Her guardians were the traitors. She shouldn’t be surprised. They had betrayed her before. So why did it hurt so badly? Why did it make her question everything?
“You’re making a mistake,” Wren told her.
No. She was finally finding the strength to rid her realm of those who would rise against her.
Did they not understand that the future of all their realms hung in the
balance? Did they not see that a storm worse than any before was coming?
Did they think she wanted to imprison some of the only people she had ever loved? Did they think it made her feel good?
Of course not. They didn’t know she was on borrowed time, that she had just weeks left to make these hard decisions, to change her fate and save them all, even if it broke her heart. Even if it broke her.
There had to be another way to find the ring—at whatever cost.
The blacksmith didn’t look particularly happy to see her. He didn’t even turn to face her; instead he continued to work diligently as he said, “It isn’t time.”
“I’m aware.” She had been counting down the time he had left almost as closely as she tracked her own. The end of winter—the end of the storm season—marked both of their deaths, even if he didn’t know it. “Do you
have a device that can track something?” “Be more specific.”
Her voice had an edge. “I lost a ring. I need to find it.”
He paused his work. Gently put down one of the large metal tools he had been holding. “No. I used to, many millennia ago, made from the blood of a ruler with a tracking flair. But it was lost, and his ability with it.”
Lost.
“And that’s it? There isn’t any other way?” He shook his head.
That might have been the end of it . . . but he had paused slightly. For a fraction of a second.
“There is, isn’t there?”
He sighed and turned to face her, looking tired. “Not one that is practical.”
“But possible?”
The blacksmith shook his head. “I suppose. But—” “Tell me.”
He studied her. “The person I’m speaking of . . . the ruler with the tracking flair. He bound his power to a marking.”
She frowned. She didn’t know that could be done. “What does that mean?”
He leaned his massive arm against the side of his worktable. “It is part of an ancient, dangerous art. When crafted correctly, markings have power. They can call upon ability long lost.”
Isla took a step forward. “You’re talking about skyres, aren’t you?”
The blacksmith stilled. His forge seemed to still with him. “What did you just say?”
“Skyres.”
He blinked, as though clearing cobwebs from his mind. “How do you know about that?”
She wasn’t about to tell him about her visit to the augur, though the blacksmith almost certainly knew he existed. They were both obsessed with powerful blood, for very different reasons. She held his gaze, unblinking.
Shrugged a shoulder.
“You will get yourself killed.”
“I’m dying anyway,” she spat back.
He frowned. Shook his head. “It’s unnatural. I’ve seen even the most
honorable people transformed into demons over time. Like all power, using skyres has a cost. Often, it’s your soul.”
Chills rippled down her arms, as if his very words contained power. As if he was giving her an omen.
She had been warned against power before. From Oro. From Grim, even.
But there was only a month and a half of winter left. Now she was getting desperate. If extending her life, if saving all those bound to it, had a cost . . . it only made sense that it would be her.
“Tell me.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. I don’t know much about them; it was a lost art even in the otherworld. Even if I had the completed skyre from the tracker, I wouldn’t know how to help you use it. Doing it wrong has
disastrous results. It’s best you don’t even try.”
She stared at him for one second. Two. “What do you mean, the completed skyre?”
The blacksmith heaved a heavy sigh and turned to face his wall of weapons. He looked through rows of daggers before he found the one he was looking for.
“This is half of the marking: his personal flair. All I know is the rest should be made up of one of the original skyres.”
She asked for a piece of parchment and a quill. Slowly, she traced over the marking, until the lines were perfectly imprinted on her page.
“It won’t work for your purpose,” he warned. “A tracking skyre needs to be bound with—or onto—a portion of what you’re looking for. The marking helps each piece call to the others. It forms a connection.”
And she didn’t have a piece of the ring. Or the storm within it . . .
Azul hadn’t enchanted it; it didn’t contain his blood. There wasn’t an easy way to find it, even if she could figure out the skyre.
She was back at the beginning of her search, but something about the markings made her curious. Perhaps there were others that could help her now.
“Thank you,” she said to the blacksmith. He might not know the art of skyres. The augur might not either.
But she knew someone who had. They were dead now.
Though . . . perhaps that didn’t mean the information was lost.
Back in her room, the feather’s tip glimmered slightly in the light. She picked it up carefully, ready to drop it at any second.
Isla had to know whether the small markings she had seen on the Starling’s pale skin—during a rare time she had allowed her long gloves to slip down her arms—were the symbols she was searching for.
Do you know how to draw skyres? Isla wrote.
She watched the feather rise with bated breath, as the feather wrote: Yes.
Isla couldn’t trust Aurora. She knew that better than anyone. She herself had plunged a blade through her former best friend’s heart.
Aurora would betray her just like she had before. It would be foolish to follow anything the dead Starling said.
Still, before she had shoved the feather back in the drawer, she had asked,
Would you teach me?
The answer was immediate. Yes. Why would you help me?
There was a minute of nothing. Two. Then, the feather rose and wrote, Redemption.
It was a word Isla identified with, though she still didn’t trust her. There had to be another way to find the portal. Something she was missing.
That night, she funneled her rage and pain into visiting three different towns. Hunting down those who had wronged others.
By the time she reached her rooftop, she was starving. Thirsty. Sairsha and her usual basket of goods awaited her. They hadn’t seen each other in days.
“The little savior is tired,” Sairsha said, stretching her legs long across the roofing. There was the aftermath of a pastry in her lap, crumbs everywhere.
“Don’t call me that,” Isla said weakly, sinking to the place next to her. Sairsha only smirked. “Is heartripper preferable?”
Isla winced at the name. It wasn’t the worst she had been called. The truth was carved out of her. “No. I don’t like names, or titles. They come with expectations. And I so often fall short of them.”
A ruler of Wildling who didn’t live among her people. A ruler of Starling, who had given her position up, since she wasn’t the best choice. A
wife of a Nightshade she would likely betray, because it made sense to kill Grim to fulfill the prophecy, if they were all going to die anyway. It was a thought she had kept suppressed, but the weeks of winter were dwindling down without progress.
They were all going to die. Because Grim gave her life.
She shut her eyes against the images. The ash. The bodies. She was responsible for so much death, and there was so much more to come.
Isla felt something smooth against her hand. Sairsha had placed a bottle of wine in it. She was shaking her head at her. “Don’t do that. Don’t
underestimate yourself, when you’re trying. So many people never bother. They decide they can’t make a difference, so they don’t even try. And trying . . . that’s the hardest part. Not succeeding, but all the trying it takes to get there.”
Isla raised a brow at Sairsha. “You sound like an expert.”
Sairsha laughed. “No. But I had a sister once, and she told me the same thing. I’m just repeating her words. She—now she was truly a savior. Half our village was in the path of a landslide. Every storm, it would get worse. She was determined to stop it, even though everyone told her it was impossible. Inevitable.”
“Did she stop it?”
Sairsha’s smile was sad. “No. She was buried under the rubble while trying.”
Isla’s throat worked. She wondered if the prophecy, and her fate, was her own form of a landslide.
Inevitable.
After a few moments of silence, Sairsha turned to her and said, “Why do you do this? Why do you care about us?”
Isla fiddled with the cap at the top of the wine bottle Sairsha had handed her. How much to say? Lies were easier to tell when wrapped with truth. “I want to make amends. Get redemption . . . for the things I’ve done.” She noticed how easily she echoed the feather. Echoed Aurora.
Sairsha nodded sagely. Her eyes went to the knives and sword on Isla’s waist, and she wondered if the woman was thinking about how much blood had crusted on those blades. Isla drank some of the wine and winced at its sour bite.
“I joined a group out of a need for redemption too,” Sairsha admitted. “I was a thief on the streets when I happened upon them. They gave me hope that my skills could be used for something good. Something important.”
Isla wondered what group Sairsha was talking about; but when she opened her mouth to ask, she found she couldn’t form words. Her face had gone still. Her vision began to swim in front of her. Sairsha’s concerned
face became a blur.
She needed to go. Something was wrong. Isla’s hands gripped the rooftop to lift off of it; but her limbs were useless, buckling beneath her. She fell over onto the roof with a thud.
Sairsha’s distorted face peered at her from overhead.
Isla had consumed dozens of gifts during her conversations with Sairsha.
Only one had been poisoned.
Isla awoke coated in sweat. Her hair clung to the side of her face, and there was a rushing sound, a roaring. Still, even over it, she could hear her heart. It was pounding desperately, as if in warning, saying get up. Get up. Get up!
Her eyes flew open, and that was when she saw the roaring sound was a river. There was a tiny island in the middle of it, a massive stone that the water churned around. She had awoken in its center.
Around her stood a group of people she recognized from the bar.
They had changed. Instead of their worn clothes, they now wore flowing robes, with hoods that cast shadows across their faces. Each was belted with a scabbard and sword.
“What—what are you doing?”
The bald man she knew as Ragan stared at her, eyes gleaming with something like excitement. Something like hope.
Two men stood next to him; she’d exchanged polite nods with them once or twice before.
Then, standing the farthest away, was Sairsha. She had the nerve to smile at her.
Isla wasn’t bound. They hadn’t even taken her weapons. Fools. “So.
You know who I am.”
Sairsha’s smile widened. “Yes,” she said, far too enthusiastically. “We know exactly who you are.” What were they going to do, sell her for
ransom? Imprison her?
Had Sairsha planned this trap the entire time?
Isla slowly rose and realized with a shot of horror that while they hadn’t taken her weapons, they had taken her starstick. “What do you want?” She motioned at her daggers. “If you wanted to kill me, you really should have taken these.” They wouldn’t know their lives were bound to hers. She wondered how much she should say.
Sairsha laughed. It was a pleasant sound, completely contrary to the circumstances. “Kill you? Quite the opposite.” She stepped forward. All the others did too, pulsing like a living body. With them surrounding her, there was no backing away, only backing toward one of them. Sairsha’s smile brightened, her eyes wide and reverent. “Isla Crown, we have waited
hundreds of years for you.”
She couldn’t have heard her correctly. This . . . this had to be a dream. Her head was still pulsing with pain, from the poison. “What are you—”
“This is your destiny. It is written.”
“No.” Her voice barely made a sound. They were prophet-followers.
“What’s going on?” Isla’s eyes were wild. She turned in all directions.
She was surrounded.
Metal sliced through the night as they each pulled swords from their scabbards in one fluid motion. They dug the blades into the rock and did something Isla never expected. They went to a knee before her.
“Please,” Sairsha said, her voice thick with emotion. “Accept our gifts.” They rose at once.
Gifts? Did they think she was raising an army? Isla didn’t understand. “You . . . you’re confused,” Isla said, turning quickly, afraid to give any
of them her back.
“No,” Ragan said, his voice booming. “The prophet never made mistakes. Everything that was written has come to pass.”
Sairsha’s eyes gleamed with fervor. She was buzzing with energy, and so were the others. As if something big was about to happen. Isla felt the
same dread, the same prickling on the back of her neck, that had come just before the breaking of the storm. “I wish you could read his teachings. His book is full of wonders. And you . . . he spoke so much about you.”
“What did he say?” she demanded. Eta had hinted at her destiny.
Sairsha smiled. “He said that at the end of the world, a girl will be born from life and death. The girl will either destroy the world . . . or save it. She would be either a curse . . . or remedy.” Sairsha’s grin grew even wider. She was shaking with excitement as she said, “Don’t you see? You are the girl. The one that was promised.”
Isla shook her head. Tried to back away. These were fanatics.
Sairsha still smiled as tears streamed down her face. She was so, so happy. And Isla didn’t understand at all. Her smile never faltered as she said, “We were chosen to help you. We have waited so long for you to be revealed to us.”
Chosen? By who? For what?
“We offer ourselves to you,” Ragan said, volunteering his sword for her to take. “And hope we are worthy.”
She tentatively took the sword by the hilt, not knowing what was going on, but certain that she would rather it be in her grip than his.
Ragan smiled wide. He closed his eyes. And ran himself through with the blade.
Isla screamed, the sound filling the world. Her ears began ringing. She dropped the sword, and his body along with it. Blood pooled at her feet. She hadn’t wanted to kill him . . . but he was dead.
What had he done? What had she done?
Something in her chest flickered, almost in satisfaction. That didn’t make sense. She didn’t want to kill. She didn’t want to feel as though she had gained something from it.
Grim’s words from their wedding were in her head: I know you’ve killed dozens of people who should have rotted in our prisons long ago, and I know why you do it. To keep the beast within at bay.
There was a beast inside of her, she had known that for a while. It enjoyed taking life.
But that wasn’t who she was.
Isla slowly looked up from the body, only to see the rest of them smiling at her, offering her their own swords. She backed away as much as she could. “What are you doing? What is wrong with you?”
Sairsha shook her head. “Don’t be concerned, Promised,” she said,
smile still bright on her face. “You will take us somewhere else. Somewhere
better.”
What was she talking about? She couldn’t promise them anything.
“Please,” Isla said steadily. “Just give me my portaling device. Let me go. I don’t want any part of this.”
“But it’s the part you must play,” Sairsha said. “It has been written.”
They pushed forward in unison, and Isla was forced to put her own blade up.
“I won’t kill you,” she said, backing away, shooting a look at the wild waters behind her. If she could make it in the river, the current would help her get away.
But she needed her starstick. In the wrong hands, it could be ruinous.
She could clutch her necklace. Summon Grim. But that would likely lead to everyone here dead, and that was exactly what she was trying to avoid.
“Oh, but you must,” Sairsha said. She put her arms to the side, baring herself for a blow.
No. She refused. This was madness.
Sairsha’s face fell. “We hoped you would understand. But you still have much to discover.” She looked to the others. “We insist.”
“I said no,” Isla repeated. “Leave me alone. I’m not the person you’re looking for. I am not the girl. I have not been promised.”
Sairsha smiled again. “You are everything he said you would be.” Then, she struck.
Isla folded over with the blow. She hadn’t been expecting the hilt to the face. Blood ran down her temple. The act of having killed Ragan swirled in her chest, burning, unleashing feelings she didn’t want to harbor.
Hunger. Part of her wanted this fight.
When Sairsha went back for another hit, Isla kicked her square in the chest. Sairsha flew across the rock, landing on her back. Good. She didn’t have to kill them. She just needed to subdue them, get her starstick, and leave.
It seemed they were intent on forcing her hand, though.
The men she had never spoken to shot forward, and, suddenly, she found herself fighting against two swords. Their blades sliced the night sky to pieces, and she grunted as she worked, still tired from whatever poison they had given her. She managed to hit one man in the face with her hilt,
but he was relentless, returning just moments later, blood spurting from his nose.
Sairsha was on her feet again. “It doesn’t have to be difficult. This death is not permanent.”
Isla twisted away from a blow and just barely managed to avoid what would have been a nasty scar on her arm. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she yelled. She slipped her fingers into the pockets woven into her pants and pulled out two throwing stars. They gleamed as they flew, hitting one of the men right in the shins. He collapsed to the ground, and
she hoped he stayed there. She whirled to meet the other’s blade. “I am not going to kill you.”
The other man came to her from behind, and she shoved him back with a hilt to the forehead. He fell back, and there was a horrible crack as his head hit the rock.
He stared back at her with empty eyes, dead. No.
The other swung at her, and she fought back to meet his blade. This time, though, he let his sword drop. He didn’t deflect her blow.
Instead of meeting metal, her blade went straight through his heart. Ringing sounded in her ears. She backed away. No. No.
She looked up, and the woman’s red hair had fallen from its braided crown. She was staring at her, tears glistening on her cheeks. And still, despite the blood at her feet, smiling.
“Go, Sairsha,” Isla said, her voice barely a whisper. “Please. I won’t fight you.”
“But you will.” Sairsha closed her eyes. She took a breath—
And her shadow began to move on its own. It peeled from the ground and rose, in Sairsha’s exact shape. The shadow had a sword.
It leapt forward, wicked, baring its teeth and tearing into Isla’s flesh with a bloodthirsty ruthlessness. She screamed out as the shadow’s teeth sank into her shoulder, as solid as the ground beneath her feet. It was an
impossible ability, a fine-tuning of Nightshade power. She hadn’t even seen Grim do anything remotely like it.
Groaning, she managed to shove the shadow away, but it did not tire. If anything, it was invigorated. It leapt at her; sword raised high—and Isla ran
hers right through its center. The shadow instantly dropped to the ground and melted right off the stone, ink swirling into the river.
“Thank you.” Isla looked up to see Sairsha’s robe soaked in blood, right in the middle. Right in the same spot she had stabbed the shadow. She collapsed.
Isla’s knees buckled.
She knelt next to Sairsha, pressed her hands against the wound, ripped off part of the robe to try to stop the bleeding. It was no use. Blood puddled in her hands, and Sairsha just smiled. “Thank you for this honor.”
And then she went still.
Her starstick was in Sairsha’s scabbard. Isla took it in a shaking hand and stood, stepping over the bodies around her. Blood coated their robes and streamed down the rock in rivulets, before being swallowed by the river.
Isla lifted her head to the sky and screamed.
