Nightbane (Lightlark, #2)(83)

“Tomorrow,” she said.

He nodded. He reached to portal her back to her room, when she said, “Wait. There’s one problem.”

“Problem?”

She told him about the monster supposedly guarding the sword.

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of monster?”

“I’m not sure.”

Grim didn’t look too worried. Monsters weren’t scared of other monsters, were they? He offered his hand again to portal her back to her room. “Then I guess we’ll have to find out.”





ASKING FOR HELP


“We found the ore,” Zed announced during their next meeting. He had been searching the Forgotten Mines for days, with Calder, navigating through their dangerous tunnels. Most of the passages had collapsed over time. His face turned from smug to wary as he looked at Isla. “We need your help,” he said simply.

Enya was peeling citrus fruit, the smell brightening the room. She raised an eyebrow, and Zed shot her a look.

He didn’t particularly like Isla. That much was clear.

“With mining it?” she asked.

He nodded. “I tried using air, but the ores are almost impossible to move. But you . . .”

Control rock. Isla almost smiled, thinking how far she had come from glaring at the stone Oro had placed in front of her on Wild Isle. “Lead the way.”


Breathing was difficult in the mine. Zed kept having to move fresh air down deep into the tunnels, which only barely muted the smell of dirt, dust, and sulfur.

She held the fabric of her shirt over her nose. Zed walked in front of her, carrying an orb of fire he had gotten from Enya.

“I would say you get used to it,” Zed said. “But you don’t. Just feel lucky you haven’t been trapped down here for weeks.”

She suddenly felt extremely lucky.

They were mostly quiet as they walked. It was a mutual silence—both were happy not to speak to each other. After several minutes, though, she had a thought. “Why does everyone hate Soren?” She remembered how he had questioned her in front of the others, seemingly intent on proving her unworthy of being a ruler. “Beyond the obvious, I mean.”

Zed chuckled lightly. He looked over at her. She bet she looked ridiculous, half of her face hidden in her shirt. “He thinks Moonlings are superior to all other realms, and he acts like it. Under his guidance, healers closed their shops in the agora. Less Moonlings started visiting the Mainland at all. They became more closed off and guarded. He used the curses as an excuse to isolate their realm from the others.”

He was more awful than she had previously given him credit for. “If he believes that, then why did he stay? Wouldn’t he be happy to leave?”

“Perhaps he hates Nightshade more than he hates all of us,” Zed mused. He shrugged a shoulder. “Or he stayed behind as Cleo’s spy.”

She didn’t trust Soren in the slightest, but something occurred to her. “Is . . . is Soren a healer?”

Zed nodded, and hope felt like sparkling wine in her chest. He frowned. “You’re not seriously going to ask him to help you with the Vinderland.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” she said.

Zed finally stopped. He motioned to a wall, and all the rock looked the same, save for a tiny flicker of color. She pressed her hand against it and closed her eyes. Beyond, she could feel it—ore buried deep within the wall. It would take concentration to ensure she wouldn’t completely bring the entire mine down atop them, but she felt confident she could extract it.

“You might want to make a shield with your wind,” she said, before her hand burst through the rock wall.

The entire tunnel trembled—rock fell from the ceiling and was deflected by a stream of wind above them. She felt around in the wall, looking for the bundle of ore. Her fingers broke through stone like a blade through butter. She finally gripped it and pulled her hand back through. “I think this is what you’re looking for,” she said. It was the first of many. It didn’t look very special, but Zed had explained that with a Starling’s energy and Sunling’s flames, it could be turned into the drek-defeating metal.

Zed stared at her, the wall, then the ore, eyebrow slightly raised. “That’s one way to do it,” he said.


Isla found Soren on Moon Isle, looking quite comfortable roaming the palace. She didn’t know if he was a spy or had his own agenda, but she would soon find out which side he was on.

He seemed pleased to see her, which only made her more suspicious. He scraped his ice cane against the floor with a sound that stabbed through her brain. She got straight to the point. “Which side are you on? Ours? Or Nightshade’s?”

Soren blinked at her. “I assumed it would be obvious by my presence, here on Lightlark.”

“Good,” she said. “Then you wouldn’t have any problem healing potential warriors for our fighting effort?”

Soren’s eyes narrowed. She tried to look as innocent as possible. “I . . . suppose not,” he said.

She smiled sweetly. “Great. Because . . . if you had said no . . . I would have had to assume you were a spy for Cleo, or somehow working against us.”

Soren smiled in the least friendly way possible. “Who am I healing?”

Isla found particular pleasure in his expression after she said the words, “The Vinderland.”