Wren looked at her for a moment. “I mean no disrespect,” she said. “But you didn’t have the curse. You don’t know what it’s like to have to kill others for food. To go hungry because there simply wasn’t enough.” She shook her head. “Most of us did things we’re not proud of to survive.”
Tears burned Isla’s eyes. All her life, she had thought it a horror being locked in her room and training so rigorously. It was nothing compared to what her people had gone through; she knew that now. “What do you need?” she asked. “How can I help you?”
Wren pressed her lips together. “We have slowly learned to make food. It has been good for us, I think, figuring things out on our own. Any challenge now . . . it is a mere shadow of what we endured.”
“You must need something,” she said. “Some of you still look starved. I can bring more food. Bring people to help teach you to make other crops or help reconstruct houses.” She had seen the state of the villages during her travels with her starstick. Some buildings had stood the test of time, and others had fallen to pieces. “I can—”
Wren cut her off. “How are the Starlings?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked, but I haven’t yet visited the newland or isle.”
“Help them,” she said. “We are resourceful. Older. They are so young. They need you more than we do.” She smiled sadly. “It would help,” she said. “With the guilt. To know in some way, we are aiding another realm, instead of . . .”
Killing them.
Isla nodded. “I’ll be back,” she said. “With help and resources, after my coronation.”
Wren nodded. “We will be waiting.”
Bells rang at a distance. The air was sharp with salt from the sea and burned honey from the fair that had cropped up at the base of the castle, all carts filled with varieties of roasted seeds and bands holding their instruments, but not playing them, not yet.
Isla stood at the top of the stairs, just beyond the shadow of the doors, just out of view of the thousands of people waiting below.
It was the day of the Starling coronation, and it seemed everyone on Lightlark was in attendance.
Well, almost everyone.
“No sign of Moonling,” Ella said quietly behind her, because Isla had asked her to look. The young Starling had been her assigned attendant during the Centennial. Now, Isla employed her to be her eyes and ears wherever she could not see or hear.
The bells came to an end. It was time.
Isla stepped forward.
Strings of silver beads made up a dress like spun starlight. Her cape glistened in a ripple behind her as she walked down the stairs. It was still a shock to wear a color she had only dared to use on her prohibited excursions beyond her own realm. It felt wrong, it all felt so wrong, like she had taken her friend’s life, robbed her of her silver, and put it on herself.
Was that what these people thought? That she had killed Celeste—Aurora—for the power?
She looked to the crowd for answers, stomach tensed, braced. Their faces were a mosaic of surprise, curiosity, hate, disgust, trepidation, vitriol—
Breathe.
Isla took another step, and her foot nearly missed the stair completely. She briefly considered gathering her gown in her hands and running back upstairs, locking herself in her room and going anywhere, anywhere, with her starstick.
She wasn’t worthy of any of this. She didn’t deserve to rule anyone. She didn’t even know herself. Part of her past was missing, and that person—the one who had supposedly loved a Nightshade—felt like a stranger. She was sad all the time, and there were so many emotions pressed down, in the deepest depths of herself, that she knew one day would overpower everything else and claw their way out—
She felt it: a thread of heat, steadying her. It was honey in her stomach, a beam of sunshine just for her.
Him. She met Oro’s eyes. The king was her destination. He stood tall and proud and golden, at the very bottom of the steps. There was a silver crown in his hands.
He looked at her like it was just them, no crowd, no crowns.
She took another step. Another. Until she was standing in front of him.
Oro didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She could read a thousand words in his amber eyes, like you can do this. I’m here for you.
The past few days, she had been avoiding him, knowing he would want her to begin her training. She felt ashamed. Her people needed her to be strong. He just wanted to keep her safe.
He raised the crown high above her, not wasting a moment, knowing she wanted this to be over as soon as possible.
“As king of Lightlark, I name you, Isla Crown, the ruler of Starling.” He placed the crown on her head. It was done.
There was a rumbling.
Oro had turned to address his people, but he paused, his brows coming together slightly.
Nervous murmurs spread through the crowd. There was a second of stillness, the island righting itself, and the people silenced, their momentary curiosity instantly forgotten. But Isla watched Oro, and his expression remained the same. Her hand inched toward the blade at her side.
Before her fingers reached the hilt, the island broke open.
The ground beneath her feet parted like a screaming mouth. She would have been swallowed if she had not been on its edge, on a part that rose like a sharpened tooth. Her body soared back with the force; she closed her eyes. Pain across her side was the only sign she had landed.
Screaming sliced the air in half as a scar tore across the castle steps in a rippling sweep, stone crumbling and falling away.
Both were drowned out by the screeching.
Winged, monstrous creatures howled as they barreled through the open fissure.
Their necks were short, their limbs long. Their tails were nearly nonexistent. Their anatomy almost resembled people, except for their faces—which were pure reptile—their black scales, and, of course, their wings.
In a few moments, they were everywhere.
Dozens of the creatures dropped down, aimed at the crowd. Isla put a hand above her, as if it would be any type of shield against the teeth that curved out of the beasts’ mouths like slanted blades.
Before the beasts could reach them, a blanket of flames erupted into a barrier. Oro. The heat was scalding, steaming Isla in her clothes. When the fire was pulled away, the creatures were gone, reduced to ash that rained upon them. Dozens were killed.
Before anyone could run for shelter, more creatures emerged.
The scar had to be closed. The beasts were rising in endless sweeps, squeezing through the gap. Groaning, Isla pushed herself up to her arms.
Oro was leaned over his knees, clutching his side. Any injury to the island hurt him as well. It must have felt like he was also being peeled open. Face twisted in pain, he lifted his hand and created another barrier, but the creatures closed their wings together in response, making themselves into sharpened arrows, talons at their fronts like blades. With cries that threatened to crack the sky into shards, they barreled through the protective sphere—
And feasted on them all.
Bones crunched, blood splattered, limbs were torn away. The beasts crashed down, undisturbed by Sunling flames, Starling sparks, or Skyling wind. Their talons tore through flesh as easily as swords through sand.
Azul shot up into the air, with a legion of Skylings surrounding him. They fought with bursts of wind, shooting the creatures down from the sky or slamming them against the island until they went still. Sunlings wielding swords covered in flames guarded people huddled behind the carts in the fair. All the islanders fought back, but many were no match for the creatures, whose hides resisted most uses of power. Before their strategy could be changed, most of them were torn in half by powerful jaws. Some islanders stopped using their abilities altogether, as it marked them as targets, and pressed themselves to the ground or ran.
Just like at the ball months before, Isla watched it all unfold, a helpless spectator. No. They might hate her, this might never feel like home, but she had to do something.