He frowned and turned to look at her with an earnestness that made her want to sink to the ground. “What is this, heart?” he asked.
She was sobbing, and he didn’t look betrayed—he looked devastated that she was crying. He was upset that she was upset at the fact that she had stolen his powers, readying him for Oro to kill—
She couldn’t do it. Her concentration wavered.
Still, she didn’t stop her hold on his powers.
Oro made a sword out of Starling energy. It crackled with strength, and he lifted it over his head. Grim wouldn’t be able to defend himself. She had weakened him. In one moment, he would be dead. He would be dead. He would be dead.
That was the first moment she had ever seen Grim afraid.
Just before the blade found his neck, he bellowed, “If I die, she dies.”
It wasn’t even his death that he feared. It was hers. Her death was what made him rabid, shaking, yelling, eyes wide and desperate.
Oro froze, just an inch from ending the Nightshade. “No,” Oro whispered, disbelieving. Furious. Understanding something Isla still hadn’t. “You didn’t.”
BEFORE
This is wrong, was Isla’s first thought. She shouldn’t be alive. Her body recognized it. Its life force had been drained away completely.
She opened her eyes, and Isla had never heard such a sound of relief.
Grim was kneeling in front of her. Her hand was in his. “Heart,” he said. “You’re here, heart.” It was like he still couldn’t believe it.
She had been somewhere else.
Now, she was back.
“How?” she asked.
His head lifted, and she saw tears in his eyes. His face was covered in dirt and blood, but he was here, kneeling before her, like she was something to worship. “You died,” he said, the word cracking. His voice was raw, like he had been screaming too. “You died in my arms.”
Grim closed his eyes, and tears fell. They made lines in the dirt and crusted blood. She reached for him on instinct, clearing them away. She had died. Were her people okay? Had giving her power to Grim through the thread that connected them worked?
She couldn’t cheat death. Grim couldn’t either. It didn’t make sense that she was still living.
“How?” she asked again.
MISSING PIECE
“You bound her to you,” Oro said, voice shaking with anger. With shock.
She remembered now. Grim’s explanation in the past. She knew binding someone to oneself meant sharing a life. Not just powers, but life itself.
One could not die without killing the other.
That was why, when the arrow had split her heart in two during the Centennial, she hadn’t died immediately. Not just because of the power of the heart of Lightlark . . . but because Grim was keeping her alive.
“It was only a temporary solution,” Oro said, voice shaking with anger, but also fear.
Grim nodded. “The other world offers a permanent one.”
That was the reason for this war. That was the reason for all this death. She remembered what Cleo had said. In the other world, souls can rise once more.
He wanted to open the portal to save her life.
Oro hesitated, sword still in his hand. If he killed Grim, she would die too.
“Do it,” Isla said, because she was willing to die if it would save everyone else. Even if most of them still hated her and thought she was a blight on the world. The same way Oro had said he would give her his power, she would give him hers, in case the rebels were wrong.
Oro looked at her, and she saw fear and fury and disappointment—disappointment in himself for not being strong enough to make the right choice for his people. Enya was right. Isla had made him weak.
“I can’t,” he said, the words so soft.
“Kill him,” she said, her voice getting hysterical. “He’s going to kill innocent people. I told you about the vision. He’s going to kill children. He’s going to kill me.”
Grim looked at her. “Heart . . .” he said, so gently. “What do you mean?”
She saw flashes of her vision again. The darkness, eating everything. Skin sliding from bone. Bone reduced to ash. Death, everywhere, and Grim standing in the middle of it—
It looked familiar now.
Isla started sputtering. “The village. The people. Their skin melting from them, the shadows. Then the—the darkness came into me—”
No.
The world went silent.
The vision was not a look at the future. Not an example of the lengths Grim would go to get her.
It was a memory.
And Grim wasn’t the one who had summoned those shadows, wasn’t the one who had killed those hundreds of innocent people.
“It was me,” she said. “It was me.”
She saw herself, returning to the place where it had all happened, where she had offered all her power she didn’t know she had to save Grim. She saw the village, on the outskirts of the scar. Charred. There were only shapes of people—of children—where they once stood.
She saw herself collapsing on the ground, sobbing. Screaming, “I did this. I did this.”
Oro was in front of her now, hands pressed against her face, taking her out of the memory. “You are not a monster.” Was that what she had been saying over and over? “You are not defined by one mistake.”
But it was not one mistake.
Isla had used emotions to wield her power multiple times. Recklessly. Even after Oro had warned her, she hadn’t been able to help herself, she had done it again and again.
She was not to be trusted. She was reckless, dangerous, a monster.
Enya was right. Oro deserved so much better.
“Get away from me,” she screamed. She tried to step away, but Oro took her hand. “Let me go.”
She understood now how it was even a possibility that she might kill Oro. Just by proximity to her, he was in danger.
She had no control of her emotions. Of her powers.
She would kill him. One day, she would be overcome with emotion, she would lose control yet again, and she would kill him. She saw it so clearly now.
“Let. Me. Go,” she bellowed, her voice thick, tears falling into her mouth.
She tried to wrestle herself away, but Oro didn’t budge. He didn’t understand; he didn’t know how much of a danger she was to him—
Grim’s voice seemed to rumble the world as he said, “Let go of my wife.”
There it was. The final missing piece.
BOUND
That word, wife, unlocked a door in her mind that had been stubbornly jammed.
She saw it. Hands joined together, before an altar. Then, against a bed frame.
She saw months of suffering with guilt for having killed so many innocent people. She saw herself begging Grim to take the memory of what she had done away. She saw him refusing.
Memories fluttered, until they snagged on one last moment. She saw herself wearing her Centennial dress. She watched Grim take a necklace out of his pocket and present it to her. One with the biggest black diamond she had ever seen. “In Nightshade, instead of rings, we give necklaces,” he said. “I should have given this to you before. It’s a sign of our commitment. Once I put it on, it is on forever. Only with your death will it be released.”
She saw herself smiling and telling him to put it on her. She saw her move her hair, clearing the way.
Instead of clasping it forever, she saw him slip it back into his pocket.
She heard him say, “Please, heart, forgive me for this.”
She watched understanding come over her face as she said, “Grim, no—”
But it was done.
She watched him take her memories away, return her starstick, and send her back to the Wildling realm.
Isla knew what happened next.
TRUTH
Oro let her go. Out of shock, or disgust, or because he was finally listening to her, she didn’t know.
You will kill one of them. That much is certain.
Screams sounded from the battleground; power rippled through the air. Out of nowhere, more dreks appeared, screeching. Arrows shot through the sky, and the creatures fell, but there were too many. They picked Skylings off, one by one. She watched helplessly as more Skylings dropped from the sky, limp or in pieces.