Page 17 of Grim and Oro
He’s just as surprised by the curse as I am. I expect him to be elated. Everyone is dying. It’s our chance to overtake the island.
Instead, he says, “It’s time, then.”
I blink, thinking I must have misheard him. His voice is hardly a croak. “Time for what?”
He only staggers down the center of the room, toward me. “While you were gone, I killed the prophet,” he says lightly. “He wouldn’t tell me the future. But the fool wrote an entire book of predictions. I tortured one of his followers until he gave me a prophecy.”
His head tilts. His eyes are filled with searing determination.
“Cronan’s power will rise again. Our line will rule them all. Nightshade will regain everything we’ve lost ...”
He’s speaking to me. He’s looking at me not with disappointment, but, for once,pride.
“The stone,” he says, his eyes filled with anticipation. “It will beyours. You will claim it.”
The diamond. Infinite.
My emotions are muted now, but I feel a whisper of unease. I’ve already seen so much death, alreadykilledso many for my father. Today, so many died on Lightlark. How much more death can this world handle?
He continues. “It will all come to pass ... with a great sacrifice. With me laying down my life for yours.It is time.”
No. Never in a thousand years would I think my father would sacrificehimself. But all he cares about is the continuation of the line. He wants to see this world conquered, even if it requires his death.
I don’t share that same sense of duty. I don’t share that dream of conquering anything.
On Lightlark, when I was free to do what I wished ... when I wasn’t ordered to kill countless people ... I was finally approaching something close to happy.
All that is gone now.
I search the air for any tinge of emotion. Any heart from my heartless father. Sadness. Fear. Regret.
I feel absolutely nothing.
“You can’t be serious,” I say. “You would die? For this?”
He looks at me. “Do you think I fear death?” He shakes his head. “This is greater than me. Greater thanyou. This is fate. This is all of us playing our role so that our line never ends. So that it rules them all.”
He takes a step closer to me.
“The prophecy had one other part. Do you know what caused all of this? These deaths today? These curses?Love.” He says the word like it disgusts him. “Do you know what the biggest threat to our line is? Not creatures. Not other realms.Love. That is the warning Cronan gave from the very beginning, and the one the prophecy promised. Love kills kingdoms.”
He takes me by the collar, with surprising strength, given his state. “You will bring us to greatness. You will ensure the prophecy is true. Kill your heart, Grimshaw. Kill your feelings. Do not be a fool.”
Then, he hands me his crown.
It feels poisonous to the touch. As if something in my marrow already knows this is a mistake.
“By the end of the day, I will be dead, and it will be your time,” my father says. “It is time for Cronan’s power to rise.”
I portal him to Lightlark. I know it’s the last time I’ll ever seen him.
And nothing will ever be the same again.
TEMPTRESS
499 YEARS LATER
“You must have an heir.”
