Remlar had said it before—she’s one of us. She had pushed her darkness down. Perhaps she could use it.
“No,” Oro said.
Isla stood her ground. “Are you telling me I can’t?”
A muscle in his jaw worked. “You are free to do as you wish,” he said. “But this is reckless.” His face softened. “We have time. We don’t know if we’re losing Skyling yet.”
At the end of the meeting, Enya stayed back with Isla. When Oro was out of earshot, she said, “He is blinded when it comes to you. He forgets his duty.” She placed a hand on her shoulder. “If you decide to go to the Vinderland for help, I will go with you.”
With Skyling likely gone, Isla’s memories became more important than ever. She trained with Remlar any chance she could. He taught her use of her shadows.
Now, he stopped in front of a tree. It was so wide five men would not be able to link hands and reach around it.
“This is a kingwood,” he said. “It takes hundreds of years for it to get this big. This one has seen all the Centennials, Egan’s rule, and even that of his father.”
Isla pressed a hand against it. The thread between it and her was clear. Shining.
“Kill it.”
She blinked. “What?”
Remlar’s expression didn’t change. “Use your Nightshade powers. And kill it.”
“No.” Her answer was immediate. She was the ruler of Wildling. Her allegiance was to nature, not the darkness. She was here only to pry the memories from her mind.
Remlar raised an eyebrow. “Have you killed people before, Wildling?”
She thought about the Moonling nobles, blood puddling on the abandoned docks. Countless others who were hazy in her mind . . . almost masked. By time. By him.
“Yes.”
“Yet you won’t kill a tree?”
Isla glared at him. “The people I killed deserved it. This tree has done nothing. Who am I to end it? For the sake of . . . practice?”
Remlar frowned. “Practice? I thought you needed answers. Answers to how to save thousands of people. A tree is but a small sacrifice.”
“No,” she said again.
Remlar grinned. “You have killed countless plants. When I untangled your powers, you destroyed an entire forest.”
“That was an accident!”
“Does it change the fact that you are responsible for killing the woods?”
Isla closed her eyes tightly. No. It didn’t.
Remlar sighed. “Nature is a flowing force,” he said. “You destroy one tree, you create another. Pick one flower, plant another. The ash it turns into becomes fertilizer for another. It is a never-ending turning of a wheel, and there is no ending, or beginning, just constant turning, turning, turning.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“The tree does not care if you kill it,” he said. “It will return as something better, something different. Everything that is ruined—especially by your hand, especially here—is reclaimed, remade.”
Could that be true?
Remlar said it again. “Kill the tree. Leech it of its life . . . then create something new.”
Create something new. If Remlar was right, she wasn’t truly killing it . . . just turning it into something different.
Isla placed her hand against the tree.
Shadows curled out of her chest, flowing through her, turning liquid. They unfolded, and expanded, until she tasted metal in her mouth, and then, through her fingers . . . there was energy. Not only pouring out . . . but pouring in. Something vital, flowing out of the tree, and into her.
It was delicious.
Like gulping water after a day in the desert, Isla was suddenly desperately parched. The bark cracked beneath her fingers, split, shriveled. Branches and leaves fell and were ash before they hit the ground. By the time she was done, all that remained of the tree was a skeleton.
Isla was gasping. She was too full, a glass overflowing. She made it one step before falling to her hands and knees.
Life exploded out of her.
Dozens of tiny trees, just saplings, burst from the ground, breaking through the dirt.
She flipped over to her back, breathing like she still couldn’t get enough air. Just a moment later, Remlar’s head and the tops of his wings were blocking her view of the sky.
“I was right, Wildling,” he said, sounding quite pleased with himself. She heard his voice before falling into another memory. “You are the only person living who is able to turn death . . . into life.”
BEFORE
She was doing it. She was really going to work with . . . him. The Nightshade appeared in the corner of her room, as if emerging from her thoughts, shadow melting into a ruler dressed all in black.
He didn’t say a word. He just looked at her, frowning, as though he found every part of her disappointing.
Isla glared at him. “You do know you asked to work with me,” she said.
Grim frowned even more. She hadn’t known a frown of that magnitude was even possible. “I am aware,” he said curtly.
With about as much revulsion as possible, he outstretched his hand. It was gloved this time, as if he couldn’t bear having his skin touch hers.
He hated her. She didn’t really understand why. Was it because she was Wildling? Was it because she had seriously injured him during their first meeting?
It didn’t matter. She had been raised to hate him too. Nightshades were villains. Theirs was the only realm that drew power from darkness. Their abilities were mysterious, intrusive, vile. They had the power to spin curses. Most people thought he was responsible for them.
She reminded herself that working with him meant he wouldn’t become her enemy during the Centennial. He could be the only reason she actually survived it.
“Wait,” she said. “If my guardians come in and see I’m gone—” They usually granted her privacy after training, but it wasn’t night yet. They could very well check in on her while she was away.
“I’m going to set an illusion in your room.”
Oh. She supposed he had thought of nearly everything.
So why did he need her? It didn’t make any sense.
“Great. Let’s get this over with,” she said, taking his hand.
Before the final word left her mouth, they were gone.
They landed on the edge of a cliffside made up of lustrous black rocks, crudely puzzled together. Ocean crashed hundreds of feet high, so close she could smell the sea spray. Rain instantly flattened her hair against her face in wild strands. It soaked her to the bone. She shivered immediately.
Isla heard the unforgiving sound of iron banging against iron, far above. They were on a ledge.
“Where are we?” she asked, gasping through the wind and cold. She wasn’t sure where she was expecting Grim to take her first on their search, but it wasn’t here.
“Before we look for the sword, I need to pay a little visit to its creator,” he said simply. “The blacksmith.”
From Grim’s mouth the title sounded ancient.
“We’ll have to climb the rest of the way to his forge,” Grim said before stepping in front of her, toward the next wall of dark rocks. He didn’t offer an explanation. Could he not use his abilities close by? Did he not want the blacksmith to sense him coming? With one gloved hand on the rocks, he suddenly turned as if in afterthought and said, “Don’t let the rocks cut you.”