Isla Crown watched the man she loved disappear as the world fell away.
The other man she loved gripped her arm with the desperate hope of holding onto a dream before waking. Her stomach dropped; her ears rang—
Clashing swords and howling dreks turned to silence.
“You’re home,” Grim said, his voice breaking in relief; and then she was ensnared in the familiar place against his chest, her cheek below his heart. It was instinct to breathe him in, to hold him close.
Home. Something in her marrow unfurled. Another part recoiled.
She tore herself away. Looked down. Her armor and hands were covered in blood. Her lips tasted of salt—sweat and tears from the battle.
She considered everything she had done . . . everything she was . . .
She wanted to run. She wanted to tear down these hallways the same way she had the first day they met, she wanted to portal back to Lightlark, back into Oro’s arms—
But she was here for a reason. Isla would kill either Oro or Grim, according to the oracle. It was fated. Now, knowing what she had done in the past, all the people she had killed . . . she didn’t trust herself not to hurt the Sunling king.
Grim approached her slowly, tentatively. His voice was gentle. “Heart.” He offered his hand again, his knuckles raw and caked in what had to be both his and Oro’s blood.
Heart. Hers was split in half. One part wanted him more than anything
—remembered. Another wanted to stab him through the chest again.
She took his hand.
Grim’s wide shoulders melted in relief until she said, “Take methere.”
He knew what she meant. As much as she wanted to hate him, as much as she wished her hatred of him would stick, take root in her bones and overgrow like a neglected garden, he knew her. He really knew her. “Isla
—”
“Take. Me. There.” Her voice was a guttural rasp. She could have portaled herself with her device or with his power, but the idea of using any scrap of ability after seeing what she had done with it made her want to retch. Grim studied her for a moment longer before curling his fingers around hers, and then the room disappeared. Her stomach flipped again.
Ash stuck to every surface of the landscape, a layer of poisoned snow.
Houses lay in charred piles like pyre wood. Nothing stood tall anymore. The village had been brought to its knees.
Her cry cut through the silence like a scythe. Bodies big and small curled against the ground and hardened into rubble. Some were indefinable shapes against the stone.
You did this, a voice in her mind said. Monster. No. She hadn’t meant to, she—
Memories flitted beneath her eyelashes. She saw herself visiting this site, mourning the same action in the past. It hurt. It hurt so much; she was a wound that refused to scab. She wanted to bleed. She deserved to bleed.
Still, her pain meant nothing—these people were dead because of her.
Because of her power.
She turned to Grim, eyes burning. “You should imprison me. I—I’m a criminal. I’m worse than any thief or murderer, I—” Grim caught her as she began to collapse.
“This was not intentional,” he said, steadying her shoulders.
She choked on her breath. “Does intention matter when hundreds of people are dead?”
His eyes were sad. “It does.”
She tore herself away from him. “You would say that. Of course, you would say that.”
Tears caught in the back of her throat as she thought back to the battle on Lightlark, blood everywhere, dreks shredding the sky with their talons. Ciel dying, Avel cradling her twin’s body. “They didn’t have to die.” A sob scraped against her ribs. “Why, Grim? Why did you have to attack?”
“You know why.” His words were quiet. He stepped closer, but she walked back, refusing to bridge the gap between them.
She did know. She could almost see it now, the action that had caused all of this death—the uncontrollable power she had unleashed to save Grim, killing her in the process.
He had brought her back, by binding his life to hers, but it was just a temporary solution. Only Lightlark’s portal to another world with infinite power offered a permanent one.
“You could have told me. We could have talked about it. We could have told Oro—”
“Oro will die if we use the portal. He wouldn’t have agreed to it.” He was quiet for a moment. Then, “You wouldn’t have agreed to it.”
Of course, she wouldn’t have. Lightlark’s portal was built into the island’s foundation. Using it would mean the death of Lightlark and Oro, who was bound to it as king.
She shook her head, wincing at the death around her. “You really would have let Lightlark fall? You would have doomed the rest of the realms while leading yours into a world we know nothing about? For one woman?” It didn’t make sense.
Grim frowned. “Not for one woman,” he spat, like the words insulted him. He stepped toward her. “For my wife.”
Wife. The word unlocked a thousand memories of them, a year before
the Centennial. Fighting. Falling in love. Marrying. All moments she hadn’t remembered, up until recently. She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.
“You know what I mean. One life to risk thousands. That is criminal. Selfish. Monstrous.”
Isla could feel Grim getting closer. When she opened her eyes, he was right in front of her. “Heart,” he said steadily. The spikes on his shoulders made him look like a demon. His blood-slicked armor glimmered in the moonlight. “If waging a war for one woman is a crime, then please do consider me a criminal.” Closer. “If killing thousands to keep you alive is wrong, then consider me a villain.” She now had to tilt her head to see him clearly. He leaned down. His breath was hot against her mouth. “If loving you this much is my downfall . . . then consider me already on my knees.”
Her voice shook. “That’s disgusting. You—you’re a monster.” She said the words and knew it made her a hypocrite. The ground they stood on now,
the hundreds of deaths around them . . . she had done it for him. To save him.
We are monsters, Hearteater, Grim had said to her, back during the Centennial. He had been right.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t change.
Grim had promised to end the battle, if she returned with him. Too many lives had already been lost. Lightlark had been losing. “Call back all your warriors and dreks. Immediately.”
“It’s already done.” In his hand, the sword that controlled the winged beasts appeared. “It’s over.”
It was the same sword they had searched for, in the past. The one she herself had unlocked for him to use.
This was all her fault.
The dreks had killed so many. She had led her friends into bloodshed.
Her own husband’s forces had cut them down.
The survivors must think her a traitor. They must think she had been lying to them this entire time. That fact killed her, but her feelings didn’t matter if going with Grim guaranteed their safety. “Command all the dreks to remain underground and put the sword back in the thief’s lair. Swear you will never use it again.”
She expected Grim to put up more of a fight, but the words fell easily from his mouth: “I swear it.”
She pushed her luck. “Swear you won’t try to use the portal again.” This time, he said nothing.
“Swear it.”
“If I do, you will die here,” Grim said. “We all will.”
Grim’s life was tied to all of his subjects’. Now, all their fates were tied to hers. She looked around, at the bodies. The lives she had already taken. “You shouldn’t have bound yourself to me.” She closed her eyes again and tears swept down her face.
Grim’s thumb traced her jawline, smearing the tears away. “I would do it again,” he said, his voice a deep rasp against her ear. “I would do it a thousand times over, heart; you should know that. I will choose you over
the world every single time.”
Which meant it was up to her to save it.
