She had seen Aurora’s writing hundreds of times before. She still had scraps of it, from when they used to share books and write notes to each other in
the margins, back when Aurora was disguised as Celeste.
She rushed to her secret hiding spot, and there it was, one of the last
volumes they had ever read together. She flipped through the pages, looking for the curls of ink and finding them. Her spine turned to ice. It was
undeniable as she compared the letters.
Her hand trembled as she took the feather, half expecting it to twist out of her grip. She wrote beneath it.
How is this possible?
She dropped the feather and waited. Silence. She could hear her own heart beating as the seconds ticked by. Just when she was about to begin wondering if she was losing her mind, the feather stood upright by itself. She watched it slide across the paper and carefully write a sentence that made her blood run cold.
All that is buried eventually rises.
The feather dropped dead on her parchment.
Isla nearly tripped as she stumbled backward. This was impossible. She had killed Aurora. She had plunged her dagger into her heart, had watched her fall into a chasm.
It had to be a trick. A faulty enchantment. Only one person would know for certain.
“Have you ever created something that allows one to speak from the dead?”
The blacksmith was busy hammering away at some creation. He had been working with the same material since the last time she saw him, the
shademade metal. It glimmered beneath the flames of the forge. He carefully put his tools down.
Instead of answering her question, the blacksmith only outstretched his hand. He grumbled with impatience. “I’m assuming you’ve brought the object. Best to just let me see it.” She hesitated, wondering if she could trust him not to share this discovery with Grim.
But no. The blacksmith only cared about his death, and she was the only one who could give it to him.
She produced the feather from her pocket and placed it in his awaiting palm. He held it with remarkable care, eye gleaming as he studied it. “It writes words from the dead? You’re sure?”
“One dead.” “On its own?”
She nodded. “I watched it write a sentence as if a specter’s hand held
it.”
The blacksmith hummed. “Interesting.” He squinted and studied its
every inch, seeming to find traits she couldn’t see. “I smell your blood on it,” he said. “Your power woke it.”
She frowned. “Even with the bracelets on?”
He glanced at her. “Your blood is power, Isla. The bracelets don’t change that.” She thought about the augur tasting it and shuddered. He
turned his attention back to the feather. “Not my creation, but I recognize its charms. A shred of a soul has been stored within it.”
A shred of a soul. So, it wasn’t Aurora’s words from the dead . . . but a small piece of her she had left behind.
He tilted the feather at her. “Look at its tip.”
She squinted. There, she noticed a tiny layer of metal. It glimmered like a thousand diamonds trapped inside.
Shademade.
“This is very old enchantment. It predates this land itself.” “What does that mean?”
“It is not of this world.” Not of this world.
Isla frowned. “You—you don’t mean . . .” “It’s from the otherworld.”
How did the blacksmith even know about the otherworld? Isla was under the impression very few people did. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s where I’m from too.”
Isla blinked. She had only ever met one other person who seemed to be from the otherworld, the ancient being that had taught her to wield her
Nightshade abilities. Remlar. “That—that would mean you’re—” Thousands of years old.
He just looked at her.
“Tell me about it. What is it like?” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
He lifted a shoulder. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. The more time spent here, the more the otherworld is forgotten. It was by design, you see. To keep us from wanting to return. I don’t even remember its name.”
How did Aurora get her hands on an object from the otherworld in the first place? “Are objects from the otherworld common here?”
“No. Most were destroyed over the millennia, or stripped of their enchantment by me, following orders.” He took the blade from his belt, then positioned it beneath an orb of light. She watched as the metal glimmered, as if a thousand stars were trapped within it. “Here. This is how you can always tell what is shademade. What is otherworldly.”
She took the feather back. She knew she should have put it back in the drawer. Forgotten about it. Burn it, maybe.
She didn’t.
Isla stared at the writing for days. She kept the scrap of it in her pocket, alongside the golden rose necklace.
Hello Isla.
Words, from her former best friend. The one she had killed.
Part of her wanted to reply, and longed to speak to her friend the way she had for years, confiding in her every time she had felt alone.
“Celeste doesn’t exist,” she told herself, as she rode across Nightshade on Lynx’s back. “You need to remember that.”
Lynx made a sound beneath her, as if he could sense her inner turmoil. She stroked the top of his head. In flashes, she was seeing his perspective,
the land rippling before him. Then, there were pieces of something else. His own lost friend.
Her mother.
She saw her in his memories. Laughing, in a forest. Turning around in a circle, making flowers bloom in a torrent around her. As Lynx tore across
the island beneath her, she watched, and she couldn’t get enough.
Isla saw her own room. It looked slightly different than it did now.
There were no swords against the wall. There was no paint across the glass of the greenhouse. No, her mother hadn’t had a reason to hide. She had been born powerful. From what she could see, she was a skilled wielder.
Did she have a flair? She watched, waiting to see something out of the ordinary, but all she saw was nature.
Then, she caught a glimpse of her father. Dark hair. Pale skin. She watched him look at Lynx, but from his view, it was almost like he was looking at her. She felt a tear slide down her cheek.
He showed her something else. A flash of golden hair. Amber eyes. Her grip on his furs tightened.
Lynx had always liked Oro. She had worked to bury any memory of him down; but just as Aurora had written, all that is buried eventually rises.
Isla should have moved her hand—should have told Lynx to stop—but she didn’t. She watched greedily, remembering Oro’s smile, the way it
made tiny crinkles form next to his eyes. The way those eyes would glimmer when he was happy, like sun sparkling atop water.
She watched their first kiss, when he had pinned her against the tree.
She heard Lynx’s low growl, stopping them as Oro’s hands ran up her sides. She heard them both laugh. For a single moment she felt that happiness, as if she was there. As if she had been portaled into the past.
The images stopped as quickly as they had started.
They had reached the stables, and Lynx made a huff of annoyance.
Wraith. He was outside his stable with Grim, who looked to be at the end of washing his scales.
Face still flushed from the memories, she cleared her throat. Worked to bury her feelings again. “I’m surprised you don’t give someone else the
pleasure of bathing a full-grown dragon.”
Grim sighed as he put the giant sponge he had been using back in a bucket. Wraith was covered in soap and bubbles. Isla didn’t think the tubs
of water used for the other animals would be even remotely helpful.
“He only allows me to do it. Temperamental creature,” he muttered.
Wraith only grinned down at Isla and Lynx.
Isla watched her bonded consider the dragon, unimpressed. He didn’t care for him, not really. She smoothed the space between his ears with her hand, sending images to him. Wraith as the tiny bundle of scales she had discovered limping near the cave. Wraith in her arms, his wings tucked tightly against his body.
Lynx’s muscles relaxed a bit beneath her. Isla slid off his back and watched Lynx and Wraith regard each other for a few moments longer, Wraith far more excited. Then, Lynx turned away with a huff, in the direction of the dried meats the stableman had begun offering him, to try to curry his favor.
Isla watched as the soap on Wraith began to fizzle. “How do you plan on washing him off?”
Grim glanced over at her. “Care to see for yourself?”
No. She still had nightmares about slipping off his back in the storm. Nearly hitting the ground. But Wraith looked so heartbreakingly excited that she sighed and allowed Grim to portal them both onto his spine. It was slippery with all the soap, but Grim pinned her in place with his shadows, called Wraith’s name, and they were off.
The flight was short, and the dragon began to tilt toward the ground as soon as the fields turned to forest. She knew what to expect by now and steadied herself for their landing. He curved, then plunged in the direction of a spring. Wind blew her hair back, roared in her ears, made her eyes water. Her muscles tightened as she braced herself.
Wraith’s wings flared out before they crashed right through a pond.
Isla gasped, and her lungs would have filled with water, if Grim’s translucent shadows weren’t still enveloping her. Only when he met her eyes, when he was sure she wasn’t still in shock, did he let them drop, and she was encased in water.
Wraith fell slowly, like a rock sinking down to the bottom. He rested there for just a moment, before kicking off, and surfacing.
Isla desperately sucked in air as they crashed through, water sputtering, and she turned to Grim, glare already in place.
His dark hair was stuck to his forehead. He didn’t seem to mind that he was soaked through, his cape a wet shadow across his shoulders.
Isla shoved him off Wraith’s back and had the pleasure of watching him crash into the water. Wraith turned his head to face Isla, and she could have sworn he was smiling.
She was smiling too, until a rope of shadows pulled her right in after him.
She would have sunk to the bottom, weighed down by all her daggers and sword, if it wasn’t for the arm that curled around her waist. Slowly, like he had all the time in the world, she felt Grim reach into the slits of her pants, long fingers expertly pulling out dagger after dagger, throwing star after throwing star, and tossing them all to the edge of the bank.
“How many blades does one person need?” he asked, incredulous, as his rough hands gently traced down her legs, fingers curling around her thighs, looking for more. Isla felt like she might be close to drowning again, for very different reasons.
“Several, when she’s married to a demon.”
He only grinned. She threw her sword to the bank herself, then shoved away from Grim, able to swim on her own.
“What is this place?” she asked. There was a thick waterfall falling into the deep body of water, reminding her, with a chill, of the augur’s home.
Wraith was currently beneath it, clearly happy as the water hit his back, scrubbing off the soap.
“A pocket of beauty on Nightshade. A rare one.”
It had been a while since she had swum for leisure—and not when she thought she was dying. She liked it, the feeling of the water through the
roots of her hair, the way it seemed to soothe her aching muscles as she pushed through it. The water was cold, but she didn’t really mind. By the time she pulled herself out of it, and onto the bank, she felt like she could roll over and fall asleep.
The grass was soft beneath her. The sun wasn’t strong, but it gradually warmed her skin. She was so relaxed she didn’t even try to move when Grim lay right beside her.
Her eyes were closed as he carefully and slowly slid every one of her knives back in place, fitting them against the curves of her body, in the
pockets that were specially made for her, by him. She shivered, feeling his
fingers brush up her thighs as he pushed them each in. He left her sword in her open palm. “In case you need to use it,” he said, dark voice skittering down her bones. She would have rolled her eyes if they were open.
She had just managed to drift to sleep, when a thousand droplets of water pelted her every inch.
“Wraith,” Grim growled, and she opened her eyes to find the dragon staring happily down at them, after having flapped his wet wings.
Wraith didn’t do anything but sink down into the grass. He rolled over, but Grim glared at him, refusing to rub his stomach.
The dragon turned to her.
“Traitorous creature,” Grim muttered.
Isla had to fight to hide her grin as she stood, and obliged Wraith, running her fingers down his scales as his talons happily scratched at the sky.
Wraith made joyful sounds, and she found herself smiling. Laughing. She hadn’t really realized it, until she turned, only to find Grim staring at her.
Her smile withered away, replaced by guilt. She didn’t deserve to be happy. She didn’t deserve to have this time to enjoy when so many lives were at risk.
“The storm is taking too long. There hasn’t been another storm in days,” she said. “There has to be another way to find the portal.”
Grim’s expression turned serious. “I’ve tried. I’ve visited any surviving elders. I’ve gone through all the ancient records; none speak of a portal.
I’ve flown across nearly every mile of Nightshade and haven’t felt even a whisper of my portaling power.”
She had tried too. The augur had been helpful in other ways, but their best bet was still Azul’s ring.
Isla sighed. Grim continued to watch her. There was a fold between his brows. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked . . . almost nervous.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Would you marry me?”
Her look was withering. With the hand that wasn’t still scratching Wraith’s stomach, she lifted the stone at her neck, and let it thud between her collarbones. “Didn’t we already do that?”
“My people believe you’re a traitor. Your display with Tynan didn’t exactly disprove that point.”
Her eyes flashed with anger. Her stomach swirled with panic, remembering everything she had overheard. “He tried to assassinate me.”
His gaze mirrored hers in intensity. “I know,” he said, standing. His height was surprising, even now. “And he deserved to be eaten by those snakes while he was still drawing breath. But discontent and suspicion continue to spread to the people. It grows and grows, like a weed. An uprising would only hurt us all.” He sighed.
Grim, she had to admit, was right. “Fine. What do you propose?” “A wedding.”
She remembered their first. It had been small—only Astria there as a witness. Isla had worn an embroidered dress that told their story—nature meeting shadow. Life melting into darkness. She’d had flowers in her hair.
“How in the world would that help? Your court hates me.”
“They doubt your commitment to me. To us. Some are convinced
you’re a spy from Lightlark.” She watched him, wondering if he ever had that fear. If he ever doubted her motivations. “A ceremony would show a unified front. The people of Nightshade are removed from the ongoings of the palace. They only hear rumor, and they are suffering. Everyone still
feels the effects of the storm. A distraction—even for a few hours—would benefit everyone.”
“Fine,” she said, even as her stomach twisted. Marrying him once was one thing. Twice? If news of another wedding reached Oro, what would he think? He would hate her.
Good, she thought, with a bite of sadness. She didn’t deserve him.
Loving him would ruin him, if she let it. He needed to forget her. “We’ll have a wedding.”
