“Your life.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, all she could do was stare at him as tears slowly fell down her cheeks. “My . . . life?” Her voice broke on the last word.
“I needed you to use your flair to break the curse on the sword,” he said. “It was an ancient curse. Breaking it would have either killed you on the spot, or significantly shortened your life.”
Her world had just smashed against a rock. Everything she thought she knew was shattered.
“You knew from the very beginning,” she said. Tears were hot down her cheeks. “You knew when we made the deal. That’s why you made it. You knew it might kill me. You probably weren’t even planning on going to the Centennial at all.”
He didn’t try to deny it. “That was before I knew you,” he said. “Before . . . all this happened.”
She didn’t care. She could barely even see; her tears had made everything look distorted, and she didn’t mind, because she didn’t want to look at him. “Goodbye, Grim,” she said. “I never want to see you again.”
Silence.
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
He closed his eyes against the words. For a while, he didn’t say anything. Then, very slowly, as if he was still trying to make sense of his own emotions, he said, “I’ve been stabbed a thousand times . . . but none of that hurts more than hearing you say goodbye.”
And then he vanished.
PORTAL
Oro didn’t say a word about the cut on her hand. He didn’t get angry. All he did was scoop her from the ground of the Place of Mirrors and bring her back to their room. He cleaned her wound, and fed her broth, and brought her medicine. Ella was in the Skyling newland now, almost everyone was, so he went down into the kitchens and made everything himself.
Oro had found her through their link. She had called to him, her essence just a whisper . . . and he had answered.
He had always answered.
He deserved so much better. Enya was right.
Why didn’t she ever listen? Why didn’t she ever learn?
When she was back to her previous strength, she said, “I need to tell you something.”
The castle was empty. The attack would happen the next day. Azul, Oro, Isla, Zed, Calder, and Enya stood on the stairs in front of it for their meeting. The legions had their orders. They had their plan.
But something had changed.
“I know why he’s coming,” she said. She told them everything. About the other world. The portal. The fact that using it would completely destroy Lightlark.
“Why would he want to go to a different world?” Azul asked.
Isla didn’t know. That part didn’t make any sense. In her memories, he had told her about the other world without showing any interest in visiting it.
What else wasn’t she remembering?
Zed paced up and down the stairs. “Whatever his reason is, we have to make sure the portal stays closed,” he said. “We must—”
“It’s already open,” she said, tears streaming.
A storm cracked the sky in half. Wind howled around them. “What do you mean, it’s already open?” Zed demanded.
She felt everyone’s eyes on her.
Terra was right. She was still so foolish. She had been so blinded by her need to get the vault open, by her desire to prove herself as a true Wildling, that she had given her enemy the key to destroying everything she loved.
Her voice was just a rasp. “I opened it for him.”
FATE DIVIDED
It was the morning of the war. The oracle was leaning against the ice, as if she couldn’t hold herself upright. She smiled when she saw Isla.
“You left it until the very last moment, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice echoing. “My very last prophecy, the most important yet . . . and you almost miss it.”
Tears were dried on Isla’s cheeks. She was numb. She had ruined everything. The oracle had demanded she return. “What do you want?”
The oracle hummed against the ice. “My desires matter very little, actually,” she said. “Yours, however . . . Yours will decide the fate of the world.”
Isla shook her head. “Fate has already been decided,” she said. “I opened the portal.” Her voice shook. She had tried to close it again, but the door had not moved an inch.
Wrong. She had done everything wrong.
The oracle looked at her curiously. “Fate has not been decided,” she said. “The battle hasn’t even begun.”
No. That couldn’t be true.
“Wildling,” she said. “You need to understand, the future is split in half. There are two possibilities, not one greater than the other. I see you choosing each path. It changes almost every minute.”
“What paths?” Isla asked.
“Your heart decides the future of the world,” she said. “Your choice decides.”
“What choice?” she practically screamed.
“Oro and Grim.”
Isla froze at their mention.
“You will kill one of them. That much is certain. Which one lives, and which one dies . . . that has not yet been decided.”
She planned to kill Grim that very day . . . but the oracle said it was just as likely she would end up killing Oro.
It couldn’t be true.
Now that she had most of her memories back . . . she didn’t want to kill either of them.
“Nothing is decided,” the oracle repeated. “Both possibilities are just as likely. You will kill one of them, with your own hand.”
This couldn’t be her fate. She couldn’t be the one to decide the future of the world. Why her?
“You, whose heart has been split in two in more ways than one, are capable of both life and death. You are both curse and cure.”
Grim had said those same words to her—
Isla sobbed into her hands. Her mind was at war. The more she remembered—
“They’re almost here,” the oracle said. “Go, now. Make your choice.”
The oracle smiled, one last time, before the wall of ice cracked and fell, water forming a wave that Isla only missed by rising above, using her Wildling abilities.
When the water cleared, the oracle was gone.
Isla raced across the Mainland on Lynx’s back. He was wearing his full armor, scuffed with marks from previous battles with her mother. Lynx hadn’t needed much time to get used to the island. She held tightly as he expertly avoided the brambles she herself had set up, to block the Nightshades. Wind whipped her face. Tears were briny on her cheeks.
You will kill one of them.
No. Days before, she had declared she would help kill Grim. She would put a hold on his powers. But now . . . she remembered so much more.
He was her enemy. He was coming to destroy the island. He was going to kill innocents, kill her, if she didn’t stop him. So why did the idea of hurting him hurt so much? Why did it feel like she was being torn in two?
Their army was lined up and ready, spread across the only clearing left on the Mainland. Skyling warriors glimmered like ornaments, armor shining as they waited above. Ciel and Avel were among them. Each were supplied with dozens of metal-tipped arrows. Zed and Calder had worked hard to make sure of it.
Before Azul had left, hours before, he had given them a gift. A violent storm raged high above the island, contained between rows of clouds, as a fence to keep the dreks from being able to escape once the Skylings began using their special weapons.