Azul looked up from where he sat, expression tired. He sighed, then glanced between them, with not so much curiosity as dread.
The Skyling ruler excused himself, and the three of them walked into a different room a moment later.
The walls were sky-blue, painted with swirls of white that resembled clouds. The ceiling had been removed, now that they could fly again. Above, the sky was clear. Sunlight rained down.
As soon as the door shut, Azul demanded, “Where is she? What happened?” By his alarm, it seemed he knew something had to have gone truly wrong for Grim and Oro to be working together.
Grim didn’t give Oro a chance to answer before he barked, “You’re going to help us.” Oro sighed. This is why he had wanted to do the talking.
Azul’s normally tidy stubble had grown out. His typically perfectly pressed robes were full of creases. “I helpedher,” he said wearily. “And now...now, I wonder if that was a good thing to do.”
Oro knew Isla had visited the Skyling. “What did you give her?”
“A ring, to capture a shred of the storm. And a stormfinch.” Oro had seen the bird in her room, when he had waited for her. “And, of course, the orbs of storms captured over the centuries. Our ancient collection.”
Oro remembered how those storms had erupted—how they had given them enough energy to defeat the creatures that Lark had summoned.
“Where is she?” Azul repeated.
When Oro told him, the Skyling slowly sunk into a chair. He leaned his elbows against his knees, his head in his hands. “We owe her a great debt, then,” he said.
It was true. As angry as Oro was at her for keeping this to herself, forsacrificingherself, Lark had planned to tear this world apart. She had already started, and she couldn’t be killed. By portaling her away, Isla had saved them.
And now, it was up to them to save her.
“She’s in danger,” Oro said. “And it’s not just about her—”
“Speak for yourself,” Grim snarled, looking at Oro with nothing short of contempt.
Oro sighed and continued, “Cleo told us of a prophecy that predicted a war between worlds. One that would end us all. Every realm. Every subject. Reduced to dust. Crowntide.”
“A storm to end all storms. Perhaps hers was only the beginning...” Azul looked at them warily. “What do you need now?”
Oro didn’t know how to say the words. How to ask this of him. Grim, it seemed, didn’t have any qualms with getting to the point.
“We need you to speak to your dead husband,” he said, holding out his hand impatiently, as if this was already taking too much time.
Oro cast a withering look at Grim. Azul only blinked at the Nightshade’s outstretched palm.
“My...husband?” he said, as if he could hardly speak the words.
Oro sighed. “We’re hoping he has information that can help us get Isla back. And...we believe part of his soul might be in a different world. The one the island disappeared to during the curses.”
Azul, for his credit, didn’t ask any more questions. He just straightened, and said, “Take me to my husband.”
ISLA
An hour later, Lark gasped, released from a memory’s snare. Isla wondered what her ancestor had seen. Centuries of memories? Only an hour’s worth? She didn’t know how the time lined up—if it was compressed, like dreaming.
Lark ripped her arm from Isla’s grip the moment she was conscious.
Isla tried to keep her focus forward, as if that could prevent her from falling into another memory. Even if Lark needed her to escape the forest...what if they reached the end of the woods while Isla was stuck in her own mind? She would be an easy target for Lark.
“It must be strange for you. Being in a forest you have no control over,” Isla said.
Lark gave her a scathing look, as if speaking to her was an unforgivable crime.
Isla just shrugged a shoulder. “I’m used to it. It was only recently that I had a connection to nature at all.” She glanced at these strange trees. They were ancient, and even with her powers muted, she could feel the strange power that lived within them. “How did this place survive?” she asked. She had believed that Cronan had reduced this entire world to ashes...but clearly, parts of it remained.
