Isla drew her puddle of stars as large as she could make it. And, with all her remaining strength, she kept it open as the hundreds of soldiers rushed in. She was the last to fall inside.
Battle cries pierced the air. Nightshades were now being smothered. Sunlings, Skylings, Vinderland, and night creatures all fought side by side.
Isla marveled at them. Enemies, united.
She was lifted off her feet by Lynx, who threw her onto his back without stopping. She gripped his saddle and joined the fighting.
The Nightshades didn’t stand a chance. They were almost easily overpowering them.
Then a woman came from the sea, on the back of a swell that dwarfed even the Singing Mountains.
The water crashed across the Mainland, and soldiers were covered, then frozen where they stood. They couldn’t move their legs. Lynx only avoided the ice by jumping at the last moment. His paws cracked as they landed on the frozen ground.
Suddenly, Cleo was right in front of her. She wasn’t wearing a dress. No, now she wore a fighting suit that covered every inch of her body except for her hands and face. It was white, with dark-blue detailing. She frowned at Isla and Lynx. “What a pleasant . . . pet,” she said, tilting her head. “You’re on the wrong side, though, Wildling. You said you wanted your realm to live, didn’t you?”
It wasn’t lost on her that Cleo hadn’t killed the Lightlark soldiers. She could have frozen them solid, but she didn’t. There was still a chance she would change sides.
Isla understood her now more than ever: A woman who had dedicated her entire life to leading her realm. Who had allowed herself one happiness. Who had lost it.
“Why are you doing this?” Isla asked.
“For him,” she said. Her son.
“I don’t understand.”
Cleo reached down into her collar and pulled out the necklace she wore. The blue stone shimmered. “The other world has power we can’t begin to fathom. Souls can rise once more.”
She understood now. Cleo believed there was a chance to see her son again.
“I can’t let you use the portal,” she said.
Cleo frowned. “I hoped you would see reason,” she said. “We really do need you.”
The Moonling raised her arms, and the ocean rushed to wrap around her body, curling, alive, forming her shape. She rose into the air, on a swirl of sea.
She shot her watery hand out, and her arm became a rope of water that sent Isla flying back, right off Lynx. Her leopard roared. Before she cracked her head against Cleo’s ice, a bed of flowers bloomed behind her, bursting through the frost, breaking her fall.
Cleo laughed, the sound muted and distorted by the water surrounding her. “Flowers won’t help you.”
Isla slowly rose. She took a step, and the ice broke. Flowers sprouted in her wake. Vines formed down her arms, long thorns growing against her knuckles.
She had been watching the Moonling fight. She used her hands. She needed them to wield water.
It was impossible to grip Cleo’s wrists in her water-covered form. Isla’s restraints would slip right off the sea.
Cleo was too busy staring Isla down to notice that Enya had become a living flame behind her. An understanding passed between Isla and the Sunling.
Isla charged. Cleo watched her, water swirling, towering.
So did Enya. She jumped, wings made of flames uncurling from her back and wrapping around the Moonling ruler.
Cleo was quick—she sent Enya backward with a thick stream of sea. But, for just a moment, Cleo’s water shield had melted, weakened by the flames.
It was all Isla needed. Roots flew up from the ground and tied around the Moonling’s wrists in seconds. They trapped her legs next. One wrapped around her neck for good measure. Flowers bloomed on the restraints. Isla plucked one.
“The flowers helped,” she said.
Isla didn’t see any more Moonlings. Cleo had a legion. Was she saving them for after Grim’s own army was finished?
Part of her feared that Wildlings might fight alongside Nightshade . . . but her people were nowhere to be found.
Isla wondered if that was better or worse.
She was back on Lynx in a moment, hurtling through the battle. Hope bloomed once more. Much of the Nightshades were dead.
They had a chance, Isla thought. It looked like they could win.
Until a crack sounded through the world, and dreks filled the sky. There were hundreds of them. So many, they looked like nighttime sky ripped to flying shreds.
They were everywhere. Skylings fought back, with their metal-tipped arrows, and some of the creatures were shot down, but they were quickly replaced.
A flash like a bolt of lightning shot above her—someone was twirling a special metal-tipped sword and traveling so quickly, they went through one of the dreks. The creature died instantly and fell, crushing a group of Nightshades.
Zed.
He really was that fast.
Isla breathed in and out, trying to focus her energy to the sky. She had one of the metal-tipped blades in her belt. With a shot of power, she might be able to take one of the beasts out. Just as she was about to try, a drek dipped low, and she was knocked off Lynx with the force of its wings. She hit the ground, and the air was stolen from her lungs.
Lynx lunged for her but was immediately surrounded by Nightshades. She gasped for breath, watching helplessly as he was surrounded in shadows.
No.
Two figures came crashing down from the sky.
Ciel and Avel.
Relief rained down her spine. “Thank you,” she croaked as Ciel reached a hand to help her up.
Even now, they were still watching out for her. Even—
Ciel’s kind face twisted in shock as a drek’s talon went clean through his stomach.
Avel’s scream shattered the world. She rushed to catch her twin in her arms, her hands shaking as she tried to keep all the parts that were falling from him together.
No. With a roar, she turned the drek to ash. She fished in her pockets for one of her last remaining vials of Wildling healing elixir. She poured it all over Ciel’s injury, hand shaking.
It was too late.
His eyes were cold and unblinking.
Avel cradled her brother in her arms and screamed.
This was her fault. Ciel was trying to help her.
Dreks landed all around, tearing limbs.
“You need to get up,” Isla told Avel. “They’re going to—they’re going to—”
She refused. She cradled her brother and wouldn’t even look at her. Tears swept down Isla’s face as she created a small dome of Starling energy around them both, hoping it would hold.
She heard a growl. Lynx. He was fighting off too many soldiers. Isla gathered her power and raged against all of them, until they were nothing but dust.
Her energy was drained. She fell to her knees, and Lynx shielded her with his body.
Through his legs, Isla watched, helpless, as death drowned everything around her. The dreks were endless. Grim must have made more.
It was just like her coronation. Limbs being torn. Screams turning to silence. Bodies fell from the sky more than dreks did. The flight force had been reduced to just a few units.
They didn’t stand a chance.
The island would fall. Oro would die. She would die.
A deafening roar sounded across the Mainland. Even the Nightshades stood still. They watched as a serpent with its jaw pulled all the way open swept across the land, swallowing all the Nightshades in its path.
The serpent-woman. She came. She stood on her massive tail and picked dreks off from the sky, stabbing them through with her fangs.
The dreks attacked the serpent, but their talons could not penetrate her scales. The storm Azul had created kept the dreks flying low, and she took out a dozen in a few seconds, hitting them with her tail, piercing them with her teeth.
Oro fought nearby, charring the skies with his flames. Zed sped through multiple dreks. Enya was a phoenix, fire-wings curling behind her as she fought.
It still wasn’t enough.
Isla looked around. The dead were everywhere, from both sides. Grim still hadn’t revealed himself, but this had to be put to an end.