Page 81 of Skyshade
“We were different.”
He had fallen in love with a person who had barely left her room. Who had never known an intimate touch. Who had never known power.
She had fallen in love with a ruthless warrior who had planned to kill her, at one point.
“Sometimes I think our love was cursed from the beginning. That it started with so much hatred...so much blood...it could never lead to anything good.”
He was silent. She turned to face him, only to find him frowning. “From the first moment I saw you, I didn’t stop thinking about you, and I hated it. I thought you were a curse. Hatred was a lot easier to admit to myself than love. It was a lot more familiar.” He shook his head. “I...I’m sorry for ever hating you.”
“I’m sorry too.” She had stabbed him in the chest during their first meeting. She had kept countless secrets from him. She had chosen someone else over him. Right at this very moment, she kept a prophecy from him that could lead to his death, by her own hand.
“I’ve never loved anyone,” Grim said, and she turned sharply to face him. “Not until you.”
His face was clear. His eyes were earnest. It made her sad. “That can’t be true.”
“It is. I started to believe I was incapable of it...of any of the feelings I sensed from others...of loving someone so much, I would die for them, without question.” He leaned against the ledge again. “I would watch, sometimes, in the villages, a family walking down the streets, smiling. A husband and wife with their arms linked. I thought it impossible to be that happy. I thought love was the greatest lie. The most outrageous fantasy.” His eyes narrowed. “I hadn’t...I hadn’t ever imagined myself happy. I didn’t think I would ever deserve it. Not after everything I had done.” His body tensed, as if he had been snagged by a memory. “When I was young, we were trained to be ruthless, to have heart trained out of us.”
Isla’s voice was barely a whisper as she settled beside him, staring out at the greenery. “How do you have the heart trained out of you?” She wondered if she should even ask.
Grim raised a shoulder. “You ensure a child is never loved.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “There was one guardian I grew attached to. Against orders, she would tell me stories from her village before bed. She brought me one of her own child’s balls to play with. She...cared for me, and I cried saying goodbye to her. My fatherfound out and had her executed. He made me watch.” Tears burned her eyes, fury at his father for being a monster, anger for the childhood that had been ripped away from Grim.
He glanced at her. “‘Love is a disease,’ my father used to say. ‘Love kills kingdoms.’ So, he tried to rid me of it.”
In their world, love did kill kingdoms. When power could be shared, it could be taken. As Isla thought about the oracle’s prophecy, and the sacrifice he had already made for her, she couldn’t help but think—
His father had been right.
“I come from a long line of heartless men, modeled after Cronan.” Her jaw set at the mention of Grim’s ancestor, who had founded Lightlark with Horus Rey and Lark Crown. “His cruelty was seen as strength. According to my father, he was the model we all fought to emulate. Even the most barbaric of practices.”
“Like what?” Again, she wondered if she should even ask, but she wanted to know him, know the childhood that had made him into someone he considered a monster.
His eyes blazed with fury. “Cronan had children. Many, many children, as much as he could.” He swallowed. “He buried them beneath the land, their power fed it.”
She stilled against the ledge. “He killed his children?”
“All except the strongest. And that was how the line continued.”
Isla gaped at him. No. She couldn’t be hearing him right. Her eyes stung. “You—you can’t mean...”
Grim nodded. “Every Nightshade ruler before me has had dozens and dozens of children. Has raised them until they were of age. And has forced them to compete to the death.”
No.
She had heard of Grim’s brutal training. Never once had she considered that there were others. His siblings, who he must have been raised to think of as his rivals.
“So, you—you...” she couldn’t say the words.
Grim, mercifully, shook his head. “I was spared by my flair. The moment my father found out about it, he slaughtered the rest of his children himself.”
Isla was crying. Grim had always been alone...but he hadn’t needed to be. He’d had family. And they were all dead. No wonder he hated his father. No wonder he had fought against love and connection.
“But you...you don’t have children,” she said, confirming. He had told her as much in the past, when she had inquired about the line of women she had once joined.
“No. From the moment my father died, I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew I would never be able to...”
Isla grabbed his hand. She felt sorry for all the innocent children, brought into this world to die. She felt rage for the rulers who had killed them, all for power.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. She knew what it was like to grow up alone.
