Page 157 of Grim and Oro
He’s baring his teeth at me now. Showing his true colors. The Grim I have known for nearly two decades is gone. He didn’t even exist in the first place. I take a step toward him. Another. Ice freezes the ground beneath my feet. My burning hatred and fury and betrayal run through my veins, heating the fire in my palms.
For the first time in years, I want to kill someone purely for the sake of seeing them dead. Hatred rages through my veins, sharper than ever before. It’s blinding.
I almost kill him. But I am not him. I will be better than this cursed demon in front of me. Heishis father.
I am not mine.
I take a step toward him, voice shaking with rage, and say, “You and your realm have taken everything from me. Every single thing I’ve ever held dear.” I take another step, drawing close to him, so that he can hear the conviction in my voice. I say the words, meaning them more than I have ever meant anything. I say them like a curse. “One day, I will find a way to hurt you. One day, you will want something more than anything else in this world, and I will take it from you.”
To think—to think I thought we could have been friends.
My voice sears through the halls. It seems to quiet even the chaos around us. For a moment, he looks shocked. Hurt, just as I am.
I watch as any light within him flickers—then gutters out. A bitter smile overtakes his face, eyes dark and cruel as night. “Well, that’s the good thing about not caring. I don’t want anything.”
Screams sound behind me. Familiar ones. I hesitate for a moment, wanting to hurt him. Wanting to make him feel physical pain to match my own torment. Instead, I run toward the screaming, knowing with certainty that one day, I’ll make good on my promise to him.
By the end of the day, my brother and all the other rulers are dead. The last of my family—gone.
And I am king. The role I never wanted. My heart hardens within me.
It doesn’t thaw for another five hundred years.
THE CENTENNIAL
500 YEARS LATER
Only joined can the curses be undone
Only after one of six has won,
When the original offense
Has been committed again
And a ruling line has come to an end
Only then can history amend.
“We’re all taking bets.”
Enya’s voice is casual, but I know her well enough to recognize the fear threading through her words.
“On what?” I ask, half my mind somewhere else.
“Whether the cursed Nightshade will grace our island with his presence,” Zed says, sprawled out on a chair on our favored floor, throwing his blade through the air, and catching it by the hilt. At the sound of the word—Nightshade—anger heats in my blood, on instinct. “I say no. He’s a coward. His curse isn’t so bad. He gets the sunlight, though I suppose the demon would prefer night.”
“I’ve had enough of night,” Enya breathes.
We all have. The first decades were torture. Not feeling the warmth of the sun, hiding from it like beasts. Some Sunlings went mad. They threw themselves outside to die. I saw a man do it once,through the sliver of a veiled window. For just a moment, when the sun hit him, he looked at peace.
Then he erupted in flames.
“Do you really think we have a chance this time?” Calder asks. He’s stone-faced, as always. But I can sense the hope in his tone.
“Only if he shows up,” I say tightly. And only if I can find the heart of Lightlark.
It’s the power seed of the island, made up of pure, ancient Sunling, Wildling, and Nightshade ability, formed by our ancestors. Decades ago, I became convinced that finding it—and using it to spin the curses—was the mistake spoken about in the prophecy. The one that needed to be repeated, to right everything.
