Grim
He wished they would shut the fuck up.
This was clearly some sort of jail. He himself had been imprisoned long enough to recognize the shackles very well.
And he remembered how Oro had come to visit him.
“What do you think they did to get sent down here?” the Sunling asked by his side, shaking him from the past. Neither of them had taken a single step forward, both studying the clawing, crawling prisoners below.
“It can’t have been good,” Grim said simply.
The closest man to them finally noticed their presence. He was scraping at the ground, hands bloody, as if he could possibly exit this cruel fate, when his head suddenly snapped to the side. A crab crawled through a hole in his decaying face. His flesh-rotten lips curled back, revealing long fangs.
He lunged toward them—then was thrown back as he reached the end of the shackles. He raged on, undeterred, snarling with foam pooling from his mouth. Grim noticed how the Sunling flinched away from the prisoner and almost laughed. Coward.
Some of these people, and these beasts, were clearly not of their world. Was this where the worst prisoners in the universe were sent? How had none of them known about it?
When Grim saw the metal of their shackles up close, he understood why their powers didn’t work here.
It was the same type of metal that Isla once had made for herself to cut herself off from her abilities.
Down here, with hundreds of chains, they didn’t have to be wearing the manacles to feel their effects.
He hated this material. Grim remembered the day Isla had walked into the dining room, wearing those damned shademade bracelets.
Seeing her in his head, even for that moment . . . it was enough to push him forward. Right toward that fanged man throwing himself toward them, over and over, hunger clear in his eyes. Did he feed on flesh and blood? It seemed like it. And it seemed like he was starving.
They all probably were, Grim guessed. He pulled his sword from his scabbard.
“Do you have a weapon?” he demanded, staring at the miles and miles of prisoners instead of at his companion.
“No,” Oro said from somewhere behind him.
Grim rolled his eyes. Of fucking course not.
He wasn’t surprised that the ridiculous Sunling king would rely only on his power.
With a long-suffering sigh, he threw Oro a dagger from his pocket, backward, with perhaps a bit too much force.
He had half-hoped that the metal would pierce through his chest, but he heard the Sunling catch it.
Unfortunate.
Oro joined him, wincing as he moved. Grim guessed he had broken a few ribs on his way down. The idiot. To his credit, he didn’t let that stop him as he nodded to Grim once—and bounded forward.
The fanged man shot toward the Sunling, claws extending toward his chest. Oro cut him down with a simple slice through the air.
The man fell to the sand, his throat slashed open. Not bad. Grim immediately buried that thought with revulsion.
Oro was busy fighting off the next prisoner. This one was covered in scales like a snake and had eyes red as rubies. The Sunling didn’t see the man to his right, who had ripped a jagged piece of dead coral from the ground—and was lifting it over his head, ready to strike.
Grim sighed, hesitating for a moment before sending his blade soaring through the air.
Oro tensed—then turned, taking in the metal going right through the prisoner’s face.
He glanced at Grim. The surprise in his expression—that Grim would save him—was clear.
Grim almost rolled his eyes again. Obviously, he needed the Sunling’s help to get his wife.
He had made that clear. Otherwise, he would have let him die a long time ago.
He stalked over, ripped his sword from the prisoner who was somehow still standing, and kicked the corpse away, snarling, “Watch your back, so I don’t have to.”
Grim turned, faced the long stretch of prisoners straining toward them with unfettered hunger in their eyes—
And he smiled. Because he might have felt kind of bad about killing people before, after meeting Isla. But if these prisoners were standing in the way of him getting his wife back . . . well, they were fair game, then.
He stretched his neck to the side with a satisfying crack. Took a deep breath. And raced forward.
Blood spattered. Bones broke. Rotted organs and scattered limbs turned the sand scarlet.
Yes, he really was good at killing. It was too bad he had developed somewhat of a conscience recently.
It was also unfortunate that Oro was actually an asset. It would be far easier to despise him if he had continued to be deadweight.
Even with broken ribs and only a dagger, he cut down everything in his path.
Side by side, they battled through the prisoners in their way, leaving only chained corpses behind them.
In a place like this, he wondered if death was a mercy.
If maybe they were doing them each a kindness. That was irritating.
“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.
He cut down the next prisoner instead, not deigning to give the Sunling a response. Still, Oro kept speaking.
“You hurt her,” he said, his voice filled with barely leashed fury.
His movements became sharper. He dragged his dagger down a prisoner’s midsection, then kicked him away.
“You took away her memories. And when they came back . . .” He growled as a being with spikes on its palms tried to shred him with them.
He threw his dagger into its eye and retrieved it in a flash before moving on.
“I was by her side. And do you want to know what she did?” He didn’t wait for Grim to answer.
“She cried, almost every night. It was agonizing, having so much history rush back. Having an entire story she had lived erased and then returned.”
Grim suddenly wished he hadn’t saved the Sunling’s life, but he knew he couldn’t be so enraged. Oro was right.