, is that?”
BONES
