Page 60 of Grim and Oro
She went to my room. Is she okay? Is she hurt? A thousand worries race through my mind, and most of all, the fact thatI care. The fact that I am in danger of leveling this entire castle, because she is gone.
I consider portaling to her room, using my shadows to conceal my presence, but no.
I have a feeling if I go there, if I see her again right now, I’ll never leave her alone. I won’t do what needs to be done.
I tense as pain courses through me.
The scar. It’s broken open. I hesitate for a moment, weighing going to her room ... or going to my people.
Instantly, I’m filled with shame. My people ... the innocents ... those defenseless subjects in my realm, they are my duty. She doesn’t truly care about me ... she’s not my responsibility.
I portal to the dreks. They’re everywhere. Dozens of my warriors are dead. How many were doomed by my momentary hesitation?
She is making me reckless.
Fighting the beasts usually relieves my tension, but this time, it does nothing to release my fury, my frustration. Hours pass before I return to my room. Everything hurts. My muscles ache from all the power I had to give. All the creatures I killed. My armor weighs heavily on me. I’m tired. So very tired, and not just physically.
I take a step toward my bathroom, still in my armor—
And a portal forms.
Hearteater. I tense, waiting for her to appear. Anticipation filling me.
Then someone falls through ... and it’s not her.
The man’s neck is in my fist in a moment. There is only one way he could have gotten here.
“Where is she?” I demand, my voice swallowing the world. A roaring sound fills my ears.
He doesn’t answer, and I don’t need him. Still clutching his neck, I drag him along as I follow the path of the portal, and there—
There she is.
Surrounded by a dozen men. On the floor.
Bleeding.
I crack the neck in my fist, discarding the body onto the ground. White-hot fury blinds my vision, but my voice is smooth with the focus I have mastered on endless battlefields as I say, “Which one?”
She doesn’t answer. Her green eyes are wide. I can taste her fear all over the room. Herpain.
“Isla.” My voice is lethally calm as I say, “Which one did this to you?”
She doesn’t answer fast enough, and I realize I don’t care. She’s hurt. Everyone in this room is complicit.
“Fine. All of them, then.”
And I break all their necks at once.
They collapse to the floor. But my eyes don’t leave hers. I walk toward her, gripped by fury and fear. This dark room is covered in shattered glass. We’re in the market, in one of the abandoned floors of one of the surrounding buildings.
The bastards cut her with shadow-blades. I know how badly they hurt. She felt that excruciating pain ... they hadinflictedit on her. She could havedied.
It is my fault for leaving her for so long.
And hers.
“You idiot,” I say, before gently taking her in my arms, where she belongs. I portal us away.
