Page 160 of Grim and Oro
Is it the shock?
Is she unskilled?
The fall is hundreds of feet to the sea. If she doesn’t save herself, she’s going to die.
I should let her die.
It could solve the prophecy. It could make things easy. She already almost fell off another cliff a few hours ago. Perhaps this is her fate. She won’t last long in the Centennial if she can’t stopfucking falling.
She’s still screaming. She’s going to die. Yes, I should let her ...
Then, I remember the singing. I move without thinking, jumping into the air. She’s falling quickly, I’m not going to make it in time—
She hits the water.
Panic flares in me, panic I don’t understand, because I don’t know her. But her voice. It’s in my head.
I plunge in after her. The water is freezing, even to me. Her skin is already cold and prickled as my hands curl around her waist, fingers getting stuck in the gaps of the fabric, wresting her from the sea’s strong currents. Her limbs are limp.
I lift us both out of the water, sodden and dripping, then soar to her balcony, where I lay her gently on the stone terrace. I sink to my knees, resting her head in my lap, registering all the blood gushing out of it. She’s hurt.
I can still let her die.
No. I can’t. For some reason ... I just can’t. I absorb some of the water covering us, swirl it in my palm, and gently place it against her head. My thumb, inexplicably, swipes down her temple.
It doesn’t take long for the wound to heal, and for the bleeding to stop.
I should leave—but I stay, watching as her skin slowly regains its glow. As her cheeks flush a gentle pink, like the petal of a flower. It’s enough to assure me she’ll be okay ... but I can’t stop staring.Studying. I study the way her lashes fan out against her cheeks, I study the perfect cupid’s bow arch of her slightly parted lips, I study her dark hair, long and fanned out across my lap, I make a map of her in my mind. Her face, I admit, is just as striking as her voice.
I shouldn’t have saved her. I shouldn’t have interfered, this early in the Centennial ... but I couldn’t stop myself.
“This world has extinguished too many beautiful things,” I say, watching the color fully return to her face. “I didn’t want you to be one of them.”
I leave before she wakes.
She’s soaking wet when she arrives at the banquet.
Gods above, why is she stillsoaking wet?
Worse, the sound of her voice is still in myfucking head. Maybe that’s why I’m so rude to her when she sits down. Cleo joins in, baiting her. And, for some reason, the barbed words provoke a flare of defensiveness within me. I take a long sip of water, pushing it down. I saved her from death so the games could continue. That’s all.
Really.
I had a surprise prepared for her: a human heart. A magnanimous gesture on my part. I tamp down my wave of revulsion, as the server places it before her, blood oozing across gilded porcelain. It’s practically still beating. That’s what she wants, right? That’s what Wildlings crave?
I lean back, hoping to see those red lips finally turn into a smile, but the expression that passes across her features is curious. Is that—was it—disgust? I blink and it’s gone, too fleeting for me to be sure I saw correctly. It never occurred to me that Wildlings dislike this part of their curse, that they haven’t adapted to it over time.
Azul tries to speak to me, but my focus is entirely on the Wildling, and the way she begins to cut the heart on her plate. The way she spears a piece of it with her fork, before bringing it to her lips.
I don’t realize I’m staring until Grim jumps up and demands for the heart to be removed.
He claims it’s making the rest of the table uncomfortable. Interesting. I lift my brows. If I remember correctly, Grimshaw has given a shit about the well-being of another ruler exactly zero times before now—yet he has found it in himself to commandmy peopleto take the heart to the Wildling’s room.
I allow it only because a quick glance at Azul sees that Grim might be right. He looks like he has completely lost his appetite, though he would never admit it.
I turn my attention back to the insolent Nightshade. Just a few hours back inside this castle and he’s already testing my tie to the Centennial rule that states we aren’t supposed to kill each other before the first fifty days are over.
It’s supposed to encourage working together to try to break the curses. It’s supposed to avoid all this becoming a bloodbath all too soon.
