Skyres draw power from blood. That was what Aurora said.
They can only be formed with shademade metal.
She had been practicing the symbol for days, on parchment. Aurora knew one, she said. One to funnel power. To control it.
It was exactly what she needed. A replacement for the bracelets. A safeguard in case her visits to the island to unleash her power weren’t enough.
Now, she was ready to try it on her skin.
Shademade. She could have gone to the blacksmith and asked for another dagger, but its tip would have been too broad for her purposes. No, the feather was perfect.
She followed Aurora’s instructions. Skyres were most effective when bonded with objects of great power, to use as ink. She unearthed a ruby that had been passed down through generations of her line. One that was said to have been made by the power of her ancestor. Slowly, she pressed against it with the feather’s tip. Not expecting much to happen.
She watched, transfixed, as the glimmering metal went right through the gem. The stone’s center became almost liquid, coating the end of the quill in sparkling crimson ink.
If the feather did that to a stone, she wondered what it would do to her skin.
Act immediately, while the source is fresh, Aurora had said, so she didn’t wonder for long. Pinching her lips in anticipation of a scream, she dug the tip of the feather against her arm.
Fire erupted through her veins, as if her blood had been set aflame. She screamed, grateful she had portaled to the Wildling newland, where no one would hear her. Sweat poured down her forehead, mixing with tears. She had never experienced such pain in her life, not when she had purposefully lit her arm on fire for the Centennial, not when she had been struck in the heart by an arrow.
It was almost enough for her to stop. Still, her fingers trembled as she mimicked the symbol she had practiced hundreds of times already. The
delicate curve, the swirling lines, the tiny details.
Every single line has to be right, or your skin will flay from your bones.
The skyre becomes a curse that will consume you.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep her hand steady. When she finished the final sweep of ink, she dropped the feather and collapsed onto the floor.
Her arm was bloodied, the skin broken. It looked wrong. It looked like she had been bitten by a strangely fanged beast.
But slowly, the ink began to glisten. Shine. Until the skin around it tightened, painfully, melting into the marking.
It was done.
Her blood was roaring in her ears, searing through her body like lightning. She lifted her trembling hand, testing the skyre.
It was supposed to funnel her powers. Control them.
Energy spiraled out of her palm in a green-tinged crest. She jolted in surprise, watching as it hit the wall with precision, searing through one of the swords against the stone.
Slowly, she approached the singed metal. Studied the hole that had gone right through the wall.
Perfectly circular. Perfectly controlled.
She stared down at the gleaming ink upon her skin, thin as the weaving of a web. With it . . . her abilities felt like they had been forged into a weapon in her hand—a sword, or dagger, or throwing star, that she could
throw with precision.
It was a shortcut. It came at a cost. She heard the warnings in her mind, but they didn’t matter . . . not when so many other lives were on the line.
Aurora was still her enemy . . . but she had helped her. The skyre had worked.
Do you know any other markings? She scribbled desperately.
The response came quickly. It made Isla’s heart sink. No.
Isla nearly grabbed the pen, before it started moving again. But I know where you can find out.
She found Grim in the greenhouse. In his black outfit, he looked like a demon at the center of an oasis, shadows staining the ground around his feet. They puddled as he turned around to face her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, joining him at his side. There was a balcony up a spiral staircase, overlooking all the nature. He was leaned against its ledge.
He blinked as if he had been lost in his mind. “I come here, sometimes.
To think.” His gaze shifted to her. “To remember.” Remember.
“Things . . . things were different back then,” she said, eyes glued on the fountain in the center. The one with a statue of her, smiling, holding a baby Wraith in her arms.
She could see him nod in her peripheral vision. “We were different.”
He had fallen in love with a person who had barely left her room. Who had never known an intimate touch. Who had never known power.
She had fallen in love with a ruthless warrior who had planned to kill her, at one point.
“Sometimes I think our love was cursed from the beginning. That it started with so much hatred . . . so much blood . . . it could never lead to anything good.”
He was silent. She turned to face him, only to find him frowning. “From the first moment I saw you, I didn’t stop thinking about you, and I hated it. I thought you were a curse. Hatred was a lot easier to admit to myself than love. It was a lot more familiar.” He shook his head. “I . . . I’m sorry for ever hating you.”
“I’m sorry too.” She had stabbed him in the chest during their first meeting. She had kept countless secrets from him. She had chosen someone else over him. Right at this very moment, she kept a prophecy from him that could lead to his death, by her own hand.
“I’ve never loved anyone,” Grim said, and she turned sharply to face him. “Not until you.”
His face was clear. His eyes were earnest. It made her sad. “That can’t be true.”
“It is. I started to believe I was incapable of it . . . of any of the feelings I sensed from others . . . of loving someone so much, I would die for them, without question.” He leaned against the ledge again. “I would watch, sometimes, in the villages, a family walking down the streets, smiling. A husband and wife with their arms linked. I thought it impossible to be that happy. I thought love was the greatest lie. The most outrageous fantasy.”
His eyes narrowed. “I hadn’t . . . I hadn’t ever imagined myself happy. I didn’t think I would ever deserve it. Not after everything I had done.” His body tensed, as if he had been snagged by a memory. “When I was young, we were trained to be ruthless, to have heart trained out of us.”
Isla’s voice was barely a whisper as she settled beside him, staring out at the greenery. “How do you have the heart trained out of you?” She wondered if she should even ask.
Grim raised a shoulder. “You ensure a child is never loved.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “There was one guardian I grew attached to.
Against orders, she would tell me stories from her village before bed. She brought me one of her own child’s balls to play with. She . . . cared for me, and I cried saying goodbye to her. My father found out and had her executed. He made me watch.” Tears burned her eyes, fury at his father for being a monster, anger for the childhood that had been ripped away from Grim.
He glanced at her. “‘Love is a disease,’ my father used to say. ‘Love kills kingdoms.’ So, he tried to rid me of it.”
In their world, love did kill kingdoms. When power could be shared, it could be taken. As Isla thought about the oracle’s prophecy, and the
sacrifice he had already made for her, she couldn’t help but think— His father had been right.
“I come from a long line of heartless men, modeled after Cronan.” Her jaw set at the mention of Grim’s ancestor, who had founded Lightlark with Horus Rey and Lark Crown. “His cruelty was seen as strength. According to my father, he was the model we all fought to emulate. Even the most
barbaric of practices.”
“Like what?” Again, she wondered if she should even ask, but she wanted to know him, know the childhood that had made him into someone
he considered a monster.
His eyes blazed with fury. “Cronan had children. Many, many children, as much as he could.” He swallowed. “He buried them beneath the land, their power fed it.”
She stilled against the ledge. “He killed his children?”
“All except the strongest. And that was how the line continued.”
Isla gaped at him. No. She couldn’t be hearing him right. Her eyes stung. “You—you can’t mean . . .”
Grim nodded. “Every Nightshade ruler before me has had dozens and dozens of children. Has raised them until they were of age. And has forced them to compete to the death.”
No.
She had heard of Grim’s brutal training. Never once had she considered that there were others. His siblings, who he must have been raised to think of as his rivals.
“So, you—you . . .” she couldn’t say the words.
Grim, mercifully, shook his head. “I was spared by my flair. The moment my father found out about it, he slaughtered the rest of his children himself.”
Isla was crying. Grim had always been alone . . . but he hadn’t needed to be. He’d had family. And they were all dead. No wonder he hated his father. No wonder he had fought against love and connection.
“But you . . . you don’t have children,” she said, confirming. He had told her as much in the past, when she had inquired about the line of women she had once joined.
“No. From the moment my father died, I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew I would never be able to . . .”
Isla grabbed his hand. She felt sorry for all the innocent children, brought into this world to die. She felt rage for the rulers who had killed them, all for power.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. She knew what it was like to grow up alone.
Isla understood now, more than ever, why Grim had been ready to go through the portal for her.
She was all he had.
Slowly, her fingers settled between his, and a chill swept up her arm at the contact. He looked at her like he had so much to say, but not enough words and not enough time. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, scraping them just slightly, and she shivered. He reached her wrist and
swept the inside, across her pulse. Frowned. His gaze slid down to her bare wrists. He raised his brow slightly in question.
She hadn’t seen him since she had gone to the blacksmith. “I decided to stop hiding.”
“Good,” he said. “I married all of you, Isla. Not just the good parts. Not just the good days. Don’t hide from me.”
It was in that moment that she realized she had been hiding from herself. She wanted so much, and it shamed her.
Half of her loved Oro—always would.
The other half loved Grim. Unconditionally. The same way he loved her. Theirs was not a gentle love, it was a bleeding love. And she was done pretending she didn’t want it.
If she was going to save Nightshade, and change her fate, she needed to work with Grim—not against him.
Tears swept down her face again.
His eyes widened. He looked like he wished he could kill anything that had made her upset. “What is it, heart?”
She shook her head. “I trusted them. The people I killed the other day, when I was covered in blood. I—I thought they had become my friends.” It sounded so stupid, saying it aloud. She sounded so pathetic. But Grim only listened. He did not judge her. “And . . . my guardians. They—they—”
He held her as she cried. This was what she deserved, she knew. She had betrayed countless people as well.
“I want to go somewhere,” she said, her chest rattling with sobs. “Just with you. Like before.”
They didn’t have much time. They were well into winter now. The augur had been clear—her fate and lifespan were somehow tied to the portal. They needed to find it. All of their lives depended on it.
She watched Grim hesitate.
“There’s another palace,” he said, his large hand sweeping down her spine, gathering her closer to her chest. “We can go there, for a few days. I think—I think you’ll like it.”
She nodded against him. Perfect.
It was exactly what she had been hoping he would say. Exactly the place Aurora had described. The skyre on her arm, made invisible by Nightshade shadows, seemed to pulse.
It was an excuse, but it was also the truth. With so short a time left, she wanted to enjoy part of it for just a few days. Give in to the desires she could no longer ignore.
She and Grim . . . as much as she had tried to fight it, as much as part of her hated herself for it, they were more alike than they were different. They understood each other.
She was done pretending she didn’t love him. She was done burying her feelings down, hoping they would die.
It might have made her a villain. It might have been wrong. But she wanted him.
Isla found her original wedding dress in the wardrobe. It was pristine. Perfect. Hung in a way that made it look like art on a wall, a piece Grim might have often looked at.
Her fingers swept down the silk, across the ties of the bodice, and she remembered standing while the dress was created around her. She remembered the look on Grim’s face when he first saw her. She remembered when he went to his knees and pressed his forehead against her legs and whispered something into the fabric like a prayer.
She slowly took it off its hanger.
The buttons down the back were difficult to hook herself, but she bent her arms, and with every latch there was another memory, another moment. He had imprinted himself upon her life, and she wasn’t sure if there was any way around it.
Before she could think better of it, she was in front of his door. She didn’t need to knock.
The door swung open, and Grim’s eyes widened, just slightly. She hadn’t often surprised him, but when she did, she cherished it.
The dress had long sheer sleeves made up of intricate embroidery. The design told their story, whirling shadows meeting blooming flowers. The
bodice was low and covered in petals, the design of vines and stems curling
out of them, against her skin. The fabric was tight against her waist and stomach, and the silk below was smooth, all the way to the floor.
“Heart,” he said, blinking more than usual, as if trying to discern a dream from reality. “What—”
“I’m ready,” she said. She took a step forward. “I’m ready to try again.
To be your wife. Truly.”
The look he gave her was so earnest, so disbelieving, she couldn’t imagine she had ever thought him heartless.
Slowly, his gaze never leaving hers, Grim went to his knees before her.
He took her hands as gently as if they were made of glass and bowed his head. Tears swept down the sharp panes of his face. She had only seen him cry once before, and it was when her heart had stopped. It made her own
eyes burn. “I won’t pretend I’ll ever be a good man,” he said. “But I’ll be good to you.” His words were a promise she could feel in the center of her chest, the bridge between them dark and gleaming. He smoothed his lips
across her knuckles. “I will make us happy, heart. I swear it.”
She wanted that. With every part of her, she wanted this to be real. She wanted to pretend she could change her fate: that she could save them all, have a happy ending.
Grim rose to his full height, eyes still never leaving hers. She carefully wiped his tears with her thumb, and he shivered. “Our wedding night,” she said, slightly breathless. “You remember it?”
His eyes darkened, then. “Only every night.”
“Good,” she said. She stepped into him. His body was hard and cold against her. “Do it all again.”
Grim didn’t hesitate. One moment she was firmly on the ground, and the next, he had reached down and swept her off her feet.
He turned around and portaled them so smoothly that she didn’t even realize they were in their room until they were facing the bed.
She had anticipated he would want to do this here. Lynx was gone. Isla had already brought him to the stables. She’d had to leave him several
pieces of dried meat and blankets to make up for it.
Ever so carefully, Grim set her down in front of the bed. She slowly slipped out of her shoes, shrinking slightly before him.
“May I?” he asked, motioning toward her dress, the words so soft she barely heard them.
She nodded and turned around. He gently moved her hair over her shoulder, and his featherlight touch made her shiver. Just like their wedding night, every sense seemed to be heightened, her skin as sensitive as if she had never been touched before. Her toes curled at his breath on her neck and his rough fingertips against her spine as he began to slowly undo the buttons. Every scrape of him against her skin had her burning. Restless.
There were too many damn buttons.
He laughed darkly. “Patience, Hearteater,” he said, and a thrill went through her as he used her old name. “We have all night.” She felt his breath against the shell of her ear, and it made her shoulders hike. “And I plan to enjoy every moment of it.”
She twisted to face him. “If I recall correctly, we didn’t leave this bed for days.”
Grim laughed again. “Greedy for more, when we haven’t even started, Hearteater?”
“Always,” she said, and felt the last button open. Her entire back was bare to him. Just as she got used to the cold air upon her skin, he swept his rough knuckles down her spine, and she arched, aching. The fabric fell off
her shoulder, and he pressed his lips against it, making his way up her neck, across her jaw. She shivered at his touch, her want surprising her, rising just as forcefully as she had tried to bury it down.
The dress fell to the floor, and Grim made a noise that almost sounded pained. She had found the pieces of lace in her dresser too, the ones that barely covered anything.
“My memory is useless, when it comes to you,” he murmured. “You’re always so much more beautiful than I remember.”
“And you’re still fully dressed.” She was impatient, needy. She pressed her hands against his shirt and watched it turn to ash, revealing a chest so broad and muscled, he would have looked like a flawless statue, save for
the scar next to his heart. The one she had given him. He had kept it, a vestige of her.
“Getting back at me for all the dresses?” he said, his voice dark and amused. The ones he had ruined, by ripping them off her.
“Exactly.”
His pants were next. Now, they were on equal footing. Before she could touch him again, he bent down and picked her up by the back of her thighs,
lifting her onto the bed. Then, eyes never leaving hers, he knelt before her again.
She gasped as he hooked his fingers beneath her knees and dragged her to the edge of the sheets, right below him. His breath was hot against the center of her, and she groaned.
“You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he said. Her
lace was gone with a single movement, and he didn’t waste a moment with teasing or games. No, he seemed to be as starved as she was. Her head fell back with the first press of him against her, toes curling, eyes squeezing closed.
Then, she arched off the bed. His hands gently pinned her hips down against the sheets, thumbs stroking her sensitive skin. He was slow, and gentle—until he wasn’t. She dug her heels against his back until she was moaning into her own shoulder and fisting the sheets. Then she was being dragged beneath an endless sea of pleasure, until her muscles tensed and she was shattering against him.
She sat up, dazed, limp, her skin feeling raw and covered in sparks. He slowly rose from the floor, and she watched him with wide eyes,
beyond words. She watched as he slowly climbed up the bed, leaning over
her. Then he tucked his arm beneath her and dragged them both to the head of the bed.
He slowly kissed his way up her body—her stomach, then her sensitive chest, peaked with need. He took his time there, and she gasped as he scraped his teeth, then his tongue across her. She was molten, squirming
below him, desperate for more.
“Please,” she said. She locked her legs behind his back, reaching for him. In response, he slowly, very slowly, took one of her arms and placed it above her head, her knuckles pressed against the silk sheets. Then he did
the same with her other arm.
He reached between them, and she gasped as she finally felt him push against her. He slowly inched forward. His thumb swept across her palm, and he moved carefully, gently, his body shaking with restraint. He went in and in and in, until she couldn’t think around the pressure, couldn’t breathe around it; and then he sighed against the crown of her head, and she groaned as he reached a place that made her spine feel like a bolt of lightning.
Then he started to move, and nothing in the world had ever felt so good, so right, so saturated. She was breathless, breaking, mending, and it was better than she remembered, this feeling, this fullness.
He held her by the wrists as he drove into her, and she moaned into his mouth, panting, lost for words, lost for sanity. She knew he could feel her emotions, every crest of pleasure, every inch of need and want.
He growled as he hauled her up against him, as if he couldn’t feel enough of her; and she groaned at the contact, her sensitive chest scraping against his cold skin with his every movement. She hooked her arms around his neck and bit down against his shoulder to keep from making even more noise.
In a flash he sat back on his feet, lifting her upper body to face him. At this angle, she could feel everything, every inch of contact between them. He moved, and her head fell back as she took everything he gave her, his body finding every aching spot in hers and filling it.
Grim grabbed her by the side of her face and kissed her deeply, his
tongue stroking the roof of her mouth as she shuddered against him, all of her going taut, then loose. He pulled her back onto his chest, and kept going, faster, and she kept kissing him, as if she could show him with her lips and tongue how good this all felt, because words would never be sufficient.
She bit his bottom lip as he found a spot that felt like the place between stars, and he kept going, never tiring, muscles hard as stone beneath her.
She met him stroke for stroke, grinding her hips, chasing her pleasure; and when she found it and cried out against his mouth, he flipped them over and drove into her again, pulling her close. He gasped as he pushed into her one final time, his shadows flaring around him, shuddering through the room.
On their wedding night, he had broken all the windows. Tonight, it seemed he had remembered and taken precautions against it.
“Again,” she said, panting, not a moment later. “Do that again.”
He laughed darkly in the space between her neck and shoulder. He kissed the length of her neck. “So impatient,” he said against her skin. But then he flipped her over, and he did.
