The Lord of Grimnight’s Evil Plot
The Lord of Grimnight's Evil Plot
Between the End of One Story and the Beginning of Another
If I’d been stronger, if I’d been faster, I could have saved him. But I’d failed him, and my Treasure—my everything—was dying before my eyes.
I can still fix this. I started toward him, only for a black sword to block my path.
“Let him die,” my master snarled, his expression filled with hate.
“He’s your son.”
“He’s a traitor! He broke my curse, destroyed my lair, ruined my plans!” He slashed at me with the shadow sword. Sliced pieces off my cloak. Cut a bloody line across my chest. Every second he delayed me was a second lost, and Treasure didn’t have many seconds remaining.
Fighting him wouldn’t save Treasure.
I stopped time and ran toward Treasure, climbing over the roots shattering the floor. His friends and family surrounded him, trying to save him, but they were in my way. I flung them to the side with my magic to clear a path.
Treasure bent over the throne, his breaths weak and his body trembling as he struggled to support himself. Gore stained his back, but the bleeding had paused. The wound wouldn’t worsen while time was stopped. It wouldn’t heal either.
I needed to see Treasure’s wounds, to gauge how much damage had been done. I gently grasped him and helped turn him over, settling him in the cursed throne that had tried to kill him. The branch had plunged straight through his chest.
I felt Treasure’s gaze on my face and forced my panic back under the surface.
He didn’t need to know he was dying. “I can fix this,” I promised, already calculating how far back I would need to change time.
Before he challenged the lord? Before he left my bed to free the champions?
How many decisions would he make exactly the same way if nothing else changed?
“I don’t think … a health potion will be enough.”
Even the strongest health potion couldn’t repair that kind of damage, but I’d never been a healer anyway.
I cupped his face in my hands, gazing into his eyes.
Setting back time meant nothing if his choices still led to his death.
I had to change the world to change his choices.
“I will fix this. But it’s not going to be the same. ”
“What won’t be?”
Everything.
I needed to create a world where he wasn’t the Lord of Grimnight’s son.
A world where he would grow up with the fathers he loved, never knowing the one who had used him and then discarded him the moment he stopped following orders.
Even if that was a world where he had no connection to me, no reason we would ever meet.
“Will you love me, if things are different?”
I didn’t mean to ask the question out loud, but now that it was said, I wanted to hear his answer.
He opened his mouth, then his face crumpled with a new wave of pain.
I couldn’t bear to extend his suffering any longer. I caressed his cheek with my thumb. “Close your eyes.”
His eyes drifted shut. I didn’t know if he was following my order or if he simply couldn’t keep them open anymore.
“And think of home.” I gathered my magic around me and leaned forward, pressing my lips to his in a tender kiss.
I hoped it wouldn’t be our last.
The pocket dimension only contained the two of us at first, then slowly expanded, reshaping the world around us.
Time flowed backwards, returning people to their starting places.
Treasure disappeared and my hands closed on empty air.
The dimension was still forming around me, so I couldn’t go after him yet.
When the new world settled into place, I stood alone.
I’d lost everything.
And I would do anything to get it back.