Page 179 of Grim and Oro
“You don’t want me using my powers?”
I nod. A little desperately.
She makes a fuss about it, but finally, she says, “Fine.”
“Good,” I say, looking down at her oversized clothing. “That will do.”
No, she’s definitely not using her powers on me. Because instead of beguiling me, she isinfuriatingme. She won’t stop talking. She won’tstop asking questions. I’m beginning to question my own sanity. To question how someone can be so captivating and irritating at the same time. To question whether breaking the curses is worth this at all.
It is. Of course it is. But that doesn’t make spending time with her any easier.
“Are you going to ignore me?” she finally says at my back. I keep walking, becauseyes, that was the plan. Then, I hear her stop. Dramatics. Always so damned dramatic. I turn around to ask her if she’s going to be this irritating for the entire journey, but she’s already speaking.
“Just because youaskedme to wearthis,” she says, “and asked me not to wear this”—she reaches up and does the unthinkable: She fuckingflicks my crown—“doesn’t mean I’m notalsoa ruler of realm. You will treat me with respect,King.” She manages to make my title sound ridiculous.
No one, in centuries, has dared speak to me this way. Andshe... this Wildling, who has no idea what she’s gotten herself into ...
She just flicked my crown.
I glare at her, still feeling the slight vibration of her touch, right in the center of my forehead. “We are going to the storm,” I bite out, before turning away again.
She follows in silence now, until we reach the coast, where the storm has gone still. I take a step toward the bridge across the stones, and hear her say, “No.”
I turn. What is she on about now? “No?”
She averts her gaze, and I remember her hesitance on Sky Isle. She is afraid of this bridge with all its gaps and the way it’s whipping wildly in the wind. Just as I was, centuries ago.
I hear my voice softening as I say, “It is steady. But if for some reason you did fall, I would obviously save you.”
There. I can be pleasant. I say the words, hoping it might inspire some pleasantness in her.
But all she does is sneer at me. “Saveme? Like you did the first day?”
Any softness immediately withers. Such gratitude. “Yes, like I saved you the first day.”
Of course, she would turn even something likesaving her lifeinto a mark against me. This woman is going to make me lose my mind.
She laughs without humor. “I hit the water! And you left me in a puddle on the balcony, like discarded trash, without even bothering to wait and see if I woke up!”
My hands turn to fists. Maybe I should have let her die. I would have saved myself all this suffering. “You might have hit the water before I got to you, but you also had a head injury that you wouldnothave woken up from if I hadn’t healed you.”
She straightens, chin rising. “You just admitted you didn’t get to me until it was practically too late, so the only way I’m crossing this bridge is if you’re tightly by my side. If I fall,you fall.”
Ridiculous woman. But we are wasting time. “Fine,” I say, taking her arm more roughly than I intended. She goes stiff as I walk us across the bridge. I’m not sure she’s even breathing.
“Quickly,” she whispers somewhere next to my arm, clutching it for dear life.
“You can open your eyes now,” I say when we’re safely across, dropping her arm as fast as possible.
She does, and I can almost feel her relief at having made it to the other side.
Then, she stops. Her lips part. I trace her gaze, noting how quickly I’ve gone from wanting to launch her from this cliff, to wanting to know what has caught her attention.
She’s staring at the storm, frozen beyond. And her expression is one of wonder, instead of fear. If she knew how many dead were trapped within it, she might not be looking at it as though it were something beautiful. She might stop being so infuriating.
I stop at the hole, the entrance to the underground. Only then does she look appropriately afraid.
“I’ll go first. Then you.”
