Nightbane (Lightlark, #2)(111)

Isla’s power was everywhere; it flooded her every thought, every sense, the pain in her hand feeding its frenzy. She bellowed, and the stone floor shattered as spiked trees erupted from below, right where her guardian stood.

Terra leaped from side to side, just barely missing every one right before it impaled her on its thorns. She tsked. “Little bird, your form is dreadful.” She shook her head, moving effortlessly to the side as a boulder broke through the ceiling, cracking into a thousand shards. “And far too predictable.”

Predict this, Isla thought before sharpening the trunk of a massive tree into a blade. She flung it at her old teacher, the drumming in her ears, her power, eager to see her cut down. She wanted to see her dead, bleeding out on the floor.

Power tastes like blood.

Before her sword could skewer Terra against the wall, her teacher made her own blade, cut from the side of a cliff. It raced through the broken windows of the Place of Mirrors. Both of their weapons now floated between them, two massive swords ready to duel.

Isla grinned. “Just like old times,” she said through her teeth. She tasted metal. She tasted blood.

She attacked.

Their blades crashed together, making a sound that rumbled across Wild Isle. Isla wielded hers with her mind, faster, faster, using all the techniques her teacher had taught her. But now, she was stronger.

She was a ruler. She ruled over everyone, not the other way around. Not anymore.

And Isla didn’t care about playing fair.

She created another sword, this one crafted out of a thousand gems. She made them from thin air, her power hardening into crystal and ruby and diamond. It took so much effort, enough that she felt her power scraped to the very bottom, getting every last shred. It was her anger, hardened into a blade, glimmering, remembering, about to make her guardian pay.

It sliced through the air behind Terra, ready to plunge through her back, to destroy everything she ever was.

But before it could, Terra turned her hand into a fist, and it all shattered.

Isla was sent backward, flying. She hit the ground with a crack. She slid until she hit the wall.

Her power had been drained to the ashes. All her fury and sadness and pain had lashed out—and had been defeated.

She was powerless to move a muscle when Terra walked over and frowned down at her. “Little bird,” she said, “your emotions always were your greatest weakness. You are still so foolish. Have it your way.” She bent down to say, “Thank you for opening the portal for us.” Her footsteps echoed as she left the Place of Mirrors.

What? What portal?

Terra’s last words were a key, unlocking a memory.





BEFORE


Isla was polishing her throwing stars after training with Terra when she felt it. Something calling to her from the forest.

She frowned. It didn’t make a noise, but it was like it was tapping her on the shoulder with its presence.

Grim was supposed to meet her soon. She should wait for him.

But the calling beckoned, more desperate now.

She tucked her throwing stars and daggers into her pockets and used her starstick to portal into the woods.

The sun was getting close to setting. Gold peered through the tops of the trees. It was a dangerous time to be in the woods. They were bloodthirsty and known to lash out.

Still, she followed the call.

She followed it until she reached a spot the eldress had shown her before she died. A river framed by cliffs, and waterfalls that fell in transparent sweeps. Stones larger than her skull lined the edge, smoothed over time.

And sticking out of the dirt, as if thrown down from the heavens, was the sword.


The sword’s double blades refracted light in twin shimmers. A bright-red stone sat buried in its hilt. It was heavy in her hand.

Grim portaled into her room and paled.

“Hearteater,” he said. “Where did you find that?”

At first, she was happy. Excited, ecstatic that the sword had presented itself. It would help Grim. He would help her.

Then she began to ask questions.

“You said you had something to tell me,” she said, remembering the night he had first taken her to bed. “Before I interrupted you. What is it?”

Grim swallowed. He looked almost . . . afraid. He took a seat in one of her chairs and beckoned for her to sit across from him.

“I’ll stand,” she said sharply, already feeling betrayal rooting itself inside her chest.

Grim was silent for a few moments, eyes on the hands in front of him, and then he spoke. “More than twenty years ago, I began my search for that sword,” he said. He looked at it for just a moment before bringing his eyes to hers. “I had help. My best general. One day, he went to follow a lead, taking my relic I had made to get there.” Her starstick. “Then . . . he was gone.”

She remembered Grim saying he had been betrayed before, by someone else he had hunted the sword with. It was why he had always been so secretive, so stingy with information.

“I assumed he died in the attempt to get the sword. For over two decades, I believed that to be true. Until you portaled into my palace.”

What did his general have to do with her?

“Guards found your clothes, the ones you had left behind. When I discovered you were Wildling, I knew there was only one way that you could have gotten to my palace so quickly. Then . . . when I realized you were uncursed, everything made sense.”