Crowntide by Alex Aster - 9

Now that these bastards weren’t being drowned, they were screaming . Grim guessed it was the first time they could, for possibly centuries.

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.

A flash of the past blinded him. He remembered that first day, when he had been thrown into the cells on Lightlark, after his father had lost the war. Grim had been ordered to live on the island, as part of the treaty.

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 .

Still, he whirled to face the Sunling. “You don’t think I regret it every day of my life?” He blindly cut down the next prisoner. Then the next. “I was trying to save her. I thought—I thought you were the only way.”

“What about the necklace?” Oro demanded, his hand covered in blood as he buried his dagger into yet another heart. “Its power?”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he said simply.

Once Grim had claimed the diamond, he realized that he misunderstood its capabilities. The diamond only amplified powers that already existed. Isla’s life was tied to his—and barely holding on. Even if that, itself, was amplified, it wouldn’t have been permanent. No, they needed to go to the otherworld, where life could be brought back for good.

In the end, he decided to give it to her during the Centennial, when killing was permitted. He thought it was the best way to keep her safe, since he couldn’t openly protect her. All she had to do was pull the diamond, and he would come for her.

Now, he wondered if he had sealed her death the moment he clasped that necklace around her neck. Cronan must have wanted that stone . . . and his ancestor wouldn’t hesitate to kill Isla to get it.

Grim shook away the thought, gutting another prisoner. Oro frowned but kept fighting. They didn’t speak for a few moments, but it was like the Sunling couldn’t help himself.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Oro said, roughly. “We were . . . we were . . .”

Friends , was the word he couldn’t say.

That made Grim pause. Suddenly, centuries’ worth of rage rushed to the surface, and he huffed a cruel laugh. “Yes. We were friends. Until you accused me of starting the curses. Until you didn’t believe me when I told you I didn’t, even though I know you fucking knew I was telling the truth.” He had guessed at the Sunling’s flair a long time ago, during his time in the cell. Oro had made it obvious, with his ridiculous questions.

Grim saw a hint of regret pass over Oro’s features.

It did nothing to calm his fury. “You were my only friend, and you didn’t believe me,” Grim said, turning to face him. “You didn’t believe your own power.” He bared his teeth. “It was as if you had been waiting that entire time for a reason to hate me.”

Grim supposed he had given him another reason, after taking Isla’s memories away. After invading Lightlark again. But by then he had long given up on their friendship.

Grim shook his head. “Even after you invited me to the Centennial, when you had another theory about who started the curses . . . you still looked at me like an enemy.”

Oro barked a laugh. “Yes, and good thing too, considering you were planning on killing me with Aurora.”

That had been his plan. To have Oro fall in love with Isla, gain access to his abilities, then for Oro to die. Open the portal. Save her for good. It hadn’t been personal against the Sunling, not really. At least that’s what he told himself.

They both glared at each other, before they started battling again.

“It must have been hard,” Grim spat, taking his anger out with every blow.

“What?” Oro said tersely. He seemed to be doing the same.

“Losing her.”

It was Oro’s turn to clench his jaw and grip his dagger so tightly, Grim thought he might break it.

“You know how hard it was,” Oro ground out, before he lunged forward once more.

Silence. Just their groans and the roaring prisoners as they fought forward an inch at a time. Grim tried to focus on the task at hand, tried to forget the Sunling was even next to him, but the same thoughts and fears circled his mind until he finally voiced them.

“Isla is my wife,” Grim said. “She chose me. She was living with me . . .” He turned to look at the Sunling. Their blades swung at the exact same speed. They were both dripping in blood, having killed hundreds of prisoners so far. “Why fight this hard for her?”

He needed to know the Sunling wouldn’t betray them. What if he planned to use the power they claimed down here for something else? He couldn’t take that risk.

Oro shook his head in near disbelief. His gaze locked onto his, for just a moment, and it was full of intensity. “Because I love her enough to want her back, even if it’s not with me. Can you say the same?”

The Sunling shot forward before Grim could respond, leaving bodies in his wake. Grim trailed behind, thinking about what he had said.

If Isla chose Oro . . . would he ever accept that? Would he ever stop fighting for her?

A few months ago, he would have said no. But now . . . after seeing the pain of taking away Isla’s choice . . .

If she chose Oro, he would have to accept it. But he would never stop loving her. Never stop hoping she would change her mind.

He hated the flash of pity he felt for the Sunling, and the realization that, yet again, they were not so different.

“You’ve made the same mistakes I have,” Grim said, back next to him.

“No.” Grim could see the anger steadily building in Oro. If they weren’t on these enchanted lands, he was sure that fire would be shooting from his palms. “I didn’t take Isla’s memories away. I didn’t make decisions for her.” Oro looked him up and down in pure disgust. “Isla deserves better than you.”

“And what is that?” Grim scoffed. “You?”

“At least I’ve been honest with her. I’ve trusted her.”

Grim’s laugh lacked any mirth. “You love the Wildling part of her. The creation. The goodness. You resent that she’s Nightshade. You flinch at her darkness. I love all of her. I don’t recoil at her mistakes. Unlike you.”

Oro returned the same humorless laugh. “And look what happened. She killed an entire village . . . for you . You fed that part of her instead of helping her find her way back to herself.”

“It’s who she is ,” Grim snarled. “She is both. Light and dark. Together.”

“She might be Nightshade,” Oro said, “but she is not a monster. She doesn’t want to be. She runs from that side of herself, yet you . . . you bring it out of her. You make her the monster you want her to be, so that the monster within you isn’t alone.”

Grim recoiled as if he had been struck. No. That wasn’t what he did. He supported her, no matter what. He didn’t judge her. He wasn’t making her into a monster.

Oro gave a bitter chuckle as he twisted his dagger, wrenching it from the ribs of a wailing prisoner. “You don’t even know how you’ve corrupted her, do you? You just care that she’s yours. You don’t realize she’s only yours because she’s so ashamed of what she’s done that she thinks all she deserves is a monster like you.”

The breath shot out of Grim’s lungs. That couldn’t be true. Isla loved him. He knew that. Before everything that happened, before she destroyed that village, she loved him.

He shook his head, rejecting the Sunling’s biting words. “She is my wife. I do not need to prove our love to anyone, least of all you. We will be reunited, and we will begin our life again. Together. We will have our family.” Grim strode forward, slicing his weapon to the side, gutting yet another fanged creature.

Oro just laughed. “Family? You think you’d make a good father?” he said. “You, who was responsible for the deaths of all his own siblings? Who killed his beloved sister to ascend the throne?”

Grim stumbled forward, shocked into silence. He had told Oro that fact centuries ago, in confidence. It was one of the most traumatic events of his life. And for him . . . for him to throw it in his face . . .

Fuck this.

Fuck working together. Fuck him .

He growled as he whirled around—and hurled the Sunling through the wall of water. Oro’s body was swept away, and Grim watched smugly as he had to fight back to land. He finally emerged a few yards from Grim, gasping and sputtering. A prisoner lunged for him, and he hardly stabbed the man in time. Oro looked up at Grim through his wet hair, eyes blazing with fury.

They both launched at each other, weapons lifted—until the ocean walls shuddered around them. Grim turned to Oro with open panic. They needed more time, they hadn’t found the lost king yet. Never mind the fact that if Cleo lost her hold, they’d never make it back to the surface without their powers.

The sea roared, and Grim thought this might be the end, but then steps began punching out of the wall of water, over and over, forming haphazard stairs that hardened into ice.

They looked at each other, blades still raised. They didn’t need to speak to know what this meant. Cleo was tiring out, and she was giving them a way back to the surface. They had to hurry.

Hot fury toward Oro was still burning under Grim’s skin. But as they glared at each other, they shared a silent understanding. Their love for her came first. Hatred for each other came second.

So, they turned and started sprinting.

They fought recklessly, razing prisoners down in bloody arcs, not caring if they caught a claw or fang here and there, not slowing as guts coated them from head to toe. They moved as one, Oro ducking to stab a prisoner in the shin to stop him in his tracks, Grim cutting off his head.

“He’s close. He has to be,” Grim said, as the prisoners became more creature-like. One was a scaled beast sitting on a pile of skulls. Grim wondered how he was able to feed down here, until he noticed the closest bodies to the creature were missing their heads.

Oro paused, realizing the same thing—that to reach those prisoners while chained itself, the creature must have a way to get close. They both came to a stop just as the beast opened its mouth, revealing row after row of teeth. He noticed something arcing above the creature’s head and realized it was a horned tail, cracking forward, ready to split them into pieces.

It was a scorpion. A giant fucking scorpion.

Grim gripped his sword and prepared to attack when suddenly a whip-like tongue shot out, heading right at him. He lifted his sword to cut the tongue clean off, but the creature was smart. Its tongue darted around his blade and wrapped around his body, pinning his arms to his sides. He heard his sword thud against the sand before he was being pulled forward.

The tongue’s hold was like a vise. He couldn’t move, and he roared as he tried. This monster would not stop him from getting to that king. From getting to Isla. But he didn’t have powers here. And without his sword . . .

The beast’s tongue constricted, and he felt a rib shatter. Fuck, it hurt. He should have given Oro more credit.

The barb came rushing down, straight toward his chest. Grim closed his eyes, anticipating the pain of being ripped apart and—

There was an ear-splitting howl as something shattered all around him.

What the—? Grim blinked, only to see a thousand pieces of silver raining down as his spine hit the sand, the beast’s tongue spasming next to him. Oro must have cut it off with Grim’s sword and blocked the stinger with the blade. And the stinger had broken it like it was no more than a toy, and not an ancient relic .

“Get off your ass,” Oro snarled, pulling him to his feet, just as the stinger came down again, right where he had been.

Grim stumbled after Oro and ran as fast as he ever had in his long life, the scorpion right behind them. Its chain was longer than the others. It didn’t seem to have eyes, and as the stinger cleaved down around them with little aim, Grim guessed that its tongue had been its main sense. Sand scattered as the tail carved deep holes in the ocean floor. One strike missed his leg by only inches.

The scorpion was fast, nearly upon them now. “Jump!” Oro yelled.

Grim leapt forward as far as he could, rolling when he hit the ground and bracing himself for impact.

But it never came. He slowly looked back and saw that the chain had finally pulled taut. He and Oro laid beside each other, gasping for air, watching as the scorpion roared, its barb reaching just a foot shy of them.

“Thank you,” Grim breathed, begrudgingly.

Oro sighed. “Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

Oro turned to him. He looked tired. His crown was off-kilter and filthy. “Because then I’ll really think the world is fucking ending.”

Grim shook his head. He stood and offered Oro a hand. The Sunling had saved him. They had saved each other.

They were both battered and bruised, sporting broken bones and covered in guts. But together, they crested another craggy hill—and stopped in their tracks.

Because there, sitting alone in the distance, was the lost king.