He came in a beam of light, and the very ground quivered from the force of his arrival. As he stood from his crouch, she saw his armor seemed shaped into his very skin. The sword he wielded was larger than her entire body and made of pure, rippling shadow. Its hilt was shademade metal, but she could sense it had been reinforced with power, just as her own armor had been. The weapon seemed forged of storms, of pieces of other planets, of power she could feel in her skull.
He wore a helmet that covered most of his face, but through the slits that would reveal eyes, Isla could only see emptiness, a void dark as night.
And as she looked at him, she felt something in her pulled toward him, like her marrow was called forward. As if this knight and his weapon weretakingsomething from her very being.
He took a step toward her.
Another knight landed in a flash of light. And another. Right between her and Lark.
This was not random. Whoever these knights were...they guarded this world. They had sensed Lark and Isla, somehow. Did they work with Cronan?
Slowly, Isla stood. The knight took his stance. She took hers.
He swung his blade of shadows, and she reached for everything the storm gave her—water, nature, energy, wind—and intertwined it all into a stream of glimmering energy.
Their forces clashed together, and thunder rumbled above. Her powers should have sent him flying back, should have shattered his weapon, but they didn’t. He stood his ground.
Another knight rushed at her.
Isla pulled him into the ash-sand, using her Wildling abilities to swallow him whole. But his blade broke through a moment later, and with a burst of energy, he shot up into the sky. There he remained, surrounded in crackling power, wielding his massive sword in an arc. From its shadowblade, a wall of obsidian burst forth.
It struck her in the chest, and her armor shattered around her, breaking back into pieces. Leaving her vulnerable.
This was crafted of shademade metal. It had withstood every attack—even Lark’s—back in her world.
But this was a different place entirely.
And even in this storm, even with the skyre on her skin that had allowed her to break through the hold on her abilities in the maze, as the darkness seeped through her chest, the seed of power within her withered. It was as if the knights were a void themselves, drawing her power away from her core. She felt the energy coursing off her and looked down to see her very aura being stripped, deep red lifting off her skin. Her soul burned, as if it was being fractured.Taken.
No. She tried to fight it, but the knight’s power pinned her to the ground. Above, the storm became a mess of wings and teeth as the twisted creatures feasted on each other. Blood and skin and limbs rained upon them. A massive tooth skewered the place right beside her. A broken spine landed at her feet.
Lark was a few paces away, dueling three knights at once. Isla saw that same energy being leeched off her. Her ancestor’s hold was loosening. She would soon fall.
Isla didn’t know if this strange void-like power would kill her ancestor for good, but she knewsheneeded to be the one to end Lark,if she was to revive the innocents she had killed. This world was nothing like she had thought, but she had to believe there was still a way for them to return, still apurposefor this journey.
Just as the knight took a step toward her, another bolt of lightning split the sky in half. She saw the flash of another world, a portal forming there, and was reminded of looking into a keyhole...
Even as the knight lifted his sword to strike with that void-like power once more, she kept her eye trained on that portal, and realized it was different than the others. The larger ones were surrounded by far more energy, crackling around and around. But this one...this was a tiny tear in the sky. Through it, she saw the same strange shade of clouds that covered Skyshade.
This portal wouldn’t take them into another world. It would take them to another part of this one.
Using portals was dangerous. She could be ripped to shreds in the journey, should her theory be wrong. But down here, with the knights, her fate was sealed already. She had nothing to lose.
The knight had reached her. His shadows burst forth. And Isla focused on Grim, and Oro, and the hope of escape, as she clenched that seed of power within her, through the shadows smothering it—
And broke free.
She shot forward, taking hold of Lark’s arm before soaring into the sky with every shred of Skyling wind she could summon. Her ancestor thrashed, but Isla used her Starling abilities to snatch her armor from the ground, and she forced the pieces over them both, fusing them together.
The knights were right behind her. She could feel her energy being pulled away. She could feel her grip on her powers loosening.
Just a little longer.
She stared up at that portal, its edges closing, and scraped the bottom of her strength to fly faster. Her body trembled with the exertion. Shadows grabbed at her ankles, as if to yank her back.
Before they could, Isla and Lark reached the rip in the sky, and it swallowed them whole.
As soon as they were through, Isla’s seed of power flickered out again, and she plummeted to the ground with Lark. She landed hard and rolled, pain racketing through her as her body bounced over what seemed like rocks.
