And he needed something from Lightlark, beyond her. She just needed to figure out what it was.
Zed’s look was incredulous. “That . . . that’s treason,” he said. “You summoned our enemy to the Mainland castle. The person who is hell-bent on destroying all of us.” He looked to Oro, whose expression had hardened.
“Let her speak,” he said, though his voice did not have any hint of the warmth it had developed over the last few months with her.
“When I was with him, I could feel . . . I could feel that he still loves me.”
Azul leaned forward. “You felt the connection?”
She nodded.
Zed still glared at her. He wouldn’t ever trust her, she knew that. If she were him, she wouldn’t trust her either.
Still, he was wrong about her. She loved Oro. She was loyal to Lightlark. She closed her eyes and said, “I know how we can win.” They waited. No one moved an inch. “Grim is too powerful. It makes him nearly impossible to defeat. Especially with the sword. But he loves me—I can use the link and take away his powers long enough for us to overpower him.”
Silence.
Enya was the first to speak. “Have you ever tried doing that before?” Isla shook her head. Not that she remembered. Yet. “Have you ever tried . . . even accessing his powers?” Again, she shook her head. Not that she remembered.
Yet.
She turned to face Oro. “But I’ve done it before . . . Accessed powers through the link.”
It wasn’t easy to do. Especially for someone like her, who had only recently wielded power at all.
“It requires an intense . . . connection,” Oro said. He wasn’t looking at her. He shook his head. “It would be too big of a risk. If you couldn’t steal his powers immediately, he would know what you were trying to do and would portal away.”
Calder said, “Oro. This could change everything. It could change the entire tide of the war. Though . . . we would be sentencing all Nightshades to death.”
“Maybe not,” Enya said. “If Isla took all his power, it would spare his people, wouldn’t it?”
“It should in theory, though something like that has never been tested through a love bond,” Azul said. “This is a very . . . unique circumstance.” Azul studied her. “You would be willing to kill him?”
The words hit Isla like a stone in the chest, even though she had been the one to suggest it.
Kill Grim.
The thought sounded poisonous in her mind, but she remembered her vision in front of the vault. If she didn’t stop Grim, he would kill innocent people. He would kill her. Oro had been right. Grim’s words in her room had confirmed it. It’s because I care about you that I’m doing this.
Grim was really going to war because of her. She didn’t know his main reason for destroying Lightlark, but his purpose was clear. Which meant every death would be her fault.
He had stolen her people. Her memories. Her happiness, the last few months.
She wouldn’t allow him to steal anything else.
“Yes,” she said.
Oro met her eyes. She expected to see relief, but all she sensed was concern. He reached across the table for her. She watched Azul track the exchange. By now, he must have known. Oro didn’t seem to care that everyone else was watching as he said, “You don’t have to do this.”
Isla remembered Enya’s words. She saw her meaning clearly now. Oro was putting her own well-being above that of the entire island.
She wouldn’t let him. “Yes,” she finally said. “I do.”
She was going to kill Grim.
Remlar taught her the basics of taking power. It required a complete hold. Pinching the thread between her and Grim between her fingers and being strong enough to stop the flow of power within him.
“It will be painful,” he warned. “And difficult. Grimshaw is a most talented wielder,” he admitted. Isla wondered if Remlar had ever met him.
They had almost run out of time. Only two days remained. Grim clearly needed something on Lightlark. If she could remember what it was, they could shift their plan to make sure he didn’t get it.
She just needed a shortcut.
“I need you to help me speed it all up,” she told Remlar. He had warned her it would be dangerous to force the memories. It could break her, mentally. At this point, she didn’t care.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Even knowing the risks?”
“I’m sure.”
Remlar began making tea.
Isla’s mind was a battleground.
She didn’t want to remember—she had to remember. She didn’t want to feel anything but disgust at the Nightshade—she had felt everything with the Nightshade.
The more she saw, the more she knew . . .
“What is the opposite of night, Wildling?” Remlar said, as he poured the tea into her mug.
Isla frowned. She was convinced Remlar just liked to hear himself talk. “Day?”
Remlar shrugged. “If you say so.”
Isla narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean? What’s the answer?”
Remlar took a sip of his own tea. It looked scalding. “Very few questions in this world have only one answer.”
Isla wondered what the point of this conversation was.
“What is your answer?” she asked. She watched as her tea became more saturated in color.
He didn’t say a thing. These were mostly one-sided conversations. “What does power feel like to you?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Like a seed. Behind my ribs.”
Remlar nodded, excited by her response. “A very pretty way of seeing it,” he said. “Very fitting, for a Wildling.”
“What does it feel like to you?”
This time, he answered. “Like nothing,” he said. “I’ve been alive for so long that my power is as much a part of me as my blood and bones.”
She dared ask a question she had wondered since the first moment she had seen him. “Are you truly Nightshade?”
“Labels are so unproductive,” he said. “Though, I suppose you would call me a Nightshade. In terms of my power.”
“You wield darkness?” Isla asked. “How have the islanders not banished you?”
“They fear me too much,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because my knowledge surpasses theirs. I have survived when kings have risen and fallen and died. I have remained. We, the ancient creatures, remain. And some of us remember.”
“Remember what?” she asked. She finally took a sip of her tea. That was all it took. Within seconds, her mind began to slip away from her. The past bled into the present. She blinked and watched Remlar fade far away.
The last thing she heard him say was, “Home.”
BEFORE
They had a plan to get past the dragon. Grim would lure it out of the cave, and Isla would get through all the protections herself before the dragon returned. She practiced going through each one, with the help of Grim’s illusions. He watched as Isla finished the entire circuit for the tenth time successfully. She turned to face him when she was done, and he actually looked impressed.
They were standing in his training room. She leaned against a stone wall and slid all the way down it. “I’m exhausted,” she said.
“I can imagine.”
Grim had clearly just come from the scar. He was covered in ash. “You look awful.”
“That is harder to imagine, but I will take your word for it.”
Magnificent ego, indeed. She sighed. “I’m ready. Why don’t we celebrate?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Tonight is the Launch of Orbs in the Skyling newland,” she said. She had attended the previous year, but only barely. She had hidden in the shadows, watching. Wishing to be part of it all. “It’s to celebrate the new season of hot-air balloons being unveiled.”
Grim scowled. “They are always finding an excuse to celebrate. I bet they celebrate tying their own shoes.”
“I’ve always wanted to ride in one,” she said. She looked pointedly at him.
His eyes slid to hers. He looked like he would rather do absolutely anything other than be launched into the sky in a balloon. “Don’t you have anyone else to go with?”