Grim had made her an illusion of the cave. They had gotten past every single obstacle until the last—the dragon itself. Its tail now sat between them and the sword, too spiked to climb, and impossible to get through without power. If they couldn’t get past the dragon, they would have to lure it out.
They were thinking of ways to do that when Grim suddenly said, “I want to show you something.”
She took his hand, and they were off.
They landed in a field of flowers so beautiful, they looked like melted night. Deep purple, with five sharp petals. Stars.
Grim picked one and gave it to her. At first she was surprised, and touched, but he said, “Smell it, Hearteater.”
She did and frowned.
“Familiar?”
She would know the smell anywhere. “It has the same scent as the Wildling healing elixir,” she said warily. It smelled sweet. Syrupy.
“I think they’re the same flower.”
What? That didn’t make any sense. Isla turned around in a circle, eyes focused more closely around her. There was supposedly only a small, coveted patch of the flowers that produced the healing elixir in the Wildling newland. There were entire rolling hills of these here, a sea of nighttime sky. “What even is this?” She didn’t know the name of the flower that produced the serum.
Nightbane. The drug he had talked about. The one that made people endlessly happy while killing them from the inside out. She felt like an idiot shaking her head so much, but none of this was adding up. She felt the need to spell it out clearly. “But the Wildling flower doesn’t kill . . . it heals.”
“We extract the same nectar. In Nightshade hands, under our own extraction process, it turns into a drug that produces euphoria,” Grim explained. “I suspect under a Wildling’s touch it turns into a healing elixir instead.”
She stared down at the flower Grim had given her. Her fingers ran across its petals. They were as soft as velvet and didn’t fold beneath her touch.
Both poison and remedy. Opposites, like her and Grim. The ruler of life and the ruler of shadows.
The flower connected them.
“We can make a deal,” Isla said quickly. “We—we don’t have much of this flower. If you can give us some of yours, we can provide healing elixirs.” Isla said it and wasn’t sure how to even make that happen. Terra and Poppy had no idea she had spent the last few months with Grim. It wasn’t as if she could tell them out of nowhere that they were making a trade agreement with Nightshade, but her people were dying and desperate. “In exchange, we need hearts,” she added. “From . . . from people you are already going to kill. And other stuff I can’t think of right now that we need.”
Grim stared down at her. The corner of his lips twitched in amusement. “It’s a deal, Hearteater,” he said. He held out his hand, and she took it. They shook on it. By the third shake, he had portaled them back to her room.
He didn’t drop her hand. She didn’t drop his.
Isla swallowed, and his gaze traveled down her throat. Lower. Lower. She took a step back, and her spine hit the wall. He stepped forward.
Grim had told her more about himself than ever, the last time she saw him. He’d let her look beneath the mask of death and darkness. Underneath . . . there was a man. Someone who had been through pain.
Someone she had started to understand.
Their gazes were locked. Isla had the sense that the room could come crashing down around them and they still wouldn’t break eye contact. Grim stepped and stepped, until he was right in front of her. She had to crane her neck to watch him.
He leaned down. He dipped his head slowly, tentatively. He was the greatest warrior in all the realms, but Isla could have sworn he was trembling. She felt his breath against her face. His breathing was labored.
“Please,” he said, sounding pained. “Please, tell me you want this.” He waited for her to nod. He traced her body with his eyes and said, “I know if I touch you again it will kill me . . . but I think I might die if I don’t.”
She didn’t dare move as he gathered her in his arms and ducked to meet her.
An inch from her lips he stopped. Cursed.
She straightened. “What is it?”
“There’s been a breach in the scar,” he said.
Then he vanished.
