Nightbane (Lightlark, #2)(17)

The threat made Isla’s own mouth go dry, but Remlar, who clearly had put a very low value on his life, just grinned wider. “I would expect nothing less, King,” he said. “But she has nothing to fear from me. She’s one of us.”

Us.

It was foolish, but something in her swelled at the word. When so many had rejected her, someone—even someone like Remlar—claiming her . . . it felt good.

He walked over to her, clicking his tongue. His wings twitched as he studied her, mumbling to himself. His skin was the blue of a bird’s egg. His stride was feline, graceful, and his eyes were as sharp as his teeth.

His grin became wicked. “You might want to run,” he said casually to Oro. “Or, better yet, fly.”

Isla didn’t know if Oro heeded his warning. With one rapid motion, Remlar placed one hand against her forehead and another against her heart, and her vision exploded.

Pain tore her in two. Her scream was a guttural rasp; she could hear it even above the ringing in her ears. Tears swept down her cheeks.

She fell to her knees.

Her left hand struck the ground, and darkness erupted from her fingers. It ate through the nature in its path; everything living became cinder. Trees fell and disappeared; the air went gray with swimming shadows.

Her right hand landed, and from it a line of thousands of flowers billowed, rising from the ground in waves, blossoming in rapid succession. Roses, tulips, marigolds—they made a blanket across the forest, color streaming.

The world died and came to life in front of her, and she kept screaming until her voice disappeared in a final croak. It might have been seconds or minutes, but eventually, everything settled, and she stood.

One side of her was total desolation—the other the very definition of fertility.

Oro was in front of her in a moment. “Isla,” he was saying, but it was just a whisper at the end of a tunnel.

She took one step forward. Teetered.

“Look at me, love,” he said.

Love. She held on to the word like an anchor, but the thread between them slipped through her fingers—

Darkness won the war and swallowed her whole.





BEFORE


Isla took the steps two at a time—she really shouldn’t have come. How had she been so foolish?

Terra had always warned about Nightshades. They were the villains in all her stories. The monsters.

She really hadn’t meant to. She had meant to portal somewhere else entirely, but one thought, while her puddle formed—

Here she was, in the most dangerous place in the world. Running from a group of guards, around dark stone corners, in halls that echoed and closed around her in cavernous arches.

Isla turned into a narrow hallway and crashed to her knees. “Come on,” she growled, pressing her starstick firmly against the ground.

No puddle formed.

Isla didn’t want to wonder what would happen if she wasn’t able to travel home. Nightshade lands were thousands of miles away from the Wildling newland . . . It would take months to return by ship, and how would she even pay for passage? She didn’t have any jewels on her. Now that she thought about it, no one in their right mind would agree to take her anywhere, anyway.

If anyone figured out who she was . . . she was dead.

The Centennial was just a year away. The Nightshade ruler was a monster. He had been invited to attend the event for the first time, according to her own invitation.

What would he do to her if he found her? Kill her immediately as the first step in breaking the curses? Imprison her? Torture her?

She swallowed. She had thought of her own room as a prison . . . how foolish she was. There were much worse places to be trapped.

Yells. Steps. The clatter of armor.

Instinct took over. She lunged for a door—and it was unlocked. Before the guards could spot her, she threw herself inside.

Another hallway.

Voices outside. Already. There were several more doors. She tried all of them.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

The voices were closer. Without thinking, she started pounding on the last door, desperate, frantic—

It opened.

A woman stood there. Her arms were crossed.

“You’re late,” the woman said. “Put this on and join the rest.”

Isla had no idea who the woman thought she was, or who the rest were, but she knew luck when she saw it.

The woman all but shoved her into a different room. And Isla was so grateful, so afraid for the guards to find her, that she stripped off her clothes in the dark and put on whatever the woman had given her—fabric that was tight against her body. All Isla cared about was that it would make her look like the rest of the Nightshades. Even if the guards did find her here, she would blend in. Especially if she was joining people wearing the same thing.

The door swung open, and Isla nearly brandished the dagger she had kept strapped to her thigh, alongside her starstick.

It was just the woman. She had paint on her finger, and before Isla could object, she unceremoniously smeared it across her mouth.

“Go,” she said, pushing her toward another door.

A dozen other women were waiting on the other side. All dressed like her. She nearly sighed in relief. She blended in perfectly . . . especially with the red on her lips.

All she had to do was find her way back outside, where she could try her starstick again—