Isla stood on weakened legs, blood hot on the side of her face. She placed a hand over her heart. The heart that had been torn in two by an arrow. The one that was healed by the heart of Lightlark itself, the one that was linked to Oro’s own ability.
A heart that had, more times than not, failed her.
“Please,” she whispered, eyes on Oro, who was oscillating between killing swarms of beasts attacking his people and trying to close the scar the winged creatures were still flying through in droves.
She could help him. Wildling power included controlling rock and land. If she could manage to grasp some of that power, she could help all of them.
Isla closed her eyes. She focused on her breathing.
Nothing.
She stretched out her trembling hand. “Come on.”
Nothing.
The powers she had been born with were twisted together, making them harder to access. Her Starling abilities were not, however. They were there, just below the surface. She summoned them.
Nothing happened.
Perhaps she could focus on the link between her and Oro instead. Use his power. She looked at the king, whose arms were both shaking with effort, one outstretched at each side.
She felt it. Tried to grasp it. Nothing.
She shook her hand toward the cut in the ground, picturing herself sealing it shut with ice or burned rock or energy, willing with every bit of her being for it to close. “Come on!” she bellowed.
Nothing.
Her yell had attracted the attention of the closest winged creature. It opened its mouth, and a severed arm fell to the ground.
Then, it lunged at her.
Isla didn’t have a chance to scream or attempt to use power again. With just a flap of its wings, it was right above her. She saw the creature bare its teeth, open its massive jaw.
An inch from swallowing her head whole, the creature froze. Its wings moved slowly as it closed its mouth and lowered its face, as if to inspect her.
Isla didn’t know why, but she reached toward it, until the very tips of her fingers grazed the space between its eyes—entirely too aware eyes.
The beast blinked. Then, it opened its mouth again—
And screeched. The sound nearly popped her ears, and everything around her muted. She gritted her teeth, readying herself to be eaten alive.
But the creature only turned its head and left, with another screech.
The rest followed.
Isla watched them flee to the horizon, calculating the direction they were going. Nightshade. They were going toward Nightshade.
No. She remembered her vision in the Place of Mirrors . . . Grim attacking with shadows that killed everything in their path. She had convinced herself it was a figment of her imagination, but—
Maybe it was real.
By the time the beasts were just a smudge in the distance, Oro had closed the opening in the ground. Screams still pierced the air, along with the metallic scent of blood. The back of Isla’s throat burned with inhaled ash. The injured . . . their wounds didn’t look normal. Their skin looked ravaged by shadows. The lesions were growing, moving, slowly decaying everything in their path.
“You did this.”
The voice sounded smothered, faraway. Isla turned. A woman was standing in a sea of bodies, not far at all, pointing a finger right at her.
“It didn’t attack her. She was communicating with it!”
She took a step backward. “What? I didn’t—”
A man joined the woman. “I saw it. She’s allied with the Nightshades, isn’t she?” Isla shook her head. “This ceremony was a setup, so we could all be here at once. So the beasts could attack us.”
“No, of course not,” she said, barely hearing her own voice, taking another step back.
No one was listening to her.
Isla’s heart was beating too fast; she was hyperventilating, and still none of the air seemed to be reaching her lungs, and she was suddenly light-headed—
“Enough.” The word was an order and silenced the crowd. Azul dropped down from the sky, landing in a crouch that shook the ground with power. He had one of the creatures’ heads in one of his hands, cut neatly by the sword on his waist, dripping in dark blood. He turned to look at Isla for just a moment, and she worried his face might be full of suspicion, but he only looked curious.
A hand hot as fire gripped her shoulder. She turned to see Oro, searching her face, looking her over, checking for serious injury. Only when he seemed satisfied did he turn and begin yelling orders. Isla could barely hear a word that came out of his mouth. The world had started tilting. In response to one of Oro’s dictations, Azul flew from what was left of the steps in the direction of the isles.
“Wildling elixir,” she said to herself, knowing this was how she could help. People were dying all around her—they needed to be healed. She had never seen injuries like this, but the healing serum had never failed her. If she could get to her starstick, she could portal to the Wildling newland and get more. She made her way up the steps, narrowly avoiding the closed scar, walking over corpses of the creatures that Oro had killed. They sat charred and steaming.
She didn’t even make it to the doors of the castle. At the top of the steps, Isla fell to her knees. Her legs had gone numb. Panic closed in around her. She couldn’t breathe. Blood. Everywhere. So many dead. She hadn’t been able to save them.
If she hadn’t been so selfish, so weak; if she had started training like Oro had insisted, she could have helped, she could have been more than just a blight.
She thought of her vision again and Grim’s voice. Come back to me, he had said. That was what he wanted.
The creatures were clearly summoned by Grim. There was a reason they hadn’t hurt her.
Her breathing was labored. She heard Ella saying her name, attempting to pull her up. Her eyes closed, and all she saw in her mind was the woman pointing at her, declaring her the cause of all their suffering.
Isla couldn’t help but think that maybe she was right.
INSIGNIA
The Insignia glowed faintly as if whispering a welcome. Isla hadn’t stood on the marking since the day she had first arrived on the island. The symbol was simple—a circle that contained illustrations representing all six of the realms. This was a neutral place to meet and speak on the Mainland, with the castle standing watch, a beast of stone, towers, and fortress walls.
Isla shifted on her feet, over the rose of Wildling. Oro was across from her, on the sun. Azul stood on the bolt of lightning.
Cleo emerged in a crashing wave, straight from the ocean. Seafoam still puddled at her feet.
The last time Isla had seen her, Cleo had tried to kill her.
The Moonling turned to look at Isla, and her eyes gleamed, as if she was relishing the same thought. Her white dress had a high neckline and sleeves that ran all the way to the floor, covering the etching of the moon.
Whatever she hoped to find in Isla, she was clearly disappointed, because Cleo frowned and turned to Oro. “How, exactly, did she stop it?” Her voice sliced through the silence and a wave crested high behind her as if to meet it. She commanded the seas. All the water in the world bowed before her.
“I’m standing right here,” Isla said. She was more than capable of speaking for herself.
Cleo only slightly shifted direction to face her again. She smirked. “How did you, once supposedly powerless, now all-powerful”—the ruler made even the word power sound pathetic when related to Isla—“stop the dreks?”
Dreks. Was that what they were called?
How did Cleo know what they were?
She probably should have come up with a response to the question if she was going to insist on being the one to answer it. She swallowed. “I—I don’t know. I touched it.”
Cleo said every word like it was its own sentence. “You touched it.”
“Yes,” Isla said through clenched teeth.
The Moonling turned back to Oro. “How many more do you want us to heal?” she asked the king, and Isla understood that she had been dismissed.
Forty-five people were dead. More were still fighting for their lives. She had gotten Wildling healing elixirs from the newland, but they needed more help. Oro had summoned Cleo through Azul, and she had taken her time arriving to the palace.
“Fifty-four are critically injured,” Oro said.