Panic gripped her chest. This had to be a dream—an illusion.
But Oro’s amber eyes were clear, he was right there. Even without her powers, she could feel the link between them, fainter than before, thanks to the bracelets.
For a moment, she felt joy, warmth, relief, like being plunged into the sunlight after weeks in darkness.
Fear replaced it.
If Grim found him here, if anyone did, he—
She opened the window and pulled him through it.
Oro nearly collapsed onto the floor. He was cold, shivering. He had dark crescents beneath his eyes.
He had flown here, across the world. It must have taken days. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, searching wildly for his
pulse. It was still strong. It was a wonder he wasn’t nearly dead.
Oro only looked at her. He seemed lost for words for a moment. Lynx brought over a blanket with his teeth and draped it over him.
Treacherous creature.
Oro reached back and pet Lynx on the leg. He curled up behind him and purred.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated. Her voice was hushed. Any sign of panic, and Grim would be here in an instant. It was his room, after all. Their room.
This was bad. Very bad.
“Our bond weakened. I was worried something had happened to you.” She lifted her wrists, to show her bracelets. “They block my power.”
Oro frowned. His gaze trailed up her arms, to her chest, to her face. He searched her quickly, as if looking for any sign that she had been hurt.
Then, his gaze roamed across the room, as if half expecting to see that she had been locked in a prison.
“You flew across the world to make sure I was okay?”
“Of course I did,” he said sharply. His breathing was labored. “You could have sent someone else. The risk, it—”
“I didn’t trust anyone else.” He looked at her, and she understood his meaning. He didn’t trust anyone else not to kill her on sight. She was the traitor.
Yet—he was here.
Tears gathered in her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. So many nights, she had clutched the golden rose necklace to her chest and thought of him
before burying the emotions down.
Isla knew she should send him away. She knew she was a risk to him.
But she couldn’t stop herself from slowly reaching a hand to touch his face. His eyes closed as her palm pressed against his cheek. As her fingers grazed his lips. She made to move, and his hand curled around her wrist, keeping her there.
“Oro,” she said, her voice a rasp.
“Isla.” And the way he said her name . . . it was nearly her undoing. She nearly threw her arms around him, nearly kissed him, nearly did a thousand stupid things that would only end in more confusion and heartbreak.
But then a sound cut through the darkness. A pitch like a talon scraping the night itself, nearly painful, wholly beautiful.
Her hand still against his face, they both slowly turned toward the
intricate cage in her room, and the small blue bird sitting within it. Dread and hope dropped through Isla’s stomach.
The stormfinch was singing.
She turned to look at Oro, eyes so wide they watered. They had just seconds. Grim would hear the bird. He would portal here, so they could go into the storm.
She had to get to Grim first. Keep him away from her room. If he found Oro here . . .
Flashes of their battle echoed in her mind. Blood, everywhere. Her, screaming at the sky, watching them nearly kill each other.
Her voice tumbled out of her. “I have to go.” She stood, immediately missing the faint heat that had started radiating out of him. “Stay here. Stay hidden.”
The stormfinch continued its singing. It was getting louder. Grim would be on his way.
Oro’s brows came together. He looked half ready to demand to come with her, but before he could say a word, she grabbed her clothes in a fist, then the starstick, and portaled into Grim’s room.
He was standing in its center, looking half a moment from going to her. “Hearteater,” he said, mouth barely moving, as if on instinct. His eyes
filled with surprise and happiness for less than a second, before they
narrowed in confusion. He was staring at her night clothes. Likely wondering why she hadn’t changed in her own room.
Her heart was hammering so loudly, she wondered if he could hear it.
Her emotions were unbridled. Grim was feeling a canvas of relief and devastation and fear—
“I—I need help,” she said quickly.
The stormfinch was still singing. She could hear it faintly, even from down the hall. Would Grim want to go to it?
She turned around in a flash, offering her back to him. “The buttons. I can’t reach them.”
It was a lie. She was grateful he wasn’t Oro, because he would have seen through her in a moment, with his flair. There were only five buttons. She could easily twist and get them, but she made a frustrated sound and pulled her hair over her shoulder, to allow him access.
For a moment, he didn’t move an inch. He must have already alerted a guard, because somewhere far away a bell started ringing, warning the nearby villages of an incoming storm. The warning would spread across Nightshade.
They didn’t have much time. They needed to get up into the skies quickly and follow Azul’s instructions.
Yet time seemed to stand still as Grim’s cold fingers brushed against her spine. Her shoulders hiked.
“Sorry,” he said, somewhere close to her ear. “You’re . . . very warm.”
She swallowed, pulse racing, thinking about the Sunling skin she had just touched. The warmth that had filled her like a gulp of summer air.
Panic spiked, knowing he was still in her room. Just a few walls away.
She turned to look at Grim right in the eyes, attempting to distract him from wondering about anything. “It’s fine. Don’t stop.”
His gaze didn’t leave hers as he undid the next button. Then the next.
Then the next. Until all of them were done, and her straps were hanging off her shoulders, back completely exposed. Body turned away from him, but eyes on his, she let the night dress drop to the floor. Watched his throat work.
Then, she turned toward the wall. She shrugged on her long-sleeved shirt and pants. She didn’t know if he was watching, but by the time she had everything in place, he was facing the wall.
“Ready?” she said. He nodded.
And he portaled them both to Wraith.
The night was starless. The darkness seemed to simmer, full of something she couldn’t see but they both could feel.
Wraith moved silently through the sky, farther and farther up until Nightshade was lost below.
“Worried, Hearteater?” Grim said, leaning in so she could hear him through the wind.
She swallowed. Of course she was worried. Oro was in her room—in Grim’s room—at the very center of the land of his enemies. He had flown across the world. He could be discovered in an instant. How long would he wait?
“The storm,” she said with all the confidence she could muster. “It’s our best chance at finding the portal.”
It was true. They had waited weeks for this moment. Her thumb fidgeted with Azul’s ring. An energy coursed through it, the storm inside gently swirling.
Grim was silent long enough for her to peer over her shoulder at him.
He was staring at her.
She knew him, so she could see the slight disappointment in his expression, the hint of sadness. “What?”
He tilted his head at her, ever so slightly. “I’m just wishing you didn’t feel the need to keep so many secrets from me.”
Her limbs went boneless. Feelings spilled through her, unchecked— surprise, and guilt, and fear. She knew he could feel them. Knew it was useless to say, in a voice like it was dragged out of her, “What secrets?”
Did Grim somehow know about the king in her room? Or the prophecy?
She felt the sudden need to run, though she didn’t know how. She had forgotten her starstick back in Grim’s room.
Just when she nearly lost her grip on Wraith’s ridges, palms slick with sweat, he said, “You went to see the augur.”
Relief filled her—and was almost immediately replaced with wariness. “How do you know that?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “You’re dying. You don’t think I’ve been trying to find every way possible to save you?”
Right.
She should have known—should have expected that the same man who had waged a war to save her wouldn’t simply accept her fate.
She should have been relieved that he was pursuing an avenue to save her and Nightshade that didn’t end in Lightlark’s destruction. Instead, all she felt was worry. How much had the augur told him?
“And?”
Grim dropped her gaze, then. He was looking below at the dark clouds that had begun to gather. His jaw tightened. “As I suspected, the only
chance at permanently saving you is the otherworld.”
She knew her death was imminent . . . but it didn’t make it burn less to hear it said. Only a few months of winter remained. Every day was colder. Would she ever feel the heat of summer again?
“Reconsider,” Grim said, meeting her eyes again. His voice was firm.
Desperate, even. “What?”
“Using the portal on Lightlark.” He leaned toward her. He let go of Wraith with one hand and reached toward her cheek. His fingers were trembling and cold against her skin, so at odds with Oro’s heat. “Reconsider. Let us go through it. Let—let me save you.” His voice broke on the words. It seemed supremely difficult for him to hold back on simply taking her to Lightlark right now and carrying her through the portal himself.
But he was listening to her. He was respecting her wishes. He was trying.
Her eyes stung as she shook her head. No matter how much she wanted to live—truly live, with freedom her position would never allow—she wouldn’t doom thousands to death, just to save herself. “I can’t. I—”
Her skin prickled. The wind shifted into a different pitch, a sharp sound that made her wince. Something in her body seemed to sing, pulled toward a force she couldn’t see. Her scalp felt sensitive, the metal of her bracelets trembled against her pulse. Grim lurched forward, as if to shield her, just
before the skies around them shattered.
Her breath was knocked out of her lungs as she was thrown against Grim’s chest. He caught her with a hand around her waist as Wraith was flung back by a gust of wind that seemed intent on shooting them down.
The sky had gone that strange shade again—green and purple whorls formed around them. Her ears rang. She fought to breathe.
Something hit her in the arm. Her blood was hot against her frozen skin. “Something’s wrong. We’re leaving,” Grim said.
Her words came out raw. “No! It’s our only—” She cut off sharply as her leg was sliced, down to her ankle, right through her clothes. Impossible. Her pants were made of fabric that was supposed to be nearly impenetrable.
“Enough of this.” Grim extended his hand, to portal them away. Nothing happened.
He froze behind her. Tried again. She could hear his frustration like a growl. Then, he was lunging forward, to block another object soaring through the air, right at her face. He caught it in his fist.
He flinched like it had burned him, before dropping it. It looked like a piece of metal, but charred, aflame.
It looked like her bracelets.
“My power isn’t working,” he said over the roaring of the wind. This storm . . . it was so much worse than the previous one. There hadn’t been metal in that one, not that she had seen. Wraith was moving quicker than ever. In seconds, she could barely keep her eyes open against the force of
the tempest. The dragon whipped sideways suddenly, nearly sending her off his back.
The shademade metal fell like hail. The pieces were getting larger. She ducked, barely dodging a clump the size of her fist.
“We should turn back,” Grim said, his grip on her tightening. Wraith dropped to avoid something she couldn’t see, and her stomach lurched.
“Not yet. Tell him to go higher.” “Heart—”
“Tell him,” she said, looking down at the ring upon her longest finger.
Nothing was happening, not yet. They must not be in the heart of the storm.
He cursed, then shouted orders to Wraith. At first, she feared he had ignored her wishes and told the dragon to turn back to the castle. Instead, they began to rise through the skies.
It was worse up here.
The energy was almost speaking to her, a whisper, a thinly forged dagger flaying her skin. The metal pieces were smaller but more abundant, thick as rain, nicking her every inch.
“We’re not going any higher,” Grim said. “But—”
The sky chose that moment to rumble and shatter around them.
Lightning struck, thunder answered.
“Fine,” she said through her teeth. She made sure her grip was tight.
Grim didn’t have his shadows to keep her in place. If she fell, it would be to her death.
With a steadying exhale, she lifted one arm into the air, offering the ring on her finger to the tempest.
One second. Two. Three.
Something scratched against her finger. It was the metal, shifting, turning slowly around her skin, by itself. It was almost as if the shred of storm inside the ring was trying to escape. It was pulsing, like a heartbeat. She looked up to see it faintly glowing. It seemed the power inside was calling out.
With a flash that nearly blinded her, the storm answered.
Lightning. Barreling right toward her. Stopping just short of the ring, blinding her completely for seconds.
She tasted power on her tongue, like metal in her mouth, like blood. The stone felt hot against her finger, absorbing a piece of it.
Another strike, this one far too close, and Wraith was propelled away by the force of it, wings flapping wildly to regain balance. Grim gripped her hip with one of his hands to keep her steady.
She lowered her arm and stared down at the ring. Inside, green and purple wove together with the shred, in thin, braid-like strands. They formed a new, sparkling color.
This was the key to finding the portal. The key to saving Nightshade. According to the augur, the key to giving herself more time to live.
A searing pain erupted in the back of her head, from something that had cut across it. The metal. It was getting bigger now, even up here.
“Duck!” Grim yelled through the roar, and she did, but it hardly helped. The storm had thickened. She was pelted by metal in all directions, like an army of throwing stars, until Grim covered her entire body with his.
She remembered him shielding her from the arrows in the cave.
Remembered him taking every single one. He did the same thing now, getting stabbed a thousand times by increasingly large pieces.
His powers still weren’t working. If they were, he would have wrapped them in shadows. He would have portaled them away.
They were stuck in this storm.
Grim shouted orders for Wraith to descend. They lost air quickly as Wraith dropped—so quickly, that Isla’s hand slipped.
And with it, her grip on the ring.
She watched in agonizing slowness as the ring fell through the air, down toward Nightshade, disappearing through a thick layer of clouds.
Her only chance at finding the portal. Gone.
On instinct, she went after it. She had no plan, no powers, no starstick— before she jumped over the edge, Grim was hauling her back.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as he pinned her in place, shielding her with his body as they continued their descent.
Blood dripped from every exposed inch of him, he had been cut in a thousand places, but he didn’t seem to be focused on anything but her as his eyes filled with rage.
“We need to land!” she screamed. “That was our only chance!” She didn’t recognize her own voice, her own insistence, her own recklessness.
Her life was tied to thousands, but in that moment all that mattered was that shred of storm.
She didn’t have any other rings on. Could she use another stone to trap the storm? Her necklace. She reached for the stone around her neck.
But before she could wrap her fingers around it, a roar cut through the storm like a blade carving it in half.
“What in the realms is that?” she whispered, Grim’s breath hot against the top of her head, Wraith’s scales wet and cold beneath her cheek. She slowly turned her neck, to look up.
The sky had gone red.
And from those blood-brushed clouds emerged a creature emitting spirals of flame.
No. Not flames.
Lightning.
She turned to Grim. “Can Wraith—”
“No,” Grim said and he—he sounded afraid. Afraid like when she was dying in his arms. In a desperate push, he pressed them both down against Wraith’s cold, rain-slicked scales. He shouted against the roar of the storm, and Wraith began to tilt down, to retreat.
It was too late.
Streaks of lightning darted toward them, illuminating everything, splitting into shards. Roots on fire.
One hit Wraith right in his neck, and he seized. His wings went still. He tilted to the side.
And then, they were falling.
