Everything he had tried to bury was rearing up, and he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t keep going.
But he had to. For Isla. Forthem.
He took a shaking breath. His soul was in tatters, but hers was forever bound to his, and he leaned on that strength. For he was not alone. He had her in his heart, and that was enough to make it through impossible journeys. It was enough to reach the pit of his strength and find that there wasmore.
This island had tried to break him. But it was no match for who he was when loved by her.
“Nothing,nothingyou could show me will keep me from completing this climb,” he said to the sky as he hauled himself up another few feet. His voice was hoarse from thirst but unwavering. “I don’t care what you throw at me. I’m getting that diamond for my wife.”
Through the star-speckled darkness, a voice as sharp as a carving knife spoke a single word into his mind:Why?
“Because I love her,” Grim said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Which means I will do anything to save her.”
The voice hummed, making his skull tremble with its resonance.And just how strong is that love?
“Stronger than you,” he said.
The voice laughed.
“It is infinite,” Grim said.
Before he could say anything else, a roar sounded from above. And a sharp, battering wind barreled right toward him. He clung to the rock, gritting his teeth as the tempest fought to tear him off. The storm howled around him like a beast. He tried to push against it, to haul himself up those last few yards, but he might as well have been fighting a hurricane. He bellowed, forcing himself forward a few inches—
And was thrust back into a whorl of memories. But they weren’t his.
They werehers. Key moments in her life.
He saw the death of countless Wildlings, because she didn’t know how to wield her powers.
He saw the village Isla decimated. Hundreds of people turned to ash. An entire village razed to the ground in seconds.
You love...her?the voice asked, shrill with cruelty.This blight? This...monster?
Even as this brutal wind fought to tear him away, Grim couldn’t help but laugh. It echoed against the spiked shards of stone he couldn’t see.
“Yes, I love her,” Grim said. “I love her at her weakest, at her strongest, at her best, at her worst. Ours is not a perfect love but a bleeding one. Not a flawless love but a relentless one. I have seen the worst in her, and she has seen the worst in me. And yet...I love her as much at her worst as I do at her best. I love her for everything she is and everything she isn’t. And that...thatis why our love is infinite.”
The voice seemed to consider his words. Grim felt it wriggling through his thoughts, as if searching for any hint of hesitation or deception.And if she betrayed you? If she...killed you?
He laughed again, a huff against the cold night air. “Then I would thank her for giving me any of her time at all.”
The wind fell away. Grim almost fell with it. But he kept his grip, and the only thing that was left was that voice, buried in the darkest corner of his mind.
What do you want most? Why do you truly want this diamond? Power? Riches?
Grim didn’t waste his time, hurrying up the rest of the rockface, and said, “I don’t want power. I don’t want riches. I want something far more precious. I wanther. Forever. Until the end of time, and then a while after that. That isallI want.”
He could feel a claw scraping through his thoughts. Through his verysoul, with blade-like precision. Burrowing. Searching.
His body tensed as he felt a cut deep within himself, but he did not stop moving. And finally, that voice was ripped from his head. Along with a small, critical part of him.
Finally, his hand gripped the edge.
He pulled himself into a cave and collapsed against the ground, his heart hammering against the smooth, lustrous stone. He had used almost all his strength, both physical and mental. Finally, he looked up, dark hair plastered to his face in sweat. And there, in the center of this cave, sat a magnificent black diamond.
He could feel its power in his bones, in his blood, in his soul. Endless, infinite power. Calling out. Drawing in. Awakening. Uncurling.
He was struck by how much he didn’t want to claim it. He didn’t want more power.
