Page 29 of Grim and Oro
I grind my teeth with the effort. These are no normal creatures; they are cursed warriors, beasts that weremade, and their hides are nearly impenetrable. Only the strongest of my shadows affects them at all, and lately the process has drained me.
I need to close that scar.
There is only one metal that can pierce them, and we have little of it left. One of my warriors begins shooting metal-plated arrows, and I watch a drek go down. Another.
There are dozens more.
I portal right next to the scar, narrowly missing a razor-sharp talon.
The metal barriers that kept the length of this tear closed are now shredded.
Fuck.
The only surefire way to stitch the ground back together is with calcified shadows, which are difficult and painful to create.
The very throne I sit on was created over years. I don’t have years. It’s possible I have meremoments, since my strongest warrior—the one with the arrows—is now in pieces at my feet.
I sigh. I didn’t want to do this.I never want to do this. But now, there’s no avoiding it. I surround myself with a barrier of shadows and close my eyes.
Pain is power.
Those are the words my father spoke to me centuries before, and they’re true. They’reuseful.
I don’t usually need pain to release my power. It’s strong enough on its own. I’ve been able to rule with the fortress locked around my feelings and memories. For centuries, I did. But not anymore. Not now that these creatures threaten to turn everything I’ve sacrificed for to dust.
With a shaking breath, I release the snare around my emotions and memories and let them all come rushing out.
Agony, at watching Laila’s eyes lose their light. At realizing my own powers, and lack of control, killed her.I killed her.
Suffering, as the cruel guardians cut my skin, layer by layer. So much pain that even killing them, one by one, when I assumed the throne, did not relieve any of the anguish.
Sadness, at not being allowed to know my mother. At learning that I never would, because my father sentenced all the Covets to death after they bore his children.
He killed them all. He killed anyone I ever had a chance to care about.
Then—loneliness. Perhaps the most agonizing feeling of all. It’s a pain deep like a well, dark and endless, a night without stars. And it’s worse now that I’ve tasted paradise.
I stab at this pain, bleed it all out, claw to the very bottom of my power.
And it all comes rushing out.
My bellow splits the sky in half as shadows explode out of me—spreading across the gap in the scar, then hardening with a sickening wail. My arms shake with the effort, my chest constricts with thepain, more mental than physical. Every rack of agony through my body is a stitch that finally closes the chaos.
The dreks stop. I watch as they try to crash through my barrier and fail.
The creatures still in the sky shoot down at me like throwing stars. My power unfurls, itching to do something with the remnants of this pain, with the hatred that has surged in its aftermath. My shadows rise, coating my hands and arms, dripping all the way to the ground.
I look up at the creatures and smile.
Power explodes out of me, unleashes, over and over, until the dreks are in pieces. Until the fortress around my feelings is locked once more.
Until my heart hardens again, just like those calcified shadows.
My efforts could have killed me.
Using pain as power is effective ... but dangerous. It’s easy to let it run through your fingers, until it’s gone completely.
I should know better, I should have more control, but for some reason all my emotions feel rawer than usual. Exposed.
