Lark wouldn’t find the heart of Lightlark. Isla would make sure of it. The
slice of power was warm and bright in her palm as she surfaced on Sky Isle, Remlar’s instructions sharp in her mind.
She didn’t even see the vines until they were wrapped around her and she was on her knees. A row of thorns forced her fingers open, peeling her skin in coils. She had no choice but to drop the heart.
Right into Lark’s awaiting hand.
“Thank you so much for finding it for me,” Lark said, her smile serpentine.
Isla bellowed as she fought against the restraints. Her anger exploded off her in waves of energy, sending the vines flying in pieces. In a moment she was on her feet, wiping her bloody hands down her clothing.
Lark frowned as she curled her fingers around the shining orb. Its light faded until it went dull and only an acorn remained. A very helpful illusion Grim had helped her master. “What is this?” she demanded.
“It’s a trap,” Isla said, and then the world exploded.
The acorn hadn’t been an acorn at all, but something Zed had previously developed, an orb filled with their own concentrated power. It burst in Lark’s hand, throwing them both backward.
Isla was caught by Grim’s shadows, the cold darkness smoothing tenderly around her body and swimming across the skin torn by Lark’s vines.
The Wildling landed on the other side of the clearing. Her body had been brutalized by the burst of energy, but she was healing quickly.
“Now,” Isla yelled, and Oro was there, Remlar’s blade in hand. The cursed weapon glistened. He didn’t waste a moment.
Isla didn’t dare breathe as he pulled back and stabbed the knife straight through Lark’s heart.
Darkness seemed to swallow the world, blinding them for a moment before retreating. There was a gurgled scream.
The shard of ice came from nowhere. It struck Oro, and Isla roared. She broke free from the shadows and rushed forward but was thrown back by a sheet of water so concentrated, her spine hit the trees again.
Cleo stepped out of the woods. Isla should have known. Of course the Moonling was working with Lark.
Grim’s shadows rushed forward; he would end her in half a second. “Careful, Grim,” the Moonling said. “Hurt any of us, and your wife’s pretty little head will hit the ground.”
That was when Isla felt a cold sword against her throat. “Hello again,” a voice said. Soren.
The traitor.
Lark had mentioned someone had helped her surface . . . somehow, Cleo must have managed it. She wondered how that was possible, when only Grim’s ability could free her.
It didn’t matter now. Lark was cursed. Immobilized. Even with the blade at her neck, Isla melted with relief.
Until Lark began to move again. To her horror, the Wildling stood, the dagger still sticking through her heart. No. Impossible. The curse was supposed to last at least a few hours, long enough to send her through the portal.
Slowly, Lark’s skin began stitching around the blade, until the dagger was expelled and fell to the floor, as if it was nothing more than steel.
It didn’t make sense; Remlar had bound the curse with his life.
The Wildling smiled again. “It seems we both planned traps today. You don’t think I know where you went? Who you went to for help?”
She raised her hand, and the trees above shook. From its branches, a body dropped down, limp and dead. Eyes wide and pale blue throat slit.
Remlar.
“No!” she screamed, tears falling down her face and trickling onto the blade.
Lark only grinned wider. “What a curious being he was,” she said.
“Always had been.” He was a curious being, Isla thought. And a loyal one.
He wouldn’t have told Lark anything useful, even while his life was at risk.
Oro was on the ground, surrounded by Zed and Calder, who were working furiously to close his new wound. Enya was in front of them, her wings of fire curling out of her back, balls of flames in her hands.
Grim was looking at Isla, eyes wide but focused, as if he was calculating the chances of being able to turn Soren to ash or portal her away, before her throat was slit. Soren’s pressure against her neck was firm
—portaling away could kill her.
But she wouldn’t let anyone else she cared about die because of her failings.
Grim seemed to sense a shift in her emotions, because he stepped forward. “No—”
She was too quick. Using his power, using the strength of her anguish, she sent them all different places, far from each other.
Before she could think to portal herself, Soren pinned her against him, blade pointed right at her jugular. She didn’t dare breathe.
All her focus shifted to holding on to her and Grim’s bond, blocking his power, the same way Remlar had once taught her to, so he couldn’t portal back to her. She immediately felt him fight against it, the power pulsing, but she stood firm. Remlar would have been proud of her.
Lark looked surprised but not discouraged. “No matter. We will find the others later. And you will regret having ever wasted our time.”
The hilt of the sword hit the side of her head, and the world fell silent.
She woke up bound. The air was stale and dry. She had been plunged into near-total darkness. She blinked and could just barely make out the figure of a woman in front of her.
Lark sighed. “Strange how easily mistakes are repeated . . .” she said. “How strange another Wildling ruler fell in love with her Nightshade
counterpart.”
Isla’s grin was cruel as she spat at her feet. “Mine gave me his life.
Yours locked you in a prison. We are not the same.”
Lark just smiled back, but Isla could tell she hit a nerve. The Wildling still harbored deep resentment over Grim’s ancestor. She could feel it.
“Let me give you some advice, Isla,” she said. “Kill your heart before it kills you.” She stepped closer. “The heart is always our downfall. No matter
the poetry or the lessons about love conquering all, no—the opposite. Love conquers us. It is the true ruler. The true equalizer. The true weapon and
scythe among men.”
That, at least, was true. Isla knew it. Love had made her do the worst things she had ever done in her life.
But it had also made her strong enough to do the best.
“We could have been allies, in another life,” Lark said. “You know what it’s like to be locked away. To be betrayed by those you love.” The side of her head ached where the sword had hit her. Her vision blurred, then returned. “Perhaps time will be what you need. Just like me.”
It was then that Isla turned to see her wrists bound behind her, and what was around them.
Her bracelets, made into cuffs chained to the floor. The ones Lark must have found in the blacksmith’s forge.
“No,” she screamed, trying to break herself away from them. She summoned all her power—but it was gone.
Gone.
Lark sighed. “It’s torturous, isn’t it? Even worse after the first century. You’ll see.” She stepped closer to her. Isla lunged forward, but the chains dragged her back. Lark only smiled. “I don’t need the heart of Lightlark when I have you. I’m going to find the Nightshade and Sunling rulers and send you pieces of them, until you comply. I’m going to kill every single person you’ve ever cared about.” Isla raged against the bracelets, and Lark only smiled. “Goodbye, for now, Isla,” she said, as the ceiling dropped to swallow her.
Isla’s raging scream was heard by no one.
Isla’s wrists were raw from tugging against the bracelets. Blood dripped down her fingers and onto the floor.
Please, she said to herself, please don’t let her find them. If she did. If Grim and Oro were hurt—
She folded over and vomited.
She struggled against the restraints in vain.
Time passed differently underground, without the moon or sun to tell her how long it had been. She was slumped forward, having exhausted all her energy.
Damn her for having the bracelets made. She had done this to herself.
She had sourced her own imprisonment, down to the metal.
Only Lark could remove them, which meant she would die with the bracelets still on her wrists.
No, that wasn’t true. The only other person who could free her was the blacksmith, Ferrar. And she had plunged a blade through his chest.
All his work had been for nothing. The suit of armor and sword she had left in her bedroom. None of it mattered anymore.
What if I need you? She had asked him.
You’ve always had everything you needed, he had said. If only that were true.
A day passed, it seemed, before a mindless soldier appeared in the cavern. His skin was leathered and far too cold as he roughly pulled her hair back and forced her to drink water. He shoved food down her throat, and she bit
his hand as hard as she could, but he didn’t even flinch as his fingers came apart in her mouth.
Isla folded over and retched, spitting wildly. And he repeated the process again, with his mangled, bloodless hand.
Another day. Another meal. Another guard, this time. She had been right. Lark might have summoned them from the dead, but they weren’t whole. Lark was weaker here, in this world. Isla wondered, if, in the otherworld, she had been able to perform full resurrections.
What had she promised Cleo? Did the Moonling understand the limits of Lark’s power here?
Isla wondered about Grim and Oro. She hoped they were safe and far away from the Wildling.
She felt around for the bond between them, like she did every few hours, but with the bracelets on, and this far down, she felt nothing.
The thought occurred to her later than it should have. Her necklace. If she could find a way to pull it—perhaps to trick the guard into doing it— Grim could find her. He had found her before.
The next day, Isla tried. She fought with the guard.
She folded herself over, in any attempt to tug at the necklace.
The day after that, she attempted to speak to him, to convince him to help her, but it was like he couldn’t hear her.
Nothing worked.
Isla screamed again, as if her voice could cleave through the rock and alert Grim and Oro to where she was—
But no one came.
A week was a long time spent in silence. Her only company was her thoughts. There were only a few more days left of the storm season. A few more days before the augur said her body would perish. Perhaps Lark would find a way to keep her alive. Perhaps the Wildling planned to turn her into some sort of monster.
Ferrar’s words were like a chant in her mind, an echo through the cavern.
Everything she needed . . . She began going over his words. Going over her research. Going over the events of her life.
The prophet-followers had been convinced she had been the curse born of life and death. That she would either end the world . . . or save it.
Sairsha’s group had forced her to end them. They had believed they
were giving her a gift. It didn’t make sense—unless they thought by killing them, she would be taking something.
She thought about the thrill of killing Tynan. The surge of every death afterward. The beast within that was being satiated.
As her powers had developed, something dark had formed. It had started with using her blood and pain as power, on Lightlark. Then, on Nightshade, it turned into killing for power. Eventually, the skyres.
It was as if something within her was always taking. And always getting stronger.
Almost like another power completely.
That was impossible. She already her flair. She had her father’s flair.
She couldn’t possibly have another one. Unless—
Unless she hadn’t been born with her father’s flair. Unless she had taken it.
Isla began to shake.
We did not kill your parents. Terra had said those words, and Isla had been quick to dismiss them, even though doubt had harbored in the back of her mind. Then, using Oro’s flair, she had confirmed it. Her guardians had no reason to take the blame of killing her parents. They had no reason to look fearful when she had returned from the Centennial, accusing them of that death.
Unless . . . unless they had kept it a secret. Unless they had been protecting her from the pain of the truth. Unless they had been protecting themselves, in fear of what she might do.
Tears welled up in her eyes, blinding her. No.
Isla screamed at the top of her lungs. She had killed her parents.
She had killed Aurora.
She had killed so many others since. And it had made her stronger.
She took—she had taken the power of every single person she had ever killed. Shame consumed her, and she shook with rage. She fed on death.
Death.
She was a monster.
But then realization washed over her like rushing water. Because she had also killed the blacksmith.
You have always had everything you needed.
A primal sound left her mouth. The ground trembled in response to the force of her, because now that she knew the power she had—she could use it.
The blacksmith had put the bracelets on her before. He had always built a failsafe into his designs.
She had his power now.
Her focus unwavering, she remembered watching him in his forge. She remembered seeing him hammer, cleave, create. She imagined him taking his work apart, demolishing it forever. The metal bracelets at her wrists began to crack. Rocks in the ceiling began to fall like rain, shattering against the floor. And Isla just smiled.
She took, just like a curse.
And, as hard as she had tried, Lark would find that she could not be broken.
Isla dug it all up—the pain, the shame, the love, the hatred, the loss, the doubt, the fear, the life, the death, and wrapped herself in it, soaked in it.
She scraped every ability from where it had been buried, every bit of power that she had ever taken, every strength she had been afraid to use. She filtered it through the skyre.
And she unleashed.
The world broke open around her. The ground parted like a screaming mouth in a roar that swallowed her senses, tearing through endless layers of dirt and rock until light rained upon her again. She blinked furiously against it, panting. Isla stood a mile down, in the new crater’s center. The bracelets were just twisted scraps at her feet.
She had been buried deep below, where no one could hope to find her. She stared up at the distant sky, and the ground that had walled her in like a cage.
Lark would wish she had buried her deeper.
Isla was filthy, bloody, and still shivering from the cold of the underground, but she needed to know for certain.
Terra and Poppy were guarding the door of the Wildling newland castle when they saw her.
Poppy’s eyes went wide—not in fear . . . but in concern. “What
happened? Are you alright? Let me see those wrists, they’ll get infected.”
Isla was too tired, mentally and physically, to refuse. She allowed her guardians to lead her to her old room. It took three baths and endless
scrubbing to wash the blood and dirt from crevices she wouldn’t have even thought of. Poppy brought healing ointments and wraps.
“Did she come for you here? Is everyone okay?”
Terra shook her head. “Wren portaled us here with the device, but she stayed behind, on Nightshade. She never came.”
Isla closed her eyes against the memory of the burning Wildling. “Wren is dead.”
There was just silence.
As Poppy finished the final set of wraps around her wrists, Isla couldn’t take it any longer. She had to know for certain. “I killed them, didn’t I? My parents.”
Poppy looked at Terra. Terra only looked at her. She nodded.
Isla felt a part of her shatter again, but she didn’t have time to break.
She swallowed. “How?”
Terra sighed. “Your first cry . . . you brought the castle down. They
were killed instantly. Only you remained. Her bonded . . . he shielded you.” Lynx. It was why he had hated her at first. He knew; he had been there.
She had killed his bonded right in front of him.
“You were born with too much power,” Terra said. “Your power threatened us all. Yourself, especially.”
Isla didn’t understand. It didn’t make any sense. “I never had power.”
Poppy’s smile was sad. “We ensured that. There was a metal, passed down for generations. Rumored to suppress power. We never had much use for it . . . until you.” The very metal that had just been tied around her wrists. But she’d never had bracelets like that.
“We ground it into your food. We laced it into your clothes and
weapons,” Poppy said. “Between that . . . and convincing you that you were born powerless, you never tried to use it. We knew the dose of stone wasn’t strong enough. One day, you would overpower it. We trained you as best we could without it, hoping you would be able to control your abilities once they appeared.”
Villainous from the first breath. The words she had once spoken in humor to Grim were very real when it came to her.
She fought against the tears. There wasn’t any time for them now.
Poppy and Terra had brought her clothing. She slipped on her familiar brown training pants, long-sleeved shirt, and boots. Poppy silently braided her hair away from her face.
For the first time in months, she felt like a Wildling again.
“Things are going to get bad,” Isla told them at the castle door. “Grim will come for you, if I don’t.” Terra nodded.
Poppy threw her arms around Isla. She held her guardian for just a moment.
She opened her eyes and found Terra watching her. Then, her former teacher said, “We trained you well. Now kill that murderous witch.”
In her clean clothing, Isla used Grim’s flair to portal into the clearing on Sky Isle. Leaves rustled across the forest floor, carried by the wind. They had partially covered the body in the center of it, like a blanket.
She went to her knees and cried.
Remlar hadn’t deserved this death. He had been alive thousands of years. He had helped her, when most wouldn’t have dared.
He had become a friend.
She found his blade nearby. The one he had cursed. The one that held his power. It glistened beneath the light. Otherworldly. Shademade.
Isla remembered some of his last words for her. You will bring the gods to their knees.
He had believed in her, when she didn’t even believe in herself. She tucked his blade into her belt.
Then, she pressed a hand against his body, and portaled him to The Hive.
The winged creatures awaited. The woods shook with their sobs. He was carried on a scrap of wind, between his people. She watched in shock
as they plucked feathers from their wings and put them upon his body, until he was coated in them.
She was the last in line. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to do everything you taught me.”
It was the last secret shared between them.
Isla stood on the edge of the cliff next to her father’s estate, overlooking the cove where he had once tried to flee his destiny.
She clutched the large black diamond around her neck and pulled.
Within moments, the ground thundered as Wraith landed, his talons digging deep into the dirt. Grim was on his back. He wordlessly leapt to the ground. Isla’s knees nearly buckled as he walked toward her. For days, she had wondered if Lark had found him. If she’d . . . if she’d—
“I thought you were—”
His lips covered hers, and she was engulfed in him—in storms and rain and shadows. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said. And then, he kissed her more.
She wanted to capture this moment forever. But Lark was still out there.
She still wanted all of them dead.
He hugged her to his chest. He was grasping her so closely, she could feel his heart beating wildly, right against her ear.
She looked up to see him studying her body, gaze snagging on her raw wrists. The shadows that had puddled at his feet now flared, eating across the cliffside. “What did she do to you?”
“She put the bracelets on and chained me a mile below the ground. She said she was going to kill all of you.”
Grim’s voice shook with rage as he said, “I’m going to rip that witch limb from limb and have her heal herself so that I can do it again and again until the end of time.”
“And I’m going to help you,” she said. “Where is she?”
“Astria saw her go underground a few days ago, and she hasn’t surfaced since. The Skyling’s blade might not have cursed her, but it was strong enough to have weakened her.”
Good. His death was not for nothing.
Lark was strong. Soon, she would surface. There were only days left of winter. Their time was nearly up.
“This ends now,” Isla said. She had everything she needed. “Get them all—Oro, Enya, Calder, and Zed—and bring them here. I’m going to Azul.”
Grim nodded.
She left him on that cliff.
Azul was seated on his castle steps. He stood as she approached. “What’s happened?” he said, as if he could read the pain and trials of
the last few weeks in her features.
Energy simmered around her as she approached. Ever since she had discovered her true flair, it was as if part of her power had been unlocked, and now it surged around her. “The storm to end all storms? It’s happening tomorrow,” she said.
Azul tensed. “How do you know?” “Because I’m making it.”
