Grim
He was impatient, restless. His skin felt too tight. Isla was in trouble, he was certain. His chest ached, as if his very soul was telling him something was very wrong.
“Then we could use the connection between the waters as a portal,” Oro murmured.
Azul lifted a shoulder. His sky-blue cape rustled. “My husband wasn’t convinced it would work. Even if you found the pool on Lightlark, we still wouldn’t know how to make it into a portal.”
Reluctantly, Azul nodded.
“Where?”
It took seconds to get to Lightlark. To portal onto one of its beaches. A white cliffside stretched above them, hugging the shore. Sea-foam splashed beneath their boots.
“I don’t see a pool,” Grim said, shadows puddling, searching, his knuckles whitening as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Everything and everyone were moving far too slowly. Did no one else operate with urgency?
If only he had taken the time to study the mind portion of his abilities further. Perhaps he could pluck all the answers he needed from the Skyling and save himself this torture.
“It’s only revealed in high tide,” Azul said. He motioned toward craters in the sand. “The ancient water is buried below. It rises when the sea fully rushes in.”
Grim bared his teeth. He didn’t have time for the fucking tide.
He whirled toward Oro. “Make it high tide,” he demanded.
Oro glanced over at him. “What do you think I am? The moon?”
In a flash, he portaled so he was in front of the Sunling—and the king’s throat was in his fist. He was done playing nice.
His shadows sharpened into a dozen swords, all skimming the king’s useless golden armor.
“You’re anything I tell you to be,” Grim said.
He tightened his grip on the Sunling’s throat, relishing in the color leeching from his face as he choked—
Before his fingers were singed. Grim turned himself into shadow a moment later, but his hand fucking burned.
Oro’s entire skin was crackling with flames. The Sunling took a step toward him. “No,” he said, voice steady but as firm as Grim had ever heard it. “I’m king. You’re a guest on my island, Nightshade.”
Then, he shot toward him in a streak of fire.
Well, fuck. Oro clearly wasn’t as eternally patient and civil as he claimed to be. That was made obvious by the force in which he hit Grim straight in the jaw. Grim portaled away, but not before pain racheted through his skull. He materialized on the other side of the beach, bone still singing.
Oro turned, catching sight of him. The flames coating his body flared higher.
Grim enveloped himself in dagger-like shadows.
Azul just sighed and sat down upon a rock, not bothering to get between them.
They surged toward each other in streams of flame and shadow.
“What’s wrong, Skyling? Not going to help your dear friend?” Grim shot at Azul as his shadow-coated fist made contact with Oro’s temple, sending him soaring through the air, then crashing into the sand.
Azul shrugged. “The king of Lightlark doesn’t need my help.”
He said it just as Oro sat up—and unleashed a beam of energy from his chest that was so saturated, it went right through all Grim’s shadows. It sent him flying back, only stopping once he collided with the white cliff. The mountain shuddered. Rock crumbled as he slid down it.
But before he hit the sand, he shot forward. Shadows gathered in his hands, hardening into pure obsidian power. He was ready to send that calcified shadow right through the Sunling’s skull. He bared his teeth, moving to strike—
Then he went deathly still.
Oro did too. He stopped, just a foot away. His fire completely extinguished.
And in Oro’s eyes, Grim saw the same bone-melting despair that had him sinking to his knees, right into the sand. His shadows were washed away by a wave. All the fight had left him. His voice was a choked rasp. “Please—please tell me you can feel her.”
Oro’s own voice was hardly a whisper. “I can’t.”
Grim’s world was ending, right there on that beach.
Because he couldn’t feel her either.