They didn’t emerge in the star-drenched hall, though. They were in the dungeons. Right in front of her cell. As if he wanted to see how, exactly, she had broken out.
He frowned down at the dead knight. “Is that—is that arib?” She didn’t know if he sounded horrified or impressed.
His gaze locked onto hers again. His voice was lethal. “One more chance,” he said.
She remained silent.
“Very well.” Instead of shoving her back into her cell, like she expected, he took her hand—and dragged her out of the hall, where another knight was already waiting.
“No,” she said, turning toward him, eyes widened. His lacked any warmth at all.
“Tell Cronan his prisoner just broke loose.” The knight nodded before running off.
Isla slowly shook her head. “Wow,” she breathed. “I forgot what a bastard you can be.”
He whirled to face her again. “What?” he demanded.
“I said,” she enunciated clearly, “You’re. A.Bastard.” They stared each other down. She could hear the clattering of more knights coming down to the dungeons. Their steps echoed above, loosening dust and rocks that rained around them.
She swallowed, her pride falling away. She knew how easy it was for Cronan to reach into her mind and pluck out the answer. Worse than him taking the feather, he might just kill her. Especially since she hadn’t given him any indication that she was going to change her mind about working with him.
“Please.” Isla searched his eyes for any sign of her husband. But he just smirked.
“I told you. You are nothing. I hope he kills you for this,” he said. “That way I never have to see you again.”
She couldn’t help but believe he meant it.
The dinner table had vanished from the galaxy room. So had all the guests and any trace of a celebration. Only Cronan and the faint smell of wine remained. He was staring up at his galaxy. His crown glistened in the starlight.
“Why did you escape?” he asked. His words were clipped. Brief. Just as Grim’s had been.
And just as she hadn’t said a word to her husband, Isla remained silent. She kept her chin high.
In a flash, he turned around, eyes blazing in anger, and Isla was thrust forward by an invisible force until she was hovering right in front of him. Grim just watched, feet away. His face remained expressionless.
He flung her back to the floor and from his crown, those familiar shadows soared toward her. The galaxies disappeared, melting beneathblinding, unrelenting pain. She screamed, convulsing, bile crawling up her throat. This was worse than before. Cronan had given up any pretense of trying to preserve her for his benefit. Now, he sank his shadows into her head as if he was truly trying to break it. It was enough to nearly make her pass out. But she would fight this. She would fighthim.
Instead of folding beneath the commands of the shadows that wove through her brain, searching for a reason for her escape from her cell, she forced her thoughts into a different direction.
Oro was the reason behind looking for the feather. So she sealed him out of her brain. She blocked the sun with shadows. She smothered his light. She distanced herself from her feelings about him, as if she could cleave herself in half—the part that loved him, and the part that loved Grim.
She made a feeble wall so he could break through it, believing that her will had simply given way. Then, and only then, did she fully let Cronan in.
And she thought of Grim. Of their story. Of how curiosity had become hatred and then friendship. And then love. Sacrifice.
Cronan would never understand. He would never know that true love was more powerful than anything because it created worlds within planets. And she had lived in her own world with Grim.
Cronan made a frustrated, disgusted sound, as the claws in her brain sunk deeper.
Here, she said, dropping in a reason, hiding it beneath other memories, like a treasure to be discovered. A plausible explanation for why she would have snuck into Grim’s room this late at night.
And as Cronan found that reason, she built her strength against him.
She gathered all the love for Grim, all that she had once lost, then found, then recommitted. She remembered, she remembered, and it didn’t matter if Cronan made her forget, too, because her soul never would.
Slowly, she began to feel her fingers. They brushed the cold stone floor. She gritted her teeth, and her wrist escaped next.
She dug deep inside herself until she could move her arm, and this time, she did not reach out to strike Cronan, knowing that it would be a fruitless endeavor.
