“How do we know none of these are the lost king?” Oro asked after a stretch of wordless fighting. Blood sprayed as he cut a mountainous form down.
Grim shrugged. “We don’t.” He sliced the head clean off a creature with milk-white eyes that had tried to gut him with a jagged shell. “But I’m guessing if he’s powerful enough to help us, he won’t be so easily cut down.”
Oro raised a brow. He kicked away a prisoner who had thrown himself in his way. “But he’ll have gotten himself imprisoned?”
Grim sighed. Forget being grateful for the Sunling’s presence. He would have preferred the silence. “I don’t know, Oro. Why don’t you ask each of them before you kill them? Have a little interview while they’re trying to rip your throat open?”
Oro scoffed. He kept going, putting his dagger through the stomach of a horned creature with green, leathery skin.
They must have been battling prisoners for hours at this point. Cleo’s arms had been trembling before they left, but he had to hand it to the cold witch. She was holding strong.
For now.
This was taking too long. He reached for the connection between him and Isla, the thread that had been strong as iron just days ago and now felt as thin as a spider’s web. His powers were smothered here, but his love wasn’t.
I’m here, he told her through their bond, as if there was any hope of her hearing him.I’m coming for you.
Grim fought with a renewed vigor, surging ahead of Oro. “Try to keep up, will you?” he said over his shoulder.
He was surprised to hear a laugh. He looked back at the Sunling, who was wiping entrails off his shirt.
“Still think you’re better than everyone, I see,” Oro said, shaking his head.
Grim scoffed. “No. Just you.”
There was a huff of disbelief beside him as the golden king caught up.
“What?” Grim snarled.
Oro shrugged a shoulder. He sliced another throat. “It’s surprising you think anyone is better than you.”
No. Not just anyone.
“She is,” Grim ground out as he buried his sword through a prisoner’s half-eaten stomach.
The smirk on the Sunling’s face vanished. Good. He hoped Oro would just shut the hell up, but he said, “It seems you changed your stance on love, then.”
Grim was plunged back into memories of centuries before. When he had been chained to a wall in the prisons of Lightlark. The Sunling prince had come to see him almost every day—carrying rage and sadness with him. At first, his visits were taunts. He nearly burned Grim alive the first time.
But the more they talked...the more Grim saw they weren’t so different at all. Oro realized it too, eventually.
Grim could feel the Sunling’s emotions shifting over time. Rage diminishing. Annoyance turning to amusement.
Hatred...turning into friendship.
During one of those many conversations through the cell gates, Grim told Oro that love was for fools.Loving someone is allowing them to train the tip of their dagger on your heart at all times. And smiling about it. It’s idiotic. The Sunling had laughed in response.
“No,” Grim said, as he fought off another scaled beast. “I still think that love is for fools.” He shrugged. “But she makes me not mind being one.”
Oro was quiet for a few moments. They sliced through bodies in silence. Then, he said, “It must have been hard.”
“What?” Grim said, gritting his teeth as he approached a prisoner with claws as long as the dagger in Oro’s hand.
“Watching her fall in love with me.”
Grim’s fingers flexed against his weapon. For a moment, he lost his focus and hissed as one of those claws managed to slice against his arm. The pain brought him back into the present, and he buried his blade in the prisoner’s stomach. He ripped it out, and blood splattered over his clothes.
He nearly turned his sword on the Sunling himself. He wasn’t sure if Oro was trying to make him angry, or get back at him, or if he was simply having a conversation. Down here, he couldn’t use his abilities to sense his emotions.
