It wasn’t long before the sand shifted with approaching footsteps, and hands were hauling her up.
Then Isla was roughly thrown into the cart. She was immediately hit with a stench that made her almost retch. After a moment, the cart began to move again.
And Isla palmed the handle of the dagger she had just stolen from her captor. She got to work on her bindings and barely avoided cutting herself as she was jostled forward, her legs crashing against something solid beneath that tarp. A corner of it lifted.
An unseeing eye looked back at her.
She fought the urge to scream. She lifted up more of the tarp to reveal a face, twisted, bloodied, and mangled. Behind it was a mess of limbs in a clumsy pile. As if these people had been caught between portals and ripped apart.
These weren’t Cronan’s men, Isla realized. They were scavengers. Picking up anything that had fallen into this world. She swallowed down bile at the rot that permeated through the raised corner. It seemed her and Lark might be some of the only beings they had discovered who were still intact. That’s why their captors hadn’t injured them yet—they were more valuable alive. But to who? For what? The wooden cart itself was likely of extraordinary value, given the fact that Isla hadn’t yet seen anything resembling a forest on this planet.
She didn’t even want to think about what they planned to do with them. Isla slowly resumed slicing the rope around her wrists after glancing at the scavengers. They were hardly paying attention to her, still fixated on whatever awaited them up ahead.
Their constant surveillance, the way they kept their blades strapped to their fronts, how their arms were slightly raised as if readyto wield these sands at any moment...it made Isla wonder what, exactly, they were so afraid of.
The last thread of her rope snapped. She let out a choked whimper as the material fell away from her wrists. The skin was rubbed raw. Her bracelet with her mother’s charm, the one that contained a piece of her flair, was cool against her stinging skin. It was a reminder of everything she had left behind in her world. All of her plans. All of her hopes.
She wouldn’t let these scavengers come between her and everything she had fought for.
Isla turned to Lark and saw that her ancestor was in far worse condition. Her chest was still leaking blood. She may have had access to some power, more so than Isla...but clearly not enough. She wasn’t healing.
Isla would like nothing more than to leave her here, but she needed to find a way to end Lark so she could absorb her power and bring back all the people she had killed.
So, with the bulge of the contents of the cart covering her from view, she began to work on her ancestor’s rope.
The moment her dagger pressed against the cord, Lark’s head snapped up. Her eyes met Isla’s.
Green. Just like hers. It might have been nice to have a family member that was still alive, if this one hadn’t tried to kill her on countless occasions. Not to mention nearly destroying her entire world. And turning people Isla cared about into monsters.
Isla looked upon her with nothing short of hatred. Lark simply smirked. She shook her head, almost amused.
Idiot, she had called Isla. Only Lark knew exactly what Isla would face with Cronan. Only she had known him, and what he was capable of.
And if he had been the one to flatten this world, to turn it to dust...she had already vastly underestimated his power.
Lark’s rope snapped and she stopped walking. Her smirking face slowly got farther and farther away. Isla looked around, to see if anyone had noticed.
They hadn’t.
She waited a few more seconds before reaching into the tarp, frowning as her hand brushed rotting skin. Her fingers searched until they finally locked around something smooth and solid. Cronan’s sword. She set the dagger down and took this instead. She found the god-bone tucked against the well-worn wood. The orb of storms was next. Her armor was all that remained. It was in pieces, and she slowly rolled each one off the cart, into the ash. They landed soundlessly.
Then, with one last look at the captors, she lurched into the dust. She braced herself, sword in hand, ready to fight.
But the cart kept going. The scavengers walked on.
Only when she couldn’t hear the wheels anymore did she slowly stand. She began following the path of her armor, collecting the pieces, cresting lazy dunes of faded color that finally led to Lark. Her wretched ancestor was simply waiting. Looking right at her.
Isla’s body felt boneless, but she hobbled forward. Her ancestor’s ribs were gaping open. Isla could almost see her heart beating, unprotected.
Maybe the god-bone would be enough to end her life. She gripped it in her hands, willing strength into her body. And then she lunged forward, the tip trained on Lark’s heart.
Her ancestor didn’t even move. She just kept smirking.
And before Isla could reach her, she was dragged back with breathtaking force, as if the ash-desert had turned into a hand that wrapped around her body. She slid through the dunes, until she reached her captors, who stood above her.
They clearly had power in this world, when Isla and Lark didn’t. Did that mean they were loyal to Cronan? Were they somehow immune to this vise she felt over her like a poison? She had carved a skyre intoher skin from the metal of his coffin. It had allowed her to use power in the maze. Why wasn’t it working now?
The sword, bone, pieces of armor, and orb of storms were wrenched from Isla’s grip, and she was too weak to stop them. A sharp kick struck her side, and she gasped with pain.
