Page 4 of Grim and Oro
“Really?”
She nods, grinning, pleased at herself for knowing something I don’t. “They say Cronan hid it.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but everyone wants it. Father is determined to claim it but so far has failed. Can you believe it?” Her smile widens. “I’m going to get it one day. It has a name, you know.”
“What’s its name?”
“Infinite.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
Her pride is thick around her, cloudlike. “It’s the greatest number in the world. It means ...everything.At the same time. Everywhere.”
Everything ... at the same time ... everywhere.
“One day, my power will be infinite,” she says proudly. “I’ll have the stone, and no one will be able to stop me. Even if Father decides to start punishing me, he won’t be able to.”
Her eyes are alight, hungry, and I can’t imagine wanting anything that much.
“It will be,” I say, staring back up at the stars. I wonder what they see from up there. The stars must know everything, even more than Laila. Every secret, every edge of this world that no one has ever explored.
I envy them.
We sit and watch for so long that Laila falls asleep, right in the snow. Her brow isn’t furrowed. She isn’t frowning. No ... she looks peaceful. I feel a pang of crushing sadness that, one day, she will be responsible for an entire realm.
If I could, I would save her from all this, from this fate ... but it’s what she wants. It’s what she’s always wanted.
When the last of the stars finally gutters out, and the night sky returns to its familiar muted gleam, I carry her home. Somehow, I get over the wall with both of us. I do my best to hide behind the statues, to move out of sight of the many windows. But the extra weight is what makes my boots crunch loudly against the frozen grass.
When I turn the corner of the palace, toward the back door, Guardian Asa is waiting for us.
I freeze and whirl back around. My panic produces a single shadow, enough to cover us, but Guardian Asa must sense it, because my shadow is ripped away, as if by a hand.Herhand.
I dig my fingers into Laila’s arm. She’s awake and taking off into the sky in a moment.
Asa must know the bat is her, but she doesn’t make a move to reel Laila back. No, if anything, being able to escape will be rewarded.
And my inability to flee will be punished.
“This is the third time, Grimshaw,” Guardian Asa says, and then she takes my arm so sharply, her nails draw blood. I jump, and she only sinks them deeper into my skin. “Useless boy. Corrupting your sister, future ruler of Nightshade.” As if it wasn’t Laila’s idea.
I don’t say a word. I never do.
“For this ... for this you will pay.”
For hours, Guardian Asa slices her shadows against my skin, opening her own recent cuts, deepening the layers of scars.
But a calm washes over me as I think about that swirl of stars, and, for the first time, I barely feel the slashing of her shadows. I barely notice my warm blood, sliding down my frost-chilled back.
It’s the first time I don’t yell in pain, and that only makes her slice deeper, until I practically pass out from the blood loss.
By the time Guardian Asa is finished with me, I have to be all but carried back to my room by three guardians. I’m barely clinging to consciousness. I can feel their irritation, their disgust.
They hope I die.
I hope I live. For that string of stars has shown me that beauty exists. How much more is waiting beyond these palace walls?Infinite wonders, I think. There is a world out there, and those stars ... they felt like a promise of better days to come.
