Fuck him.
Fuck this castle.
Fuck these guards, who did his bidding.
Her voice hoarse from all the screaming, she said to one of the knights, “Are you even a person under there? Or a mindless beast, following orders?”
There was no response. Of course there wasn’t.
Isla laughed ruefully, suddenly delirious with pain and exhaustion. “I would love to know what about his cause drew you in. Was it the destroying worlds? Killing millions of people? Or—”
Before she could get another word out, she was slammed against the wall face-first. Her teeth sang from the impact. She could feel blood rushing down her nose. For some reason, that made her smile.
“Was it something I said?” She sighed. “If hearing your own beliefs spoken aloud causes this reaction, then—”
Her scalp burned as the knights pulled her back by the hair andsmacked her skull against the stone once more, her forehead taking the brunt of the impact. It hurt less than Cronan’s shadows had. As her vision dimmed, she still couldn’t muster a shred of regret for opening her mouth.
They gathered her hair in a fist, to send her head back toward the wall, but before they could, a voice spun from darkness itself echoed down the hall.
“Release her.”
The knights paused, but their grip on her hair didn’t lessen. She turned, cheek pressed to the bloody stone, and watched as Grim stalked toward them.
“We don’t take orders from you,” one of the knights spat. So, he was a person. His voice was strange—deep and resonant, like he was ancient, perhaps older than the world she came from.
That didn’t seem to matter as Grim turned them both to heaps of ash.
Themetal. Grim had turned the shademademetalto cinders...
Isla slid down the wall, released from their hold. Her boots slipped in the mess.
She knew her husband was powerful. She hadsharedthat power. But on this world, it had seemed that he had gotten stronger.
“I—”
“Don’t speak,” he growled, before taking her by the arm. His touch was steadying, not nearly as firm as it was during those first days after he lost his memories. He pulled her to her feet, but her knees immediately buckled. Her head...it pulsed with pain. Even standing seemed like a momentous task. He sighed heavily before kneeling—and taking her into his arms.
It was like an echo of the past. Of so many memories that this moment had conjured.
And he had no idea.
In a daze, she leaned against his shoulder and said, “You once killed everyone in a room because one touched me.”
She looked up at him. Her vision was going in and out, but she noticed him frown. His eyes dipped to hers before focusing on the hall again. “Sounds dramatic,” he said, flatly.
Her lips twitched. Her whole body was spent, her energy nearly gone, but she fought to stay conscious. “It was,” she said. “Then you carried me...just like this...” A half-crazed laugh spilled from her lips. It almost sounded like a sob. She lifted one of her hands, glass still sticking out of her palm. “You’re not going to believe it...but my hands were injured then too.” He stopped, then. It was as if he hadn’t noticed her bleeding palms. “You healed them...with me on your lap.”
That made his eyebrows come together. “Why were you on my lap?”
She shrugged. “You said it was to keep me still...but I have other theories.”
He blinked, long and hard. It seemed like he was struggling to remain focused on her injuries. “Your powers are suppressed. Your hands will scar.”
She sighed. “Does it matter, when I’m going to be dead in ten days?”
His eyes narrowed. “You have another choice. Another path.”
She looked up at him. “Do you think I don’t know you plan to kill me if he doesn’t?”
