Page 102 of Grim and Oro
She was gone before I woke up, off to her early training. And the beast was resting onmy chest.
The nerve.
Now, though, I get to see her.Finally. I portal to her room, grateful to have time without the creature between us.
But the moment my feet hit the ground, I know something is wrong. I feel it. I see it in her face.
My eyes quickly settle on the sword.
The one I spent decades searching for. The one I had planned to use, before all my plans went up in ash.
Beforeus.
Her hurt hits me next.
“Hearteater,” I say, very carefully. “Where did you find that?”
Her eyes narrow. “You said you had something to tell me. Before I interrupted you.”
That was weeks ago. Before we ... before we became one, for the first time. “What is it?” I swallow, dread sinking its teeth into my chest.
No. If she knows what I was planning ... what I was ready to do ... what I’ve been keeping from her this entire time ...
I could manipulate her. I could go into her mind and make her forget. I could make sure she never learned any of this.
Part of me wants to. I almost do.
But that twisting in my chest ... that irrational feeling that makes me want to be honest ...
It wins.
I tell her the truth.
I tell her she is Nightshade. I tell her about her father. About how he was a Nightshade impervious to curses, just like her.
I tell her why I needed the sword so badly, and of course—of course sheoffers it to me.
“I told you,” I say, fighting for my voice to remain steady in the face of her growing disappointment. “I don’t want to use it anymore.”
Her own tone is cutting. “Right. The cost is too high. Tell me the truth now. What was the cost?”
There’s no lying. No hiding. Even as my shadows lurch forward, toward her, even as my heart sinks, as if my body is bracing for impact. As though it knows that once the words are out, there is no reversing this.
“Your life.”
There it is. The moment everything changes. The moment I’ve done something so monstrous, she can’t see past it.
Tears start to slowly slide down her cheeks, and I hate myself. I hate that I ever had a plan that didn’t put her first.
“My ... life?” Her voice breaks, along with my heart.
My explanations mean nothing. Her emotions do not falter.
“I never want to see you again,” she says. And she means it.
There isn’t anything I won’t give her.
And so, I vanish.
