Which is impossible.
But is it?
We’ve always suspected Grim of having a flair. But this? Portaling? He could have used it before. He probably has. He’s been keeping this a secret for centuries for a reason.
Why reveal it now? For a woman he just met?
But I can’t judge him. Because the pain lancing through me right now doesn’t make any sense either. I sink to my knees, I clutch the ground, and for the first time in centuries, I beg.
I beg the gods to spare her, and I don’t even know why I care so much.
She told me herself. She’ll be gone, back to her newland as soon as this is over. We are nothing.Sheis nothing to me.
Bitterness like poison fills my mouth.
And that’s when I know for certain.
Iknow.
I value truth—though in my long life, I’ve tasted far more bitterness than sweetness. Lies are everywhere, all around us. Truth is the rarest thing in the world.
The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. And I’ve been lying for quite some time.
This—thisis the moment I’m honest with myself, for the first time in months.
This is the moment I know I love her. Because that arrow went through her heart, but it might as well have gone through mine.
I love Isla Crown.
And now she might be dead.
The heart of Lightlark is twinkling on the ground, staring at me, right where Isla left it.
I’ve been looking for it for decades. At the start of the Centennial, it was all I wanted. I would have doneanythingto get it.
Now I wish I’d never looked for it.
I clutch her crown to my chest and beg. I beg the gods, and anyone else who might listen, for mercy. I make all types of promises.
“Please,” I say, on my knees. Staring straight at the sky. “Let her live, and I will keep fighting. I will keep this hope alive for a world that lives in peace.
“Let her live ... and I will let her go. If that’s what she wants ... if that’s what this world needs ... I will let her go.”
I want her selfishly, desperately, wholeheartedly.
But I just want her to live ... even if it’s not with me. Even if I never see her again.
If she is alive, that is enough. It will be enough to know that such beauty still lives in a broken world like this.
“Please. She is too good for this world, but I ask you to please, keep her in it.”
The hours are agony, waiting for the sun to set. I don’t even wait until it is gone, I fly the moment I know the sun won’t kill me.
The weak rays of sunset burn, shredding my skin, covering me in blood, but nothing compares to this worry, this heartbreak.
If she’s dead, I’ll never forgive myself.
If she’s dead, I’ll never know happiness again.
