“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.
“We will provide healers.”
Oro nodded. “You’ve visited the oracle, I presume. Were you able to wake her?”
The oracle was on Moon Isle and only rarely chose to unthaw. The Moonling shook her head no.
Oro would know if she was lying. “We all know this was likely an attack from Nightshade. We need our realms united. Where do you stand?” he demanded.
“I haven’t made my decision to stay or to leave.”
Oro’s expression did not shift an inch. He had been expecting this. “What is the true purpose of your army and ships?”
“To protect Moonling’s interests when I do make my decision.”
“Make it soon,” Oro said. “This is not the time to flee to your newland.”
Azul spoke up. “Cleo, you aren’t actually considering leaving.”
Cleo whipped to face him, her dress a white puddle beneath her feet that shifted, liquidous. “We have long been too dependent on this land. The curses are broken. It could be an opportunity for more. Perhaps the island should fall.”
Azul stared, unbelieving. “If Lightlark falls, the realms will follow. Our power is strongest here. Our future is here.”
Isla remembered what Azul had told her during the Centennial—Cleo hadn’t attended the previous one.
This was not a sudden decision. Cleo had thought about leaving for a while. Why? It didn’t make sense.
Oro’s eyes were pure intensity. “If we go to battle with Nightshade, which side will you be on?” Leaving Lightlark for the Moonling newland was one thing . . . choosing to stand against it was another.
Cleo raised her head. Her chin pointed in the king’s direction, sharp as her tone. “The winning one.”
A hundred-foot wave crashed against the cliff, spilling onto its lip, right over the Moonling ruler.
When the water pulled back, she was gone.
The Moonling healers had never seen anything like the drek wounds. They were able to slow the decaying of the skin, but, in the end, her Wildling elixirs were what was able to remove the marks completely. She portaled back to her newland several times throughout the night, and her people had willingly given their own stores of the elixir. They were down to just a small patch of the rare flowers.