Nightbane (Lightlark, #2)(70)

Isla scoffed. “Had I known what was about to occur, I never would have joined that line.”

“Why were you there, then?” he snapped.

She recoiled, taken aback by his sudden rush of anger. “I accidentally portaled there with the starstick. It wouldn’t work, and I was chased by your idiotic group of guards. The head woman grabbed me, and the next thing I knew I was in that line.”

Grim crossed his arms. “I should take that thing away from you. All it’s bringing you is closer to death.”

“You could try,” she said, her voice as threatening as she could make it.

Grim looked at her and said nothing.

“So. You have a harem?” she asked. Since that night, she had wondered who those women were. Their function was clear.

“No.”

Isla laughed, disbelieving. “So, women just line up to sleep with you? They volunteer for the honor?”

Grim glared at her.

He had the reputation of an accomplished killer. There was no way the women didn’t know about it. “Who would want to sleep with you?”

Grim stood from the chair, until he was right in front of her. He towered over her, his shadow even bigger behind him, filling her wall. “I don’t know, Hearteater,” he said. “You seemed pretty willing.”

Isla swallowed. He was so close. She was breathing too quickly, and it only made her wound more painful. “No. I was disgusted.”

Grim grinned. “Is that so?”

She nodded, even as he placed his hands on either side of her on the bed and leaned down so his face was right in front of hers.

“I can feel flashes of emotions,” he said. He could? Now that she thought about it, it was a rumored Nightshade ability, one only the most powerful possessed. The blood drained from her face. “And yours were very, very clear—”

She wasn’t breathing.

“—just as they are now.”

Her heart was beating wildly. She told herself it was because she could feel the power rolling from him in waves. She told herself she was afraid. “Your powers are wrong.”

He tilted his head at her. She watched his eyes move from her collarbones to her neck to her lips. “No. I don’t think so.”

Then he went back to his chair. “Go to sleep,” he said.

She crawled back to her place and covered herself in bedding so he wouldn’t see the heat of her face.





LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH


Isla blinked. She had just had a memory. It didn’t seem as though any time had passed, however.

Was it because her Nightshade abilities were getting stronger? Had it always been this way?

The Vinderland warrior was frozen in front of her. She had just demolished his weapon with a single touch. “What are you?” he asked. “You’re . . . Wildling.”

“I’m more than that,” she said, stepping forward. Suddenly, she had Enya’s confidence. She had seen her own death too.

She would not die today.

“You are going to join us in battle, or we are going to all perish,” she said, her voice taking on an edge. “It’s as simple as that.”

He looked down at the pile of ashes that had once been his weapon. They mixed with the snow, then blew away in a flurry. The warriors at his sides spoke to each other in low voices. Their eyes were wide. They looked stunned.

“A Wildling who is also Nightshade,” the man in front of her said, his tone completely different than before . . . almost reverent. He seemed to turn the words around in his mind before he reached for another weapon—a sword this time—and held it high in the air.

Isla might have been afraid that he would try to behead her, but she knew the positioning of his sword. She raised her own, and the swords clanked together loudly—a warrior’s handshake.

“Singrid,” he said, sheathing his weapon.

Isla shot a look at Enya, who shrugged.

“You . . . you will fight with us?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. We will fight with you.”

Isla should have celebrated, or left while she was ahead, but she didn’t understand. “You . . . you tried to kill me. Just moments ago.”

Did her being Wildling and Nightshade really mean that much?

“Apologies,” he said, looking like he truly meant it. “I should have known. You survived an arrow to the heart . . . we have stories about people like you. Those who stand on the line between life and death.”

Isla shifted in the snow. If only he knew that she had seen her own demise.

She wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, she said, “How many of you are there?”

Their numbers didn’t seem significant the last time she had encountered them, but she hadn’t seen their base or full population.

“Hundreds,” he said, and hope swelled. “Most cannot fight, however.”

Hope withered. “Why?”

“They have a sickness,” he said. “The last few decades, it has spread. Incapacitated most of us.”

A sickness? Isla almost asked why they hadn’t seen a healer, but she stopped herself. No Moonling would ever treat part of the Vinderland. They were known for their viciousness and appetite for human flesh.

“What if we could heal them?” Isla asked.