She smiled sweetly. “Great. Because . . . if you had said no . . . I would have had to assume you were a spy for Cleo, or somehow working against us.”
Soren smiled in the least friendly way possible. “Who am I healing?”
Isla found particular pleasure in his expression after she said the words, “The Vinderland.”
The hardest part about getting Soren to heal the warriors ended up being convincing the Vinderland not to kill him.
He showed her how to correctly steep the Wildling flower for tea without losing its healing properties, then began healing their sickness in conjunction with the elixir. The results weren’t immediate, but Isla was hopeful that enough of the warriors would be doing better in time to join her in battle.
She had extracted several ores for Zed. Later that night, Isla visited the Wildling newland and found Lynx waiting outside the woods for her.
Her lips twitched. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were worried about me,” she said.
Lynx made a sneezing sound that felt like a denial.
She stood in front of the creature and offered a slab of meat she had gotten from the kitchens.
He sniffed it . . . then, for once, accepted her gift. Progress, she told herself. It was progress.
When Lynx finished eating, she asked, “I’ve told you we are going to war. Will you fight with me?”
She searched his eyes for a response.
He bowed his head, almost all the way to the ground, and something inside her chest constricted at the clear yes.
So often, she had been betrayed. Put her trust somewhere dangerous. The fact that Lynx, who liked to pretend he didn’t care for her much, was willing to go to battle with her . . . it meant everything.
She threw her arms around his neck, and he let her hang there. He lifted his head, and she held on, legs dangling.
“We’ll get you armor made.” She was floating just inches from Lynx’s eye as she said, “First, though, I need to learn how to ride you.”
As the days before war dwindled, it became clear that there was not enough of anything—time, soldiers, resources, energy.
They sat at the round table again and planned their strategy. They had limited everything, which meant they needed to figure out how to be strategic—how to force Grim and his soldiers to fight exactly where they wanted them to.
They had crafted a map of the Mainland with the mysterious ash Isla had used before, on Sun Isle.
Oro and Zed had been arguing for hours about where they would have the best advantage.
“Here, over the mines,” Zed was saying. “We can have warriors in the tunnels. It could work as a trench.”
“It would work well for the Nightshades, who could demolish the ground and bury our forces alive,” Oro said.
“How about between the Singing Mountains? Nightshades don’t know how to fight in mountainous terrain.”
“Sunlings don’t either.”
In the end, they agreed the best place to fight was on the west side of the Mainland, in the space between the agora and Mainland castle. That way, the Mainland woods would naturally frame their fighting area, along with the Starling walls and Wildling defensive nature.
“Can you manage to cover that much territory?” Zed asked. “In nine days?”
“Yes,” she said, because there was no other option.
At night, she practiced riding on Lynx. She fell off so much, they had started moving their lessons to the river. The leopard was tall enough that he could easily walk through even its deeper parts, and Isla wouldn’t risk a serious injury every time she fell.
She fell a lot.
Each time, Lynx looked at her in a way that could only be interpreted as unimpressed, and then he would fish her out of the water with his great teeth and throw her on his back again.
If only they had more time, she thought. The days were slipping through her fingers.
She needed to get the Wildlings on Lightlark, to start coating its surface in poisonous plants. She needed to start portaling civilians onto the newlands. That alone would take days and much of her energy.
She needed a shortcut.
She needed to remember something useful.
BEFORE
Monster was a kind word for the creature that lived in the cave, housed at its mouth.
It was a dragon.
When Isla was a child, Poppy used to tell her stories of beasts large as hills, with scales like peeling bark and claws at the ends of wings so large they blocked the sun. Isla used to be afraid one might find its way to the Wildling palace and break her room apart with a single shrieking cry.
Don’t worry, little bird, Poppy had said. All the dragons are gone.
No. Not gone. Just hiding.
“It’s asleep,” Isla whispered. The dragon was curled in the mouth of the cave, its head facing the opposite direction. Its body rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
She squinted. The cave was not deep. There was a sliver the dragon wasn’t covering, and she could see behind it, farther inside—
“No,” she said, blinking quickly. “That can’t be—no, that’s too easy, it can’t—”
“It’s the sword,” Grim said.
Just behind the dragon, the sword was sitting on top of a pile of other relics. It was made of two pieces of metal, braided together like lovers, until they formed a single joined tip.
She made a sound of relief. “We just have to sneak past it without waking it. That’s it.”
Grim didn’t look convinced. “And if it does wake, it will char us alive,” he murmured.
They approached the cave slowly, silently, keeping to its very edge.
This would be easy, she reasoned.
The dragon was sleeping soundly. The sword was right there; she could see it.
The moment Isla stepped foot inside, something flew through the sky. She felt a howl of pain in her leg.
Grim moved fast as lightning. He knocked her off her feet and pinned her against the ground, hand coming down behind her head to soften the fall. Less than a second later, half a dozen arrows went right through his body.
Isla opened her mouth to scream, but before she could make a sound, Grim’s other hand smothered her lips. It stayed there, cold and solid as ice. Her eyes were wide, and they stared at each other, faces inches apart, as more arrows stabbed him through his arms and legs. His body lurched with every new hit until they finally stopped.
There was a moment of tense silence, both waiting to see if they had awakened the dragon. She was panting, her chest nearly meeting his own.
No movement.
Her eyes dropped to his wounds. Twelve arrows. It was a wonder none of them had gone through his heart. Blood soaked his clothing, dripping onto her body.
He had shielded her from the attack, without a moment’s hesitation.
She dragged his hand down from her lips. “Portal away,” Isla mouthed, lips shaking around the words.
Grim shook his head.
If they used his power or the starstick, the sword would disappear. They might never find it again.
Somehow, Grim had to make it out of the cave.
Isla wasn’t even sure how she was going to make it. The one arrow that had pierced her before Grim had made himself into her personal shield had gone straight through her shin.
With more strength than she could imagine, Grim somehow got to his feet. She quietly stood too and had to bite her hand to keep from screaming from pain. She tried to walk a step and nearly crumpled back down to the floor.
With one quick motion, she was off her feet. Grim, twelve arrows still sticking through him, held Isla in his arms and somehow walked steadily out of the cave and through the field until he could portal them away.