The Nightshade sighed. “The cook says you’ve taken his entire supply of meat! Everyone else has been eating vegetables. We’re on rations!”
Wraith simply blinked.
Astria shook her head. She turned to face Oro. “Please tell me they’re coming back soon.” The look on Oro’s face made her casual expression shift into seriousness. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Oro guessed Lynx hadn’t been giving her the same updates. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s worse.”
She cursed. “What do you need?”
Moments later, Lynx and Wraith were taking them to where Isla had indicated the portaling device had been hidden. Oro simply had to touch Lynx’s brow to transfer the information. The panther did the rest.
When Oro slid from the creature’s back, he was met with a simple field. Lark had hidden the portaling device deep below Nightshade, in tunnels she had carved with her Wildling power.
He stood right over where the device was supposed to be. Only miles of rock separated them.
“I can try to find the entrance to the tunnels, see if it’s easier that way,” Astria said. She and Enya had been tracking Lark’s movements before.
Oro shook his head. “Isla said that Lark was making the tunnels and closing them as she walked.”
Astria cursed again. Oro nodded in agreement.
They had no choice but to break through rock. Astria, Lynx, and Wraith moved to the other side of the field. Oro took a deep breath, then sent a wave of energy down beneath him. The ground trembled and fractured. He flew into the air, waiting for the cloud of dust and rock to settle.
He had only managed to break through a few yards. Isla’s information said the device wasmilesbelow the surface.
He was still looking down when Astria appeared and said, “My shadows aren’t much help here. I could get the rest of our forces to dig, but—”
They didn’t have enough time. A Wildling could do this easily. But all of them had been moved to other lands, during the battle. His love bond with Isla was useless, since her powers were blocked.
Oro closed his eyes tightly. He needed Isla and Grim here. Their world needed them. It had never been clearer than it was now.
He didn’t know how he was possibly going to make it, but he began to dig.
Hours later, Oro was tired and drained. Still, he kept shooting wall after wall of energy into the rock.
The ground was thick with ore and hard to break through. Sweat dripped down his dirt-covered face as he kept going, even as his energy was depleting.
This deep underground, light barely reached him. The cold, dark isolation only fed the worry churning in his chest. What if beasts were ravaging Lightlark right now? What if his friends needed him?
He waited to feel the familiar pangs of pain that would mean the island was in trouble, but he didn’t. He held on to hope that it meant everything was still okay.
What about Isla? Was she okay right now? His energy surged hotter as he remembered the flashes of images Lynx had shown him. The blood. He didn’t know who had done that to her, but he wanted to kill them. Slowly. He imagined breaking each of the fingers that dared hurt her, then lighting their skin on fire. Freezing them. Then igniting them. Again and again until their bones were ash and their blood was a smear beneath his boots.
His only consolation was that he knew the woman he loved would kill them herself as soon as she got the chance.
“Loving you makes me murderous,” he whispered to the endless darkness as his energy surged forward once more. The ground howled as it broke around him, sending pieces flying that were only blocked by a wall of glimmering energy. Another burst of silver light. “Loving you makes me reckless,” he said, as he felt himself reach the bottom of that deep crater of power within him. Until his energy sputtered out.
His knees buckled, hitting the jagged ground. His palms pressed against the dirt. He looked up—and he couldn’t see the sky. The darkness had blocked it out.
He reached for his abilities and realized he didn’t even have enough to fly out. He turned onto his back, so tired he could sleep here, deep in the ground.
It was just like being miles below the sea with Grim. Both powerless. But at least then, they’d had each other. Even through hatred, they had fed each other’s strength. He couldn’t have gotten out of there without him.
So what would happen now, when he was alone?
Oro fought to keep his eyes open—but he couldn’t. And as his body stilled against the dirt, he couldn’t help but think that all he had managed to do was dig himself his own grave.
ISLA
