NIGHTBANE
“The last time I saw you, you tried to kill me,” Isla said.
Terra only huffed in twisted amusement as she regarded her. “The last
time I saw you, you were bleeding yourself out for power.” She cocked her head. “How did that work for you?”
Isla might have lunged at her before. Now, after last night, she didn’t bother summoning the anger. She was drained.
And Terra was right. Bleeding herself out to amplify her abilities had been reckless.
Still, the longer she stared at her old teacher, just standing there as if she hadn’t lied to her for her entire life, the more a fury built in her bones.
Hating her was easy. Terra had held her limbs to flames, had abandoned her in the middle of a storm, had knocked her unconscious with the hilt of her sword countless times during training.
Poppy, on the other hand . . . Isla watched her guardian nervously raking her nails against her thick skirts and wanted to sink to the floor. Poppy had held her hand while she received treatment for the injuries she received
while training. Poppy had hummed while making tea filled with honeycomb. If Terra had been the blade, Poppy had been the balm. “Little bird—”
“Don’t call me that,” Isla snapped.
“Isla,” Poppy corrected, her eyes darting to Terra nervously. “We can return another time, if—”
“I banished you,” Isla said, her voice raising. “You killed my parents.
You killed the last ruler of Wildling. You—”
Terra sighed impatiently, and the anger Isla had tried to bury came creeping back up. “I did hope surviving the Centennial would make you
less of a fool.”
The air around her changed, sharpened. The color drained from Poppy’s face as she stared somewhere behind Isla.
“You’ll watch how you speak to my wife in our home.” Grim’s voice was as piercing as the blade at his side. It would have made her blood go cold, if she weren’t the wife in question.
Terra didn’t seem concerned that Grim could turn her to ash without so much as a glare, as she barked a laugh. “And a coward too? Needing your demon husband to defend you?”
She stepped forward, drawing her blade from its sheath. In half a moment, it was aimed at Terra’s throat.
“Speak to either of us that way again, and you’ll find you won’t be able to speak at all,” she said steadily. Poppy paled even further. “I might have saved your life during the Centennial, but I am not beyond ripping your
tongue out of your skull.” The violence of her words shocked her, but she did not backtrack. She did not shrink into herself.
If Terra didn’t like it, then she could only blame herself. This was who her guardian had trained her to be.
Terra almost looked impressed for a moment. Then, she frowned. She looked tired. Her voice barely contained any acid as she said, “Hate us for a thousand different reasons, but I’m putting an end to one of them once and for all. We did not kill your parents.”
Isla didn’t know what she had expected Terra to say, but it wasn’t this. She bared her teeth. How dare she lie to her so blatantly? Did she think she wouldn’t do as she promised and kill her on the spot?
“You admitted it,” she said.
Terra did not deny that. She said nothing at all.
Why accept the blame? It didn’t make any sense. “Liar.”
“Yes. A thousand times,” Terra said. “But not now. Not about this.”
She could know for certain. She could reach for Oro’s flair. She had used Grim’s before, she could—
With the bracelets, she couldn’t. And she wasn’t going to take them off.
Not for anything.
She forced her face back to indifference. It didn’t matter now. She had far bigger issues. “I assume you didn’t come here just to clear your names.”
“No,” Terra confirmed. “We came to tell you about the nightbane.”
She frowned. “What about it?” “It’s dead.”
Dead? “How much?”
There was a pause. Then, “All of it.”
Once, the dark violet flowers had made up fields of star-shaped petals. Isla had stood here with Grim, marveling at their existence. They were miracles, every single one, capable of both life and death—healing and killing.
Now, they had all shriveled up and died. Isla picked one from the ground and watched it turn to ash between her fingers.
“We salvaged what we could,” Wren said beside her. It had been a relief to see the Wildling leader safe.
Isla knew she needed to address her people. It had been days since she had returned.
Wren’s leadership in her absence was a gift. The Wildling told her about the castle Grim had relocated them to, an abandoned estate with fields fit for farming and more than enough room for all of them.
Grim appeared minutes later, and Isla did not miss how Wren watched him warily. She turned her attention back to the wilted flowers.
“Secure any of our remaining elixirs,” she told Wren. “We have seeds from the newland, right?” The plant was notoriously slow to grow. For the time being, the healing elixirs would be limited.
Wren nodded, bowed her head, and turned to give orders.
Isla studied the ground. The storm. She remembered how Grim said it had ruined lands before.
Grim was silent by her side. She could feel his tension. His worry. It echoed her own.
The destruction of nightbane was a massive blow. The scarcity of the drug it was used to create would only intensify unrest. Many people of Nightshade relied on it daily.
And, without the healing elixir it made, people would die from injuries that could previously be mended. They had just lost one of their greatest assets.
This had just been one storm of a season. It was just the beginning.
“We need to know about the origin of the storms, if we’re going to stop them.” They needed more information.
She needed more information.
The question was asked from desperation. She tried to keep the urgency out of her tone as she said, “You don’t have oracles here, right?”
She didn’t dare hope. She didn’t dare breathe.
“No,” he said, and she closed her eyes. Fought against the rush of sadness. Then, “The closest thing we ever had was a prophet, but he died a long time ago.” A prophet? “His order survived, but they only speak to
those who make the climb.” “The climb?”
“Up to their base. It’s at the top of a mountain.” She blinked at him. “You never tried?”
“Of course I did. When I reached the top, they refused to let me in.”
She frowned. Grim was their ruler, and he seemed well-liked by his people. “Why?”
“My father killed the prophet.” Oh. Perhaps sensing she was going to ask why in the realms Grim’s father would do that, he added, “He refused to share his prophecies with him.”
Her desperation was so sharp, she knew he could feel it. “Maybe they’ll speak to me. I’ll make the climb.” She said the words casually, but her heartbeat was anything but.
Grim just looked at her. “It isn’t a simple mountain. There are tunnels within, and they shift unnaturally. There are beasts inside. The climb is a test, created when the prophet still lived. Only those who survived it were deemed worthy of his knowledge.”
She gave him a withering look. “And you think me incapable?”
He glared back at her. “Of course not. But all power is nullified in the mountain, it’s a sacred place of unusual ability, and—”
It didn’t matter. The bracelets did that anyway. “You think just because I can’t use my powers, I’m powerless?”
Grim blinked at her. “No,” he said, looking as though he was trying to choose his words carefully. “But without them you are vulnerable.” Vulnerable. She hated that word, even though he was right. “I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Perhaps not. I’m coming anyway.” “I—”
“Every single person who has tried to make the climb in the last century, other than me, has died. Your death means the death of my people. Any information they can provide about the storms is critical to us all.”
That, she could not argue with.
She shifted on her feet, considering, and Grim just watched her, leaning against Wraith. She had so many secrets. She wished he would just leave her alone.
But if the prophet-followers wouldn’t allow him in . . . he wouldn’t hear her questions. If he could help her make it to the top, so be it.
“Fine. Where is this mountain?”
